Sicc Media // Break the Mold \\ DARE TO BE EXTRAORDINARY.

Tag: Get Paid

  • B2B vs B2C Pricing Psychology Differences

    B2B vs B2C Pricing Psychology Differences

    A homeowner is spending their own money and feels every dollar. A facilities manager is spending someone else’s and is measured on whether the building stays open.

    TL;DR Homeowners buy on trust, certainty and avoiding disruption. Businesses buy on downtime, compliance and predictable budgeting. Same work, different framing, different terms, often different price.

    The core difference

    Homeowner Business
    Whose money Theirs The company’s
    Main fear Being overcharged or ripped off Downtime and blame
    Decision maker One or two people, same room Multiple, often absent
    Timeline Days Weeks, with approvals
    Payment On completion Net 30, purchase order
    Price sensitivity High, personal Lower, if justified
    What closes it Trust and certainty ROI and risk reduction

    Selling to homeowners

    They are afraid of being taken advantage of. Almost everything you do should reduce that fear.

    • Fixed prices, not hourly. Removes the fear of an open-ended bill.
    • The number stated early, before they have to ask.
    • Photos and evidence of what you found.
    • Named references from their area.
    • A written guarantee, in plain terms.
    • No pressure, said explicitly and meant.

    Emotional drivers. Safety of family, protecting the house, not being embarrassed by the state of something, sleeping properly.

    This is the one that could flood the ceiling below. That is the one I would do first.

    Concrete consequence, no drama. Overstating it is the thing that gives the trades a bad name.

    Selling to businesses

    They are afraid of downtime and of being blamed. Price is real but it is rarely the deciding factor.

    • Frame in cost of downtime. “If this fails on a Friday you are closed until Monday.”
    • Emphasise response guarantees. An SLA is worth more than a discount.
    • Provide documentation. Compliance records, certificates, warranties. Someone has to file these.
    • Make the approval easy. They need a document to show a manager. Give them one that is already formatted for it.
    • Offer predictable budgeting. Fixed monthly beats variable, even at a higher annual total.

    That last point surprises people. A facilities manager will often prefer a $600 monthly contract over $5,000 of unpredictable annual repairs, because a predictable line item is easier to defend than a surprise.

    The multi-stakeholder problem

    In business sales, the person you meet is rarely the person who signs.

    Build for the absent decision maker.

    • A one-page summary at the front of every proposal. Problem, options, recommendation, cost, risk of doing nothing.
    • Written so it survives being forwarded without you in the room.
    • Total cost of ownership, not just the invoice.
    • Ask directly: “Who else needs to see this, and what do they usually want to know?”

    That question saves weeks. The technical contact will tell you exactly what the finance person will ask.

    Payment terms

    Homeowners: on completion, card on file. Net 30 for a residential job is an unnecessary risk.

    Businesses: Net 30 is standard, Net 60 appears with larger organisations. Purchase orders often required before you start.

    Protections for B2B terms

    • Get the PO before starting. No PO, no work, no exceptions. This is the most common way small contractors get burned.
    • Confirm the invoicing address and process. Many large organisations reject invoices on formatting alone.
    • Price the delayed payment in. Net 60 means financing them for two months.
    • Milestone billing on larger projects.

    Master service agreements

    For recurring commercial work, an MSA is worth the setup.

    It contains the general terms, rates, service levels, insurance requirements and liability provisions. Then individual jobs run as short work orders under it.

    Why it helps you. One negotiation instead of many. Rates and escalation locked. Faster approvals, because the terms are already agreed.

    Include an annual escalation clause. MSAs run for years and a fixed rate becomes painful.

    Should you charge businesses more?

    Often yes, and for defensible reasons rather than because they can afford it.

    Legitimate reasons for a higher B2B rate

    • Higher insurance and liability requirements.
    • Compliance documentation and reporting.
    • Response time commitments.
    • Out-of-hours work to avoid disrupting operations.
    • Extended payment terms, which cost you.
    • Administrative overhead of POs and vendor portals.

    Those are real costs. Price them in rather than applying a vague premium.

    Running both

    Plenty of service businesses serve both markets. Keep them genuinely separate.

    • Separate rate cards.
    • Separate proposal templates.
    • Separate payment terms.
    • Separate landing pages, because the messaging is different.

    Do not let commercial terms leak into residential work. Net 30 for homeowners is how small contractors end up chasing money.

    Look at your last ten jobs and split them into residential and commercial. If you are quoting both from the same template with the same terms, one of those groups is getting the wrong offer.

    Need a pro to build both? [BOOK A CALL]

  • Creating Minimum Project Fees to Filter Leads

    Creating Minimum Project Fees to Filter Leads

    Small jobs are not small. The drive, the setup, the paperwork and the follow-up cost the same whether the invoice says $90 or $900.

    TL;DR Calculate what a job genuinely costs you before any profit, then set a minimum above it. Publish it. The leads you lose were losing you money.

    The true cost of a small job

    Price the whole event, not the work.

    Cost Typical
    Drive time, both ways 45 to 90 min
    Setup and pack down 20 min
    The actual work 30 min
    Invoicing and admin 10 min
    Scheduling and phone time 15 min
    Vehicle, fuel, wear Per mile
    Overhead share Per job

    A “quick 30-minute job” typically occupies two to three hours of a working day once everything is counted.

    Do the arithmetic once. Take your monthly overhead, divide by jobs completed, and add fully loaded labour for the real duration. Most owners find their break-even per job is well above what they charge for small work.

    Setting the number

    Minimum = true cost + target margin, rounded up.

    Then sanity check it two ways:

    • Against your calendar. If small jobs are filling slots that could hold profitable ones, the minimum should be higher.
    • Against your market. If your minimum is wildly above local norms, expect to explain it. That is fine if you can.

    Common structures

    Structure How it works Best for
    Flat minimum “$250 minimum per visit” Simple, easy to explain
    Call-out plus work “$95 call-out, applied to the job” Covers the trip regardless
    Minimum hours “Two-hour minimum” Where duration varies
    Tiered by distance Higher minimum outside a radius Wide service areas

    Flat minimum is easiest for customers to understand, and comprehension reduces objections.

    Publish it

    Hiding the minimum wastes everybody’s time. You take the call, they describe a $90 job, and one of you has an awkward conversation.

    Where it belongs

    • Your website pricing or FAQ page.
    • Your Google Business Profile service descriptions.
    • Your phone greeting or intake script.
    • Your contact form, as a line of text near the submit button.

    How to word it

    Our minimum service visit is $250. Most repairs fall between $250 and $650. If your job is smaller than that, we are probably not the most economical choice, and we would rather tell you now.

    That last sentence does real work. It is honest, it respects their time, and it makes the minimum sound like consideration rather than greed.

    Intake questions that pre-qualify

    Filter before the call ends, not after the van arrives.

    Ask early

    • What exactly needs doing?
    • Is this one item or several?
    • Is anything else on the list while we are there?

    That third question is the useful one. Many small jobs become viable when bundled. “Is there anything else that has been bothering you? If we can do two or three things in one visit it usually works out better for you.”

    A meaningful share of sub-minimum enquiries convert into viable jobs simply by asking whether there is anything else.

    Redirecting the leads you turn away

    Do it well and it pays you back.

    Options

    • Refer them on. “We do not do jobs that size, but [handyman] does and is reliable.” Costs you nothing, buys goodwill, and they remember you when the big job comes.
    • Offer a bundled visit. “If you can hold it until you have two or three things, we can do them all in one trip.”
    • Offer a scheduled fill-in slot. Some businesses batch small jobs into one day a month at a reduced minimum. Efficient, because the drive time is shared.
    • Point them at a DIY resource if it is genuinely simple. You lose a job you did not want and gain someone who trusts you.

    Never just say no and hang up. The person with the $90 job this year may have the $9,000 job next year, and they will remember how you treated them.

    Handling the objection

    “That’s a lot for a small job.”

    I understand. The minimum covers getting a fully equipped van and a licensed technician to your door, which costs the same whether the job takes twenty minutes or two hours. If you have a couple of other things that need doing, we can usually get through them in the same visit and it works out much better value.

    Calm, factual, and it offers a way to make it work.

    Exceptions, decided in advance

    Have a policy so you are not deciding emotionally on each call.

    Reasonable exceptions

    • Existing membership or maintenance customers.
    • A second job at the same address on the same day.
    • A job adjacent to one already booked that morning.
    • Warranty work on your own installation.

    Not reasonable exceptions. Somebody who pushed back hard. Making one exception under pressure teaches that pressure works.

    What to expect

    You will lose enquiries. That is the mechanism working.

    Your revenue per job rises, and usually your total profit rises even with fewer jobs, because the removed work was below cost.

    Your calendar opens up for work worth doing.

    Calculate what one small job actually costs you, including drive time and overhead share. If that number is higher than what you have been charging, you have been paying for the privilege of doing the work.

    Need a pro to model your minimums? [BOOK A CALL]

  • Discounting Without Ruining Brand Value

    Discounting Without Ruining Brand Value

    A discount given because somebody asked teaches them that your prices are opinions.

    TL;DR Every discount must require something in return: volume, prepayment, timing, or commitment. Never discount reactively. When you must move on price, remove scope instead of cutting the number.

    The rule

    Nothing comes off the price without something coming back.

    Discount What you get back
    Prepay annual Cash flow, near-zero churn
    Multi-service bundle Higher total value
    Off-season booking Filled capacity in a dead month
    Multi-year agreement Predictable revenue
    Referral credit New customer acquisition
    Bulk or multi-property Efficiency, one mobilisation
    “Can you do better?” Nothing. Do not discount

    That last row is the whole discipline. A reactive discount buys you one job and costs you every future negotiation with that customer.

    Why reactive discounting is expensive

    • It reprices retrospectively. They now know your real number, and every future quote starts from the discounted one.
    • It says the first number was invented. Which damages trust more than the price ever did.
    • It travels. People tell neighbours what they paid, and in a small market that becomes your price.
    • It attracts the wrong customers, who negotiate everything and refer other negotiators.

    Structures that work

    Prepayment

    Pay the year upfront and get one month free.

    Effectively about 8% off, and you get twelve months of cash immediately with almost no churn risk. This is usually the best discount a service business can offer.

    Off-peak

    Book your service in February and save 15%.

    Costs you margin in a month where the alternative was an empty van. Genuinely free money.

    Bundling

    Any three services, 10% off the total.

    Raises average job value. The discount is funded by the efficiency of one visit.

    Commitment

    Two-year agreement locks this rate with no annual increase.

    You trade the escalation clause for term certainty. Model it before offering, because a long fixed term in a rising cost environment can hurt.

    Referral

    $50 credit for you and $50 for them.

    Cheapest customer acquisition available, and it only pays out on success.

    Bonus services instead of price cuts

    When you feel pressure to move, add value rather than subtract price.

    Instead of Offer
    10% off Free follow-up visit in 6 months
    $200 off Extended warranty, one year to two
    Discount Priority scheduling for twelve months
    Discount An additional service included

    Why this is better. Your headline price holds. The added item costs you less than its perceived value. And the customer gets something real rather than just paying less.

    A free follow-up visit costs you an hour and reads as worth far more.

    First-time customer promotions, used carefully

    The risk. You attract people optimising for the introductory price, who churn when it ends and never pay full rate.

    How to do it better

    • Discount a specific entry service, not everything.
    • Make it a genuine trial rather than a permanent lower tier.
    • Tie it to something. “First service half price when you join the maintenance plan.”
    • Never advertise it to existing customers, who will reasonably ask why loyalty costs more.

    That last point causes real damage. An existing customer seeing a better deal for newcomers is a churn risk and a review risk.

    When somebody just asks for a discount

    The most common situation and the one worth scripting.

    Our pricing is straightforward and I do not have room to move on it. What I can do is look at scope, or timing. If you can be flexible on when we come, there is an off-peak rate. Or if there is part of this you would rather handle yourself, we can take that out and it comes down. Which would be more useful?

    What that achieves. It holds the price, offers two genuine routes, and keeps the conversation collaborative. Most people take one of the two options.

    Removing scope, not price

    If you have to reach a number, take something out.

    To get to $2,400 I would need to take out the disposal and the making good, so you would be arranging those. The work itself is the same. Does that work?

    This is honest and it protects your rate. The customer gets the number they wanted and understands exactly what they gave up for it. Nobody learns that your prices are soft.

    Discounts you should never give

    • To match a competitor’s price on a different scope of work.
    • Under threat of a bad review. That is close to extortion and it never ends there.
    • On emergency or after-hours work. The premium exists for a reason.
    • Retroactively, after the job is done.
    • To somebody who is already your least profitable customer.

    Track it

    • Total discount given monthly, as a percentage of revenue. Most owners have never measured this and are surprised.
    • Discounts by reason. Structured versus reactive.
    • Margin on discounted jobs versus standard.
    • Whether discounted customers return at full price. Frequently they do not.

    Add up every discount you gave last quarter. If the total is a meaningful share of your profit and most of it was reactive, you have found money you can recover this month by simply having a script.

    Need a pro to build your discount policy? [BOOK A CALL]

  • Financing & Buy-Now-Pay-Later Integration

    Financing & Buy-Now-Pay-Later Integration

    The customer who says “we cannot afford that right now” often means “we cannot afford that this month.” Those are different problems with different answers.

    TL;DR Financing raises average job value and closes work that would otherwise be deferred. You pay a merchant fee for that. Do the arithmetic before deciding, and be scrupulously careful about how you present it.

    Where financing genuinely helps

    Strong fit

    • Jobs above roughly $2,000 where the number causes hesitation.
    • Failures that cannot wait, like heating in winter, where the customer is stuck.
    • Upgrades and improvements competing against doing nothing.
    • Situations where a customer downgrades to a cheaper option purely on monthly affordability.

    Poor fit

    • Small repairs. The fee eats the margin and nobody needs terms on $300.
    • Customers who can comfortably pay and are simply negotiating.

    The merchant fee arithmetic

    This is the part that gets skipped and it decides whether financing helps or hurts.

    How it works. You offer promotional terms, the lender pays you in full within days, and you pay a merchant discount fee. Longer or more promotional terms cost more.

    Offer Typical merchant fee range
    Standard interest-bearing to customer 0 to 3%
    6 months, no interest 3 to 6%
    12 months, no interest 5 to 9%
    18 to 24 months, no interest 8 to 15%

    Fees vary substantially by provider, credit profile and industry. Get your actual rate card before modelling anything.

    The decision

    Job value $8,000. 12-month no-interest promo at 7% = $560 fee. Net $7,440.

    Worth it if the alternative was losing the job, or the customer downgrading to a $5,000 option.

    Not worth it if they would have paid $8,000 anyway.

    The honest test. Does financing win you work you would otherwise lose, or does it just cost you a fee on work you already had? Track both.

    Ways to handle the fee

    • Absorb it and treat it as a cost of sale. Simplest, and usually correct for high-margin work.
    • Build it into pricing across the board. Fair, but everyone pays for a service some use.
    • Offer a cash discount instead of a financing surcharge. This distinction matters legally. Surcharging cards is restricted or regulated in several states and by card network rules. Framing it as a discount for cash or cheque is generally safer. Check your local rules.

    Choosing a provider

    Ask every provider these questions

    • What is my actual merchant fee for each promotional term?
    • What is the approval rate for my typical customer profile?
    • Is it a soft credit check to pre-qualify?
    • How fast do I get paid?
    • Can the customer apply on their own phone, on site?
    • What happens if the customer defaults? Is there recourse to me?
    • Are there monthly minimums or platform fees?

    That last one on recourse is critical. Most consumer financing is non-recourse, meaning the lender carries the default risk. Confirm it in writing.

    Common providers in home services include Wisetack, Affirm, Synchrony and GreenSky, alongside options built into field service platforms. Availability and terms vary by trade and region.

    Presenting it without pressure

    This is where businesses get into trouble, both ethically and legally.

    Do

    • Offer it as one option among several, after presenting the price.
    • Show the monthly figure alongside the total. “$8,000, or about $667 a month for twelve months, no interest.”
    • Let them apply themselves, on their own phone.
    • Say the terms plainly, including what happens after any promotional period.

    Do not

    • Lead with the monthly payment and obscure the total. That is the practice regulators watch.
    • Fill in the application for them.
    • Present financing as a reason to buy more than they need.
    • Imply approval before it happens.
    • Discuss their credit outcome with anyone.

    The rule. Financing should help somebody buy what they already decided they need. It should never be the reason they decide.

    Compliance, briefly

    Consumer credit is regulated. You are typically a merchant, not a lender, but obligations still apply.

    • Advertise terms accurately. If you state “0% APR,” associated disclosure requirements attach. Use the provider’s approved marketing language.
    • Do not state or imply approval odds.
    • Handle applicant information carefully.
    • Keep the provider’s disclosures intact. Do not paraphrase them.

    This is not legal advice. Ask your provider for their compliant marketing kit and use it.

    Where to surface it

    • On your pricing page, as a line: “Financing available on jobs over $2,000.”
    • In your quote document, showing both total and indicative monthly.
    • On the tablet at close, as an option in the proposal.
    • In seasonal campaigns for higher-ticket work.

    Measure it properly

    • Percentage of jobs financed.
    • Average job value, financed versus not. The gap is the real benefit.
    • Total merchant fees paid, monthly.
    • Approval rate. A low rate means the provider is wrong for your customers.
    • Close rate on quotes above $2,000, before and after offering it.

    That last comparison is the only one that proves it worked.

    Get an actual rate card from one provider this week and run the numbers on your last five jobs over $2,000. That takes twenty minutes and tells you whether this is worth doing at all.

    Need a pro to model it? [BOOK A CALL]

  • Structuring Emergency & After-Hours Rates

    Structuring Emergency & After-Hours Rates

    Getting out of bed at 2am should pay properly. It only does if the customer agreed to the number before you left the house.

    TL;DR Publish tiered rates by time band. Disclose on the phone before dispatch, every time. Get a verbal yes and log it. Never let a premium rate first appear on the invoice.

    Price the disruption, not just the hour

    An after-hours call costs more than overtime.

    • Overtime labour, at premium rates.
    • The disruption itself. Sleep, family time, the reason people leave trades.
    • Next-day capacity. A 2am call degrades tomorrow’s work.
    • Availability. You are holding someone on call whether the phone rings or not.

    That last one is the cost most businesses never price. Being available is a service, and it costs you even on quiet nights.

    The tier structure

    Band Hours Multiplier
    Standard Mon to Fri, 8am to 5pm 1x
    Evening 5pm to 10pm 1.5x
    Overnight 10pm to 8am 2x
    Weekend Sat and Sun 1.5x
    Holiday Published list 2x

    Plus a call-out fee for the trip itself, which should be higher after hours than during the day.

    Keep the bands simple. Four tiers people can understand beats nine that require a calculator.

    Publish the holiday list. “Holiday rates apply on the following dates” removes an argument every December.

    Disclose before dispatch, always

    This single discipline prevents almost every emergency-pricing dispute.

    The dispatcher script

    I can get someone out to you tonight. Before I book it, our after-hours rate is a $175 call-out plus $195 an hour, and there is usually a one to two hour minimum depending on what we find. Daytime tomorrow would be $95 call-out and $130 an hour. Which would you prefer?

    What that achieves

    • The number is stated before anyone moves.
    • Two genuine options, so they have a real choice.
    • A minimum, so the range is not open-ended.
    • A yes you can log.

    Then note it on the job. Date, time, who confirmed, what was quoted. Many businesses follow up with a confirming text before dispatch, which is stronger still.

    The confirming text

    Thirty seconds, and it eliminates disputes.

    Confirming: after-hours call-out $175 plus $195/hr, minimum 1 hour. Tech on the way, ETA 45 min. Reply Y to confirm. – Sicc Plumbing

    A reply of “Y” is a written record. Screenshot it into the job file.

    On-site disclosure, before starting

    Say it once more when you arrive, before any tools come out.

    Just to confirm what you were quoted on the phone: it is the after-hours rate, $175 call-out plus $195 an hour. Based on what I can see this looks like about two hours, so somewhere around $565. If I find something that changes that, I will stop and tell you before I carry on.

    That last clause is the change-order promise, and it is what prevents the worst version of this conversation later.

    Waiving the call-out, strategically

    The call-out fee is a useful negotiating tool if you use it deliberately.

    Reasonable to waive

    • When the repair goes ahead and is substantial.
    • For membership customers, as a stated benefit.
    • When you misdiagnosed on the phone and wasted their time.

    Not reasonable

    • Because they pushed. That teaches everyone to push.
    • Routinely, which means it was never a real fee.

    “The call-out is waived when the repair goes ahead” is a clean, popular policy. It rewards the outcome you want and it is easy to explain.

    Automatic premium invoicing

    Get this out of your head and into the system.

    • Set time-band rules in your field service software so the rate applies automatically based on dispatch time.
    • Show the rate on the invoice as a line item, named. “After-hours rate applied, 5pm to 10pm.”
    • Include the quoted range from the phone call on the invoice, so it visibly matches.
    • Attach the confirmation where the software allows.

    Naming the premium on the invoice is important. A total with no explanation invites a call. A line saying exactly why is self-explaining.

    The genuine emergency exception

    When a storm, freeze or heatwave creates community-wide distress, hold your published rates rather than raising them further.

    Two reasons. Many jurisdictions activate price gouging statutes during declared emergencies, with real penalties. And a business that raised prices during a freeze becomes a local story that outlasts the revenue by years.

    Your normal after-hours rate is already published and already understood. Applying it consistently during a crisis is defensible. Inventing a crisis rate is not.

    Deciding whether to offer after-hours at all

    Not every business should.

    Offer it if the premium genuinely compensates the disruption, somebody reliably answers, and your trade has real emergencies.

    Do not offer it if you will answer inconsistently, because an advertised 24-hour service that rings out produces worse reviews than no after-hours service at all.

    Being honest about your hours beats overpromising. “We are 7am to 6pm, and here is who we recommend overnight” is a perfectly respectable position.

    Write your rate table and publish it on your site this week. The premium is only defensible if the customer could have found it before they called.

    Need a pro to structure it? [CALL NOW]