[Hilton]

Its a bit of an eye opener-and can have a big impact on your business knowing your numbers and allows various options for pricing and targeting not just your current market but also other markets you may have avoided up to now.
 
Work out what your annual sales are OR would you like it to be then crunch those numbers down to an hourly rate, it will shock you and open up opportunities to grow your business by cutting prices to obtain more work without losing any money on an annual basis

Carpet cleaning has one of the best margins of any business out there yet it is not taken advantage off by I would guess 80% + of business's out there.

Do your sums I guarantee it will shock you.

[Mike Halliday]

open up opportunities to grow your business by cutting prices to obtain more work without losing any money on an annual basis

Would you like to elaborate  on this  point a little?

I'd like to grow my business with low price work but I have the problem that my diary  is full of high price work, should I stop doing the high price work to make time?

An an owner operator I have a set number of hours in a week I can work , my best stratagy is too fill those hours with the maximum paying work I can.

 to the point I would be more wise to not do a very low priced job and spend the  same  amount of time marketing to find the higher paying job. It's  often said  that it better to be working for £24 an hour than sat at home on your bum watching TV  but that's a dangerous way to think becuase before long all your time is filled with low priced work

[derek west]

Must admit, the statement "cut prices to get more work" only makes sense if you are targeting people that shop for low prices, if you are targeting customers that buy on quality then cutting your prices would actually get you less work. just saying.

[neil 47]

open up opportunities to grow your business by cutting prices to obtain more work without losing any money on an annual basis

Would you like to elaborate  on this  point a little?

I'd like to grow my business with low price work but I have the problem that my diary  is full of high price work, should I stop doing the high price work to make time?

An an owner operator I have a set number of hours in a week I can work , my best stratagy is too fill those hours with the maximum paying work I can.

 to the point I would be more wise to not do a very low priced job and spend the  same  amount of time marketing to find the higher paying job. It's  often said  that it better to be working for £24 an hour than sat at home on your bum watching TV  but that's a dangerous way to think because before long all your time is filled with low priced work

Mike Your spot on , to many cc think that doing 5 jobs a day 6 days a week is success ,
I never see down time as wasted time  as this is when you have time to think,plan and relax time is a very important commodity that is limited I now work less hours but earn the same through pricing myself out of jobs , sometimes I give prices so high just so that I can have time to do other things and often wonder if the next cc asks what quotes did you get  .

CC should really be a plan to do other things as its hard work .

[Carpet Dawg]

Mike Your spot on , to many cc think that doing 5 jobs a day 6 days a week is success ,
I never see down time as wasted time  as this is when you have time to think,plan and relax time is a very important commodity that is limited I now work less hours but earn the same through pricing myself out of jobs , sometimes I give prices so high just so that I can have time to do other things and often wonder if the next cc asks what quotes did you get  .

CC should really be a plan to do other things as its hard work .

Time to plan and think what? how to get more high priced work? 

Seriously though, the goal for me is to get as much profitable work as possible. Even if I cant do them all, atleast I can then pick and choose the work. 

It does seem as very strange comment "cutting your prices to gain more work" and without losing money? But then you are working a lot hard for the same money (at best, probably less money if your being honest). Of course you'll gain more work if your cheap, you just need to look at those facebook pages of the cheap guys. They have huge amount of likes and reviews, then just click on the people who leave these reviews.... I rest my case. There are guys charging £19 a room and two rooms for £30 etc! I mean, F*** that!

And please no one compare our trade with the likes of aldi or other cheap brands that are successful. Its a completely different thing.

[SimonW]

CC is a great idea for everybody who's willing to achieve his goals/dreams as owner/operator. You can expand onto various areas of cleaning business such as window cleaning etc.
Applause to every single of you for your time, commitment and creativity.

Look at all these people working for huge or medium companies like zombies day by day they got to be at their usually hated workplace dreaming to finally get promoted.

Peace,
Simon

[Hilton]

Pretty much what I expected everyone went straight in with the assumption that its about cheap.....

Those of you that can 'pick and choose' your high priced work are very lucky 90% of CC's will never be in that position, you must know your hourly value , is it in the £50-£70 bracket ?

[Robin Ray]

I did the sums and was shocked by how much my hourly rate needs to be.... my conclusion is I need more higher paying jobs!

[Richard Cole]

Might help Hilton if you give an example,  does not need to be your own figures but it might help explain what you mean.  Personally i try to work on a min of £50 hour, although i usually load it more for the first hour to allow for travel time and then discount for more work / area's,  so i charge £65 for my first hour and try  to work at £50 per hour thereafter.

[Peter Sweeney]

Cutting prices to gain more work. Thats the funniest thing I have seen on here for a while and or heard for ages.  Insane.

[Hilton]

Yes it would be crazy to cut all your prices to obtain the annual income you require, you would be working much harder longer and spending more if you did that.

By the way, shock horror    there are plenty good business's out there who's business model is based on a price point that many on here would sneer at yet would blow you out of the water in terms of annual sales and profit.

I should point out I no longer operate as a CC the formula cuts across all business types and is just something all business's should be aware off if you want to target a level of annual income but also want to know what your hourly rate is right now so you can (as above) raise  it if to low or cut it if you are being unrealistic in your hourly rate and business is going begging you would otherwise obtain,....the best method is to have a mixture of the two to reach the annual sales and profit you aspire to achieve.

Incidentally on the example above given above at around £55 an hour and you had consistent flow of work at this rate you would be on £107k per annum so well done if thats the case you have cracked it and should probably be employing to lighten the burden by now.

[TonyBrowning]

But I only want to work 4 hours a day 4 days a week.

[Mike Halliday]

You need to seperate the owner operator for the multiple employee business before giving comparisons of what would blow things out the water, you can't compare the two, I know the owner of a franchise home cleaning comapny who employs  many people (12-15)   and charges £16 an hour  whose actually earnings himself are less than me. Although to be fair his business is worth more than mine but he also has 10times the stress I do.

[david@zap-clean]

£50 per hour is poor money, if you only work 1 hour a day!

Far more important statistic is:
a) Annual turnover
b) Annual profit (per person).
And probably even more important:
c) Does this trade provide you with the financial reward you wish for?

Here's my answer:
a) Enough
b) Not quite enough, yet
c) Yes, for now.

I've been trading for nearly 3 years now, and I'm still building up to where I wish to be.

[Hilton]

You need to seperate the owner operator for the multiple employee business.

No you don't it does not matter if you employ one or one thousand

[Hilton]

£50 per hour is poor money, if you only work 1 hour a day!

Far more important statistic is:
a) Annual turnover
b) Annual profit (per person).
And probably even more important:
c) Does this trade provide you with the financial reward you wish for?

Here's my answer:
a) Enough
b) Not quite enough, yet
c) Yes, for now.

I've been trading for nearly 3 years now, and I'm still building up to where I wish to be.

What do you want to earn annually is the question.

[neil 47]

Mike Your spot on , to many cc think that doing 5 jobs a day 6 days a week is success ,
I never see down time as wasted time  as this is when you have time to think,plan and relax time is a very important commodity that is limited I now work less hours but earn the same through pricing myself out of jobs , sometimes I give prices so high just so that I can have time to do other things and often wonder if the next cc asks what quotes did you get  .

CC should really be a plan to do other things as its hard work .

Time to plan and think what? how to get more high priced work? 

Seriously though, the goal for me is to get as much profitable work as possible. Even if I cant do them all, atleast I can then pick and choose the work. 

It does seem as very strange comment "cutting your prices to gain more work" and without losing money? But then you are working a lot hard for the same money (at best, probably less money if your being honest). Of course you'll gain more work if your cheap, you just need to look at those facebook pages of the cheap guys. They have huge amount of likes and reviews, then just click on the people who leave these reviews.... I rest my case. There are guys charging £19 a room and two rooms for £30 etc! I mean, F*** that!

And please no one compare our trade with the likes of aldi or other cheap brands that are successful. Its a completely different thing.

Carpet dawg

Plan for world domination lol

If you chase money it will run away .
Every hour I do no cc is a bonus , sometimes you have to sit back and look at what your not doing .

If I was in my 20s I'd certainly do more hard floors , leather restoration and rugs on a collect and return basis .

Also a course on web design ,seo, and marketing .

I genral try to plan how to make as much as need  for as little physical effort needed

[Hilton]

But I only want to work 4 hours a day 4 days a week.

And thats fine, but what is your hourly worth does it measure up with what you want to earn annually?

Once again people have got hung up on cheap v expensive completely missing the point.

[Mike Halliday]

I find these topics both interesting & annoying, the topic is interesting but  the delivery is annoying.

It's like there's some secret knowledge that only hilton knows and he wants to brag about it but does'nt want to tell us. he could just explain in plain English (with examples)..... but to be truthful he does'nt actually know enough about what he's on about to give an explanation that would stand up to scrutiny. So he  hints at it and says.......  'we've missed the point'  why not give us the point we've missed?

So Hilton why not   explain in detail what you are hinting at. Make it impossible for us to miss the point by giving a meticulous explanation.

[TonyBrowning]

^^^^^^^^^^^^ What he said^^^^^^^^^^^^^