How far should your service area be? A profit-first way to decide

Ten miles on an open A-road is 15 minutes. Ten miles across a town at 8.30 is 50.

The customer pays for the job. Nobody pays for the drive unless you build it in, so every extra minute behind the wheel comes out of your day.

The question is not how far you are willing to go. It is how far away a job can be before it stops paying.

• Measure your area in drive time, at the hour you actually travel.
• Core area: normal rates.
• Outer ring: a travel charge, or a minimum job value.
• Beyond that: no, unless the job is big enough to be worth a day.
• Publish the towns and postcodes you cover.

Take your hourly rate, the one you earn when you are on the tools.

A job 40 minutes away is 80 minutes of driving, there and back. At £50 an hour that is £67 of your time, plus fuel.

If the job itself is a £90 repair, you have spent most of it getting there.

The same £90 repair 10 minutes away costs you £17 of driving. Same job, very different day.

Open a map and mark what you can reach in 20 minutes and in 40 minutes, at the times you normally drive.

• Inside 20 minutes: your core area. Normal rates, any size of job.
• 20 to 40 minutes: the outer ring. Add a travel charge, or only take jobs over a set value.
• Over 40 minutes: say no, or take only full-day jobs.

Your numbers may be different. A rural trade might use 30 and 60. What matters is that the lines exist and you know where they are.

A flat travel charge is easier to explain than a higher hourly rate. "There is a £25 travel charge for your area" is one sentence.

Say it in your first reply, not on the bill.

Then group outer-ring jobs on the same day. Two jobs in the same far-off town share one journey, and the travel charge on each becomes profit.

Turning work down feels wrong. It is still cheaper than a day of driving for one small job.

Be quick and kind about it, and name another trade if you know a good one out that way. People remember who helped, and they have friends who live closer to you.

• List last month's jobs with the drive time for each.
• Mark the ones where the drive was longer than the work.
• Set your two lines in minutes, and your travel charge.
• Put the list of towns you cover on your website and your voicemail.

Outer ring:

Thanks for getting in touch. You are just outside my usual area, so there is a £[amount] travel charge on top of the job. I am out your way on [day]. Would [time] suit?

Too far:

Thanks for asking. That is further than I can cover and still do a proper job for you. [Name] at [business] works out your way and I would try them first.