[ian harper]

Hi Guys

Just wanted to pick up on something Doug said to me about another local guys that's got a minimum charge of £120 compared with my £40

at first look you would expect the £120 to where you want to be? First how many rooms can a customer get for that £120 and second how many can I get to match him?

The answer is in the job value. how many customers can you find to pay the £120 and what do you have to do to get that? moving furniture etc. so thats takes away from the advantage the TM gives him

Also he was commenting on my lose that i made, that was including my wages. Again its how you run your business as self-employed or as a business.

Appearances can be deceiving in life and all is not what you think your seeing. This is why copying is hard to get right as you dont know the full facts. Low price does not mean low profits, low margins, or rubbish job values.

Respects To Doug I know he was not being mean.

I know what many will say that its mad to be running around doing lots of work, well my answer is that its also mad to have assets sitting on your dive doing nothing.

Working for yourself gives you choice and that includes what work you take on or turn down. Low price does not mean rubbish customers. its my view that if you have cheaper carpet cleaning people will use our services more. Thats what I was going on about regarding the market size in the UK compared to USA, Competition is good for the market and makes it grow.

Sorry guys thats been bugging me

[gwrightson]

Ian.
My minimum charge is £45  and considering putting it up, I know their are much cheaper in my area, only yesterday I had a call from a lady asking if I could fit her in that day she said  "she had booked a c/c as she had to have the lounge and a bedroom cleaned as she was moving out that day"
her c/c called her at 10am yesterday ,supposed to be there at 8.30 am saying they had broken down.

Ok I will squeeze another job in and get to you later on in the day, How much did he quote you? I asked and did he survey the carpets.   No he didn't survey and would clean them for £30 max.

I said I,m afraid I will be much more that that.   her answer

Its ok ,  I EXPECTED IT TO BE MUCH MORE  and thought it was very cheap.

Some customers do expect a premium price in other words .

Geoff.
ps I charged them £80.00

[Dave_Lee]

Some CCs get it right, others get it nearly right and others get it wrong.
At the end of the day, turnover is one thing, but the main thing is profit!
Some CCs sell at a high price. This involves a lot of expense on marketing to get the inquiries required to convert into jobs.
Some CCs sell at a reasonable price. Only a reasonable expenditure on marketing is required to get enough inquiries to convert into jobs.
The top and bottom of it is, if you are charging say £120.. for a lounge, you are going to get a higher percentage of 'No's' than the guy charging £60..
Lets assume the costs apart from marketing are the same, and the £60.. guy makes £40.. clean profit.
Then the £120.. guy would make £100.. clean profit.
Marketing costs ..... £60.. guy.....say...£5...... leaving £35.. overall profit.
                          ....£120..guy.....say...£25......leaving £75.. overall profit.

However £60.. guy does three times the number of jobs as £120.. guy in the same period, earning £105.. compared to the £120.. guys £75..

All figures and guesswork I know but hopefully it does show how a guy charging less can actually earn more in the same period of time.
I met someone several years ago at a CC function and we were discussing turnover/profit and marketing.
It turned out that our turnover was almost exactly the same. His marketing costs were 100 times more than mine, i.e. his £25,000, mine £250..
His charges were multiples of mine, however to get the conversions he required, he had to constantly spend, spend, spend on marketing.

Of course the ideal may be, when you can spend just a reasonable amount on marketing, have a high conversion rate and still manage to charge top whack!
Dave.

[derek west]

just cos your vans on the drive, doesn't mean your not being productive.

heres 2 ways to price.

1) let the price do the selling for you, lets say 6 jobs a day at £40 each, great stuff, nothing wrong with that, 8 hours a day, £240 a day, good wage.

2) let your marketing do the selling, lets say 1 job a day at £240, great stuff, nothing wrong with that, 3 hours a day cleaning and 5 hours a day marketing.

(non factual representation. just a mock up to make a point. valid or not)

both have their pro's and con's. neither are the right way or the wrong way to price. what i have learnt (and its taken me far too long) is that no matter how cheap you are, not everyone will use your service. and no matter how dear you are, there is always someone who will use you.

[Shaun_Ashmore]

Depends if you are a marketer or a salesman, marketers work differently as they plan out comes (hopefully) salesmen are more active to the sale ideally you would do both, too much brain power thinking the deal through doesn't get you any work where as no phone ringing means you can't sell to anyone.

The old debate of 'your just a carpet cleaner' isn't true as you are a businessman then a carpet cleaner, monkeys can clean carpets   

Shaun

[Mike Halliday]

So many assumption in these posts it just makes the whole subject ridiculous

I can give examples how a £10 a room guy will earn more than a £80 a room guy or how a £120 a room guy will makes more than a  £70 guy but will spend 5 times as much on marketing so will make less profit but he also does 3.5 times more jobs so actually makes 67.43% more profit but when you figure into the equation the upell of protector makes his a net profit of 88.342% greater profit than the £10 bait and switch guy who charges the 98year old lady £550 to clean her hallway.

Any example can be shown as workable, it's  starts to be pointless  talking about this subject

[maxcampbell]

Can I make a plea for these price discussions to base it on how much for a 3 piece suite, rather than a room, please?

There's so much variable in doing a room - moving furniture, especially, whereas we all, more or less, do the same thing to clean a 3 str + 2 chairs. By the way, our list price for a 3str + 2 chairs, clean only, is £216. We make much better per hour on carpets.

The whole marketing spend vs keeping the diary full vs price thing is interesting, and in the end it all comes down to the details, and following the strategy that suits you.

Oh, and there's 3 of us in the business, including one paid tech, and one mainly office person, and we rarely have vans on the drive - and we do spend quite a lot on leaflets, ad words, etc.

[mark_roberts]

Max

What do you mean by list price?

How long do you spend on a 3-1-1?

We average £25/£30 per bum and aim for 1.5 hours with 2 men.  I try not to accept dirty suites or time consuming types. 

Mark

[stuart_clark]

I cleaned an old three seater and two chairs today I charged £175

[maxcampbell]

Max

What do you mean by list price?

How long do you spend on a 3-1-1?

We average £25/£30 per bum and aim for 1.5 hours with 2 men.  I try not to accept dirty suites or time consuming types. 

Mark

List is £26 per seat and £16 per arm. We discount from list for a variety of reasons - quantity, doing the carpet in the same room, etc. We reckon a 3-1-1 to be about 3 to 4 man-hours, but often twin-tool, so taking 1.5 to 2 hrs. Did a 3-2-1 of really dirty (shiny black-top on hand & head areas) buffalo yesterday, with big loosely filled cushions covered both sides - I think it was about 5 man-hours.