I agree with you on that, however there are enough people hungry enough for work that wouldnt be able to afford the risk of not working. Because of that sad reality, boycotting nationals will most likely never happen. We may as well face it- nationals arent going away any time soon. I think the best way we as professionals can deal with them is to hold strong on the pricing we know we need (you do know your costs, dont you?) and not let them get us all to work for nothing.
As to the ones that dont pay, dont work for them. There is always a risk in business that your client wont pay, whether its a national company or John and Jane Smith down the street from you. It's not something that ever should happen, but unfortunately it sometimes does. If the same companies are not paying their contractors season after season, word will get around. Eventually, nobody will work for them and they will go under. I wouldnt blindly work for any company without first asking for references, talking with others in the industry, and searching sites like this for peoples experiences both good and bad. Even the dreaded U.S. Maintenance has a few people that have had decent experiences with them.
Personally, I have not done any work for a national company, and I really dont plan on going out looking for work through one. That doesnt mean I wouldnt consider it if the money was right and I felt they were reputable. We cant let ourselves compete in a price-based race to the bottom: thats a race nobody wins.
We do work for a national company and have to say I have very few if any complaints. Great communication inside and outside of a storm. Get your work orders and invoices in on time and they pay on time per contract. The money isn't bad though we have lower overhead than most. Their office is only an hour or so away which made me feel a little more comfortable about working with them. That way if they didn't pay the door to knock on isn't far away. This isn't a large national like usm, etc. But they are a national company and I do and will continue working for this one.
To me this is the state our industry is heading. It may not be what we would like our industry to be but I came into the industry this way. So my feeling on it is adapt and overcome. There are good nationals out there believe it or not but the days of plowing national chains for huge money are over. Nationals have and will have strangle hold on these properties for years to come. Some may go back to the way it was but many will not. So I've simply looked at it in a more positive light than most and worked my business plan for winter work to adjust to the current state of the industry. May not make what I would have 5-10 years ago but I still turn a good profit every winter.
I owned another company which is now out of business because of USM. I worked for them for 5yrs and they had there issues, slow pay, lots of paperwork, call in all the time, pictures.... all that was just part of the job. Then a women fell while stepping over parking blocks days after a snow storm and USM tried to pin the million dollar lawsuit on me. Then my insurance company will only cover me but there contract requires me to cover USM. USM didn't pay me tens of thousands they owe me and they expected my company to pay all the legal expense of USM since my insurance didn't cover USM only me. Needless to say the whole not getting paid and the lawsuit put me out of business. BEWARE Don't work for USM without having your lawyer and insurance look at the contract or you might be next.
Sounds like a playback of my experience with them. When all was said and done, I was dropped from the lawsuit, because the judge said I had no liability in it. For a long time I blamed USM for not paying me, and forcing me into bankruptcy. I came to realize it was my insurance companies fault, for denying my liability, thus voiding my contract with USM. United Fire and Casualty was my insurer. I thought they were good. I don't anymore, and would NEVER insure with them again. After all the thousands they took from me in premiums, they couldn't bail on me quick enough. It seems to me that when an insurance company's actions force the destruction of your business, they should be held accountable. But of course, no one is.
I have working with Brickman for over 2 years. Like anything else, you have to read the contract, look at the site and make sure you 100% understand what you are signing AND what you are getting into!. Sometimes there prices stink and sometimes they are great. I am not sure why there are differences, but there are? I think it has to do with their estimators but............ My check is always there on the 12th of every month, snow or no snow..
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Landscaper and part time Insurance Agent
Lots of shovels,Toro snow blowers
94 GMC dually w/Western 9ft Pro Plow
96 Chevy 2500 w/Meyer 7.5 classic
Why is it with technology and how fast and accurate information can be exchanged we still see payments for services being stretched out past 30-60 days. It just seems to me if I service an event, and submitt it to a regional or national, it takes 720- 1440 hours to process payment on it. Am a I in a minority or do others see this happening?
I am not complaining but just wonder why everyone tries to push their operational cost down to the guys or gals that already have all of the risk in liability, and expect them to finance their operations as well. They just need to have more skin in the game is all I'm saying.
I can see this industry having high turnover as a result of companies not being able to cover operational costs. They will go where the money turns around faster like it used to.
IMO Nationals and regionals could easily tighten up suspense time to process payments and create a better enviornment in this indusrty but greed seems to be gaining ground.
I do work for a few regional outfits that are ok 90% of the time, but looking at the consenous of most of the people on here they appear at least on the bigger the operations not great to work for.
Guess you just need to try and establish yourself with the good ones and hope for the best.
Generally speaking its because they know they have you over a barrel and nobody can do anything about it.
From every thread on here its a case where the guy doing the work just accepts their terms. So they just keep going.
You'd have to be blind not to see that it's all in their favor. They wait 2 months to pay you when the entire season is sometimes 4 months long. You do the work, you buy the materials, you pay your employees, you cover gas insurance and everything else. When its all done they try and find a loophole to reduce your pay...but you keep lining up like a bunch of lemmings so they just keep squeezing you.
That's why. So just keep hoping you get treated Ok, and when you don't come on here and complain. That's been he case for 5 years on here.
For the people that have been treated OK on here, good for you. I hope it continues. For the rest, if you've been treated badly and go back, its your own fault. For newbies, read all the threads going back a few years. You get what you pay for.
I just received a new inquiry. Once I got their terms, I simply said we are not interested. I'm not sure how they will find anybody to agree to those terms. wow. Plus the price they are offering was rediculously low. The only way it would be beneficial, is if it didn't snow.
When dealing with large national CO's, on also has to remember that the billing systems for some large places Like Lowes, Home Depot etc. can be a little crazy. At the one location I work at for landscaping, it works like this:
I do the work. When completed, I have a ticket the store manager has to sign. On the ticket, I have listed the work I performed. In some cases, the manager will walk the property with me to confirm that what I have checked off is actually done (This happened a LOT early on, but stopped after they realized they could trust me). I then go back and record the work on the nationals web site, AND, submit the signed ticket.
Once everything is recorded, it gets bundled with all the other tickets for that month from all the locations. The tickets are then sent back to the CO and stores we did the work for. They then contact the managers to make sure that all of the tickets are in fact valid. Once this has been confirmed, the store managers release the funds from their budgets. All of this $$ is then pooled together and a check is sent to the national. The national then has to break it down, confirm that all the tickets sent in came back and then cut the checks to the providers and put them in the mail.
While all of this may seem crazy, it is done this way because of all the bad experiences these large CO's have had in the past. Lets face it, we all know there are some pretty shady characters out there that have no problem ripping someone off. Once again, the idiots have ruined it for all of the good guys who do quality work. it is just a necessary evil to keep from getting ripped off. This entire process makes the cycle over 30 days and pushes it to sometimes 60. I always get paid, it is just a matter of when?
I don't do this at all of the sites I do. When doing places like Lowes, Knowledge Universe and others, my check is ALWAYS in the mail box by the 12th to 14th of every month.
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Landscaper and part time Insurance Agent
Lots of shovels,Toro snow blowers
94 GMC dually w/Western 9ft Pro Plow
96 Chevy 2500 w/Meyer 7.5 classic
(4) 45000 sq ft lots. $210 to salt each, $260 to plow each, plow every 2'' salt any time a flake flies, or theres any slippery conditions. Have to get a sheet signed or you won't get paid for the work. But they pay within 30-45 days of invoice.
Evil scum sucking nationals, ugh!
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TwoBrosLawn
.....i dont bid jobs anywhere near as high and in depth as the people on here do...I bid based on what i wanna make on it, i dont include gas, insurance...blah blah blah i charge what i think is fair without ripping the customer off like most people on here do!
I just thought of this thread last night as I was signing the contracts for this year.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TwoBrosLawn
.....i dont bid jobs anywhere near as high and in depth as the people on here do...I bid based on what i wanna make on it, i dont include gas, insurance...blah blah blah i charge what i think is fair without ripping the customer off like most people on here do!
The only way it would be beneficial, is if it didn't snow.
Funny you should say that. Being fairly new to the business and not so smart, I took one last year that was seasonal and the price was borderline. If it would have snowed a lot, I would have made very little. As it turned out, I only had 1 (yes, thats right, ONE!) plow-able event. I made out BIGTIME! With that being said, taking that contract was the dumbest thing I could have EVER done. I took it again this year, BUT, I added a few thousand $$ to it.
When you work with any National, do not EVER take the first price offered by them. Don't be afraid to haggle with them and don't be afraid to walk away if the #'s don't work for you. Just like a used car dealer, the price on the window sticker is never a definite!
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Landscaper and part time Insurance Agent
Lots of shovels,Toro snow blowers
94 GMC dually w/Western 9ft Pro Plow
96 Chevy 2500 w/Meyer 7.5 classic
Congratulate. I need everything I can get. I have 45% of a "normal year" signed right now, lost a school district, and two large office buildings, and a sizeable strip mall so far......I need to be way over 100% as I have a new JCB416, two new skids and two new 4500s to find work for.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TwoBrosLawn
.....i dont bid jobs anywhere near as high and in depth as the people on here do...I bid based on what i wanna make on it, i dont include gas, insurance...blah blah blah i charge what i think is fair without ripping the customer off like most people on here do!
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