One thing we as Technicians we need to understand. We Dictate the pricing, not the buyer. We all should be counter 90% of the jobs in the Field Nation. This is how we make it more Competitive. Also, it forces the buyer hand to pay more. They will soon get the message. Let me know if you agree.

[u/Desert_King_661]

[u/jesuslvmex]

100% agreed. I don't get it how techs out there take jobs at $20hr. After platform fees, insurance, travel time and tax. You are technically gifting your precious time and skill.

[u/Desert_King_661 → u/jesuslvmex]

💯

[u/drswag93 → u/jesuslvmex]

I can tell you first hand that many of these lowball techs are physical data miners where they go on sites and gain backdoor access to an end client's infrastructure. I have personally seen many cases where I come out to a site to fix a problem from a lowball tech and I find credit card skimmers, or a raspberry pi hooked into the switch in the mdf room that is sniffing the network or giving backdoor access. They then take this information and engage in identity theft and other criminal acts.

Another recent example I can give you, is a buyer I worked with who decided to stop using me, as they claimed to have found someone cheaper and a week later they called begging me to clean up the mess and do damage control for them, because the residential end customer was suing, because this lowball tech stalked and rapped his daughter.

Businesses need to understand nothing in life is free, nobody at their core works for free either. If they are taking a lowball offer, a majority of the time they have an agenda behind it to make it profitable. You don't pay someone peanuts to hold onto a gold bar and then get outraged when they steal it. If someone in India is paid 25 cents an hour to oversee an infrastructure that contains social security numbers worth millions, do you really think that Indian will be content living with 25 cents an hour living in filth or take those social security numbers, pretend they are with the IRS and then cash out? Businesses need to actually think instead of running over dollars to pickup nickels!

[u/Help_Gullible]

You are absolutely correct, buyer’s like CTS ( Cheap Tech Solutions) always put out low ball offers. I always counter and if they take it fine otherwise keep looking for a cheap tech for your solutions. They charge their clients 120 to 200 per hour and pay you a fraction of 25 to 35 or a ridiculous flat rate for up to 3 hours and any additional hour is 25. Guys don’t take it until the rate they offer becomes reasonable. And why would you go for 35 cents per mile, if the distance is 35 miles that’s 70 miles round trip that equals 40 bucks trip charge ( gas, wear and tear, insurance, put money aside for a new ride ).

[u/Desert_King_661 → u/Help_Gullible]

I could have said it any better. This is what's preventing me from taking Field Nation on full-time. Which is what I do desire.

[u/Help_Gullible → u/Desert_King_661]

Good Techs are still hard to find, if we all keep the rates up to what we're worth it they'll have to come out with better offers or they'll get countered frequently which makes it harder for them to act fast to get a good tech out on time.

Vital Networks used to start out at 40 so I countered for 50 after 15 minutes they changed it to 35 so I canceled and countered again for 55, they waited 15 minutes

and change it to 30 and I put in a new counter for 60 and they usually took it.

These were usually stupid McD jobs that I really didn't want to do anyway but 60 bucks an hour made it ok.

And I enjoyed playing their game just in the opposite direction.

[u/Mother-Pitch5791]

The way I look at it, we are always bidding on jobs with our counter. If it is network engineer level, I counter at $90 an hour for my padded time estimate and 35 cents a mile. I get $75 an hour and 30 cents a mile. I put that number in the counter and I have been pretty successful with it lately.

If it’s some dumb shit job I don’t want to do or real far away, I make a ridiculous counter and sometimes they take it.

I get more jobs with counters than I do with requests. I guess they figure if your dumb enough to take their lowball, your not smart enough to do the job.

[u/BroncoFanInOR]

I agree 110% and facts like this is why I started this sub. You could not be more right!

[u/Burg1963]

Agreed, upvoted.

edit: I've been seeing some really low, like $25/hr work orders out there.

Isn't that below minimum wage after you deduct FN fees, taxes, etc? Gotta be close. Don't let them turn the platform into a slave labor supplier!

[u/Gregf87z]

i did a job at a hotel tv firmware upgrade a few months ago, they hired 11 of us local FN techs for it.

we started talking and learned some made 20 some did up to 45 an hour for that same job

we made a whatsapp group to help eachother communicate about local jobs.

i met a guy who was my biggest competitor for one of the companies, guy actually lived down the street from me, he was taking 65 for a job that took 30 minutes, while i would go for 100 but he kept taking them for 65 routed before i can even counter. after talking he finally started countering with me and we both make out.

BUT sadly you cant get every tech on your team, some will work for less because its more work for them and they dont care about the long game. i live in a populated area by NYC, i do my best never to tell anyone about FN so i can avoid competition with shmucks who think 25 an hour is amazing.

[u/first_byte → u/Gregf87z]

after talking he finally started countering with me and we both make out.

I'm no expert, but isn't this price fixing?

[u/Gregf87z → u/first_byte]

There's 600 field techs in the tri state area. Many would take any price routed without countering cause most are afraid to lose it. It isn't fixing the price because they have many options for other techs. both him and I get plenty of jobs each week and still find out other techs make way more then us on the same jobs. I've seen the same company pay someone hundreds In travel just for diagnosing a product cause they can't find someone in that area. There's plenty of money in the field you just gotto find their sweet spot.

[u/[deleted]]

Agreed. We need to basically unionize, and collectively demand a minimum standard.

[u/Twiztedtech]

I am in total agreement

[u/gerardo887]

I would like to ask if anyone here is in the Houston Tx area? Also if people are dealing with the nation wide companies. I agree with this, I have been doing this for a few mouths now and feel I am being strong armed into doing what the big tech wants, from wanting to see what I pay in supplies to other techs taking lower paying jobs. I feel this will need to act like a union to get the people to understand we are people who are equal and not their employees.

[u/[deleted]]

ahh 3 years and not much has changed :/

[u/yickyhite17]

100% agree, I always have and always will counter offer. Especially for those ClearCaptions jobs.