On 12/13/2013 12:20 PM, philo wrote:
On 12/13/2013 11:32 AM, The Daring Dufas wrote:


When I do service work, I charge a higher price than what I pay for
any item I provide because I'm using my resources to pay for it.
I'm not a wholesale supplier and I don't sell material to make
money. I sell my time and will add the price of my time for
obtaining any large item. I keep supplies in stock and I don't bill
a customer the same price I paid for anything, I'm going to make a
profit. Years ago, I had a friend who worked for NCR and they
charged a minimum of $1.50 for any small item like a screw or tiny
resistor that may have cost 5 cents. That is what a business does
and it's not stealing and it's completely ethical. If a customer
supplies a large item and not the hardware to install the item, I
will charge for what I supply and it's not going to be 10 cents.
^_^

TDD

That's right, your expertise deserves to be paid.

Here is something I did:

I have a friend who is a professional photographer and I do all of
his computer repair work and I generally do not charge him for my
time.

Even though I warned him many times about backing up all his
data...on two occasions I've done major data recovery jobs for him
that took me countless hours...and never charged him a cent.

I told him I was never going to to anything for him again unless he
got a back up drive...so he asked me how much that would cost.

I saw a drive at NewEgg for $100 and told him it would be $100

When I went to order it...I then saw there was a $20 rebate. I never
mentioned it to him but I took it. The only thing I feel guilty about
is not charging him for the data recovery jobs. A lab would have
charged at least $600 per job.

I've found that many people who complain about what I charge based on
what they think an item costs at a wholesale house, are often the same
people who pay a lawyer $150.00 for a few sheets of paper with some
writing on it. They can't seem to understand that I'm selling the same
thing as their lawyer, "My time" and I find it very insulting when
someone thinks my time isn't worth anything and they can just take it
up without paying for my product which is my time. When someone takes up
my time then complains about the bill, I ask them if they would like to
pay my cost? If they say yes, I hand them a bill for $400,000.00 which
freaks them out. I explain that's what my cost over 40 years is to reach
this point. ^_^

TDD