[Mike Osbourne]

A long time ago some bright spark came up with the 'bell curve theory'. That you could plot the IQ of a sample of people and the results would neatly fit the shape of a bell, with an IQ of a 100 covering the centre section. Plebs and morons on the left and einstien types on the right.

Why am I telling you this rubbish?

Well someone told me that you can fit anything on a bell curve.

So think about potential clients. You get a few that are really really cheap, more who will pay something going on to average. The vast majority in the middle, the bread and butter, pay average.

But on the right of the curve you get those who pay a little more, quite a lot in fact. Then you get those who pay way above average and decreasingly so are those who pay just stupid money.

Where on the curve do you put your energies into?

[Liahona]

Mike, you need to ask?  Best, Dave.

[Shaun_Ashmore]

Dave you are right on the money, 8 years ago I changed from £20 per room and £95 a full house including a 3pc suite to probably 3 times that amount overnight, I lost about 75% of my customers BUT the other 25% paid for my loss of income and I quickly se about gaining new customers who would pay my new price.

At no time was I ever out of pocket, when I advertised I got a slightly less job reurn but at 3 times the price, my ethics on trying to buy a customer and hopefully get a referal or repeat work to make a profit on the advertising was blown out of the water as I found I could make a profit on 1 customer alone out of that 1 job so advertising then became effective.

3 average jobs at £30 = £90
1 average job at £100 = £100

and it is easier finding 1 job than 3 and if you go out to see the customer as aposed to running everywhere for your 3 jobs then you have approx 9/10 chance of booking them anyway, took me a long time to work this out as all of my previous employers had and still do quote over the phone.

Shaun  

[colin thomas]

mike, i feel like i am hitting my head against a bell or something!!!! of course we would all like to be hitting the big payers and getting loads of money, ALL i am saying is that very few will hit that target all the time, i think that for every post someone puts on here saying they have had a bonanza price for a job they will have had 50 jobs that were average BUT what irks me is the implication that they achieve those big prices all of the time.

colin

[francis]

Shaun

You tripled your prices overnight, good for you. You lost half your regular customers but survived with the higher priced ticket. You built up new clients with your higher prices.

My question.  What made you decide to only triple your prices?  Why didn't you go up four or five times what you were origionally charging? Is there a limit as to what people will pay? Of course there is.  I work parts of Knightsbridge and Kensington in west London and it's quite staggering the wealth some people have.  But they will question absurd prices for cleaning carpets. And in the end that is what we have to remember - we clean carpets and not matter what we might like to think , rocket science it ain't

[Shaun_Ashmore]

Colin I know what you are saying ( I think) but not everyone wants a full 5 bedroom house of carpets cleaning what I'm saying is that if you have your unit price high (sq ft etc ) then the job average will definately be higher than average, if you market that you offer volume discount then on the audit you can give the custy a price for 1 carpet and then say "you do know that there is a 15% discount on your next carpet or you do know that we are doing a 3 for 2"

I'm writing this as I think but to try and answer your question I think it's down to good old salesmanship and marketing.

But I must insist that you do have to go out and quote, I yesterday turned a price shopper who was only interested in having the cheapest quote for her carpets to be cleaned by showing her what I had to offer and what I did. (she wanted to pay £30 I quoted £123.20) As I said before it took me a long time to understand but it's finally sinking in.

Shaun

[Shaun_Ashmore]

Francis, I went on a IICRC course and most there were saying that they charged 3 times my prices that was 1999 so I just put them up to that amount, I found that package selling was a good way of selling 'value for money'

Shaun

[Mike Osbourne]

Colin, I don't want a ding dong with you

But, the bell merely respresents what you are saying, the bulk is in the middle range and decreases either side. Some have a philosophy to go for this bread and butter group, in the middle others do council others the very well heeled.

Maybe there should be a rider for newbies, however I think all that people like Dave do is balance out the low fee mentality, which is not wrong, just another approach. Personally can't see the logic in doing five jobs a day when you can get more from one or two.

When I started I was desperate and would do any job at almost any price, but decided quite early on to put time and effort into getting Clients who are happy to pay more for more service.

Dave

It starts way before the ask.

[ianharper]

package selling three prices let prospect decide which one fit their budget.

[homenclean]

It is all well and good choosing to do 1 high price job per day than 3 lower priced jobs but i think you are also missing an opertunity, it is how you offer the lower priced work.

If you book and under take higher peice jobs but then offer lower prices to those customers who are price conscious, but are willing to fit in around you it fills the gaps in your day and develops your client base.

This benefits you 2 fold you gain a little extra cash and also another marketing point this years £40.00 could be next years £200.00 or recommendation.

My point is doing lower priced jobs isnt a bad thing for business it is how you go about it.

I have a customer that i charge £20.00 to clean her lounge carpet because each time she rings to book she has 2 or 3 friends who also want work doing. They all live close together and are all prepared to have it done on the same day. Whos the winner Everyone!

John

[Shaun_Ashmore]

people talk that's what recommendations are all about, if you charge 1 customer £20 the other 2 customers want it done for £20 which creates a false economy.

I have been at both sides of the fence and I get the same amount of recommends being higher priced than lower priced, I found that now people recommend me because they think I am an expert and they have to pay more, I get hardly any furniture to move and the carpets are light to mediumly soiled, before I was recommended mainly because people liked my price and I got very dirty carpets to clean with quite alot of furniture to be expected to move and loads of stains to remove from nylon or poly prop carpets and plenty of no show'ers.

I changed the way I though so I could change the way I ran my business, I ran flat out with a turn over of £42 000 when I was at the cheap end, a few years ago I ran flat out and did 3 times that, same amount of work approx.

I don't run flat out anymore unless I go running in the park which is a hobby of mine I tend to spend more time on here but I can afford to if you see where I am coming from.

Shaun

[homenclean]

You have slightly missed my point, it works because i offer this aldy an incentive to bring me work in ie she pays £20.00 but her friends etc pay my standard rates and generally dont quilble the cost as it is a strong reccomendation.

John

[Steve Chapman]

John
I can see what your saying, it is actually possible to service low end and high end customers, it's just the way you go about it, and that can only be done by offering different packages and letting the customer choose!

At the end of the day if you give choice then the customer gets what they want and you can charge accordingly.

Some of our long time customers say when you get a flat period give us a call and we will have such and such done, but obviously at a lower price.

We are happy to do that because it fills in the gaps so that we're never sat at home waiting for the phone to ring,, but when customers want a specific date and a particular service then we charge a premium price to accommodate them!

Regards
steve