What I took from it was a lot of what mahlere said. I just wasn't sure if it was a scam or whatever. There was a really overwhelming pressure to drop a couple thousand bucks without even thinking about it.

But the "philosphy" if you will made sense to me. I don't think its about ripping people off, but it is about the average homeowner not really understanding what it takes for us to make money in our business. So, yeah, $150/hr sounds outrageous to most people. You bypass that, sell them the value of your company and the work that you do, give them a flat rate price that they know will not change and most people will be happy with that. The stressful part about callign service people is that you have no idea what its going to cost and you always figure it will be higher than what you were quoted anyway. People don't want that stress.

We do spend a lot of time in this industry lowballing each other, which might get you the job instead of me but you might have just devalued us all as an industry. And we all work way too hard and eat way too much aspirin to drag ourselves down any lower. A lot of times (and this might be only my feelings) GCs and home builders don't really have any respect for us as it is. They think we're uneducated and ignorant and basing our prices on nothing or trying to rip them off (guilty conscience?). I think a large part of it is because we are putting our energy into "getting the job" as opposed to "selling the job" at a price that will allow us some profit.

I don't know. It was kind of a mindblowing experience yesterday but the good thing about it, regardless was that it got me fired up about a business that I have been really down on lately. I started feeling like all my hard work was for nothing and at the very least that "seminar" rejuvenated me. I read between the lines and realized that I can take the genereal info they gave me just then and improve my business.

Of course, I'll check back in 6 months and let yal know how its going [Linked Image]


[This message has been edited by Happi_Man (edited 01-14-2006).]