I run a small company and do estimates as well as work in the field with my employees. We do some work for a property mgt company that has been good to us. They just got us a new condo complex which could be promising but a problem is starting with this property. The parties involved are: (1)contact person from the property mgt company; (2)condo association board president; (3)condo resident who doesn't like and won't communicate with persons 1 and 2; (4) me.
The president is an engineer by profession and accustomed to multiple, long meetings and discussions of projects before and after work happens. After spending 4 hours talking with him and meeting him to look at 20 properties, I re-walked the place on my own and created a lengthy proposal. They selected items 1-9 (out of 50 some items on the list) to get things started and see how they like us. During the work person #3 from above refused to speak with the president and the prop mgt contact person to their faces in front of me (we all went together to him to discuss some of the pruning in his yard). He only wanted to work with me. Fine. But he ended up needing to talk to me for an hour and a half while I had an employee there on the clock. Gassing up saws and putting an edge on one chain only takes so long.
So now we have finished items 1-9 and the president came out and wanted to do an hour long walk through to look things over and talk, again while my employee was on the clock and we had other jobs waiting. And he also wants to do more work, but here's where the problem really starts. I have already spent hours preparing and discussing this list of the remaining items, and am ready to simply proceed with with items # 10 - 50. But the president wants me to re-walk everything and see if I come up with any more suggestions, and then wants to have a meeting to discuss this with the association board, the prop mgt co guy, and me for all this work to be discussed. I understand that up front I need to put some extra time into this to win everyone's trust and get acquainted, and I'm happy to do this. But this is starting to conern me bcs it seems there is a pattern of communication that takes up huge amounts of my time and the duplicative multiple rounds of estimating. Also I think that the president needs to take some responsibility for finding a way to communicate with the challenging resident so that at work time, my crew and I can get to work. Here's my question: how many meetings and estimates and discussions and hours should be spent here for no charge? The president said he wants me to be an advisor for the neighborhood's tree issues, but he wants to get his advice in the course of lengthy discussions during "free estimates", and likes to discuss the same things over and over. How do I draw a line here and create billable hours for the consultation? I could just raise my rate a little to compensate for all this extra time, but have already given prices for all the remaining items. Please help!
The president is an engineer by profession and accustomed to multiple, long meetings and discussions of projects before and after work happens. After spending 4 hours talking with him and meeting him to look at 20 properties, I re-walked the place on my own and created a lengthy proposal. They selected items 1-9 (out of 50 some items on the list) to get things started and see how they like us. During the work person #3 from above refused to speak with the president and the prop mgt contact person to their faces in front of me (we all went together to him to discuss some of the pruning in his yard). He only wanted to work with me. Fine. But he ended up needing to talk to me for an hour and a half while I had an employee there on the clock. Gassing up saws and putting an edge on one chain only takes so long.
So now we have finished items 1-9 and the president came out and wanted to do an hour long walk through to look things over and talk, again while my employee was on the clock and we had other jobs waiting. And he also wants to do more work, but here's where the problem really starts. I have already spent hours preparing and discussing this list of the remaining items, and am ready to simply proceed with with items # 10 - 50. But the president wants me to re-walk everything and see if I come up with any more suggestions, and then wants to have a meeting to discuss this with the association board, the prop mgt co guy, and me for all this work to be discussed. I understand that up front I need to put some extra time into this to win everyone's trust and get acquainted, and I'm happy to do this. But this is starting to conern me bcs it seems there is a pattern of communication that takes up huge amounts of my time and the duplicative multiple rounds of estimating. Also I think that the president needs to take some responsibility for finding a way to communicate with the challenging resident so that at work time, my crew and I can get to work. Here's my question: how many meetings and estimates and discussions and hours should be spent here for no charge? The president said he wants me to be an advisor for the neighborhood's tree issues, but he wants to get his advice in the course of lengthy discussions during "free estimates", and likes to discuss the same things over and over. How do I draw a line here and create billable hours for the consultation? I could just raise my rate a little to compensate for all this extra time, but have already given prices for all the remaining items. Please help!
