[Gavin Davey]

Hi all

I am just wondering what people's thoughts are on this.

Do you think it's realist to expect to making £1,500 a month after 3/4 months in the carpet cleaning business.

[Mike Halliday]

£1500 a month.... Let's break it down

£375 a week, £75 a day, that's  a big room are a couple of little ones..........yes that's easily possible but how much time & money are you willing to invest to make it a reality?

Are you saying you need £1500 a month in your pocket after all your expenses?

[Gavin Davey]

£1500 a month.... Let's break it down

£375 a week, £75 a day, that's  a big room are a couple of little ones..........yes that's easily possible but how much time & money are you willing to invest to make it a reality?

Are you saying you need £1500 a month in your pocket after all your expenses?

Hi Mike,

Thanks for the reply yes ideally I would need that after expenses. I am looking at leaflet distribution of around 15 - 20k for the 1st few week and then rotate every 6 weeks. Just trying to find a local company quotes coming in at £70 per 1000 seem high. Will do local press churches etc and Facebook and gumtree.

[Mike Halliday]

Pay yourself £70 a day which is almost the £1500 a month you want and put out the leaflets yourself  

problem is if you do that you will be too busy to put out leaflets........ What a conundrum

You are the best person to put your leaflets out (2 hrs a day ) gumtree and Facebook in my opinion are. a waste of time

[Marius Alexandru]

Wha would you advice a new starter to di rather than leaflets and fb Mike?

[Mike Halliday]

To be honest the only thing you could do today to get calls today is Adwords, this is the only advertising that is  instantaneous  and is instantly viewed by people looking for a carpet cleaner.

All other marketing takes time and is  opportunitist  ( meaning it's done with the hope of finding someone Who is at that moment looking for a carpet cleaner) but that's not as bad as it sounds as lots of people are in the market for a carpet cleaner they just need a nudge to take action & call.

I sound like a broken record but for results and control leaflets take some beating

[Adrian Ridley]

Think your wrong there Mike, Facebook can & definitely works if done correctly and of course you have to work at it. And a hell of a lot cheaper then ad  words.

[Mike Halliday]

Got to say my only experience of Facebook is the adverts I see which all tend to be multiple rooms for cheap prices, how much a click is it on FB compared Adwords?

[Mike Cottam]

Facebook works on occasion, but people who 'like' your page may not necessarily book a cleaning service from you.

The biggest issue with Facebook though, is that your paid advert is competing with many others, plus photos of fluffy cats and the latest selfie from Aunt Nelly's holiday appearing on users timelines...

Whereas a leaflet popping through somebody's letterbox is only competing with maybe one or two others and so it's more prominent.

Just my opinion., but I intend to focus more on leaflets than Facebook or Adwords...

[Carpet Dawg]

From my experience facebook generally brings in weak enquiry's, i.e. price sensitive customers, time wasters, tyre kickers etc . Some people swear by it but its not for me. If your £30 a room then fill your boots as you'll get a lot of pm's.

Remarketing ads on social media can work. Maybe worth setting a budget of £10 a day on that and see what you get after a couple of weeks.

I prefer to spend my time on more time  tested methods.

[Carpet Dawg]

Having said that, £30 a room is boarder line expensive on fb. There's loads of guys doing 2 bed houses for £50 and 3 piece suits for £40.

[Adrian Ridley]

It's how you target it on facebook don't bother with the bargain basement.  Lots of Rich house wifes love a bit of fb.

[Dave_Lee]

The biggest difficulty for a new start up is getting the work. You just won't be getting a job every day for a while, no matter what marketing you do. it is a slow procedure. I started 36 years ago and initially built my business by spending more time putting leaflets through doors than actually cleaning, however that was at a time when they worked very well and produced calls every time. They do not work anything like the same these days. A couple of years ago I had the local free paper distribute 10,000 for me and ended up with one low value job. There was no mobile phones or internet then though and by far now the best way of getting new work is by way of a really good optimised website.
Unfortunately for all of us marketing costs money with no guarantee of a return, as they say spend only what you can afford to lose on marketing just in case.
Sorry to be so pessimistic, but I think it is very doubtful that you will be making £1,500 after expenses in such a short time.
Dave.

[neil 47]

Spot on Dave

You have to build a foundation
Which includes branding which is :

You
Your van
FB
Website
Leaflets
Ads
Visibility in local area
Recommendations
Talking & meeting people
Named uniform
Consistency
Keep busy after 2 or 3 years things get better 

[Jor dan]

i'm nearly a full year in now.

for the first 3 months I was doing around 3 jobs a week, making about £600/month after all outgoings.  it was literally 1 or 2 carpets on every booking. 

a lot of guys don't like saying what they earn, but im new so its all good...right now i'm making about £1300 month after all outgoings, but that is still by spending a considerable amount of time leafleting, facebook postings, link building for my website, and doing some crappy jobs sometimes that I would rather like to be in a position to be able to refuse.  I don't tally up every hour, but id say its a 50hr/week at the moment, when including my time at jobs, travel to and from, admin & leafleting.  So no, its not easy money, especially in the beginning.  I'm still classed at the beginning, and reckon it will be another year like this if not more.

take from that what you will, but it still beats office work in my eyes which I had been doing for years, and even if I only ever was able to get it up to £1500/pm, id be content, however I am aiming higher, who knows...

The thing that has been difficult is the risk taking, I spent around £7000 on van/insurance/machines/solutions/website etc, if you are to do it, I would suggest buying your equiptment second hand, make sure it is the right equiptment for the job, all vacuum cleaners are not one and the same, nor are carpet cleaning machines, and i'd suggest doing the work around your regular job to see if you actually like/can cope with it, its not just stamina and cleaning skills you need, it is a very customer focused job, and you need to be good with sales to be able to close deals & leads with your customers, and also good at admin for sceduelling, and web design/SEO unless you are outsourcing that to someone else.

good luck.

[Tony Stewart]

There are plenty of guys who can clean carpets really well. But I met a guy who had 5 vans and he said he was a marketing expert....he just happened to be in the carpet cleaning business. He is right. No use being the best carpet cleaner, you have to make the phone ring.
It's actually quite simple. No one can get enough business from one area. Many new people start at the facebook end and then think that they are doing business at the crappy end of the market and as soon as they get better they want to try and escape that area and try and get more upmarket. You need to put aside 10% of your turnover into marketing....that's in £ notes the time is extra.
Parish Magazines
Local press advertising
Websites
Van
Leaflets
5 arounds
Letter writing

just as a start. New people cannot afford to do it and put as much aside as they can saying that they need to pay the bills etc. But everyone asks Mike about leaflets - then does nothing about it - it's not rocket science. As to those that have a successful business, that was probably founded a long time ago, but even so they will have the quiet times.
Chem Dry, Servicemaster, and other franchises all advertise heavily  and it's not on Facebook.
Adrian - i think you are wrong. My housewives in their million pound homes do like facebook for idle chatter. Get a carpet cleaner off facebook? They'd think that you are having a laugh. - no three for two rooms works at that end of the market. If you ask a carpenter to fit five doors in your house would you expect the 5th one free? I'd rather pay the price and have the job done by a craftsman. BUT there's a market at that end it's just never going to be the top end that will pay properly and you will always struggle for repeat business as it is always lost to the lowest price.
Repeats only begin to kick in after about 5 years and then they begin to have a meaningful effect on your income. BUT you still have to let them know you are out there.
It's hard - I have been doing it for 5 years and have a truckmount which I got after one year. My customers want to feel that they have had the best shot at someone cleaning their carpets, and the speed of a truckmount and the heat give me that unique selling point.
So go for it - just don.t read this and dream. get out and do it!

[Adrian Ridley]

Well it works for me at very good price's
Then again I'm in London.

[Hilton]

i'm nearly a full year in now.

for the first 3 months I was doing around 3 jobs a week, making about £600/month after all outgoings.  it was literally 1 or 2 carpets on every booking. 

a lot of guys don't like saying what they earn, but im new so its all good...right now i'm making about £1300 month after all outgoings, but that is still by spending a considerable amount of time leafleting, facebook postings, link building for my website, and doing some crappy jobs sometimes that I would rather like to be in a position to be able to refuse.  I don't tally up every hour, but id say its a 50hr/week at the moment, when including my time at jobs, travel to and from, admin & leafleting.  So no, its not easy money, especially in the beginning.  I'm still classed at the beginning, and reckon it will be another year like this if not more.

take from that what you will, but it still beats office work in my eyes which I had been doing for years, and even if I only ever was able to get it up to £1500/pm, id be content, however I am aiming higher, who knows...

The thing that has been difficult is the risk taking, I spent around £7000 on van/insurance/machines/solutions/website etc, if you are to do it, I would suggest buying your equiptment second hand, make sure it is the right equiptment for the job, all vacuum cleaners are not one and the same, nor are carpet cleaning machines, and i'd suggest doing the work around your regular job to see if you actually like/can cope with it, its not just stamina and cleaning skills you need, it is a very customer focused job, and you need to be good with sales to be able to close deals & leads with your customers, and also good at admin for sceduelling, and web design/SEO unless you are outsourcing that to someone else.

good luck.

Sensible stuff there on what is tough business to get of the ground, many new starters would do well to read it and think hard before making that leap , certainly not for the feint of heart but once cracked you can make good money relatively easily with huge margins and it will give you more freedom than you ever thought possible.

While  ( and you should be aware of this because its a real incentive to push on) £1500 per month @ 50hrs per week is equivalent to minimum wage, if you can take that on the chin for a while and realise that, you can not be laid off, you can not have liberty's taken, you can not be spoken at out of turn,you can not be forced to work extra hours free of charge for fear of losing your job etc, as its your business.You and only you are responsible for your business if it  flourishes or fails, don't blame anyone else, it's down to you...

Time flies by and before too long you start to see you are not on minimum wage for very long soon it will be living wage and then a 'proper' wage and then real turnover, this is when the benefits of large margins kick in and hey presto you have something resembling  a business.

Without doubt marketing is king this will make or break your business (or any other business for that matter) so learn it, if you don't read then start and get every book you can on the subject and use that as part of the learning curve along with all the training etc you will need on a constant basis because I agree with whats being said, you do not need to know one end of a wand from the other if you can market well ,you can employ others to do the work but most in this business do it themselves so learn it and use it.
 

[Mike Halliday]

Slightly on a tangent......

........We all seam to agree that being a knowledgable carpet cleaner is not paramount to being a success, I know some carpet cleaners who know only the very basics of the science of how to clean a carpet but still run very profitable bussiness.

If this is true then a guy who has been cleaning carpets for a week could charge the same as the guy who has been in bussiness 20yrs....... But  how often do we hear new starters using inexperience as an excuse for low prices

 ....."I will build a client base then raise my prices".........."I will do 3 rooms specials for £55, to gain experience... then raise my prices"......

The best advice to get higher prices is to ask for a higher prices it can be that simple, this has the knock on effect of making your marketing more productive. I have great success with leaflets but have no idea about the actual response rate I jut know how much money I make directly from the leaflets I put out

[Mike Cottam]

Mike - in response to your tangent... I have just started my business, yet I am charging an hourly rate which is 75% of the top rate that Mr Derek Bolton was charging at the height of his business and we all know how experienced he is in the carpet cleaning world (he has some 30 odd years head start on me in terms of experience).

I have been well trained (by Mr Bolton), I know what I am doing and even though I am a new business in my area, I have an almost 100% success rate with my quotes.

It's about self-worth, rather than seeking business by charging low prices...