People with trade skills are always faced with the old ‘mates rates’ dilemma, so how do you offer or not offer them without affecting relationships with family and friends? Brad Fallon explains.

My wife always tells me how glad she is to work in a profession that has no practical application to regular, everyday life (she’s an archaeologist) because she never has to worry about that delicate task of negotiating and undertaking plumbing jobs for friends, neighbours, friends of friends, relatives and other people within your social circle and networks.

For that reason, I thought I’d write about how I deal with some of these different scenarios, including some of my most helpful tips for ensuring that you are adequately paid for the work you do. I’ll also provide advice on how to say no to work that you don’t want without offending anyone, and probably most interestingly, how to fairly implement that old-fashioned bartering system to allow for an exchange of your skills for the skills of your friends so that you all benefit (think IT help, accounting, carpentry, even hairdressing).

GOOD FOR BUSINESS
The first thing I wanted to discuss is how positive feedback from family and friends can be great for business. I get a lot of work through friends and relatives, whether it be for their investment properties, their work place, for their friends and other close associates. It’s business that I really appreciate because by using me to do their jobs time and time again, and recommending me for jobs to friends of theirs, it’s an endorsement of my skills (and those of my staff) which makes me feel great about the quality of the work that I do. It also brings work in and helps to keep my business busy. I also enjoy assisting my mates and family, so when someone I know calls in a panic because of a blocked sewer, a burst hot water heater or something similar, I am really glad to be able to help fix the problem.

Therein lies the problem though – the stress I then cause myself when it comes to pricing the job. When you have a professional relationship with a client, whether it be a strata company, real estate agent or home owner, it’s easy to apply your standard pricing structure – there are the two key variables which give you the cost of the total job – i.e. material and labour costs which, when added, make up the total price. The labour costs are likely to vary based on when the job was undertaken – whether it was done during standard business hours on Monday to Friday, or whether it was weekend or night-time emergency work. Again, I have standard prices that I charge according to these factors, which gives me my total price. I know that my standard prices are on par with those of plumbers in my industry, so I don’t doubt their authenticity or competitiveness, in everyday situations, and I just roll off the invoice – job well done.

However, add a stressed friend, relative or neighbour into the scenario – someone who I see all the time, whether in my street, at school, or socially— and suddenly, I have this overwhelming need to become the not-for-profit, happy to spend my weekend plumbing ‘for free’ emergency plumber.

Why do I do this? Usually, it is ‘not’ because I am being asked to discount my prices. In fact, generally speaking, the opposite occurs, my friends and family insist on paying full price or else they wouldn’t have called. The problem happens because I like to ‘help’ my friends, so it feels wrong to charge them and then a dose of self-doubt or worry starts to creep in – what if they don’t know what standard rates are for Sunday emergency work; what if they think I’m trying to rip them off because it took longer than I expected and now I have to charge more; oh no, the part was faulty but what if they think I broke it – you get it, the list goes on and on. Suddenly, I just wish I hadn’t even gotten involved and was at home on the couch watching the sport. Let’s face it, it’s just easier dealing with professional relationships that won’t cross over into your personal life – but as a plumber or anyone else with a useful skill knows (i.e. my IT mates), it is just better to have some practical ways to manage work for friends and family.

DRAW THE LINE
After 20 years, of good and bad experiences, I have developed a clear list of ‘no way’ jobs for mates. For me, it’s doing full bathroom renovations or construction plumbing (new builds) for friends. For you, it may be a different type of job but I’m pretty sure the same principals can be applied across the board. So how do I avoid this? Firstly, I make it very clear in casual conversation that I am not a renovation plumber and will not do renovation jobs for friends. I explain that I am an emergency and maintenance plumber — that I hate renovating, unless required to do so, as part of my standard professional client services (commercial fit outs etc).

When friends call me directly about doing renovation jobs, I am honest about the fact that I don’t have the time to commit to renovations, due to my other work commitments. If I can I will recommend someone else that I trust. If pressed, I explain that, in my experience, renovations are an expensive and emotional investment for clients – often their expectations and ‘imagined’ bathroom either won’t fit in the space they have or the budget and that using a friend to do the plumbing may cause long-term tension in the friendship. Small issues can become big issues and suddenly, no-one is happy. In the end, while it is tricky, the best way to avoid doing a job that you don’t want to do is to just provide an upfront and honest explanation as soon as they ask you to do the job.
Friends sometimes ask me to do jobs that might be inconvenient for other reasons – for example, location is

too far away, my work schedule is too full, or where I pretty much know that they are likely to want an unrealistic discount, I will do one of the following things: either recommend someone else I know to do the job, tell them to get a local quote or two first (so that they get an independent price and a sense of what their job will cost), or I will offer to book them in with one of my staff, during normal working hours.

SAYING ‘NO’ DOESN’T MEAN YOU CAN’T HELP
By booking the job in during standard work hours with one of my staff members, I change the dynamic of the relationship back from a personal favour to a professional plumbing service. At the end of the day, most friends, neighbours and relatives ask you to do the job because they just want someone they can trust to do the job, rather than a stranger, and they don’t actually want a discount or preferential treatment. Therefore, by removing yourself from ‘directly’ undertaking the job and having your staff do it, on your behalf, you avoid that situation where many of us tend to end up giving huge discounts or charging nothing because we feel awkward about asking people who we socialise with to pay for our services. I have no problem charging my friends for work undertaken by my staff, during work hours, because everyone knows I have to pay those staff. Obviously though, if it is your Mother-In-Law knocking on the door, throw all the rules out and do the job straight away for free – it’s the fastest route to peace and happiness.

EXCHANGE SERVICES
One last option for working with friends and family is setting up an exchange system for services. I have great mates with a range of awesome skills that I am severely lacking in – IT and computing, accounting, business management, carpentry, even hairdressing. We work on a transparent arrangement that is negotiated upfront. We set an agreed hourly rate for each of our services upfront and then we keep a tally of the hours we both work for each other. For example, I seem to always rely on my IT mate far more than he needs me, so he’s banking his hours for when they do actually want to update their bathroom (yeah, I know, the dreaded renovation word).

We check in on the hours and what to do with them quite regularly, and when I think he’s spent too much time helping me, I will pay him for some of the work. This works out really well and usually everyone benefits from this type of arrangement. I am also happy to do his renovation when the time comes around because he is forever fixing my computer issues, all day and night.
Having said that, there was the one occasion, when I forgot to tell my wife that we were receiving 48 cases of beer, in exchange for some work I’d done. My friend worked at a beer factory and used to get a monthly ration of beer. Clearly, he had a backlog of beer and well, I didn’t. It seemed like an awesome exchange until the beer truck pulled up in the driveway when my wife was home and started unloading the 48 cases. It slipped my mind to mention it to her. When I got home I realised where I’d gone wrong (aside from the small issue of storage), she doesn’t drink beer – I should have angled for a bit of variety. Maybe next time, I’ll see if the factory has branched out into making cider. She says that there won’t be a next time but let’s just see. You never know what deal is too good to refuse.