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When I Doubled Prices on a Service
Some of the best advice I ever got, which can be hard to follow, is to regularly work on my business rather than just in it. The value multiplier to regularly spend time working on the business is hard to calculate.
One of several businesses I have owned was a furniture restoration business. Regluing and repairing chairs was one of our most popular services. It’s cheaper to fix a couple of overused chairs than replace a dining room set.
We had set a price when we opened the business without much information to back that price up. It was a dartboard price. When I eventually broke down how much this work was costing us I realized we were at best breaking even. Not a formula for business success for a popular service.
It’s a lot of work to take a chair completely apart, (without breaking anything) clean out the old joints, glue, and clamp everything back together. We also had a forest of clamps that cost from $20 to $80 each. Our experienced carpenter that did most of this work was really good and we paid him well.
