We all hate taxes, that why we drive a lot! Mileage takes care of a lot of mine, the other ,,,,well Paul, just write the check and move on...lol. More to be made this year, I have a account lady that's 3 states away, she makes it easy...she writes the checks to the IRS.

I think you are looking at this from the wrong perspective.

First you need to know how much you need to make to support yourself and your family, particularly if you are considering this as a sole source of income. Lets use $30000. Next establish an acceptable profit margin, we will use 30%, as that is an acceptable margin in most businesses and it makes my math easy!!!!

So to make $30000 at a 30% profit margin you will need to gross $100,000.

Now we will see if you have done your research on demographics and other statistical analysis on your service area. How many customers can you get in your area and how will you get them? Can you get one customer every business day and maybe a couple extra thrown in on the weekends or holidays? If so, we can assume 300 customers per year (once again, easy math). Take your gross of $100,000 divided by your number of clients and you get $333.33 per job. That is what you will need to reach your goal of $30,000 in net income.

You can break your fees down into service fee, charge per animal, or any way you want, but that is more of a marketing issue than an income issue. You still need to get that $333.33 per client to reach your goal no matter what you call your fees.

This process is not quite as simple as I have just described, there are many other factors that need to be accounted for, but it will get you started in the right direction and stimulate a different thought process than simply, "What do I charge to set a trap or catch an animal?".

Don't put the cart before the horse!!! Set a goal and then work backwards to figure out how you are going to reach that goal!!!!!!!

Hope this helps a bit.

X2, great advice. Your next question, what should be your budget for marketing?

Marketing is a whole nother ball game. I have figured out what works (for me) in my area but that doesn't mean it will work anywhere else.

Once again, I have to go back to the demographics of your market. Are you going to target homeowners, apartment complexes, commercial facilities,or ranchers with coyote problems? Maybe its a combination of them.

Not every marketing technique is going to reach each segment of your target audience. You need to have "target" based marketing or you are just doing a shotgun approach. Shotgunning is OK if you are just running a branding campaign, but I don't think it is effective for generating revenue. I want money in my pocket.

For example, you could have a company promise to deliver 100,000 door hangers. If they are lazy, they will go to every apartment complex in your community and hang those ads. Makes sense to them as that is the greatest concentration of doors, so they get them out the quickest. However, it does you absolutely no good because apartment dwellers have no authority in hiring you.

Now if you get those hung on homes with an average income of $150,000, in service oriented neighborhoods, where they pay ot have a guy pick up their dog poop once a week, you may be on to something.

So I would have to say that the best marketing is based on whether or not it reaches your target demographics. Only you can determine who your target is and you can rely on professional help (or personal research) to determine how best to hit your target.

I bring it up, since it can impact your profit....positively or negatively.

You have got to consider all of the things mentioned above, set your prices than reevaluate constantly. One method of evaluation is to compare gross income to mileage. Personally I want to have income of 2 dollars per each mile I drive. That is total mile regardless of reason driven. If I drive a lot of non business miles I need to charge more than if every mile is a income producer. Now this mileage thing is not a price determiner, it is an evaluation tool.
Most important thing about pricing is to evaluate your pricing against your goals. I would recommend a trip to the nearest book store (college book stores are the best) and look for a used business 101 book. Understand the concepts and put a plan in action, evaluate and adjust the pricing as needed. I would sell you my book but they are well out dated, LOL
The method of pricing described above as calling around can also be called market pricing. Yes you call around and research the market, not just the price but also comparing services. Like services that have been tested in the market can show what the market can bare. You still need to evaluate your business to determine if you can provide the service at the market price and still realize your goals. If you can than great charge the market price and evaluate it again in six months. If you use an accounting program like Quickbooks and record everything you can evaluate in the reports section and than react quickly if needed with a price change.

My point is there are many issues to consider after the first look and the tie line is quick and ever changing.

47 replies, great dialog going here, getting some good milage form this post, hope the new guys read it and understand it. See it wasn't as simple as we thought, lol

I haven't been paid in several years. If it wasn't that some of the bait is edible, I'd starve. Squirrel paste on marshmallows. YUM yum.

why are you still awake, did you sneak out of the house again?

Paul Winkleman is missing:
Paul was seen around midnight running thru a parking lot of a strip bar, he was wearing a fuzzy jumpsuit, house slippers and a rat head . If anyone has seen him call Tim.

$2 / mile doesn't sound sustainable over the long term. If the govmileage rate is 56 cents....they are figuring that this is the total cost of the vehicle. That translates into roughly 25% of your business expenses is vehicle related. Not much room for everything else.

I havent looked at this metric before, neat idea though. Any thoughts?

Interesting thread,The big question remains how much can you charge,or how much should you charge .

Starting out you will probably be adjusting your prices in short order. You usually will lose money on your early jobs first to figure out the right price point. Break out your calculator and figure out your expenses and add a profit margin, include a buffer on the profit in case the job goes bad.

My thoughts some of you have not mentioned. New Laws are coming out all the time that affect the cost of business. Ask your CPA

Do you have a retirement plan ? I bring this question up because if you own the business you are providing for your families ObamaCare.

The IRS announced Jan 30, 2013 that new ObamaCare regulations that assumes that an average families lowest cost health insurance plan would cost $20,000 a year by 2016. http://cnsnews.com/news/article/irs-cheapest-obamacare-plan-will-be-20000-family http://thewildlifepro.com/about/wco-tips/pricing-wco-jobs/

Great discussion and lots of great points which illustrates the fact that differing opinions can still become educational!



When we first started I had some thoughts from friends with many many years in the industry that really helped me think it
through very similar to what Dirk stated, working backward from what you need.

Since no one usually knows just how much work they will get it still leaves you nervous and wondering, but if you are conservative
in how many hours you think you will work and charge accordingly you'll be better covered.

As many have stated and I wholeheartedly agree, constantly re-evaluate once you are open and moving. Costs change, amount of
people you service changes, other presently intangible things become clear.

My biggest struggle still even with a spreadsheet that we use that includes our pricing structure that we use literally for every job
is the different types of jobs. It is more a personal struggle that is ridiculous in my feeling of how exclusion work is different than
when I go trap pocket gophers, but I still fight it.

My better half and if you have one and are just starting out, I hope she's like mine, will keep you very honest.

I realized some time ago that when I bid exclusion work I do it with an "optimists eye" that unfortunately thinks that "this should only
take me 3 hours to do."

That is the "if all goes well" mentality and when you first start out you need to have a pessimists view. "When I get up there and start really
working on this bat exclusion I might find X problem." Or with pigeons "if I move them from here they may show up on that one little spot
and if I don't bid it in, I'm gonna lose money."

I'm an optimist by nature and it has served me well and continues to do so in all walks of my life, but in business plan for the worst and be
happily surprised when you do better. That doesn't mean that I charge people just to learn, I don't, but I do make sure I don't go with a bid
that says I'm not going to have any issues that might be unseen at the inspection day.

Again good thread hope it keeps going, Robb brings up an excellent point, some costs are growing in a big way and depending on how far
down the road you like to look when you start your business you have to imagine someday retiring from it or being unable to run it.

Either way, plan plan plan!

Justin

Right off the top few of us can ever charge enough !

Is your family insured and will they be OK if you die falling off a roof what happens to your family .

Insurance and Survivorship. What about the Family, and Your Spouse

I did a interview with ” Jim Pace ” James D. Pace, CIC – Vice President The Christian Baker Company shortly after the death of Kirk Lapierre . Get some professional answers regarding Insurance and Survivorship.

http://www.blubrry.com/wildlifecontrol/755737/insurance-survivorship-with-jim-pace/

You guys got me going back and practicing what I preach and I worked my barometer and found that I was realizing 2.33 per mile. Just a one man show with an occasionally hired contractors, grossed 129 K, drove 55455. Yesterday I wrote a check (23,000) to pay off my house. Small house but still proud and being careful, NOT. I have always tried to be honest with myself about what I took on and priced at or above market pricing.

The mileage per income is not about how much it cost to drive a mile of work effort. it was a very broad way of measuring your efforts verse reward. I drive a lot of non income producing miles so I need to charge a lot on my income producing miles. I tell it like this: , I work until I earn enough to play and than I play until I have to go back to work to earn more money to play.

Davek spoke about the allowance of the IRS for a mile. Remember this formula is not about the real cost per mile.

Use it as a measure of meeting your goals. fIRST

First figure out if you made enough with your current business/marketing plan to meet your goals, if you did divide your gross by your miles driven. this year mine was 2.33 I am happy and all is good , but if I was not happy and behind in paying bills, or meeting my financial goals, etc I would be trying new things, charging pricing and using the ratio to measure and compare.

It is more of a measure of being on track with your goals than a decision of how much to charge.

You have to have a way of evaluating your efforts was my point.

I am happy today and will reevaluate tomorrow.

Tim

I think that metric is interesting to compare to an outfit with multiple trucks. I think that it would show how much more efficient a larger operation could be run. For example, say a single truck operation obtains 2 customers per day. Whereas a 3 truck operation obtains 8 per day. With the higher volume....truck routes become more efficient. This allows greater sales/customers per day per truck....and less miles driven. I would guess the number would climb quite substantially...all else being equal.

Like most Metrics I guess if all is equal it could measure changes. It could become a NWCO thing to measure effort verses reward. It is very similar to the way populations are evaluated. Many don't understand biologist are not measuring actual numbers to make decisions on harvest quotas they are measuring change and adjusting. As long as the variables are constants, lol the value of change is valid.

Just a easy way to measure or evaluate. As I am thinking about this, it might be a way of asking NWCOs how they are doing without asking to tell the exact numbers. We could call it a Paul factor, or maybe a PAW factor to further disguise it. Devide your gross income by total millage and you have your PAW factor. $100,000.00 divided by 50,ooo miles equals a PAW factor of 2.

Good or bad ,MOTIVATION TO DO BETTER OR TAKE A VACATION WOULD BE UP TO YOU.

My PAW factor for 2012 was 2.33 and I had a very lazy year with many miles on vacation
.

You guys have given me many things to think about. Some I have already been mulling over and some I did not think about at all. So here is a couple of questions geared towards business practices.
How many of you offered credit card payment when you started?
How do you handle non-target catches, neighbors cat etc, possum instead of the skunk?

Jim