Pricing up your job and the Christmas period.

Today i wanted to talk about how to go about pricing up a job and how to get the best price's possible.

The first thing you want to do is work out the materials list, this will give an indication of how valuable this job would be to your merchant, don't think of this as your job and what you need to complete it, think of this materials list as a bargaining chip because you need to buy your materials and your merchant will want to be the supplier for this.

They are there for a reason and that reason is to make money same as everyone in business, without having a shot at pricing that list they may as well close up shop so don't underestimate how much they want the sale, times are tough.

A few years back merchants could pick and choose who they dealt with, if you were a pain they could steer you towards the door and wait for the next tradesman to come along but now this is far away from the current situation they find themselves in, you maybe a pain but that luxury your merchant did have is long gone, they want your business!

I spoke briefly about how to go about setting the prices on your account but when a large job comes along the terms on your account become mostly obsolete, your day to day purchases are set but a large job may need for your merchants supplier to get involved, this may lead to a special price agreement depending on the products and this will give you substantial savings.

We can state the obvious that when you buy in bulk you get things cheaper, it's common knowledge, what isn't common knowledge is how far you can push for a better price, your merchant contact might not be aware that this action is needed and this is the reason why you should put your price list to a few merchants, following this ask for there suppliers area sales Representatives contact details.

Please don't assume that all merchants are in the same boat in terms of who they buy from, for instance:-

You need trusses so you put the enquiry to three different merchants:-

Merchant A comes back with a price and its the most expensive with a long lead time.

Merchant B comes back with a price and it's slightly cheaper than merchant A but the same lead time.

Merchant C comes back with the best price and the lead time is half of the other two.

Why?

Merchant A deals with an outside truss company, on a similar contract as the one you hold with your merchant, they order the goods for you, the truss company delivers, the truss company charges your merchant and the merchant charges you.

Merchant B deals with the same company but merchant B deals with this company alot more and the professional bond the two hold is stronger than merchant A, they spend more so they get the better price.

Merchant C is owned by a very large parent company and the parent company happens to own a truss company, the price they get charged is cheaper and the lead time is cut considerable.

The point of this is find out what situation your merchant is in when putting an enquiry forward, ask where there getting the price? who is the company and what relationship do they hold with them? but don't put your eggs in one basket, assume that merchant C is the only place to go for trusses and the situation changes it means you lose, worse still if your merchant finds out that you only put your enquiry for trusses through them it gives them the green light to make that little bit extra out of your business, that little bit extra comes out of your pocket and into there bank account.

Be very careful around the times of Christmas/new year and a couple of months after, a price increase for a job that you priced before Christmas could be a large chunk of change out of your profits, i will go into more detail on this subject at a later date as again it's a common trap that alot of people fall into.

To summarise the post, explore your avenues when pricing your job, the bigger the job the more power you hold when it comes to pricing, push the extra mile to get the best price, your business can be moved else where but your merchants targets and sales figures can't. You hold the power in this situation and your merchant knows this.

As always my friends at Tradesmen Connect get there links posted, Please visit the site if your not aware of these guys, they offer just as much help to you guys as I do.

www.tradesmenconnect.com

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