How do i ask for extra pay for traveling further away? What is the normal price to ask? Is there a formula? I travel between 3 states sometimes for work and would like to be able to maximize the shop pay and travel bonus.

Any help with this is greatly appreciated.

Email the scheduler or call and ask for what you think is fair stating travel expenses. They will either accept your offer, reject your offer, or counter your offer. You should take into consideration time to travel to job and back, gas and maintenance costs, and time to preform job. You may also want to check what other shops are nearby or on the way to that job. Everyone has a different formula and there is no normal price to ask.

There is no incentive to pay you something extra if you are inquiring about shops that the MSC does not have a problem filling. If you are already on a route, finding and adding additional shops are potentially only to your benefit. Also, while waiting to hear back you may lose the shops to other shoppers that are more local.

You will be more successful in getting extra pay if you are targeting harder to fill shops, and have demonstrated the ability to successfully perform said shops.

Because we are all independent, small business owners, there is no "normal" price for any assignment. We all decide what is acceptable for our time. While isaiah58 has a point about the possibility of some shops being gone, it doesn't impact the value I place on my time. If someone else feels $10 is enough while I need $20, they can have the job. I'll make it up on other assignments.

swingline,
In order to learn about how best to arrange for distance/time bonuses, you may want to start by experimenting with building one day routes that return you to your home base each night. This is a relatively low risk, low cost way of refining your route building and bonus negotiating skills while establishing a rep for reliability with some schedulers who may start out as skeptical about assigning somewhat distant shops to you.

In other words, this whole area of MSing has a lot of "moving parts," to consider. About 8 years ago I attended an ling discussion by experienced route shoppers (both long and short routes) at an IMSC conference. I put what I learned to work on short routes over the next year and increased my net by about 50 %. That was even before I started doing overnight video shop routes, which then increased my net by a lot more. A recent IMSC Global Teleconference (2 full days of training, available on recordings, and with online questions from the original world-wide audience) contains a long session on route planning and negotiation by a shopper who is an acknowledged expert at this art. I think that you can still sign up to purchase 30 days of access to the two full dys of teleconference. I am not sure, but seem to recall that it was something like $25. (I was recovering from an injury and an illness and did not attend. I had to cancel my workshop, so I am uncertain about the details.)

For more information look for IMSC on Facebook or do a search for their new website.

@BuffaloNY101 wrote:

Email the scheduler or call and ask for what you think is fair stating travel expenses.

I absolutely never call it travel expenses. I give them a total I need. It's none of their business if it for travel, enough coke to stay awake for the drive, or because you have to call them instead of emailing.