Pricing Restoration For Dummies (March 2006)
#1. Charge for your estimates.
I don’t know how many times I’ve suggested this and heard the same responses back: “You can charge for estimates because you are Tom McNall, “or “You write articles, teach courses yada, yada, yada.”
Well, my customers don’t know that reputation (the majority, anyway). I don’t leave them on hold when they call my office to listen to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing my praises before I finally speak to them.
Besides, I charged for estimates before I wrote these articles and before I started teaching courses. This is not about popularity; this is about business.
If you have a broken TV set, you have to lug the thing across town to some guy in a back room somewhere, with barely enough light to see in the corners, with all of these old TV parts strewn across his counter. Then what do you do? You pay the man (or woman) at least $50 to just take a few screws out and tell you what is wrong with it.
He won’t pick up his screwdriver to take a screw out until you pay him. He doesn’t come to your house to get the TV; you brought it to him (and your back will remind you of this fact).
Now, how much does it cost to replace your TV? Depending on what you have (and they don’t make them like they used to), you’re looking at anywhere from $200-$3,500 for a 13” brand name up to your low end HDTV special. You can replace a small, older TV for 4X the price of an estimate.
The repair people realize this. That’s why they charge for estimates – they got sick and tired of people saying, “What! You want $195 to fix my TV that I can replace for $350?”
I got tired of hearing the same thing. I got tired of all the weekend warriors who thought that they could do a stone project because someone was willing to help (or help themselves to their wallet, that is).
I grew tired of hearing how the whole installation didn’t cost them $5ft(2) because they bought the tile at the local big-box store and their brother-in-law helped them install it for a case of beer. Imagine the scenario: two individuals who know nothing about laying stone, except what they read in a book (which they didn’t understand anyway or feel that they didn’t have to follow 100-percent because, “What do books know?”), a little under the influence, trying to set tile.
There are few, and I mean few, professional tile setters that can lay a perfect natural stone floor without any lippage. So what I would walk into on a regular basis were floors laid by amateurs, and I’d be called in to fix these beautiful lippage-filled mine fields. They needed “the works,” or full grinding to flatten the floor. And, needless to say, they didn’t buy the highest grade of tile.
I don’t know about the equipment you’re running, but my finely tuned Italian machines don’t run on beer. They need money. When my secretary answers the phone, she expects to get paid at the end of the week. When my truck backs down my driveway and goes out on the expressway, it needs to be filled with diesel – and, the last time I checked, the fuel station attendant would not accept a few Molson’s as payment.
My education over the years also cost me hard-earned money. I can’t offer the Marble Institute of America a case of beer in exchange for their Design Manual or admission to seminars.
Think back to the TV repairperson. If you had to pay for the luxury of breaking your back to bring him work, why are you, as a professional stone-repair person, making a house call for free?
If most TVs max out at $3,500, and they get a minimum of $50 to turn a screw, how much more should you be paid for driving across town (or the state) to inspect an installation that if done properly, should exceed that television’s replacement cost? What if they tell you after you give them your price that they can replace it for a little more?
Trucks cost money, secretaries cost money, insurance costs money, fuel costs money and yes, my friends, profit costs money. We are in business to profit, not break even. If you want to break even, go work for someone else, not yourself.
If someone wants my opinion on their floor, they need to pay me to be interested. If someone wants to get indignant with me when I inform them of our policy, I simply tell them that, “If they want to see the little monkey dance, they have to pay the organ grinder to play the tune”.
I do qualify this practice by saying that, if we get the job within 30 days, the estimate fee goes towards the final price.
#2. Offer a Warranty.
A warranty on stone restoration! How is that possible? It’s possible, and we do it.
Does Firestone warranty wear? No, they warranty their product, not wear on their product; that would be like trying to insure your cigars for fire damage.
Will AAA do free calls for commercial trucks? No, and we will not warranty commercial jobs because you can’t guarantee what the janitorial company caring for the floor will do to your work after you leave.
You can, however, ensure the homeowners care for your work properly by specifying what they need to do to care for it, and by keeping good care and maintenance records for their stone investment. This also allows you to sell them care products down the road, because you can only warranty the job if they use the products you recommend.
Is this wrong? No way! Automobile manufacturers set some firm policies for warranty protection, such as scheduled, documented maintenance. Learn from them and schedule regular maintenance for your customers. That means repeat business, and more business means more money.
Speaking of more business, I have to go out there and get some more. So until next time, keep your stick on the ice and get out there and make some money. This is the stone business – so do some.
Tom McNall is founder and owner of Great Northern Stone Care, a Huron Park, Ontario-based stone-cleaning and -restoration company servicing all of southern Ontario. Tom also offers corporate and private consultation, serves as a trainer for the MIA, and is also on the organization’s board of directors. He can be reached at tom@greatnorthernstone.com