Hello, New to this site, as well as new to working in the field for myself. I have done landscaping and excavating in the past for other smaller contractors and ended up venturing out on my own this spring. I have leased a Bobcat T650 and try to focus on final grades and light clearing for home builders as well as concrete demolition, Harley raking, and any other odd jobs that I come across. I will also be using the machine for some of my larger snow removal accounts in the winter. In addition to my T650 and equipment trailer, I own a 14,000lb dump trailer, and a few 3/4 ton trucks. So nothing big yet, but looking for ideas on what other types of work I can manage to take on with what I own. Also curious if anyone has any advice for getting started with a new business that they'd like to share? What kinds of jobs are practical for newer, smaller operations? How to go about establishing relationships with other contractors for subcontracting work? Ideas of how other contractors go about bidding jobs? etc. Bidding and invoicing have been intimidating to me and I've heard a range of hourly rates people charge for machines in my size range. I've also been factoring in a minimum of 4 hours on a job, but have been confused on whether or not I should be adding an additional charge for equipment transporting on top of that, if the job does not exceed 4 hours? Dirt and gravel hauling with my dump trailer has also been a bit of a grey area for me. I can manageably haul and dump 5-7yds of fill dirt at a time depending on how it is distributed and how wet or dry the dirt is. A friend told me to look into single axle dump truck rates for comparison. I've also heard different ways for charging for rental equipment. Just curious what works for other guys out there. Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Just trying to get some ideas and make sure I'm on the right track and not underbidding myself right off the bat, or losing work from outrageous estimates. I'll learn more as I go along. Thanks!
I don't think anybody is going to be able to tell you what to charge. Are you looking to make $30,000 per year or $150,000 per year? How much are you setting aside for retirement and equipment breakdowns? I have a 2011 case sv185 & 2009 bobcat 335 but don't use it commercially because I can't make enough profit to cover the overhead. I have a plumbing business and consistently make $200+ per hr with a 2 hr minimum. Also don't have the fuel or equipment cost to worry about. I end up working more than 40 hours on any given week and still make less than $100,000 per year. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Welcome to the Forums JBarnett650!:drinkup I've got some thoughts on the subject but I've gotta run at the moment.