The problem isn't the hours you bill. It's the hours you don't. Half the day is windshield time, writing options, and following up. Time and material pricing only captures what happens on site. Your price has to carry the whole operation, including the truck, the overhead, and every hour that doesn't show up on an invoice. That's why so many techs are booked solid and still breaking even. Busy isn't profitable. Priced right is profitable.
@officialchadpetermanTranscript
but people that charge time and material never factor in is their overhead. It takes a lot of support to run one of these businesses. Obviously, customers sometimes fail to realize all of the support that I have to have. A doctor or a lawyer, they don't have to come out to your home. You go to their place of business. In these businesses, I have to go out to your home, which means I need a vehicle, which means I need a stock truck, which means I need insurance and gas, and all the things that go in to getting a professional out to your home. The other thing is because we have to go out to a home, our technicians can't bill for eight hours a day. So we have to also bill for the unused time, the time that it takes to travel to these homes, the time it takes to write up options. All of these things have to be taken into consideration.
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