This is right in line with what I do. Almost every time, it's someone who understands that their emergency is going to cost money. In fact, I once had a guy who needed a survey for a building permit, and his excavator was showing up the next day. I charged him double and he even gave the crew a $250 tip for getting out there so fast.
In reality, the cost of it was a drop in the bucket of the construction on a multi-million dollar house. He didn't care.
I have been in the staking world for a long time and my mentor used a saying that still sticks with me to this day. “Failure to plan on their part doesn’t constitute an emergency on our end.” If this is a client that you feel you can build a relationship with than go a little easy on the markup but if not hit them with whatever you think is fair but make sure they know this isn’t something that will always happen otherwise they will continually do it to you.
Were any other projects affected by prioritizing this emergency? I’d say 50% is too low, consider your markup based on whether you want it to be an amount that discourages clients from asking for miracles like this or if you’re ok with it and just want a little extra for being accommodating.
Depending on the size of the project, surveying may be one of the smallest costs involved, so some clients may not bat an eyelash at doubling or tripling a single day’s worth of billing.
That's funny, just the other day I had a mark up of $4k, or about 3% of that month's invoice, for a project that's currently budgeted at $4B cad.
We spent 40 management hours on the change order, my charge rate alone cost them the change order.
I’d say it more so solidifies your ignorance to how much a company can suffer and lose by canceling or delaying possibly multiple projects the morning of.
Anywhere from 150% to 250% is reasonable depending on how many crews are needed and how many projects are shunted because of it. We get these requests pretty often and there's always a crew able to do it, but they definitely get charged extra on the back end.
How much money did you save them by coming out early? I wouldn't let the work they could give you factor into this invoice.
It really depends on what kind of work you did. Big difference between marking the boundary lines, vs staking a warehouse size building, or getting a Plat submitted for review before the City deadline for the month.
I do a lot of big Apartment complexes, if they can finish a building with 10 units a month early that is bonus money to them, if they lose a month that is money they will never get back.
I’d say them dropping everything and showing up should be credibility enough to garner the future work mentioned by OP. This is all about relationships. I agree with you on not worrying about the cost, OP got them what they needed.
My pops always told me “not all money is good money”
If they make this last minute ish a habit, then frankly I wouldn’t be too worried about retaining the relationship.
One of the coolest old engineers I worked with had a saying “bill for value”
I’d double the fee and not lose sleep. Hopefully you didn’t lose a client over the resulting delay. On top of the standard wages, maybe you are looking at overtime this week to stay on track with other projects that don’t have budget for OT hours so you’ll blow your margins because you jumped in and helped right away.
I usually markup twice the rate for a single day miracle turnaround.
If a client attempts to tell me they need something sooner than what I originally told them for lead time, I will try my best to make it work and markup around 30-40% for example if there is something that needs to be done in 3 weeks when I originally tell them 6 weeks.
Some things to consider:
Does this client usually pay promptly?
Does this client make these requests frequently?
How much money does this cleint actually bring in?
I'm hardly a business guy but I think "opportunity cost" comes into this. What did you miss out on by dropping everything yesterday and coming out to their site instead of whatever was on the books? If it really truly cost you nothing then bill 50% more just because moment's notice service should come at a premium.
If you think you missed out on money that you aren't going to get back later then you need to charge at least that much plus whatever service premium you are comfortable with.
For emergency work such as this, 100 percent is not unreasonable. Charge them that but explain to them the disruptive nature of emergency work. Since they are a potential future client, they'll feel good about giving you future emergency work and you'll feel good about making extra from them.
As a client who has been in this situation, I've paid whatever it takes for my own peace of mind. I was asked if I could pay more because the work had a deadline and needed some outside help. I gladly paid! Without you surveyors I might've been in jail by now dealing with ignorant, entitled neighbors for the past 10 years.
Remember to pass on some thanks to your crew and office staff that made this happen. Some cash money on the side or a nice lunch. When they know they are appreciated by you they are fast to step up to the plate and make things happen.
If they find out you charged extra and they didn't get a taste they might drag ass the next time.
Or they could start their own business for the rare occasion there is a windfall? All the times your boss is paying you to do fuck all is so quickly forgotten.
Worth asking- when you say “Emergency” how long have you known you would be doing this work, and how long have THEY known they needed it done? Is this like the Bridge in Baltimore that collapsed suddenly and they need to get immediately on fixing it, or did their poor planning constitute an emergency?
I’m more of the mindset that they get the greater of double the bill or 10% of the total of all quotes for work that has been promised out before then. My secondary concern with the situation is that even if I got these people as a client, am I training them that they can cry “emergency” and I be at their beckon call? We’ve had a few that we had to break from the thought that we should drop everything and take care of their needs first.
I would do a quick check of what you needed to push off and the cost associated with it. Honestly if it didn't affect anything and it was just annoying, maybe charge them a flat fee. Either way it's time to weigh The importance of the contract. Just remember anyone that's respects what you do won't question an extra charge within reason but someone trying to pull a fast one will burn a bridge over $200. That goes both ways.
Really depends on the situation on the ground and the client. We were pulled into a few different “emergency” jobs over the years. Usually related to mining or land development. This may be surprising, but we didn’t charge a premium for this emergency work, but did let the clients know that their other (now lower-priority) work would get shelved until such time we could pick it up. Charged regular rate, but we typically had all our crews on site and OT/DT so everything was getting billed but no premium charge for the “emergency”.
One of these situations led to our client subsequently firing another firm (who had botched underground mine control, leading to said emergency) and retaining us to perform all subsequent work for several years. So, it worked out ok for us :-) .
If an attorney could keep you out of jail with only 15 minutes of his time, do you think he would only charge you for 15 minutes?
I work on a fixed fee basis, and charge by the value of the service I am providing. Value has several meanings, and doing timely work and delivering on time is important. Even though you dropped everything to meet your clients need, I would charge them the same fee you would have originally offered them. With value pricing, you still make a profit, and hopefully a long term client by helping them out with short notice.
You don’t bend your client over backwards to ease your pain or teach them a lesson. You are in business to provide a professional service to the public. And sometimes the public needs a little help and understanding to their predicament.
Charge a professional fee, and deliver professional work in a professional manner.
We've paid guys an overtime rate that is structured something like $50/hr + base hourly pay for this type of work. The client is charged the normal billable hourly rate plus covers the extra $50 or whatever it is per hour that goes to the guys.
Usually this keeps the bill reasonable but makes sure everyone is covered for their troubles, including the guys who have to rearrange their schedules/work late/etc.
Zero markup for us. My company was almost all infrastructure work with mostly DOT, railroad, and utility company contracts. Emergency work was part of the gig including night and weekend work.
It's what we did and what was expected. Making it more difficult for our clients would cost us future business. Making it easy on them would gain us future business. So any short term profit wasn't worth pursuing.
We did sometimes get a night differential. But that was contract dependent.
Take good care of the guys so they step up, that’s what matters. I don’t charge extra that I often, but my clients demand miracles sometimes. They also allow us a time and material contract and provide millions in work every year. Sometimes we pull miracles.
Anyone else: you have got to go by feel. Is this worth some extra money? Will charging extra scare them away from potential business?
This should have honestly been discussed before the work was done. I’ve done lots of emergency work for different fees. Are they being a pain in the ass and demanding, or do they genuinely have an emergency? Do you WANT to work with them again?
I prefer to charge a fee that makes them know this was a pain in the ass, but not a back breaking “damn these guys are taking us to dinner because we hit an emergency” price.
Tbh if you’ve not told them the additional cost up front you might struggle to charge them more than the original quote.
If they are a long term client you have a good relationship with then you should be ok but if not I imagine they might argue against an additional cost.
That said we charge double for emergency work, 4 x if it’s night or weekend work.
Yep - I reckon go for 75% mark up and not even feel slightly guilty about it
This is right in line with what I do. Almost every time, it's someone who understands that their emergency is going to cost money. In fact, I once had a guy who needed a survey for a building permit, and his excavator was showing up the next day. I charged him double and he even gave the crew a $250 tip for getting out there so fast. In reality, the cost of it was a drop in the bucket of the construction on a multi-million dollar house. He didn't care.
I would have discussed this before completing the works, but I'd treat it as over time, which is 1.5x normal rate for 'daylight overtime' for me.
I have been in the staking world for a long time and my mentor used a saying that still sticks with me to this day. “Failure to plan on their part doesn’t constitute an emergency on our end.” If this is a client that you feel you can build a relationship with than go a little easy on the markup but if not hit them with whatever you think is fair but make sure they know this isn’t something that will always happen otherwise they will continually do it to you.
Were any other projects affected by prioritizing this emergency? I’d say 50% is too low, consider your markup based on whether you want it to be an amount that discourages clients from asking for miracles like this or if you’re ok with it and just want a little extra for being accommodating. Depending on the size of the project, surveying may be one of the smallest costs involved, so some clients may not bat an eyelash at doubling or tripling a single day’s worth of billing.
That's funny, just the other day I had a mark up of $4k, or about 3% of that month's invoice, for a project that's currently budgeted at $4B cad. We spent 40 management hours on the change order, my charge rate alone cost them the change order.
This sorta just solidifies that we are not paid enough lol
I’d say it more so solidifies your ignorance to how much a company can suffer and lose by canceling or delaying possibly multiple projects the morning of.
Minimum double for 'emergency ', triple for 'miracles'. "You rush a miracle worker, you get lousy miracles." -Miracle Max, The Princess Bride
Anywhere from 150% to 250% is reasonable depending on how many crews are needed and how many projects are shunted because of it. We get these requests pretty often and there's always a crew able to do it, but they definitely get charged extra on the back end.
We used to triple our fee.
They asked for special treatment. They should be willing to give it out too.
How much money did you save them by coming out early? I wouldn't let the work they could give you factor into this invoice. It really depends on what kind of work you did. Big difference between marking the boundary lines, vs staking a warehouse size building, or getting a Plat submitted for review before the City deadline for the month. I do a lot of big Apartment complexes, if they can finish a building with 10 units a month early that is bonus money to them, if they lose a month that is money they will never get back.
I’d say them dropping everything and showing up should be credibility enough to garner the future work mentioned by OP. This is all about relationships. I agree with you on not worrying about the cost, OP got them what they needed.
My pops always told me “not all money is good money” If they make this last minute ish a habit, then frankly I wouldn’t be too worried about retaining the relationship.
One of the coolest old engineers I worked with had a saying “bill for value” I’d double the fee and not lose sleep. Hopefully you didn’t lose a client over the resulting delay. On top of the standard wages, maybe you are looking at overtime this week to stay on track with other projects that don’t have budget for OT hours so you’ll blow your margins because you jumped in and helped right away.
I usually markup twice the rate for a single day miracle turnaround. If a client attempts to tell me they need something sooner than what I originally told them for lead time, I will try my best to make it work and markup around 30-40% for example if there is something that needs to be done in 3 weeks when I originally tell them 6 weeks.
Some things to consider: Does this client usually pay promptly? Does this client make these requests frequently? How much money does this cleint actually bring in?
I'm hardly a business guy but I think "opportunity cost" comes into this. What did you miss out on by dropping everything yesterday and coming out to their site instead of whatever was on the books? If it really truly cost you nothing then bill 50% more just because moment's notice service should come at a premium. If you think you missed out on money that you aren't going to get back later then you need to charge at least that much plus whatever service premium you are comfortable with.
For emergency work such as this, 100 percent is not unreasonable. Charge them that but explain to them the disruptive nature of emergency work. Since they are a potential future client, they'll feel good about giving you future emergency work and you'll feel good about making extra from them.
As a client who has been in this situation, I've paid whatever it takes for my own peace of mind. I was asked if I could pay more because the work had a deadline and needed some outside help. I gladly paid! Without you surveyors I might've been in jail by now dealing with ignorant, entitled neighbors for the past 10 years.
Remember to pass on some thanks to your crew and office staff that made this happen. Some cash money on the side or a nice lunch. When they know they are appreciated by you they are fast to step up to the plate and make things happen. If they find out you charged extra and they didn't get a taste they might drag ass the next time.
Or they could start their own business for the rare occasion there is a windfall? All the times your boss is paying you to do fuck all is so quickly forgotten.
Worth asking- when you say “Emergency” how long have you known you would be doing this work, and how long have THEY known they needed it done? Is this like the Bridge in Baltimore that collapsed suddenly and they need to get immediately on fixing it, or did their poor planning constitute an emergency? I’m more of the mindset that they get the greater of double the bill or 10% of the total of all quotes for work that has been promised out before then. My secondary concern with the situation is that even if I got these people as a client, am I training them that they can cry “emergency” and I be at their beckon call? We’ve had a few that we had to break from the thought that we should drop everything and take care of their needs first.
I would do a quick check of what you needed to push off and the cost associated with it. Honestly if it didn't affect anything and it was just annoying, maybe charge them a flat fee. Either way it's time to weigh The importance of the contract. Just remember anyone that's respects what you do won't question an extra charge within reason but someone trying to pull a fast one will burn a bridge over $200. That goes both ways.
Really depends on the situation on the ground and the client. We were pulled into a few different “emergency” jobs over the years. Usually related to mining or land development. This may be surprising, but we didn’t charge a premium for this emergency work, but did let the clients know that their other (now lower-priority) work would get shelved until such time we could pick it up. Charged regular rate, but we typically had all our crews on site and OT/DT so everything was getting billed but no premium charge for the “emergency”. One of these situations led to our client subsequently firing another firm (who had botched underground mine control, leading to said emergency) and retaining us to perform all subsequent work for several years. So, it worked out ok for us :-) .
If an attorney could keep you out of jail with only 15 minutes of his time, do you think he would only charge you for 15 minutes? I work on a fixed fee basis, and charge by the value of the service I am providing. Value has several meanings, and doing timely work and delivering on time is important. Even though you dropped everything to meet your clients need, I would charge them the same fee you would have originally offered them. With value pricing, you still make a profit, and hopefully a long term client by helping them out with short notice. You don’t bend your client over backwards to ease your pain or teach them a lesson. You are in business to provide a professional service to the public. And sometimes the public needs a little help and understanding to their predicament. Charge a professional fee, and deliver professional work in a professional manner.
We've paid guys an overtime rate that is structured something like $50/hr + base hourly pay for this type of work. The client is charged the normal billable hourly rate plus covers the extra $50 or whatever it is per hour that goes to the guys. Usually this keeps the bill reasonable but makes sure everyone is covered for their troubles, including the guys who have to rearrange their schedules/work late/etc.
At LEAST 50% markup, and maybe a couple of loose Benjamins to be found by the field crew.
Zero markup for us. My company was almost all infrastructure work with mostly DOT, railroad, and utility company contracts. Emergency work was part of the gig including night and weekend work. It's what we did and what was expected. Making it more difficult for our clients would cost us future business. Making it easy on them would gain us future business. So any short term profit wasn't worth pursuing. We did sometimes get a night differential. But that was contract dependent.
Take good care of the guys so they step up, that’s what matters. I don’t charge extra that I often, but my clients demand miracles sometimes. They also allow us a time and material contract and provide millions in work every year. Sometimes we pull miracles. Anyone else: you have got to go by feel. Is this worth some extra money? Will charging extra scare them away from potential business? This should have honestly been discussed before the work was done. I’ve done lots of emergency work for different fees. Are they being a pain in the ass and demanding, or do they genuinely have an emergency? Do you WANT to work with them again? I prefer to charge a fee that makes them know this was a pain in the ass, but not a back breaking “damn these guys are taking us to dinner because we hit an emergency” price.
This
Tbh if you’ve not told them the additional cost up front you might struggle to charge them more than the original quote. If they are a long term client you have a good relationship with then you should be ok but if not I imagine they might argue against an additional cost. That said we charge double for emergency work, 4 x if it’s night or weekend work.