What Would You Charge?

Stuart Ablett

Member
Messages
15,917
Location
Tokyo Japan
I have a client, they need a door that locks installed on a back room of an office, at the end of a hallway.


Basic interior passage door with a deadbolt added to the door.
They are doing some outside consulting that has to have a secure area in their office to lock up when no one is there.


Oh and they need it like yesterday.


Here are some pictures of the hallway that the door will go into.


IMG_7370.JPG

Right at the end there.


IMG_7375.JPG

The view from inside the room that the door will secure.


Yes the door jam will go partly over that low window, I'll have to put some thing there to secure it, but that will be the strike side, the white wall/corner will be the hinge side.


IMG_7378.JPG

This is the type of door, not the exact color, I think they want either the lighter brown one or the white one.


Catalog price for the door (FULL retail) is $600, that comes with the jam, hinges and lockset etc, (I'll be adding a deadbolt) I can get the door for cheaper than that, about $300.


Normally I charge five times materials, but that is usually for something that I manufacture in my workshop, this is more of a buy it and install it thing. The door and jam is slightly smaller than the opening, so I'll have to do some shims and then some casing to hide that, pretty typical I think.


What would you charge for something like this?


I'm thinking charging five times materials in the quote but as they are friends, giving them a discount, I'll still make some good money on this and they have more work for me to do, including a couple of custom shelving units.


I appreciate the help.


Cheers!
 
I'm less of an X times materials and more of a estimated time @ $/hr + cost of materials * 1.profit_margin.

These are numbers completely off the cuff so they're probably wrong.
I'd guess maybe 4 hours to install that door. I don't know what the going hourly rate is in Japan, higher than here I expect, maybe $100, $150 fully burdened? so say $600.
Door costs $300, say a 40% profit margin (handling overhead, etc..) - $420, you also have some other material to frame in the opening/fasten to the concrete, probably another $150-200 (again local costs are likely much different than here so I'm rounding up a smidge but maybe not enough?).

so somewhere around $1,200 - $1,500 (distressingly to my pricing should be time + materials theory this is pretty close to your N * materials estimate :D)

If it was a simpler door setup it would be less. If it was one of several similar doors it would also be less because I'd have some amortization of costs over the multiples.
 
To go along with Ryan's answer, do you have to go get the door and hardware? If so, then that amount of time plus expenses. If you are looking for more profitable return type of work, can cut a deal, but then they could come to expect that so it is a double edged sword.
 
I personally think Ryans approach adjusted to local conditions is the way to go. If they are existing tenants of yours or friends as a result of being customers and have additional work then I would look to find out what the additional work is and engage them in a conversation surround giving you the entire bundle to do as a single contract now allowing you to execute it in stages but with the knowledge that this way you can amortize some of your overheads associated with any size job over the entire contract as opposed to the single job. This is a big enough discount in my view for the "friends" element. You are not a charity. Business cannot be done by giving away margin all the time because of "friends". If they that special then do it on your own time, as in time when you are not considering yourself to be involved in your business and do it at cost.
They face a hurdle finding anyone to come out and do a small job like that in the city and then even if they do the quality of work, timing and reliability of getting it done when needed will be questionable. This is big enough discount to have a guy of your reputation (dont forget we have and they probably know the benefit of hindsight in regards to how you will execute the job, the aparto renos are still forefront of my thinking here and we witnessed during your reno what the prior "repairs or reno work was done like" by so called local trades.
They will get a job that needs a slegehammer to knock it down if my take on you is correct so they will get what they pay for. You have invested time and effort learning to be able to do what you can do as well as the tools dont shortchange yourself now.
if they dont like your quote let them know the price will be double when they call you later to fix the alternative cheap quote they get from the local quick fix cheapo guy. :)

I still cannot get over the tight spaces you got to deal with in Japan. Would drive me absolutely nuts. Even in this house we in temporarily i keep saying to myself make do for now Rob, think of what Stu would do in Japan. :)
 
This is why I could never do this kind of work on my own even if I had the talent. The numbers being thrown around make Allen's parking look cheap. Also why I have more tools than most other non-talented people. I try and do too much on my own and every job pays for a tool.
 
This is why I could never do this kind of work on my own even if I had the talent. The numbers being thrown around make Allen's parking look cheap. Also why I have more tools than most other non-talented people. I try and do too much on my own and every job pays for a tool.

gary that is why we are where we are at in life:) to me 300 for labor would be more than enough. considering it should be a half day job. but i dont know the average wage for japan tradesmen.
 
This will bust yer bubble may contractor guy here installs doors for $50. plus supply's and will do it all day long.

Yeah but I'm betting that that's in a standard opening to. And if I was doing it all day long the price per unit would be a whole lot less as well. If I could put in the door in 30 minutes $50 sounds plumb fair (and that's about how long I'd estimate it would take if I was on site and had done a few dozen in the last week). One offs and special setups cost more. Here you need to drill the concrete wall, add in some special framing, figure its even less square than usual, etc.. so I was maybe aiming a little high on the time but I don't think to much so.
 
I want to thank everyone for their input, thanks guys!


I've come to an agreement, they have a budget, and I can live with the price, it is not what I want, but how often to we get what we want ;D


In the end I've downgraded the door that they will get, they at first asked for a certain quality of the build, but they really thought a prehung door that is nice cost $100, well maybe back in the US, but certainly not in downtown Tokyo (the clients are from the US). They also have not had a lot of work done by Japanese carpenters, I just talked to one of the clients and he was shocked at the price, his Japanese wife told him that when her parents had the front door of their house replaced when they did a renovation a few years ago, the price for the front door installed was nearly $10,000, an that is not a typo. In the end I'll get a fair price for my time, and they have more work for me to come, so I guess that is what we do when we are in business for ourselves.


I've got two kids to pay for over in Canada, one just bought her first car, the yearly insurance is going to be $2500, so I'll take whatever work on the side I can at this point, such is life.


I want to again thank everyone for their input, it is much appreciated and valued by me.


In this case they wish they could pay more, but they have a budget, and I'm working in the upper limit of that budget.
They do understand that this is a really good price for them, and I do think that they appreciate it and this will gain me more work down the road.


A learning experience for all in the end, so that is not all bad, I think.


Cheers!

BTW, here is the basic door that I will install, a photo grab from the catalog....

CFA_door.jpg


That is a passageway door.

Here is a midrange entranceway door.....

door_prices.jpg


You can see where I underlined in red, the price is 639,000 yen, ($6300 USD) that is a door with several options, but not the most expensive options, they cost even more.

That is not the most expensive front door by a long shot.
 
My Dad always preached and taught, half a loaf of bread is better than no bread at all.

He was self employed, with no other education other than what he picked up in the Royal Navy during his youth ( he entered the Navy at 13 after being kicked out of home in the recession) and during WW2. The approach of half a loaf is better than none led to situation where he ended up with little to no pension and reliant on securing a war veterans pension from Britain to see him through his old age.

And like the many independently owned small businesses I work with, ended up simply closing the doors on his company after 30 odd years of working in it. Because there was little to no value demonstrated by it. The sweat equity that many small business owners think they are building through merely being in business for many years is pretty much zero if there is no record of profitability.

The clients he serviced prospered as a result of the service provided, and as an honest citizen so did the IRS who happily collected their taxes on his businesses declared revenue even though such revenue had not been collected. You can also only deduct bad debt from future profit. And there is a huge difference in a company between profit on paper and cash in the bank.

But I have come to fundamentally disagree with this approach of accepting what the customer can pay unless it’s a dire straits situation as in a real recession or genuine case of providing charity.

Rather than spoil the shine on your efforts to help a friend I will make a new post to discuss my views on this subject as I feel they may be of relevance to many of our fellow members and who knows may have a few rethink how they do their business.
 
Well to end this whole saga, the client has now decided that they don't want the door, which is fine by me, as a very wise man said once "You can't lose money on a job you don't take".

Not like I have nothing to do you know.....:rolleyes:
 
Stu, I thought that only happened to me. Wonder what they would think of a bill for the time you have invested researching the best options for their project. A lawyer charges by the hour even if they only spend 10 minutes on your case at a time. Hope they didn't pick your brain for free and hire someone else. On another note, bet your folks are enjoying the heck out of those girls!
 
Top