Services pricing & bio (Common rates for service)

[gerry.sorensen]

Hi I'm Gerry and new to the forum and on line academy. Before I ask my questions, I feel I need to give a short bio to set the stage; please forgive the length and BTW, my intent is not to toot my horn but to establish my skill set which, will hopefully prompt reasonable answers.

I'm 74, retired, and looking to generate a supplemental income that is relatively clean and doesn't require extensive physical effort. I'm a experienced electrical testing engineer with Quality Assurance skills in both hardware and software. Having been raised on the farm with a dad who supplemented his income, during the winter months, with an automotive repair business. With that said, I'm a gear head with high mechanical & intuitive skills. I also have extensive machining experience & repair in manual and CNC lathes and milling stations. BTW, I'm also a novice guitar Luthier.

I purchased practical clock repairing by Donald De Carle, found a wealth of remarkable informative YouTube videos, purchased your online course, have a reasonable shop with most of the tools I need, and small lab which I'm turning into a Clock repair lab as I go. I have 2 grandfather, 2 wall (1 coo coo) and 2 mantel jobs for friends who claim finding repair services are very scarce and running at least 3 weeks behind. After researching the market and service industry, I can't think of a better opportunity or a more fascinating vocation, to utilize my skills, experience, and abilities.

With all that said, what are most of you charging for services? Please add, if you will, the number of years you've been in business.
Regards,
Waxahachie, (45 minutes south of DFW) Texas
[email protected]

[gerry.sorensen]

After thinking about my request, it became apparent that my service rate request is a bit presumptuous. It took a little time and effort, but I was able to locate a Gentleman who has closed his business in my area and moved to another more distant area. He gave me a few pointers on how much he charged.

[Clocks-R-Me]

Welcome to the forum Gerry!
That's a very common question and not presumptuous at all. We have had that discussion many times here on this forum.
it has just been a very slow summer up here so far. Probably due to Covid and people getting back into the world for the time being.
You can do a search in the forum search box and should see a lot of past discussion on the topic.
What you have probably discovered so far out the in cyberville is that prices range varies greatly depending on location and local costs to run a business such as
rent and other expenses and average incomes in your area. Do take a look at some of the past forum discussions and you should get a pretty good idea of
how people determine their prices. Try putting something like REPAIR PRICES or HOW MUCH TO CHARGE in the search box. You can also use the advanced search option to zero in on more specific interests if too many unrelated topics come up.
BTW Gerry, with your background I think you have what it takes to do very well with Clock Repair.

Good luck and all the best!
Dan

[gerry.sorensen]

Thanks Dan, at this point I'm finding that some of the tools, even used, necessary for minimizing labor costs are priced pretty high. I've joined the NAWCC and about to start checking for recent long-in-the-tooth clock repair business retiree's who are liquidating their equipment. If you or anyone know of such cases, I'd sure appreciate being informed of such.
Thanks for your reply.
Ger