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Mark Plotkin
12-23-2010, 3:01 AM
the local award and engraving shop called today needing help. His laser died and he wants to use mine while his is being repaired. I thought about it and told him he can if he brings his laptop over with the driver loaded up and works in my shop. I quoted him $30.00 an hour for the use. Having just spent over $1000 fixing mine I thought that was a fair price. Anyone have any thoughts?

Joe Pelonio
12-23-2010, 8:07 AM
I recently had a nearly identical request. I would not let someone else use my machine, but quoted them $35/hour to do the work, which is way below normal. They thought it too much and offered $20, and I passed.

Mike Null
12-23-2010, 9:39 AM
I would have asked $60 and ran their jobs for them. Otherwise, too bad.

Terry Swift
12-23-2010, 9:57 AM
Providing good will and service is one thing; but letting someone else use my equipment and tying up my time is going a step beyond. I agree with Joe and Mike - offer to do the work for them for a fee. Seems like Joe's situation made it like the person wasn't so "desperate" after all. Would they have obliged in the same fashion if the shoe on the other foot? I've tried to collaborate on a couple of occasions with some local shops on work and they were willing to help; but like Joe - wanted a real life charge for it. I didn't object so much to the charge; but the timeframe they quoted to complete it.

Collaboration can be a good thing if it works both ways.

David Takes
12-23-2010, 2:58 PM
In our litigious society, there is no way I could allow him to operate our equipment on our property without some major hoops that would not be worth jumping through to cover ourselves. Even if I were to do that, finding and committing to the down time on my machine would be difficult. If I did commit time to him it would have to be at my shop rate.

If it were just a quick job or two I would help out personally if time allowed.

AL Ursich
12-23-2010, 3:48 PM
I am in the boat of $35.00 per hour and I run the jobs.... He Watches...

Offering $20.00..... That was a insult....

AL

Gary Hair
12-23-2010, 3:49 PM
I recently had a nearly identical request. I would not let someone else use my machine, but quoted them $35/hour to do the work, which is way below normal. They thought it too much and offered $20, and I passed.

You were extremely kind to offer $35 an hour and they had the nerve to counter offer???? Since my shop rate is $120/hour I would have (very unkindly) told him where to "spend" that $20...

Terry Swift
12-24-2010, 1:42 AM
Gary,

I need to be where you are! :cool::cool::cool::cool:

Getting half your rate in DFW would be great. Maybe I'm focused on the wrong market and my marketing needs to go upscale to get those $60-$120 an hour fees.

I don't see how you can garner a $120 an hour rate if you buy an item like some of those seen at JDS, did some engraving and coloring for a customer. Unless you can complete that project in under 20 minutes total time, you've just put the price of that completed item in a range where "most" can't / won't pay for it. Now if you're doing super custom work; then commanding that rate would / might be possible.

Mark Plotkin
12-24-2010, 2:22 AM
thanks for the comments. I don't run my laser full time so I can afford to watch while he does his thing. I have quite a few other shop projects I am working on so being there 100% of the time is not a problem. The award shop has not responded to my email but I think he was using another laser today 50 miles away. I will keep you guys posted. I know how hard it is to be without and I have helped other businesses in the past and the goodwill is a good thing to have in a small community. I have my own customer base and have only lost one job that I know of to this shop in five years. I have more of his customers coming to me than he realizes. Hence the reason I want him to bring his laptop. My plan is to charge him the hourly rate from the time we turn the laser on until we turn it off, not just the run times so he will need to be set up and ready to go as the clock is ticking so to speak.

wishing everyone a great holiday season and thanks for all your help over the years!

Gary Hair
12-24-2010, 12:36 PM
Terry,
It's not where I am physically located as much as it is where "I" am with my business. I don't do a lot of retail stuff, it's just not that profitable. Mostly I am marking items for businesses - switch plates for electricians, stainless parts for manufacturers, and a lot of pavers and such (sandcarving not laser). Even though I base my estimates on $120 per hour I average much more than that when I'm doing large runs of items. I marked some anodized aluminum pieces last week that netted me over $450/hour and that ran for almost 7 hours! Not a bad day! When I do the little bit of retail that I end up agreeing to, it's usually much less than $120/hour, it's probably closer to $80. I have a $35 minimum charge but I usually reduce that to $25 if it's truly a job that will take a few minutes to do. I have a job next week lasering 175, 1.5" stainless circles with 3 characters using Cermark. The entire job will take me about 1-1/2 hours and I'm charging them $3.25 per piece - that's $379 per hour. Even if it took me 4-3/4 hours I'd still make my $120/hour. It's not your location, it's your customers and, more importantly, your business model. My town has about 130,000 people and another 75k close by, just over 200,000 total - Arlington shows about 380,000 - surely you should have more opportunity there than I do here.

Gary


Gary,

I need to be where you are! :cool::cool::cool::cool:

Getting half your rate in DFW would be great. Maybe I'm focused on the wrong market and my marketing needs to go upscale to get those $60-$120 an hour fees.

I don't see how you can garner a $120 an hour rate if you buy an item like some of those seen at JDS, did some engraving and coloring for a customer. Unless you can complete that project in under 20 minutes total time, you've just put the price of that completed item in a range where "most" can't / won't pay for it. Now if you're doing super custom work; then commanding that rate would / might be possible.

David Fairfield
12-24-2010, 1:24 PM
I'd say $30/hr is a friend's price and a reall good deal. I charge machine time at $120 an hour. $60 an hour seems the fair price. But I don't think I'd much care for anyone here usin' my machine, outside of a good friend with an interest.

Dave

Martin Boekers
12-24-2010, 1:25 PM
I have a job next week lasering 175, 1.5" stainless circles with 3 characters using Cermark.
Gary

Gary, if you don't mind my asking where are you getting the discs?

I have been looking for disc up to 2" with a slight raised edge on the perimeter, like a coin.

Coin manufactures will supply this, but at the same cost as a die struck finished coin.

Thanks

Tony Lenkic
12-24-2010, 3:23 PM
Martin you can get stainless disks 1.5" dia. from "Engraving Specialties dot net". Very nicely finished. I would recommend CerMark 6038 product for these.

Martin Boekers
12-24-2010, 4:51 PM
Tony, actually I'm looking to do vinyl inserts to simulate coins. I'm doing poker chips now, but want
to do some individual coins.

The closest I've found so far are brass dies (used for embossing) at a decent price.
Finish is not that great though.

I will call these guys on Mon though and get some samples.

Thanks!

Marty

Mike Null
12-25-2010, 7:20 AM
Terrry

I know personally engravers in DFW making over $120 per hour.

Martin Boekers
12-25-2010, 12:02 PM
I think if you read through previous threads through the years, To get a higher dollar
rate you really have to get involved in the commercial accounts as well as the
recognitions. It does take years of development, in this economy it is tough. Many of
the schools, churches, clubs and private organizations just don't have the funding they
used to, also there is so much competition for this work as there are literally
thousands more people in this industry starting businesses due to relatively lower
pricing for lasers and great selling by laser manufacturers.

If you look through the threads you can see that the more successful here have
expanded to CNC work, dye sub design, signage etc. It's not that hard to make $120
hr in laser time, what is hard is to make that 8hrs a day 40 days a week!

In my commercial photography days I charged more than that an hour, but that was
for actual shooting and driving time. What that didn't include was researching clients
developing sales, making cold calls setting up portfolios doing paperwork etc.

So if you look at it this way, if it takes you 5min to burn a plaque (laser time) you
could burn 12 plaques an hour if you just charge $10 per plaque for engraving are you
not effectively charging laser time at $120 an hour?

Some jobs I make much less on the hourly rate and some jobs much more. The main
thing is keeping a work flow and the laser busy. If the laser isn't engraving it doesn't
matter what hourly rate I charge, there is no money being generated!

One of the biggest hurdles of small business, we have to wear too many "hats".

Our hourly production rates get deluted by the "support" hours we have to put in.
So just to be viable we have to be as efficient as possible.

Is it easy? No, but tell me what business actually is.

Marty

Joe Pelonio
12-25-2010, 3:47 PM
That's a good point, Marty. I didn't think about what I was making for a wholesale job I did last weekend as I priced it by the piece. It came out to $104/hour. The one I'll be starting tomorrow will be much less though, about $75/hour. If you do 4 name badges, which take maybe 5 minutes total, at $7 (not counting materials) each that's well over $300/hour.

Terry Swift
12-27-2010, 1:27 PM
When you state it like Martin and most others do here - sometimes we can make big bucks when we're cranking out many items like plates, tags, etc.; but then again when you're doing onesy, twosey stuff - then the rate drops quite a bit. When averaged, we are making more than we think.

My main business is the onesy, twosey's at this point; but also bringing in some long-term multiple piece work as well. I'm making some Rowmark Plates for a guy makes electrical transformer boxes and he's tagging them with his company logo. Takes under 5 minutes to make one with his logo and he is ordering 10 this next time; with a possible continuous order of at least than many per week. For small runs, I'm charging him more; but when he hits quantity; then I can give him a better rate and me make more money too.

I'm trying to get into schools, sports clubs / teams, and corporate to get those long run accounts.

Hope everyone had a great Christmas and keep on plugging those thoughts out here. This is great stuff.

Rodne Gold
12-27-2010, 2:07 PM
Working on an hourly rate is not a great strategy - a piece basis is far better. FOAD prices for small time consuming jobs and competitive pricing for long runs works a charm.

Martin Boekers
12-27-2010, 2:43 PM
You can make numbers read whatever way you want so it is hard to say just what you make an hour engraving.

Some figure just engraving cost, some add the mark up for the product + engraving cost, some charge a flat
fee for engraving but don't include the product mark up in that cost etc.

This industry is getting away from charging per letter, word, sentence, line and even adding graphics.
In the olden days, you had to place each letter of text, then manually set the percentage and position
so it was reasonable to charge that way. Now in a matter of seconds we can layout an award and send it to
the engraver and press the button then start on the next layout while it is lasering. That wasn't possible before.

So we charge what we feel to make it work. I charge a basic price for engraving, then adjust the mark-up on the
product to the difficultly of the set up and unsalable factor (misaligned, fixture slip, inconsitancy in product etc).

Two companies may charge the same bottom line price for an item, say $50 engraved.
I may charge $10 to engrave and $40 for the product.
The other may charge $5 to engrave $30 set-up fee and $15 for the product.

Both charged $50, but how they produced that cost varies.

Again;

Another company (I'm sure you seen this online) says FREE ENGRAVING!
We don't charge for engraving, but the final piece is $50 the same as the two above.
So then is his hourly rate $00.00?

Client basically wants to know the final cost, not what your hourly rate is or your mark-up.
Then they can figure if they want the product or not. Believe me $10 engraving fee plus
$40 for the plaque is much more pallatable to the client then saying the piece is $40 and the engraving fee is $120.00 an hour! Still $50. Which sounds better?

I think you can see how difficult it is to try to compare the equations that others may use
to get the same bottom line price.

It takes time to figure out what pricing will work for you. There are many variables,
experience, efficiency, speed and power of the laser, actual cost for the products and shipping expense.

Just some thoughts...

Mark Plotkin
12-29-2010, 2:23 AM
well here is a quick update. I never heard back from the local award shop. I work out of my home and went to their shop the day they called in a panic. I sent them an email that afternoon with the price and my availability for the next few weeks. I got the notice that they had received the email and opened it but nothing else after that. No phone call, no return email. So my low quote does not look like it mattered. I hope they don't treat their customers like this...oh yeah they do that's why I have some of them.

Happy new year everyone!

Scott Shepherd
12-29-2010, 11:05 AM
I had the exact same thing come up. Guy's laser went down, he was in a panic. He told me up front he'd pay me what he got them them. He would make zero on them, but he did it because he needed the items and he knew I deserved to make money on them.

That's a stand up guy in my opinion. When he came to pick them up, I told him to just take them, as it was only about 1 hours worth of work, and I was working on another machine while it was running.

He thanked me by getting me involved on a wall tribute that we ended up making for a couple thousand dollars.

Some times it's not what you charge people, it's how you treat them when they are in a crisis.