How much to charge?
(This message is a response to another upholsterer who was feeling grumbly because some of her clients were asking her to lower her price. )
Can you give me a break on the price?
A couple months ago a client brought a sectional into my shop to replace the soft foam in the seat with a high quality foam. When I gave him the price the price he tried to get me to lower the price. I told him something like "I don't make a lot of money at this, I have to feed my family." He said that his wages have been cut back also, and could I give another poor working stiff a break, etc ....... I was kind in my response, but kept firm in my price. He decided to have me go ahead and do it anyway. After I finished the job and he came to pick it up, he wanted me to go home with him to help him get it in the house. Since I wanted it out of my shop, and he said he didn't have anyone at home to help him, I went with him. His house must have cost at least $500,000 to $800,00, possibly a million dollars. He is a regional sales manager for a large company. His wife also has some type of high position in a school system. I would guess that he alone easily makes 10 times as much as I do. By the way, he gave me an extra $10 to go with him clear across town, which took at least an hour. I cheated myself by not specifying a reasonable price for my time in advance. Before going with him, I should have told him a price for helping him deliver it.
I thought it humorous that (when I was giving him the price) he tried to relate to me on my level as a mutual struggling working man, and yet obviously had an income waaaaay above mine. His interpretation of being a "poor working stiff" is far from mine.
Best Wishes,
Stephen
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How Much to Charge?
Charging Enough?
With that said, I find that the times I get grumpiest is when I'm not being paid enough for what I'm doing. I've noticed a number of times that when I finally raise my prices about doing some type of service, I am then no longer grumpy about it. For example, years ago I used to hate doing repairs. A large part of the reason was I was pricing them very low. Then I finally figured out that, since I didn't like doing repairs anyway, I would charge more per hour (than doing regular upholstery) for doing repairs. You know what has happened? Now I LOVE doing repairs, partly because they don't take long and largely because I make good money while doing them. I've had that experience with other types of services I perform as well. If I charge enough for a specific service, then I've seen my attitude change. Much of my grumpiness has been when I put in a lot of extra work and just haven't charged enough.
With that said, I'm not yet to the position that I price enough for everything, but am getting better at it.
Advertising
Now, another component. To ask the accompanying question: "How can someone charge a higher price if they are struggling just to get enough work?" I say this because this was my mentality for years. However, in the recent years we have been spending $250 to $300 per month in advertising year round, whether we are busy or slow. I've mentioned this before, but we advertise in two Phone Directories and in the local monthly newspaper. For the last several years we have been consistently 2 or 3 months out. Because we get a lot of calls, we also get a lot of calls from people who just want to know how much. I give lots of phone quotes. Most of the calls never call back (it costs much more than they thought). Giving them the phone quotes saves both them and us time. If a person expects to pay a cheap price, I want to tell them up front. But we also get lots of calls from people who expect to pay more.
I heard many people say "Word of Mouth is the best type of advertising." I agree, but Word-of-Mouth alone would not pay all of my bills. Consistently advertising has helped us tremendously in getting enough work.
I say this because not having much work can help to make us grumbly. When we have lots of clients calling, then it is much easier to charge more for high quality work. There are many clients who realize that quality workmanship costs more; I specialize in high quality work. There will also be many clients who want cheap prices; I'll let other upholsterers, or discount furniture stores supply their needs.
We Get The Type of Clients We Seek
Another principle: We get the type of clients we go after. If we claim to be the cheapest or lowest price, then we'll attract the type of clients who want cheap prices. Conversely, if we promote quality, and the accompanying higher prices, then we will attract clients who want quality work and expect to pay more. If we want to deal with quality-oriented clients, then we have to focus on their needs, etc.
Just a Thought,
Best Wishes,
Stephen
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