I have just started taking orders for by rod building business and was wondering how much of a mark up other builders charge as its been commented by people that i am really cheap?
for example if a rod costs me $100 for materials to build what should I be charging for my time?
Thoughts on this appreciated
Andi

If you do a search on the forum, you will find this topic has been covered more than once.

ok thank you jim

Andi,
Look at it this way.
If you were working a 9-5 job, what would be your expected hourly rate.

$5, $10, $15, $20 - $50, $100, $200 per hour.

These days, a typical auto garage charges about $130 per hour. Folks pay the bill.

In other words, if you go out and find a job, what would be your expected salary based on an hourly rate. This is your talent rate. Should your rod building rate be any less than what you would expect others to pay for your services?
For example, if your hourly rate is $20 and you spend 20 hours on the rod, your LABOR cost should be at least $400. Then, your component prices should be on top of that.

I know that when I go to my Dentist, his rate is about $50 per minute. I may not like it, but that is his rate but I pay it. i.e. the actual time that the DENTIST has his hands in my mouth, not office time, nor administrative time or assistant charges.

How long does it take you to build a rod? Take your hourly rate and multiply it by the number of hours that you spent on the rod.
Then, you should be buy ing your components at wholesale and either adding a 1/3rd or doubling the price of the components that you put on the rod.
Then, you need to add for shop time as well as shop materials.

A rather common rate, is to take the price of the blank and multiply it by 3-5 times for the final selling price of the rod.

Be safe

Thank you Roger for an informative and constructive response. Suffice to say I have def been undervaluing my work!!
Andi

G'Day Andi I think that there a lot of us that fall into the same boat regarding our hourly rate. Wh en I have my car serviced the rate is $85 hr & the workshop is never empty .I would find it hard to get that sort of money for a rod because most fishermen are a tight fisted lot . so what I do is estimate how long it will take to build the rod & set my rate at $80 hr plus components at 50% markup & if the customer is not happy with that they are shown the door. I have found that those really want a custom rod will pay.The others are wanting you to work for nothing & I don't want them as customers

Regards Baz

Bundeena
NSW Australia

I have never calculated or charged any sort of hourly rate. I was more of a piece-work sort of guy...the less time spent on the job the better.

As has been pointed out before, the quicker you complete a job (ie the better and more efficient you get), the less you earn at an hourly rate.

I wouldn't charge by time - as you get better as various rod building tasks you'll make less money. Charge for the job, or each job/task performed on the rod's assembly.

You'll have to decide if you want to do this as a business that makes money, or just puts a few dollars in your pocket for the heck of it. I wouldn't think you'd be doing very well if you made less than $100 per rod, and that would be a bare minimum.

In any event, once you sell a rod, even just one, you'll want to begin filing the IRS 720 Excise Tax Form and contact your state DOR for sales tax instructions.

.............

Do job pricing.
Simple job, no fancy feather/thread etc work: $100 plus parts.
never sell your effort short or devalue it.
Show parts cost on invoice as separate line item with shipping.
Add an extra cost for each additional task. e. g. match team colors with legal logos: $50 plus cost of logos.
Add marbling extra $25
etc.
have price list drawn up.
If multiple rods ordered consider a free 'add on' rather than a discount such as marbling thrown in free on second rod.
Discounting will hurt you down the road.

All plus appropriate tax for your state.
People may complain about taxes but it adds an air of professionalism, permanence and legitimacy to your business to be doing the right and legal thing.
Good quality work, clear communication of what the client is getting and an honest approach to everything will bring people back to you more than any 'under the radar' deals ever will.
You cannot build a business on anything else that is worth having.

Good morning,

Very interesting. Good responses for a difficult question that rod builders have been trying to figure out for a long time.

Sure I would like to get $80 per hour to build fishing rods. Who wouldn't?

We also have to be realistic. What is your customer base? How good is the economy in your area? How much money do they have available for fishing equipment? What type of fishing do they do? How much money are they willing to spend for a fishing rod? How many rod builders are you competing with? How good is your work? How does your work measure up against your competition? How much money do you think your work is worth? Many people will say a rod builders work is great until they hear what the rod builder's price is. Consumers want great items on the cheap! I can't blame them for that.

Rod builders come in all different flavors. Some expensive and some less expensive, some very experienced and some less, some do beautiful work and some so so, some are great designers and some not, some research the blanks they will use and test them and others don't. So you have to look at yourself and either see where you fit or chose where you want to fit in. We are all different and products of where we have come from.

Okay so you say these are all words and you are right. So I will make it personal, self analysis if you will.

I had my first Dale Clemens catalog around 1980 and his book shortly there after. Quickly found out I could not afford to buy the components needed as they were too expensive for me as my young family came first. I learned by rebuilding my own rods. Still looked forward to receiving the Clemens catalog every year. Fast forward to the 90's as I am running a party boat and can't get $60 for a rod built by me. Ha, ha, and you should have seen how bad many of the rods the anglers were using. Then I moved to another operation in a different locale. There my work was appreciated for what it was and I started selling and being paid more for my work.

Maybe 20 years or so ago I walked into a Dale Clemens Rod Crafter Seminar unannounced. That was my spring board to where I am today. These very fine gentlemen and rod builders took me in and adopted me as they do to all new members. Friends for life! They taught me so much and made me a better designer/builder.

So what about now? In many ways being involved with the Internet and a fishing web site has made a major positive difference in my business. In the past I have made surf, fly and boat rods (inshore and off shore). Presently I limit myself to boat rods as most of my customer base are inshore boat fisherman, party boats and private boats.

Understand that I am surrounded by some of the best rod designers/technicians/builders collected any place, RodProf, RodWinder, Billy40, Seane, RedHawk, SteveP, Stan, Altenkirk, and many under the radar that do very nice work. These are all very accomplished rod designers/builders. Each has a speciality, fishing knowledge, blank knowledge, attention to detail, thread artists (the best), weaving artists, grip specialities and such. Great competition among the builders and great for customers to choose who they want to create their new catching tool. So where do I fit in? Right where I want to be. I want to be known as the guy who will build you a very good basic rod at a reasonable price. For those who want real special work I send them to my friends on the list above. The wonderful thing that all of us on the list above have is that we are all friends and support each other.

Now to get to your question, how much to charge? How did I decide upon how much to charge? I will be the first to tell you that I m a terrible business man as I am a people person first. I do have a legal business, collect and pay the taxes, and work out of my home. It is supposed to be a retirement job, ha, ha. My goal is to give my customers the best I can for a reasonable price. So it is common knowledge that in order to save my customers money I charge them what I pay for the components if I build the rod. Insane, I know! I charge them $125 to design and build a basic rod and yes I will have to increase that in 2014. For any extra work there is a charge. I do not take a deposit as I do not want to hold onto someone's money. I know bad business. Remember I said that I am a people person first and foremost and then a lousy business person, ha, ha. Did I mention a 2 hour customer meeting takes place before ordering a rod to make sure the customer and I are on the same page in giving him/her what is wanted and or needed. I want my customers to know exactly what they are getting and why. Right now I am backed up 35 orders. Good and not so good. I want to go fishing, ha, ha!

Many of my customers are now friends that I fish with.

Funny story. My wife could hear me talking with a new customer at a design meeting. She heard the person tell me he has a new $750,000 41' Cabo with Mann diesels. Nice fishing machine! She says to me after the person had left, "Why were you trying to save him money by giving him other options. Didn't you hear him talk about his boat?". Ha, ha, bad business person!

All I can say Andi is this is what works for me and you have to find what works for you. Digest all and any info you get, make a decision and go for it!

Sorry I rambled on guys. Am sitting here on a beautiful Fall day. Should be out on Long Island Sound on a party boat catching big beautiful tasty porgys BUT have a bad cold keeping me from doing most everything but it is clearing up.

Take care all.

Capt Neil Faulkner

Capt Neil,

It was a pleasure to read your post and no it wan't too wordy, it was to the point.

Chester

May your line be tight and your beverages be cold!

Capt. Neil

Hope your cold gets better soon, it too beautiful out now to not be going fishing. And as for the 35 orders ? I'll bet anything that they all are willing to wait ??

Tom

Bel Air, Maryland

I started my business this year (add to my day job).
I'll try to build the Best Rod for the customer and give him options (if possible).
I'll go slowly if needed, I want to do the best, and build technical rater than fancy Rod.
Attention to détail is my goal, never had à customer complaining about price when they hold the resulting rod.
Some ask for lower price in à first approach, I tell them I build custom rod and it's not m'y goal.
I explain I not only ask money for my workmanship, but my expertise too.
I can duplicate some build to make a serie (say 5 to 10 identical rods) and drop the price down, it's not my goal at this moment.

You should take account of cost of component and time you spent to build of course, but keep in mind you also spend time ordering, have a room to work, need some tools and spend time in research and talking with customer.

As a part job I'm nearly full in less than one year, so I think my approach is good (best job I can do and customer satisfaction) you have to pay for the Best and my customers are happy with that.

There's so many factors that come into play for each builder and what they are charging. Maybe the guy just wants to make a couple bucks, maybe he's single, no family and has time on his hands. Maybe he works a 9-5 and wants to get paid well if he's going to go straight home and work again. So many things that can affect rates beyond skillset.

Over time you will figure out what is best for you, and whatever you decide to use from this post will surely change after the full experience has set in.

You might be getting answers from guys who build much different rods too. I would think profit margins would be different from fly rods to stand-up rods to bass rods to ice rods.

I have a set labor rate for building rods.


single foot spinner up to 8 foot is $65

Double foot spinner up to 8ft is $85

boat rods up to 8 foot with double foot guides $85

Any butt wrap is extra and will depend on the wrap
Example 6in chevron is $40 and so on.

I add a $18.50 shop charge to cover all the little stuff that adds up fast.

Then I go to the mud hole cat. and yet the customer chose at retail the components they want.

In the Custom rod world the customer will take what ever they can out of you. I am very proud of the work I do and my rods are worth what I charge. I am guess tis is your feelings as well. If you charge to little you will get work but that work will cost you in the end.

I’m new to rod building, but agree with not selling yourself short.
I work in the pharmaceutical field and the only ones making real money are the pharmaceutical manufacturers.
Any one that is downstream from them is making very little money (relatively speaking).
I’ll bet if rod builders start selling their custom rods for less, it’ll only go down from there.
These are custom made items and should sell as such.

Don’t sell yourself short.

I try to avoid pricing things in great detail when presenting a price to a customer. I don't like dealing with professionals, whether it's a plumber or auto mechanic, who list every $.39 nut, bolt, or fitting, then charge me book hours for labor when I know they complete it in half the time. I feel like they are nickel and diming me and they won't get my repeat business if they do so.

During a consultation with a client, I review all the work and componentry I will provide for them. In my mind I might be adding up the cost and my time, but I present them with a bottom line. Doing otherwise is like asking a painter to paint a portrait of your family, then having them charge you for each color of paint they use. Want cerulean blue for the sky in the background, that'll be an extra $40. Red ochre in that susnset, that'll be $35...

Flor grade cork vs. Select+ grade, that'll be an extra $.45 per ring. Two trim color underwrap vs. one color, $.25 per guide. Olive branch inlay $.50 per guide, double foot guides $1.00... I think you get what I am trying to convey. However you charge, present yourself like a pro.

A simple way to look at it is
Parts cost + shipping to you The builder -- and to the customer Unless he picks it up
Add the labor you want for say a Plain Jane rod Thread color Ya got to wrap it anyway Better guides

If any guides or blanks are what the customer wants They go into Cost of Parts
A seat of 5.00 or 50.00 goes on the same way Just the cost of the seat will Determane price

I take $ 100.00 IN MY POCKET

All fancy work like added colors in the handles Painted blank Are all extra

Bill - willierods.com

Even after a few years......a good read and solid points of view.