[dai]

Most of my round is under priced, according to the prices I read on here, well under priced.
A couple of months ago, I was asked to price a detached 3 storied house.
I told the lady that it would be £16. She asked how much for bi-monthly. I said £20 and she aggreed to this. It took over an hour to do the first clean, the plastic was minging.
Went back today and did the job again. The job took 40 mins.
When I'd finished, I knocked, her husband came to the door. £20 please. Now if I had kicked him in his juicy bits, he couldn't have looked more pained.
How much! "£20" Here you are, and don't bother calling again. You havn't even dried them off. I tried to explain how WFP worked, but he just closed the door.
This was an honestly priced job going by what I read on here.
How the hell do you get them to pay your prices? Dai

[bumper]

Move down south,coz you wornt get many like that up north lad.

[Paul Coleman]

Most of my round is under priced, according to the prices I read on here, well under priced.
A couple of months ago, I was asked to price a detached 3 storied house.
I told the lady that it would be £16. She asked how much for bi-monthly. I said £20 and she aggreed to this. It took over an hour to do the first clean, the plastic was minging.
Went back today and did the job again. The job took 40 mins.
When I'd finished, I knocked, her husband came to the door. £20 please. Now if I had kicked him in his juicy bits, he couldn't have looked more pained.
How much! "£20" Here you are, and don't bother calling again. You havn't even dried them off. I tried to explain how WFP worked, but he just closed the door.
This was an honestly priced job going by what I read on here.
How the hell do you get them to pay your prices? Dai

It's a numbers game Dai.  The more decent priced quotes you do, the more decent priced jobs you get.  I know it sounds obvious but it's so true.  It may be harder for you than me though as I am in the southeast of England which is probably the most expensive area (to live in as well as for W/C prices).
You just got unlucky with the guy's attitude I think.  I've had a few like that.  They are around in every part of the country.

[Sir Squeaky]

I couldn't get away with £20 for 40 mins on many jobs.
Although I do have some which are, due to me getting quicker and the price is better then.

That's what it is with daft pricing...getting away with it.

[D woods]

Hi Dai
The way to get good priced work is to just ask for it. If the customer doesnt
like the price they can only say no.

Most of the window cleaners that I know only get 1 quote out of every 3.
the trick is do lots of quotes.

[simon knight]

The guy's attitude was disgusting given that the price had already been agreed!

Unfortunately by and large the average person living in southeast england earns a fair amount more than their northern counterparts (probably need to because of the higher cost of somewhere to live) so most services tend to be that much more expensive.

To give a comparison a detached 3 storey house where I live and work (Putney) wouldn't come cheaper than £75 with 90% of w/c I know. I personally wouldn't touch it cos I'm not wfp.

Dai, go back and kick the guy in the juicy bits

[Londoner]

You often find that its the husband that does that. The wife probably doesn't even know he's done it.

But just a question, why put the price up for only going every other month? With WFP this is going to be the normal interval soon unless  I'm very much mistaken.

Hitting £20 takes it past the psycological barrier. You should have said £18 and the bloke possibly would have given you a score anyway.

[KJG]

Leave a sexy message on her phone and hope he, the finger, gets it. Don't forget to send anonymously though.

[simon knight]

You often find that its the husband that does that. The wife probably doesn't even know he's done it.

But just a question, why put the price up for only going every other month? With WFP this is going to be the normal interval soon unless  I'm very much mistaken.

Hitting £20 takes it past the psycological barrier. You should have said £18 and the bloke possibly would have given you a score anyway.

You're spot on re the hubby! I've had that before....she's perfectly happy with the service/cleaning for ages. Then one day "he's" at home and gets all macho and starts giving it the large. I always find this hysterical....for Heavens sake I'm cleaning yer windows not doing a loft conversion.....some people :

[Sir Squeaky]

Hitting £20 takes it past the psycological barrier. You should have said £18 and the bloke possibly would have given you a score anyway.

That's very true.

I've got lots at £9, £14, and £18-19! 

[Pat Purcell]

We have had the same problem a few times ,I just explain to the husband that his wife has waited 6 mths to get on our customer list and if he cancels then the wait right now is a year (sometimes its true sometimes its not)Usually they wont eat pie right there and then just mumble something about discussing it with the wife and she will let me know etc, then just wait for the phone to ring and depending on how much of an obnoxios git he was we will continue cleaning or explain to his wife that we are not interested in working for them anymore

[dai]

Bingo. She came round to my house tonight, apologised for her husbands rudeness,
And asked me to please continue as arranged. Dai

[Paul Coleman]

Bingo. She came round to my house tonight, apologised for her husbands rudeness,
And asked me to please continue as arranged. Dai

I'm glad to hear it Dai.  I once had a couple start arguing about me in front of me.  Was excruciatingly embarassing.  In the end I told them that I would make it easy for them and politely canceeled the job.  Hope they didn't get too stroppy with each other after that.

[neil100]

You Ask

There are a lot of very cheap window washers up here in the North West.

I dont give a monkeys if another w/c wants to clean for peanuts. I wont.

I am only willing to work for a certain price per hour. Its what I firmly beleive I am worth. When customers stop paying me what I am worth I will pack window cleaning in. Three more months and I will have done a 27 year stint. My round is paying the most its ever paid per hour and I have at the momment the biggest customer base I have ever had.

But too pack it in I would have to lose 80% of my work. I dont think thats going to happen for a long time. I will canvass next summer for another 20% extra in my income. All the new work will be priced higher then what I allready earn, then in 2008 I will put up my prices by 10%. If I lose 20% of my work which is highly unlikely it will pay me more per hour in less time with a bigger profit margin.

And before anyone says I am ripping customers off. Thats completly untrue. Window cleaning is not a Necessity of life, its a luxury. The customer can easily get someone else to clean their windows, our town is overrun with w/c. but if they want a high quality service by a PRO cleaner then it will cost um.

Nel.

[JM123]

Its really hard sometimes to price a job so that its worth doing,while at the same time representing value for money for the customer.  Like others have said, the trick is to price loads of jobs and you're bound to getsome of them, don't go cheaper, you'll only end up with work you don't like and the you're back to square one.  My own work took 3 years to reach £1k a month, where I live is overrun with crap, cheap wcs too.  The difference now is this, my work makes me £30-£40 an hour, its slowly building but I know I won't lose customers, they are real steady jobs.  Now comes the good part, every job I have taken on in the last 6 months has been a min of £60/hr - people know that I do a brilliant job, am reliable and so what if I cost a little more?  Last job I picked up was Thurs, on recommendation - 3 storey house, new PVC windows, last cleaner charged £16 (she showed me his receipt), but he was rubbish.  I quoted £45 AFTER seeing the receipt, she was delighted that I was even interested in doing the job since I clean her friends and she likes wfp, frames cleaned blah blah blah point is, be confident in your pricing, you set your price range, budge a little - I do and it works, I just overquote at first so they bargain me down a little - I end up with the price I want anyway!

[KarlJones]

The way I see it is this. (and I have not started yet but already have this bit worked out) the numbers are totally theoretical and pulled out of the air.

Imagine you have 100 customers that average 10 quid a pop
that is 1000 quids

You rise your prices by 10%
That is 100 customers average 11 quid. total = 1100 quids.

You lose 10% of them across the board though.
That is 90 customers average 11 quid.  total = 990 quids.

Canvass (if needed) for the 10 customers lost
Total is 100 customers average 11 quid. total = 1100

Obviously this shows that if the percentage of lost customers is equal to the percentage of the rise then the effect should be a 1% drop in takings.   

If you just decided to replace 1% of your customer base back instead of the full 10% then you would reduce your workload by 9%, but be more or less on the same money.   

What is more interesting is that you can focus your canvassing on the more profitable customers and change the shape of your customer base.  Therefore effectively increasing your profitability by much more than 10%

The problem is not "should I rise prices" but "What is the magic figure?". 

If it was me I would do this...
work out my actual hourly rate in total over a month. (lets imagine 20 quid per hour)
work out what sort of rise I would like to see (say 10% to make it 22 quid per hour)
Look just at the hours less than 22 quid per hour.
Lift them up with big rises.
Replace any that got lost with ones that were more than my new required rate.

I know someone said about do not be shy hitting your biggest customers with big rises.  But to me this could drive your hourly rate down if they are more than your new required hourly rate.  If there is one thing I am trying to say in this post it is this...
"The only way you are going to improve your hourly rate is to rise and replace the bad stuff"

Thats how I would do it any way, but like I said, I know nothing about the philosophy of this game yet.

[jr windows]

If I was you Karl, I'd consider accountancy as a career, rather than window cleaning - think you've found your niche there mate!

[KarlJones]

My bank manager would take issue with that I am sure.

Which probably means I am the last person you want to listen to.

[AuRavelling79]

Ok - Psychological barriers on price are in our heads (mine included) as much as the customers.

If you have a busy round and want to do a cull take your worst customers and tell them you are going every 8 weeks instead of monthly.

You also tell them you will be removing almost twice as much muck but "only" charging (insert round figure between 25% and 60% extra depending on how much you care whether you lose them or not.)

Explain that their annual spend will be reduced.

Some will say yes, some will say no. You will win out becuase you will earn more for less cost.

[JohnL]

If you have a  professional outlook, have confidence in dealing with people, show good manners, be firm but polite, show them you know what you are talking about but above all look professional most customers will believe in you and  therefore believe that you will do a good, thorough job and be worth the money

I always quote high and if there is any hesitation I say the price includes cleaning the frames and sills ( which would have been included any way, so I am not giving anything away )

At present I am reducing prices in certain cases because I feel embarassed charging £35 for 30 minutes work since changing over to WFP. I dont believe in overcharging in rural areas because I think I will pick up more work in the long term instead of frightening potential customers away.

JohnL