Pricing Work

There are several types of estimates

Phone quotes

Always give as accurate of a quote as you can quickly do it. NEVER give a low price just to get them in the shop (bait & switch).  However, it is better that you make up a phone quote sheet that has approximate prices for most of the major types of furniture on it.

Recently another upholsterer said that it was becoming increasingly harder to convince people that reupholstery was a better option than buying new. This upholsterer was afraid that he would have a hard time charging enough.

What do you say when a client says, "I can't believe how much it cost to have something reupholstered nowadays! When I was younger it only cost $xxx plus fabric to recover a chair."

As I was thinking about this I had these thoughts?

Should An Upholsterer Pay Referal Fees?

Should an upholsterer pay a referral fee from a decorator or another business? When an upholsterer is first starting out, or low on work, he may be desperate and be willing to accept almost any conditions, just to have work to pay the bills.

Look at it from the client's point of view. Is a paid referral really unbiased? If a decorator or other business is getting a kickback from a particular upholsterer, will the client get the best service?

(This message is a response to another upholsterer who was feeling grumbly because some of her clients were asking her to lower her price. )

   The question was asked, by a workroom who really needed to get some experience and some work, if she could lower her prices more than she already had. Here was my response to her:

There are a lot of costs that go into every job before the upholsterer even starts working on a job. It costs money to run a business and to be there for when clients bring their jobs to us. Every job has to pay its fair share of all the expenses listed below. A client might think that a small job ought to cost only $5 or $10, (After all, it only took you 5 minutes...) Would a patient have the gall to tell a doctor "your should only charge me $5 because you only spent 5 minutes with me?"

We can learn a lot about estimating from the construction business