Storm Removal

[John Paul Sanborn]

Think about how dangerous what you're doing at say 100-200 bucks a man hour is to what a marine in Falluja getting shot at is doing, and being paid. The same is true for smoke jumpers fighting fires for the state govt.

Red herring argument, though I would love to see my Brothers-In-Arms get paid better.

If you have a contract with a utility, or a an HOC to do work at a given rate, then that is what you do. If you have a relationship with a long term client, you treat them well

I am talking about a situation where you have more work then you can do in a reasonable time. You tell the people, who are complaining that they cannot talk to any other company, that you are failing all calls and will contact them when you are in their area. It is first come first served with those willing to pay up for the going rate will get preferential treatment.

To me this is not gouging, but supply and demand. As alluded to above, I'm not advocating milking the high rate, but getting the needful work done, and getting to the next job. You can show up at a latter date, and lower rate, to do the fine cleanup. Maybe hire some guys out of work from the storm to follow around as a seperate landscape cleanup company insured at a lower rate. There are many permutations to one willing to spend money to make it. After all this is a business, windfall proffits are not just for oil and drug companies.

 

[Cbrexdogg]

I think storm work is great. We charge our regular rates. (With our regular rates if something is extremely difficult or dagerous we charge accordingly, but if it is easy we charge a regular rate.) I know in Iowa if your storm damage area is declared a federal disaster it is illegal to price gouge, so we keep our rates the same.
The reason storm work is great is because you get so many new customers. Keeping your rates low and reasonable gets you in the door for more buisness down the road. I think it's a crime to make extreme profit (2x) off of others misfortune.
I can't remember who, but in another thread someone said they did storm damage work free of charge. While I applaud the action, that is just a little too charitable.

 

[046]

I've done tons of storm damage work for free.... usually it's for institutions I believe in like the boys scouts... it's hard not to do something when an entire camp is full of hundreds of kids, running around with dangerous hangers all over the place.

I can't remember who, but in another thread someone said they did storm damage work free of charge. While I applaud the action, that is just a little too charitable.