[Ian Gourlay]

On Saturday I went on The Referral Marketing Event with a lot of these Fast Track Guys,.  Please note I am not a Fastracker.


The evidence is there these guys have in the main  built  massive  companies and get top prices
I did learn that not everything works so Saturday was more about Brainstorming on how to get Referrals and we came up with 8 plans two we developed
The thing is they take action

Yes Fastrackers can Walk on Fire , I did not .  I have a bad foot but I do not think I would have taken the risk

Jason
But in Year 2 Your Van will be Capital Cost Free and the year after.

I bet that piece of kit has ten years of life

[jasonl]

10 years of life , then you have a 13 year old van and TM worth nothing ,(one sold for £600 last week) and the maintenance costs from year 5-10 are high , I have seen the books of a major TM supplier and repairs are the best profit centre they have .

[Dave_Lee]

Life is about taking risks, unless you are truly boring with over caution. If you are never prepared to take a chance you will never know. I took a calculated chance, along with several others. As far as I can see, it was a chance well taken.
Since I got my current unit - turnover and profit, up, advertising costs down, reducing to near zero next year.

Dave.

[derek west]

ive got the piranha marketting manual and the alltec discovery day brochure if any ones interested in making me an offer, must point out its 93 version of piranha and 2003 the alltec one. can't see much changing other than internet stuff though.

go on, like dave said, take a risk.

[David_Annable]

Hi

Just to get thngs moving £1.50.

Dave

PS But i'm not paying postage!

[elliott cleaning]

I guess it depends on what you see as ROI? what is an acceptable figure?

Shaun

I look for 100% per year on depreciating plant and equipment 


So  30k worth of van and equipment would need to earn me £30k in a year ON TOP of what I could earn with simple kit meaning a buffer and small tools worth 3k new.  Then there are the extra costs for maintaining and fuelling the above , someone needs to have a serious amount of high paying work to make a true profit out of that machine.

Jason  -  judging by the fact that there are a fair few operators around with equivalent as well as more costly set ups - I guess there are those that have the 'serious amount of high paid work' to whom this outlay is well worth it

[jasonl]

Life is about taking risks, unless you are truly boring with over caution. If you are never prepared to take a chance you will never know. I took a calculated chance, along with several others. As far as I can see, it was a chance well taken.
Since I got my current unit - turnover and profit, up, advertising costs down, reducing to near zero next year.

Dave.

Like I said before , I am not risk averse , I bought a concrete plant for 125k plus vat , which was capable of  making 40k a week worth of concrete at 20%gp ,  all I am  saying is that the returns are not high  enough to warrant 30k on a top spec TM ,  capable of 5k? a week , when a buffer and a porty are capable of not much less , for far less outlay.

[Matt Lindus]

With all respect, I just cant see how anyone could justify that cost.
I think 2-4k investment is more than enough for a non-scalable business like carpet scrubbing.

[Dave_Lee]

With all respect, I just cant see how anyone could justify that cost.
I think 2-4k investment is more than enough for a non-scalable business like carpet scrubbing.

It is good that people have differing views, and that we all know whats best for our own unique business.
Piranha stuff, I'll go £2.. seeing as mine was pinched by the CC I lent it to.
Dave.

[Ian Gourlay]

Unfortuantley a lt of the stuff got released on the net and as I have a Fastrack 2001 anyway and it was not me who stole daves

Has it got the 105 stratergies detaied out with ready to go tempates

If so I bid £5

On the truckmounts there is quite a selection

Dave I know I am boaring but my wife tells me that everyday I used to take risks whic resulted in the lost of ourlovely house in 1990 so now boaring Ian
 

[derek west]

yes
105 strategies and 250 (A4) pages long.

yes thats right, with this complete marketting strategy, you could easily add 20k to your takings in first year alone. think of all that money building up in your bank while you go out and play golf.
to give your business the boost it deserves, bid now, you won't regret it. ask some of our satisfied customers.

"hi i'm johnny carpet, and i have no regrets with taking up this marketting stratagy, within 4 hours i'd allready added 10k to my turnover, i now play golf 6 days a week and clean carpets for an hour on sunday and turnover 22k a month with a rug doctor"

see! it must work, johnny says so, so it must be true.

so
grab yourself a bargain today and start choosing yours clubs.

[clarkson]

 Hi
 Iam not a dedicated carpet cleaner but i think jason has a point here. where is the increase in income between a 30-50 grand truckmount, and an operator with a decent porti and a bonnet system.

 If you have huge areas that are high profit i can perhaps see some advantage to tm but i would use our texatherm for this which i think is quicker than even a tm.

 I suppose specialist apps like flood damage you would have a distinct advantage but boy would you need some good deals to justify the spend.

cheers

john

[Andrew Briscoe]

Comparing against a porty, and if you are booked up say 10 days in advance most of the time
and as many are, compared to those who are not, you would save time in a day to do an extra job, say 2 rooms, av ticket price 95 pounds over, times five days times 48 weeks,
equates to nearly an extra 23k per annum, TM paid for.

Not comparing to a buffer as i do very little. No i am not booked that much in advance as i have a  contract cleaning side to my business too, but i will be upgrading my tm soon
as it is for ease of use mostly, and time to spend on other parts of business and son

Andrew

[will_turton]

blue line machines are no longer being made in the states, so i wouldnt bother,

[jasonl]

23K TURNOVER , less 5k fuel, 4k to get the extra work , 1k extra chems, 1k extra diesel getting to the jobs, 1k extra fuel for bigger van , 2k extra maintenance a year for tm .

That is just the start, depreciation , extra heating in winter, I just cannot make a case for 3k layout., if I could there would be one on my drive now.

[JandS]

And that's assuming you get the "average price £95" for 2 rooms.
Nothing near that here.

John

[Dave_Lee]

23K TURNOVER , less 5k fuel, 4k to get the extra work , 1k extra chems, 1k extra diesel getting to the jobs, 1k extra fuel for bigger van , 2k extra maintenance a year for tm .

That is just the start, depreciation , extra heating in winter, I just cannot make a case for 3k layout., if I could there would be one on my drive now.

Jason, I have never spent anywhere near those figures you state. The way I look at is - the cost of a TM set up, is an ongoing business expense, not a case of, pay it off over several years then, be payment free for another few. When the set up is paid off, time to get a new one. If your business is set up for this, then its not a problem as the equipment is paid for out of funds set aside, or from expected turnover.
If from expected turnover, then obviously your business has to be firmly established with excellent regular repeat and referral work, as mine is, after 30 years.
I dont expect to recover the cost in one year like you say you do.
I used porty's for over 20 years and always had the best, they just dont compare with a standard entry TM in terms of speed and job quality, and a standard TM doesn't compare to a top range TM.
Dave.

[jasonl]

I was referring to spending 30k on a TM/van  which is 3 yars old , albeit with low usage.

I am planning on a 3 yearold Sprinter 8k, fitted out with insulation etc  , a new prowler, 6k  which is only 14 k , less than half the alltec offering, which will give  me a far better % return than spending 30k.

[Andrew Briscoe]

23K TURNOVER , less 5k fuel, 4k to get the extra work , 1k extra chems, 1k extra diesel getting to the jobs, 1k extra fuel for bigger van , 2k extra maintenance a year for tm .

That is just the start, depreciation , extra heating in winter, I just cannot make a case for 3k layout., if I could there would be one on my drive now.

Hi Jason, i was using figures from my business,
5K in fuel, it dosnt cost 100 pound to clean 2 extra rooms a day over a week, some run on red diesel
4 k to advertise for extra work, i only spend 1k a year and includes contract cleaning
1k for extra chems is just a little high,
1k in extra diesel, get the logistics right and it wont be that much
2k maintainance, i do most myself, it isnt hard.
extra heating in winter, about same, as i was going against a porty.

Just going off my figures against a porty ( not lm buffing)

Andrew

[Dave_Lee]

I was referring to spending 30k on a TM/van  which is 3 yars old , albeit with low usage.

I am planning on a 3 yearold Sprinter 8k, fitted out with insulation etc  , a new prowler, 6k  which is only 14 k , less than half the alltec offering, which will give  me a far better % return than spending 30k.

Yeah, I understand where you are coming from, but it is simply not like for like. Sure you can clean carpets and make a profit using a porty with basic equipment but after many years as an owner operator actually doing all the work every day, you yearn for something better. The big yearning for me among other things, was to get rid of those damn buckets.
I have only ever invested in a new van or machinery when I have been confident that the new item would pay for itself and this has always been the case. With my new set up it was a slow start showing any improvement on T/O as I happened to get it just before rumours of the recession were coming through, however it is now going according to plan.
Dave