Pricing for large projects?

[jdwykrent]

Some quick background on me... I teach in a public school. We don't do much work for people. Which leads me to my question.

A person has come to us interested in having a sign remade for a city/county park. The current sign is four beams that are 4"x14"x14' with lettering that is 12"x8' cut into each beam.

The material is paid for. All he needs done are the cuts.

How much would be a fair price to quote him? How would you quote this job?

What is a normal hourly rate to cut? Can you describe how you quote a project?

As more people find out about us I am finding we are getting more work.

[Kyle Stapleton]

If there is a sign shop in town send it to them, they my say they can not do it and send it right back to you, but as a school you do not want to be taking jobs/undercutting people in your community.

[dlcw]

I have to agree with Kyle on this one. Find out if a local business wants the job. If schools start taking jobs away from businesses, the businesses will stop supporting the schools.

I volunteer teach (support) at my local highschool woodshop and have talked to the shop teacher about this a couple of times. We are working on an agreement to offer the jobs to me first then if I can't take it, I will give it back to him. After all, I spend a lot of time in the school woodshop repairing and tuning up machines for him that he uses to do these jobs. I wouldn't want to stop volunteering. But I am helping him by providing the means to accept work that he wouldn't be able to do without my help.

[harryball]

Years ago, we had a school near by that was finally sued for their auto repair practices. They were undercutting local auto repair businesses, advertising and taking considerable business from them. You could get anything from oil changes to an engine installed in your truck and the students were doing the work. It was billed as an "educational" success as students had plenty of work to "learn" and the school was making a few bucks to help fund their auto shop. Problem was, local businesses were not just loosing a job here for there, this place became a well known auto shop and there were always cars parked outside waiting to be worked on. The car dealers finally sued. It got ugly.

Think about it, you don't have overhead, you didn't pay for your equipment, you're not paying employees to run the machinery, you don't have all the insurance and payroll requirements a business has, you're not paying the taxes (in fact it's their taxes that bought everything sitting around you to begin with) and you're going to use that to take business away from them?

You may not like my opinion but if you ask me, if the city want's to have a sign made, fine, they should seek bids and pay for the work. I wouldn't care if you were charging the same price, you didn't "earn" the right to compete in the market.

/RB

[harryball]

Sorry if that last post seemed a bit too passionate, but you hit a nerve. To summarize my feeling, imagine if you made widgets in a legitimate business (or bat houses) and a group came up to you and regularly exhorted money from you at gun point then used that cash to run their competing "business". Taxes are collected at gun point (if you don't believe me, refuse to pay them and you will eventually get to see the gun) the least they can do is not then use that money to compete with me.

/RB

[jdwykrent]

Just so I am clear, because I wasn't in my first post... This is a fundraiser. Instead of going door to door to sell candy, magazine subscriptions, or discount books we do one or two of these types of projects for the community each year. Most of the time a student that is working on an eagle scout project is in charge of the project. We are not profiting from this. The money is used to fund things that the Free Education Act will not cover such as materials, competition fees, and skill evaluation testing and certification.

I have wonderful community support for my program. The businesses that are on my advisory committee support what we do 100%. They also seek out our graduates for employment.

The last thing I want to do is run a business out of the school.

Thanks for your insight.

[tri4sale]

Good time to help the kids learn pricing skills, which many businesses lack (if the kids are in school right now).

What is the cost to run the machine, consider electrical cost, the wear/tear costs, the bit costs (what if you break a bit in the project, you've got to factor that cost in) and the profit margin you need to make on it. Don't forget design time, even if they tell you exactly what they want, you still have to input in the software and design it. Don't forget the computer time has expenses too. And don't forget your salary, break that down to hourly rate... oh, wait, if that's anything like here in NC you might get a bit depressed doing that, so be sure to factor in the cost of the beer(s) to cheer you back up! All those factors (and probably more I can't think of at 1AM) will determine what you need to charge.

I could easily say you should charge $1 per minute for machine time, but that could be profitable for me, but not for someone else with different costs structure. One off project for someone, part of fund raiser, I see no issues with that. Opening up a sign making business, well, that probably ruffling some feathers.

[jdwykrent]

Thanks! Also, we do not solicit. The people that ask for something have usually taken the class in the past and have graduated and come in to build their project with the current students. They have been elderly community members who can do the work them selfs. And it has been non profits looking to help students by offering service projects. Like I said above, we do not mass produce anything. The students design and build their own projects. The mission I have is to assist the community.

Thanks again.