[Mike Halliday]

Had quite a few call over the last weeks for just single bedrooms, I hate setting up all my gear for a single bedroom 

‘Luckily’ my £80 minimum charge tends to put them off,

***** just seen the time,  will finish this post and get to my point later******

[john martin]

could it be your setup is awkward  ...       
how about getting a small portable and tm3 or 13" rotary of the one room jobs  .
I say some this time of year would gladly tke the 80min .

[Mike Halliday]

John it not just the set up time its also the drive time,

it takes longer to clean a bedroom than it does to clean a through lounge so it should really cost more,  but customer won’t pay the price.

I didn’t realise the time this morning as I started the post that’s why I cut it short I really wanted to talk about the comparison between doing a bedroom and other rooms,  ( especially when they are attic rooms up 2 flights of stairs)

[Elfyn]

I've always taken the view that small jobs can lead to bigger things and recomendations.
Having said that I will adjust what I charge to take into account travel time, poor access etc.

[neil 47]

I hate all single jobs , but take the view it another person that now trusts you .

If you run a good reminder service email / text you should get a good return if followed up

[Doctor Carpet (Ret'd)]

All comments posted have some truth so all I’ll add is that you also have to consider the opportunity cost.

If you’re doing a one bed job you might lose out on booking ina more lucrative job because you’re busy doing these small one room jobs.

Hence the minimum charge.

Basically, I think it’s a case of adjusting your minimum charge to balance the amount of work coming in to the time you have available in your diary.

[Cleanevangelist]

Mike

Back end marketing is worth more than the first sale. plus you can get reviews that are ever green and worth real money as google local default listing is by reviews. plus up selling Stain protection, recommendation,

They call it life time value of a customer

Respects

Ian Harper

[Mike Halliday]

The way I see it is their is a minimum time involved in cleaning even the smallest carpet  so we need to set our price based on that time not how big the carpet is or the customers perceived idea that a bedroom should cost less than a livingRoom.

Also it’s a big risk to use your prices to build a list, or create a customer base or hope for a google reviews because you end up with a collection of customers who paid a low price who in the future will want the same low prices and the People they recommend will be low payers.

Look at  the Groupon model,  people cleaned rooms for £10 hoping they could build a customer base but all they had was a disloyal base of customer who would never pay full price.

[Peter Hobbs]

I totally agree with you Mike. We have a minimum service of £40 which in my opinion is far too low anyway, but we have many competitors in our area charging half that so we have to stay close to competitive! Which is beyond ridiculous... Plus we travel all over Kent, it can easily take 2 hours from one side to another on a bad day so its highly important that when we're booking jobs we try to group them all in the same or similar area.

That being said, would 6 small jobs all in the same area be an issue? I guess I'd take it...

[Mr Dvae]

Mike's been around this business many many years. Whatever you think of next he's already done it.
Mike is spot on here.
Many carpet cleaners in the states won't even entertain jobs of less than 3 rooms .

[Elfyn]

This has very little to do with how long you've been in the business and more to do with the type of customer, area you work in and your own business model.
If I had a set minimum charge or a minimum number of rooms I would have gone out of business many years ago. My area tends to have very cautious, but very loyal people - some of my customers go back over 20 years.
Each to his own and whatever works for them.

[Robin Ray]

What is the purpose of a minimum charge?

For me a minimum charge is the minimum i am willing to earn doing a job. As even the smallest job will take a certain amount of time, taking in to consideration driving to the job, looking at the area, talking to the customer about what they require, offloading equipment, setting it up, doing the job, collecting payment, loading equipment back in to the van, collecting payment, processing payment, driving to the next job. Not to mention, owing the van, equipment, chemicals, obtaining the knowledge to be able to do the job, advertising, insurances and the umpteen other things i cant think of at the moment.

What should that minimum be set at?

That means knowing how much it really costs to run your business and turn a profit. Unfortunately many people don't know the answer to that question. This isnt always the case, but i think many under value themselves and as a result go out of business prematurely.

[Mike Halliday]

Knowing your numbers is really important, but you need to separate what are fixed cost and what are cost of doing the job.

Business insurances,  cost of  equipment,  training, advertising  are fixed, they cost the same whether you spend the day sat in front of the TV watching Jeremy Kyle or are out cleaning carpets.  Chemical costs, diesel & machine depreciation are the cost of cleaning the carpet.

So if you have no work on Monday you will pay (eg ) £15 in business cost even though you have not left the house,  if you go out and clean a couple of carpet it might be an extra £10 so if you make  £50 you are in profit  and have £25 more in your pocket than you did at 8am ( which might pay for the kids cinema tickets at the weekend)

we all live at different levels,  to a new starter (who is struggling to find work)  knowing when he picks his kids up from his x wife at the weekend he can treat them to go see the  latest cinema release  it’s worth going out and earning £25.

I’m lucky I have work constantly coming in, if I looses a single  Room Job, I know I will later in the day or week pick up a bigger job to fill in that space so I don’t worry, I actually look forward to not getting calls and being slow for a time as it lets me do other stuff I have to do

[Jonathan Evans]

Hi Elfyn that's really interesting and something I have often thought about trying although never been brave enough. I guess if I did that I would still have a min charge which would be £50.
In reality what does that equate to for you. If you don't mind me asking. If you do sorry just ignore me.....Most do lll

[Elfyn]

I'm not sure I know what you wish to know, Jonathan. 

[Jonathan Evans]

I just wondered if by not having a minimum charge people actually book more to be done.
Do people just ask for 1 chair or 1 room at say £50 a seat or £5 a sq my for 8 sq Mrs.
I haven't been doing it as long as you just thought it was an interesting idea for marketing.
Thanks anyway.

[Mike Halliday]

I just wondered if by not having a minimum charge people actually book more to be done.
Do people just ask for 1 chair or 1 room at say £50 a seat or £5 a sq my for 8 sq Mrs.
I haven't been doing it as long as you just thought it was an interesting idea for marketing.
Thanks anyway.

Do mean when people call and ask for one room you tell them that a livingRoom is £55 but you have Minimum  charge of £70 , if they had another room cleaned they would get better value for money......so they spend £90 having the hallway cleaned as well as it’s only another  £20

[Robin Ray]

This is really not that complicated,

The costs of running a business whether they be running costs, fixed costs or living costs influence what you need to charge to make a profit. That really is it.

[Jonathan Evans]

Yes I think J have over complicated it. Thanks Mike.

[maxcampbell]

You must have a minimum charge - the big costs are all per day, or per month - so every job must make a contribution per hour.

Our minimum is £130, inc VAT, unless it's a spot/stain, which we do for £88 inc - 2 different area stains = £130. It puts very very few off, most people find something else - stairs, or a chair - to take it over the minimum. £130 gets you a room about 5m x 3.5m.