I know an operator with a rule they’re proud of, and they should be: “I don’t roll a truck for less than two grand.” It has saved them from a hundred lowball jobs that would’ve run them ragged for a handshake and a headache. Good rule. Hard-won.
But I watched that rule turn away an easy Friday-afternoon call — a small job close by, a truck already sitting in the yard with nowhere else to be — because it only paid twelve hundred. They passed on principle. And the principle, that particular afternoon, cost them about four hundred dollars of very nearly free money. Because by that Friday, everything the twelve-hundred-dollar job would’ve had to pay for had already been paid.
That’s the whole idea in this one, and it’s the last piece of the puzzle we’ve been building: once you know your nut, you can finally answer the question that actually runs a shop day to day — what does the next job have to beat?
The next job doesn’t have to climb the whole wall.
Here’s the thing almost everybody gets backwards. Your fixed nut — that $6,100 wall from last time — is a monthly wall, not a wall you face on every job. You climb it once a month, with your steady work. And here’s the part that changes everything: once it’s covered, it’s covered. It doesn’t reset for the next job. It’s done until the 1st.
So the next job — the fill-in, the after-hours call, the one that shows up when your regular work has already cleared the nut — doesn’t have to pay the rent again. The rent is paid. That job only has to beat one thing: what it actually drags in the door with it. The extra materials. The gas. A couple of hours. The pros call that “marginal cost.” For us normal people, it’s what the next job actually costs you — just the extra, because everything else is already paid for.
Beat that number, and every dollar over it is yours.
You’ve seen this a hundred times without ever naming it: it’s the empty seat the airline sells cheap right before the gate closes. The plane is leaving either way, so a few dollars beats an empty seat every single time. Only difference, and it matters: their extra seat costs them a bag of pretzels, while your extra job still drags real copper and fuel through the door. So you’re not taking anything. You’re taking anything above what the job actually costs you to run.
What it looks like in your shop.
It’s late in the month. Your regular calls have already covered the nut — the wall’s behind you, the rest of the month is finally paying you. Then the phone rings: a job you’d normally price at $2,000, but the customer can only do $1,200.
Your two-grand rule says pass. The spreadsheet in your head agrees: “a $2,000 job runs me eight hundred in materials, plus my share of overhead — call it eleven hundred all in. At twelve hundred I’m barely breaking even. Not worth the drive.”
But that overhead share is a ghost. You already paid your overhead this month. It’s not going to cost you a second time because you took one more call. The only real cost of this job is the extra it drags in — the $800 of materials and fuel. So:
Twelve hundred in, eight hundred of real cost out. It leaves behind $400 — and because the wall’s already climbed, that $400 isn’t “barely breaking even.” It’s four hundred dollars that didn’t exist a minute ago, earned on a truck that was going to sit in the yard either way. The job that looked too cheap to take was the best-paying hour of the week.
One rule, or this bites you.
Now hear the other half, because without it this idea will sink you: this only works on the extra job, filling time you were going to waste anyway. It is not your new price.
If you start quoting twelve hundred on work you’d have gotten two grand for, you’re not filling idle time — you’re just handing away eight hundred dollars and teaching your customers your real number was never real. Worse, price your whole book that thin and you’ll never cover the nut at all — remember, it takes about $10,000 of honest, full-margin work to clear that wall every month. The fill-in rate is for the truck that would otherwise be parked. The moment it becomes your everyday rate, the wall stops getting climbed and the whole thing comes down.
Full price builds the business. The marginal job just makes sure an idle truck still throws off a few dollars instead of none.
What to do Monday.
Nothing to calculate — you already carry every number this needs. Next time a job comes in that feels too cheap to bother with, before you wave it off, run it past two things you already know:
Is my nut covered this month yet? And is there a truck sitting idle?
If both are yes, that job doesn’t have to beat your full price. It only has to beat its own gas and materials — roughly the 40 cents on the dollar you already found back in week two. Clear that, and it’s found money on time you were about to give away for free. If the nut’s not covered yet, hold your full price. That work still has a wall to climb, and it’s the work that climbs it.
And here’s the part only you can do.
The arithmetic here is nothing — $400 beats $0, a child can see it. The judgment is knowing when. Which jobs are truly extra, filling a truck that would sit idle — and which times you’re just discounting real work and training a good customer to expect the cheap number next time too. A spreadsheet can tell you $400 is more than nothing. It can’t tell you whether taking this one at this price protects a slow week or quietly erodes your rate for the next ten jobs. That’s not math. That’s you, reading the situation the way only the owner can.
So here’s what you’ve actually got now, four issues in. You know which costs come whether you work or not. You know what a job really leaves behind. You know your nut. And now you know that once it’s covered, the next job plays by different rules — that the thing your pride told you to turn down might be the easiest money you make all week, as long as you never let it become the whole game. That’s not bookkeeping. That’s the instinct of someone who runs the place — and you’ve had it the whole time. We just gave it the numbers.
— MJ
Next time: the trucks, the tools, the building — all that expensive stuff you’re still paying for. The question isn’t just what it costs. It’s whether it’s earning its keep, or just being lazy.
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Pass it on. If you know someone running a shop who’d rather be told the truth than sold a service, send them this one.
The tools are free. Six of them, no sign-up, and they run on your own numbers: check.wr0ngwaay.com