ridiculous prices!!

[united]

i thought £8pm was low but when you see £5 :yikes:

as ive said, on certain commercial jobs i will negotiate but when it comes to the domestic scene i am aiming at a certain market...i have just got to a job this morning and the customer cancelled....get this. my husbands mate in work said he'd do it for us as a favour, so we dont need it doing now....

no phone call, no warning....i said couldnt you have give me some notice out of courtesy, she said, well thats what im doing now!!!!! and i know what people will say, hit her with a cancellation charge but is it worth the arguments, the slanging match and she probably hasnt / wont pay anyway, so i'd rather move on and put it down to experince...

so thats it for me, keeping to the side of the river where the bigger fish are....

my motto now is id rather work less for more, than work more for less

Why are people so ignorant, not giving you a call or even a quick text to save you driving over is just wrong! Did you buy all the materials as well?

 

[TheWrightTiler]

i thought £8pm was low but when you see £5 :yikes:

as ive said, on certain commercial jobs i will negotiate but when it comes to the domestic scene i am aiming at a certain market...i have just got to a job this morning and the customer cancelled....get this. my husbands mate in work said he'd do it for us as a favour, so we dont need it doing now....

no phone call, no warning....i said couldnt you have give me some notice out of courtesy, she said, well thats what im doing now!!!!! and i know what people will say, hit her with a cancellation charge but is it worth the arguments, the slanging match and she probably hasnt / wont pay anyway, so i'd rather move on and put it down to experince...

so thats it for me, keeping to the side of the river where the bigger fish are....

my motto now is id rather work less for more, than work more for less

ed mate thats shocking behaviour from you, that poor woman must be mad as hell for you having the gall to turn up announced to do work for her, you quite rightly should have appologised and offered to help her husbands friend to complete the work required
quite right she turned you away imho



























for those who have never met ed, i shared digs with him last year, he is one of the most honest nicest and down to earth blokes you could hope to meet, and for some ignorant get to do this riles me sensless

shame ed but you cant let these peeps get you down, you are right id rather work less for more than more for less to keep my standards up

andy

 

[mikethetile]

this may have been a cover story as they cant afford to have the work done

ive had a lot of cancellations this year, and as some of iits external and local I know they havent had the work done

your right to put it behind you and move on, people like this aint worth even thinking about

ive done the less work for more money this year and havent regreted it as when I do the sums im still better off

it costs money to go out and work

I got into a right state with this earlier in the year and I didnt need too

im spending more time pricing and getting about 1 in 10 jobs

but the jobs I get are paying me enough to live on, when things pick up I will be laughing as im in the high end of the market

 

[jay]

give the cowboys enough rope and they will do the job (hang themselves)
ed there are better people out there hope you find them (now do we have a list somewhere of people not to waste time on//////)
:ban:

 

[richie b]

Richie, first I would say and I hope you agree. Anyone who values their skills at £5 per m2. Is not a tiler, and never will be. These people are undermining our industry. Therefore damaging our (pro tilers) livelihoods'.


thats right phil they are not tilers and they are making things bad for all of us, i got paid more than they will make a day grouting for my dad and grandad in the summer holidays when i was 13

 

[Scott]

get some old tiles and tiles her front door shut over night :hurray:

Joking of course!

 

[paulyoung666]

i am finding this thread interesting , the trade i used to be in is seeing a few jobs coming onto the market lately , the scary thing is , the hourly rate is akin to 10 years ago , and employers know people are desperate to earn so they know they can get away with a low hourly rate , food for thought .................

 

[turnip]

Always get a deposit 50% minimum for any job, no deposit=no reserved booking, the deposit also goes some way towards your cancellation if that does occur, but honestly, the state of manners of some people......

 

[Scott]

Deposits are a good idea but Ive only ever taken one once.

 

[Sean Page]

I'm a competition winning tiler 3 times over so i aint bloody working for no £8 m2 !!

rates are bad here but i can still get £15-£20m2 every day !!
i must be doing something right
keep the industry afloat guys

I make you right Joe :lol::lol::lol:

 

[Sean Page]

My brother used to tile too, we pretty much started out together but we had completely different work ethics, so worked completely separate. I don't want to blow my own trumpet, but the following is how our two outlooks differed.

His motto was that he'd rather work for peanuts than sit at home doing nothing. He always rushed from one job to another, working 6/7 days a week, using the cheapest materials he could get his hands on. He priced jobs over the phone, put up with contractors doing "the tiler can get over that" when it came to prep work. Inevitably he struggled to make a living and finally gave up back in october last year.

My motto is that I'm not the cheapest tiler, but I take great pride in what I do. I use the best materials that I can and I don't negotiate on price. I go and look at every quote, and discuss options with each customer. I then send a written quote with an expected start date and once the customer confirms the date it's fixed in my diary and vary rarely changes. The majority of my work is recommendation and my work levels are currently good.

The long and the short of it seems to be that these people hitting prices so low are only passing through in an attempt to make quick cash. A bit like the plastering trade back in Harry Enfield's "loadsa money" days. They'll come and go, but my reputation is with me forever

 

[Scott]

Well said Sean, thats a proper work ethic

 

[stoner]

I too was getting massively undercut. Upto xmas i'd go on a quote and probably get 80% of them and then since new year things went down hill big time. Then i realised i'd not been doing myself any favours by not taking my portfolio with me (got lazy) so i developed some pictures of recent work and took a few of my set up as my montolit mini-master always gets compliments, updated portfolio and stuck public liability certificate in the front and make a point to customer that when someone wildly undercuts me, ask them

1)Do they have public liability
2)How do they cut the tiles
3)Ask them to show their portfolio

and things are on the up again as i'm now booked up for 4 weeks earning around £800 a week. Customers who don't buy that that deserve what they get and are left well alone. Seems to work for me

 

[nybor62]

would,nt get out of bed for 8 quid m2. i know a firm in bradford i worked for now employing loads of polish .im in process of reporting them i lost work coz of them
.i best leave it there it makes my blood boil