# Business question



## A Little Short (Nov 11, 2010)

Most have too much paper work and check in procedures. Makes it not worth it most of the time.

I do have one that is somewhat better. I do have to break down material and hours but they don't ask what I paid for material or tell me what to charge per hour. It gets a little aggravating when you have to give an estimate and you see you're going to go over on the time. You have to stop and call in to get the overtime approved. They want to know how much longer and sometimes there's no way to tell because of unknowns. 

As a general rule I try to stay away from these companies if possible. I got in with this one company because of an emergency. They now call me for everything.
But I don't take every job. I don't even return calls from other companies because I know how they operate and don't need the extra stress!

Oh, and the "bitter" taste that I have came from the first one I tried. It was supposed to be 45 days. I gave them a few days past the 45 and still no pay. I had to call/email them to check on it. I got the classic "checks in the mail"!
They went straight to my ignore list after I finally got paid!!!


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## splatz (May 23, 2015)

chris.b said:


> Also, they want to know every price for material, hourly rate, and number of billed hours with number of techs. I am flat rate and don't work by the hour. They didn't want to pay because I wouldn't do a break down. As far as I am concerned, they don't need to know how much money I will profit. If they agree to the price, that is all they need to know.


You're exactly right, none of that matters. You might even tell them you don't even keep track of all that on a flat rate job. 

I had a customer that was pulling something like this, only reversed. I wanted to do T&M due to some unpredictable factors, but they decided they wanted a flat rate price. 

Now they are a huge company and this project no matter the outcome is a flea bite, less than they spend on copier toner in a month. But to me, it's way too much to gamble. So I was up front about basing my flat rate on a near-worst-case scenario. 

When it came out well ahead of schedule, thanks to some very good engineering, and good luck. I threw in some extras, and it was a real visible project, so everyone was happy. But when it came time to pay the bill, the vice president in charge hit the ceiling. Pulled the security logs etc. to show he knew how little time on site there was. 

People like this want to gamble, then take their money back if they don't like the way the cards fall. I can't afford that kind of game! I guarantee if it had gone over, I guarantee he wouldn't have been willing to pay a dollar more. 

I wish I was still working with them, but it wasn't going to last long anyway. They were a big enough fish that a competitor put on the full court press, had the hot MILFy sales rep taking him to lunch, etc. I wasn't going to keep their business without getting breast implants


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## telsa (May 22, 2015)

chris.b said:


> For those that work with commercial maintenance companies or work for big commercial companies, when doing billing do you set the payment terms or just live with they set? i.e. net 30, net 60 or net 90 days.
> 
> I worked for 1 before that wanted net 90 but I said hell no, net 30. Well they paid it about 45 days.
> 
> *Also, they want to know every price for material, hourly rate, and number of billed hours with number of techs.* I am flat rate and don't work by the hour. They didn't want to pay because I wouldn't do a break down. As far as I am concerned, they don't need to know how much money I will profit. If they agree to the price, that is all they need to know.


Their business model is sold on the basis that they'll hold down your fees.

It's really that simple.

They are ALWAYS shopping for cheaper talent, regardless of any pitch they've made to you.

They are the industrial version of Angie's List. 

Neither can bring anything to the table.

They expect to get paid an over-ride based on your efforts... for talking.

They pitch quality control and other blarney -- but are in no position to supervise any work -- and wouldn't know good work if it ran over and shook hands.

:no:


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## oliquir (Jan 13, 2011)

i never accept over 45 days, most of my client pay between 20-45 days


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## Southeast Power (Jan 18, 2009)

I sometimes get checks from customers I have fired that were long ago forgotten about.
Kind of a nice surprise.


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## just the cowboy (Sep 4, 2013)

*Used to be 30 days.*

I used to have a customer that went to 90 day pay. On big jobs with tens of thousands in PLC's and HMI's I told them no way I could do 90 days, but if you do 15 days I'll give you a 5% discount. They went for that and in about 15 days I raised my rates 10%.


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## Bad Electrician (May 20, 2014)

just the cowboy said:


> I used to have a customer that went to 90 day pay. On big jobs with tens of thousands in PLC's and HMI's I told them no way I could do 90 days, but if you do 15 days I'll give you a 5% discount. They went for that and in about 15 days I raised my rates 10%.


We do work at hospitals and when I first went in business we sold a large ATS to a local hospital and needed to pay the manufacture in 30, so we explained to the hospital if they would pay in 30 we would give a 10% discount. The purchasing agent told us if we did the whole job for free he could not process the paper work in 30 days.

Don't pay the hospital for 45-90 days and see if they don't want to take that new hip back.:blink:


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## BSK3720 (Mar 29, 2014)

Why would we finance their business? I was on a service call in national chain restaurant one time and the beer guy collected a check before he unloaded the beer. Why am I waiting 45 days? We get paid upon completion on most work now. Up to 15 days on some jobs. We lost a few customers, but life is better now.


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