🚀 go-pugleaf

Anthony Kidd (drwho@iinet.net.au) wrote:
: In short, the standard of work on "none union jobs" is far worse than
: union jobs.

That's a very broad statement. In my experience, and we've had
this argument before, it is also untrue. Contractors have competition
to deal with, and don't get work tomorrow unless the last person was
happy with their job.


: Most consumers go for the cheapest quote.

This is the real question. I agree with you, except in industries
where there is a lot of competition.  As you know, I used to put
up fences. There was a lot of other people out there also putting
up fences, and some of them were a little bit cheaper than us. The
profit margin was quite low (around 8%) so there wasn't a lot of
room for people to go much lower.

As you say, you had to have a low price to keep the consumer happy, but we
all charged low prices. After that, people chose their contractor based
on word of mouth advertising. So if you wanted to be able to eat next
week, you did a good job this week. Lots of people came into our industry,
put up a few fences, which looked like crap, and quickly went bust.
Our family business is still running after eighteen years because we
have a good price, a friendly attitude and we do a good job.

Of course, from what you are saying, in industries where the market is
less saturated, price is probably more prevalent.

This is a serious question: have you ever considered going private? Dump
the union and go out there on your own or with a few colleagues and do the
job yourself. Small businesses have much less costs, you can take the time
to do a good job if you want, and you'll be surprised at how satisfying
it can be to watch your business grow (or fail) solely on the basis of
your own effort and talent. Its a pretty nice feeling.

Michael