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If every job you win is a hard one, your pricing is wrong

Winning all the complicated work and none of the simple work is the clearest sign your prices are flat when they should be dynamic.

Here's the tell-tale sign that your pricing is off: every job you win is difficult. The complicated ones keep landing in your shop, and the simple ones keep going somewhere else.

That isn't bad luck. It means you're pricing the hard jobs too low and the easy jobs too high. The shops that want the simple work are beating you on it, and you're the cheapest option left on the work nobody else wants to figure out.

There's a stark difference between a straightforward slab project — even stained or painted, even laminate — and a job full of architectural detail: crown or double crown, face frame, elements that wrap around corners, U-shaped kitchens, intricate islands. Same linear footage, completely different amount of thinking, setup, and shop time.

If you're always saying everything is complicated and you have to do it all yourself, your pricing is probably part of the reason. You've built a schedule out of the hardest work at the thinnest margin.

Every job is not the same, so your pricing can't be either. Don't overthink the simple jobs — they're simple. No drawers, just doors. Price them lean and win them. Then add real money to the ones that carry detail, so that when you do get them, they're actually worth doing.

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