I just talked to a friend awhile ago and we were talking about lining up some pre-winter jobs and banging them out fast. I have a few things I need help on and he mentioned he had a concrete floor booked that he needed help with.

I love doing garage and basement floors, I call it bread and butter money. You bust your ass for the time you are there, but the jobs are extremely fast and pay out very well. It isn't uncommon to make a grand for a days work. A good deal of  money, but you have to earn it, depending on the weather conditions you may bust your balls racing a hot load and exert 10 hours worth of effort over the course of 6 hours, or you may have a 20 hour day (21 hours is my record) in the cold waiting for it to cure enough to shine up.

I said, yeah, book it at the regular price and give me a date. He then replied with "I will see how big the floor is and maybe give him a better deal, I am fine with making $300 for the day". I had to tell him no way. If he is happy with that refer the guy to me and I will pay him the $300 to come help me.

Why on earth would you leave money on the table like that, especially this time of year, and especially when you do some of the best work in the area. It isn't an isolated incident either, he has done this time and time again and then complained about not ever having any money.

One of the fastest lessons I learned when I went on my own was to never leave money on the table, charge what you need to make, and if they don't like it they can find someone that will do it cheaper and possibly sacrifice quality of the finished product.

Tl;Dr

Bailouts.

Common sense is not very common.  It's surprising what a piss-poor job our education system does in imbuing people with basic financial savvy.  I guess the system is still tuned for turning out drones.



I'm a salesman - I learned a long time ago you can always lower the price, it's very difficult to raise it.