Boatyard/Boater Contract

[Stillraining]

You need a new Dentist....Mine will do a gold crown for 1000.00

Originally Posted by knothead

Sometimes I don't make myself very clear. Sorry.
What I was trying to say in response to...

"But it didn't take two hours... not even close and they never verified it all worked or anything..."

...was that a good craftsman will demonstrate that what they repaired or installed is working correctly.

BTW, All the dentist did was give me the shot. And only on one side too. It was an assistant who did the work. Although in all fairness the x-rays were included in the price. But still, $1500.00 for two hours???
I know some pretty good lawyers who don't charge nearly that much.

Anyway, I was really hoping that we could come up with some more ideas here. With all the discontent that I have been noticing, I thought there would be a little more interest.

But then most people would rather bitch about something than try to solve a problem by coming up with constructive solutions.

[Stillraining]

Knothead....Funny ...I was thinking of starting a new post on riggers and the I read this....Qoute......What do I know, I'm just a rigger.
__________________
of all the yard work i have had done Rigging is my achilles heal...shoddy and and incompetent workmanship

I actually suggested to a watanabe shoestring cruiser in another thread to start a dock side rigging service as a means to fund his dream...as i cant seem to find one wort 2 cents per hour...

I can totally relate with what your saying..

I asked Brian Toss to come and evaluate my rig...He wanted 800.00 just to look at it.

[hellosailor]

Jody, I can understand 2 hours for 11 minutes...when it is from an auto dealer where the job order says "Book time or actual time, whichever is gonna hurt you worse".

But without something like that to warn me...I think I'd ask the nice gentlemen to come aboard and take alook at another problem while they have so much spare time. And spread crazy glue on the top railing, to make sure they spent the rest of the two hours on the job site they'd already charged for.

Did you at least ask them how they justified two hours? I figure, three guys times 11 minutes is still only a 33 minute job. 45 with travel time and still just an hour if there's a union-mandated coffee break.

[JiffyLube]

Originally Posted by knothead

I think I am worse at making myself clear than I imagined.

LOL...Maybe I'm denser than I though I was.

Originally Posted by knothead

No, I'm not looking to expand on my services at all. I'm looking to make people who ask me, or others, to work for them feel better when the experience is over by coming up with a clear and fair set of guidelines for each party to agree to beforehand.

Like I said, I guess it's idealistic and silly.

I think I understand what you're talking about now!...I'll have to think about this.

[JiffyLube]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

But without something like that to warn me...I think I'd ask the nice gentlemen to come aboard and take alook at another problem while they have so much spare time. And spread crazy glue on the top railing, to make sure they spent the rest of the two hours on the job site they'd already charged for.

Did you at least ask them how they justified two hours? I figure, three guys times 11 minutes is still only a 33 minute job. 45 with travel time and still just an hour if there's a union-mandated coffee break.

Hahahahaha....good one!

[JiffyLube]

Originally Posted by knothead

No, I'm not looking to expand on my services at all. I'm looking to make people who ask me, or others, to work for them feel better when the experience is over by coming up with a clear and fair set of guidelines for each party to agree to beforehand.

I've been thinking about this off and on, and all I can come up with is what I do. After the client and I have talked about what they want to do, and I tell them what I can do, we then settle on what is going to be done. I then write up my proposal to them spelling out exactly what I will be doing, have them sign it and start working...after I get a deposit of course!

When I'm done it's just like we talked about, and what the proposal said it was going to be, they all seem pleased...and I get the balanced paid to me.

[knothead]

Jif, I pretty much do the same. Usually though, in the course of the job, unforeseen complications arise. That seldom is a problem for us but some of the horror stories I hear are related to people not being kept informed. Probably an issue for boatyards more than for riggers.

One thing that has been happening more of late in my business is that people are bringing in their own materials and expecting me to do the work for the same price I would charge if I were supplying the materials.
Just recently, a Morgan 41' OI owner brought in an old upper shroud and a 200' coil of 3/8" 1x19. he picked it up at the WM clearance room for .50 a foot. Great deal.
I usually have no problem working like that but this guy almost hit the ceiling when I charged him my hourly rate instead of my normal $10.00 swage fees.
My argument was that I wasn't making a dime on the wire and because I had to wrestle with the coil, (not on a spool), it took .75 hrs to make his shroud. But because I didn't explain this before hand, he was outraged.
So I ended up making $20.00 for nearly an hours work.
Live and learn. New policy in place. I am glad to save people money and am glad to help people do their own work but I need to make enough to live on too.
Another problem that we've encountered of late is when someone brings us their rigging to duplicate and they neglected to note whether or not they had sufficient adjustment left on their turnbuckles when it was removed. When I do the whole job, that is one of the things I take responsibility for. But if I didn't see the boat rigged, and haven't been told to shorten the new stuff, wires sometimes end up too long. On a recent job I had to eat the cost of remaking two shrouds and one backstay. Knocks the hell out of the profit margin.
Live and learn. Another new policy in place.

[labatt]

I always love the conversation of time and materials vs. value based pricing. I much prefer fixed fee value based pricing. I can understand being upset for being billed 2 hours for less than 15 minutes of time. On the other hand, what if the person told you that they've done this a million times before, came with many references, would back up the workmanship if there was an issue (yeah, I know), and would charge you $250 for the first transducer and $xxx for each additional? Would you feel better then? My guess is that this is what they effectively did, they just didn't tell you in advance.

Consider this - the first time you do something, it takes you a while - say 4 hours - and you're not very good at it. Now you do it 20 more times and have it down to 2 hours. You do it 200 more times and it takes 11 minutes. Isn't the experience now more valuable than the 11 minutes of time? Why should you get paid for only 11 minutes when what you are really offering is the value of your experience? It's because you have that experience that it only takes 11 minutes and is done well.

We hit this all the time in IT Consulting. We usually charge by the business value of the service and our experience. If people want to pay by the hour, we feel they don't completely understand the value of what we're doing to their organization. We'll do it, but we'll have minimum charges and we won't cap the hours.

And that's one to grow on

[JiffyLube]

Originally Posted by knothead

One thing that has been happening more of late in my business is that people are bringing in their own materials and expecting me to do the work for the same price I would charge if I were supplying the materials.

What's wrong with that? They supply the materials, and you do the job for the same price as labor and materials...but you're not supplying materials...sounds like a money maker to me.

Originally Posted by knothead

Just recently, a Morgan 41' OI owner brought in an old upper shroud and a 200' coil of 3/8" 1x19. he picked it up at the WM clearance room for .50 a foot. Great deal.
I usually have no problem working like that but this guy almost hit the ceiling when I charged him my hourly rate instead of my normal $10.00 swage fees.
My argument was that I wasn't making a dime on the wire and because I had to wrestle with the coil, (not on a spool), it took .75 hrs to make his shroud. But because I didn't explain this before hand, he was outraged.
So I ended up making $20.00 for nearly an hours work.
Live and learn. New policy in place. I am glad to save people money and am glad to help people do their own work but I need to make enough to live on too.

With the new policy you won't make that mistake again!

Originally Posted by knothead

Another problem that we've encountered of late is when someone brings us their rigging to duplicate and they neglected to note whether or not they had sufficient adjustment left on their turnbuckles when it was removed. When I do the whole job, that is one of the things I take responsibility for. But if I didn't see the boat rigged, and haven't been told to shorten the new stuff, wires sometimes end up too long. On a recent job I had to eat the cost of remaking two shrouds and one backstay. Knocks the hell out of the profit margin.
Live and learn. Another new policy in place.

I was just going to say, time for another new policy! I have a policy that I never give a quote until 'after' I look at a job, that means I have to actually 'go' and look at each job. I finished a job not long ago that I looked at with the general contractor, and we went over everything that he wanted to have done. A couple of weeks later I called to check on how the job was coming along (before it's my turn), and the general told me that the plumber was going to set the Jacuzzi tub the next day...I told him I better meet him there to make sure we're still on the same page. When I got there the next day I discovered it was a good thing I checked on the job, because the general changed the way I had bid the tub and shower areas. The general had changed things on both areas considerable, and my original price was now no good...I had to rebid the job. If I hadn't checked on the job, I would have missed work on my start day, and If had done the job at the old price I would have screwed myself. We talked, I re-figured the job higher, I did the job, everyone was happy. I'm reminded of that saying "The lessons we learn the best, are the ones that cost us the most."

[sailingdog]

JiffyLube-

Most of the time, when you're supplying the materials, you make a profit on the materials as well, contributing to the net income the job brings in. If he's doing a rigging job and they supply the 200' of wire for the rigging, he's lost the income on supplying the wire, yet they expect him to charge the same price for doing the job—not really reasonable. Also, when the customer supplies the parts, sometimes the parts they supply aren't the right spec, but they'll generally insist they be used...and then if the work fails early due to bad material supplied, who do you think gets blamed for it... never mind who supplied the faulty materials.