Charge is too expensive

A new one today. Large 2 story $2.175 mill home on the water, wanted a monthly clean in/out, bi-monthly exterior only monthly $500/$350 respectfully with 10% discount is “gouging”. (His words). No matter how you slice it, it is a tall job, and certainly first clean no discount. (I don’t charge by price of home but rather by level of work involved).
Said he won’t pay more than he pays the housekeeper. I asked what he thinks would be a fair price - Him: “I won’t negotiate”. Negotiate what? He didn’t say what the job is worth to him. Extra tall sliders on pool patio and balcony; 1 wall of brick glass; screens. Whatever, next.

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Yep, good riddance

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lol uhhhhh window cleaning is NOTHING like housekeeping. This guy clearly doesnt see the value of clean windows

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Meanwhile I landed my biggest commercial lead on a quarterly basis.

Said she might consider doing it more often than quarterly. All she said in the email was “price looks ok can you get started this week.” :grin:

It’s a bit under 300 bucks which might not be anything crazy for you guys but I like these commercial recurring jobs more than anything.

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Price vary all over the place. Examples: This morning $153 exterior, yesterday $712 in out, yesterday storefront $111.0 and gave them a quote for the whole building for over $1,200 when they finish renovating; last week $489 in out, also last week $1,018 in out - so just depends on the job.
This guy can clean his own windows or roll the dice with a Craigslist find.

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Just got back from giving an $8,800 power washing bid. Should take me all of 4 days. Can’t count my chickens before they’re hatched, but left with a pretty good feeling that the job is mine. Property manager didn’t seem to bat an eye at the price. Just requested it in writing along with a w9 and insurance certificate.

So, yeah, much easier money to be made, from much nicer people.

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What about worker’s comp? I had a big estimate I went on but I couldn’t get it bc of the requirements.

Are you an owner operator? If so what do you do if they request worker’s comp

Why doesn’t he just pay the housekeeper to do it then? :thinking:

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Hah, he said up front that housekeeper won’t do windows. That is an almost certainty because window cleaning is its own thing.

I think every state is different but here in Florida you don’t need Workmans Comp unless you have 4 employees or more; but if a business requires it you can get a WC Exemption for $50 yr.

I have that issue too here in Florida, the contractor wanted WC coverage, even though it isn’t required for companies (businesses) with less than 4 employees. Tons more glass out there, I just keep selling to the ones who want to buy.

New customer tried to talk me down from a $255 quote today. I just said “no sir”. Called me back after talking to his wife and gladly scheduled.

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S-corp. I work solo, and almost every time I’ve been asked about WC, I’ve been able to get an exception made by the higher ups due to my status as a solo operator.

But surprisingly, I have not even been asked about workers comp by the 3 largest bids I’ve every put in ($8,700, $11,950, and this one for $8,800). And the first one mentioned required a substantial amount of lift work.

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I’m an LLC. Not sure about the s-corp setup. Worth becoming an s-corp? Not sure how it all works

My tax guy says I am fine as an LLC.

Self-attrition

S-corp is really a description of how you’re taxed. We’re a regular “inc” corporation, but you can make the s-corp election as an LLC, as well. Ask your CPA if it would make sense for you to make the s-corp election.

Depending on your income, it can save you a ton on taxes. The key is splitting your income between a salary check and quarterly dividends. Only the salary portion gets SS and employment tax. The profits from the business is passed through to you as a shareholder, and you’re taxed on those at your standard bracket without SS, etc. (for us that’s 12%, a lot better than that + 15.3%). That’s my best understanding at the moment, anyways. All I know is, it saved us over $4k in taxes in 2019. (2020 was a wash since we didn’t really turn a profit).

I’ve talked about it in a little more depth in other threads.

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ignorant-people

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Doesn’t paying less into SS effect your benefits when you go to collect later on?

Yes, it will. But it will free up money that you can put into a retirement fund that actually sees a return, and you have some control over.

At my age, I don’t trust SS to be (even part of) my retirement plan.

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