How do you charge for Permit Processing

[Gino]

:ROFLMAO: the guy I was talking about who doesn't wanna lift a finger to help himself, doesn't know where he's located. He had one of his lackies e-mail and I submitted the stuff on Wednesday. Got a call today, this establishment is not in our township. So, I've now wasted some time going to the wrong place. What a frickin' moron.

 

[shoresigns]

For simple jobs that don't require electrical or engineering, we charge $120 for permit drawings (elevation and section only - plan is extra) and send the client to city hall to do it themselves.

 

[signbrad]

Inkit,
I understand your method of pricing using sketches as a tool. This practice is now widespread and common. Both our sales people do this, so they are always waiting on me for drawings.One of them makes dummy drawings on occasion when he can't wait for me. Then when he closes the deal, or almost closes it, I do a real design.

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There is no question that a sketch helps with not only quoting a job, but selling it. A client is much more apt to bite on a price when he or she can see what they are getting. In fact, I am frequently asked by the guys to create two layouts. One will be simpler and cheaper. The other will be nice and pricier. They tell me the more expensive signs often sell themselves when the client sees the difference.

There are definitely advantages to doing 'free' layouts first. And since I no longer work for myself I don't feel the pressure to win jobs that all you self-employed people feel. Still, I really believe it's possible to bury a certain amount of time in our shop rate to defray the cost of free drawings. We already do this anyway with fixed expenses, our overhead. So why can we not designate so many hours of design time each week, or month, as a fixed expense, as part of overhead?

Let's say you average eight hours a week doing layouts on speculation. Some of the jobs you are confident you will get, some not so much. If we included these hours as part of our calculation for our shop rate, would it raise the rate too much? Then we would at least know we could spend eight hours a week on free design work—and we're still covered.

Of course, I'm pulling the above number out of my rear. And though I've been in signs since '74, I've not worked for myself for ten years. So my talk is cheap. Were I to go back in business again would I do free sketches? Yes. But I would seriously try to have my shop rate reflect as much of the free sketch time as possible.

I realize that we sign people, and really, many small contractors in other trades, do not have it easy. This is especially so if we are new in the business. We can't make too many demands of clients without scaring them all away. Once we become established we can be a little more hard-nosed about give-away time, relying instead on our reputation to keep work from drying up.
I wish we could be like architects who won't lift a (drawing) finger without a retainer.

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As an interesting side note, when I was in my twenties back in Illinois, the five or six autobody shops in town decided to stop giving free estimates. They had a gentlemen's agreement to charge for estimates at a rate of a dollar for every 100 dollars worth of repair. So a quote for a 1200-dollar repair would cost a customer 12 dollars cash up front. The cost would be applied to the job when finished. One of the shop owners told me that it was surprising how many people think twice before they ask for estimates from everyone in town. This is an additional benefit of a deposit, even a small one—the client stops shopping.

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The sign industry has experienced great changes in the 40 years I have been in it. It is now rich in wonderful technology, but at the same time, design and pricing have taken a nose dive. There was a time when a skilled sign maker could make a good living, with wages approaching those of an electrician or plumber. Now, pricing and salaries are closer to the Walmart model. There has been a huge influx of shops peddling low price and using low-wage employees to pump out ineffective and unprofessional-looking sign work. Cheap signs and poor designs predominate, and the average customer has lost the ability to discern the difference between good work and bad.

Good design is worth more

Can we reverse this trend? I think so, but it will take time and hard work.
Learning good design principles is, I believe, part of the key. Professional-looking design work is more effective, and it allows us to charge more. And good design is not necessarily fancy or complicated or for special occasions. Rather, as Mike Stevens said 30 years ago, "It's the mark of a professional."
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My significant other says I'm ranting too much. She said "Keep calm and check your spelling." She's the high school debate coach, so I don't argue....

Peace, out.

Brad in Kansas City

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Aside to Inkit—
Please accept my apology if any of my posts sound like an effort to cast you in a bad light. For any who are new to the business, or new to some part of the business, I say, "Welcome to the party!"
I am approaching retirement so I thought it good to start a sign blog last summer. It's great. I can rant and pontificate all I want without getting flamed too much. Probably because nobody reads it.

 

[Billct2]

I try to avoid pulling permits and price it accordingly.
We do like Gino, if a client buys the job I will provide all necessary drawings and if they bring me the forms I will even fill them out, included in the cost of the job.
Anything beyond that is charged at an hourly rate plus fees, and the hourly rate is enough to make up for the aggravation involved.
We have several towns that now required a engineer stamped drawing for all installations, which means the permit can cost more than the sign.

 

[petrosgraphics]

with-in our area each town has separate rules and regs. with-in those towns there are districts. (historical, waterfront, etc.) all with their own codes and regs. after a while you get to know these restrictions, when you see the customer and location to discuss there needs, we have a good idea on what they can and can not have. all of this can be discussed at that first meeting. most often the customer will have us go through the permit process for them, which may require putting together ( what we call a packet ) *scaled sketches, color samples, abutters lists, etc. each board member will want his or her own packet. we know this up front, the customer will be told this up front, everyone on the same page. the cost of this process is on the customer. this is all billable time. some meetings can take a hour while others will take several hours. good money can be had by this process.,if you are willing to go through the process, it is a hourly rate nothing more, nothing less.

 

[heyskull]

Here in the UK we have a similair thing which is called building planning permissions ran by the local council.
Personally I no longer get involved in it anymore!

I will give out plans and information to the client as requested, priced at my time.
This way the client physically sees the time I am spending on creating proofs etc.
Then they can lease with the council on what needs to be changed/altered and waste their time not mine.
I learnt early on with a certain sign I was manufacturing that working with town palnning and making customers understand how much of my time was spent on doing this was probably more expensive than the actual sign!
Also it was very difficult for clients to understand the time involved in organising this.
So now I get the proposed client to do the monkey work, and believe me they all end up understand why I no longer do it.

SC