Sincerity....fake that and you've got it made
I don't honestly know if my sales technique is good or not, but as a rule I get on very well indeed on a one to one basis with people.
As I talk to them I like to smile at them...I try to make my eyes mirror my smile...I like to see if I can get a smile in return, if I'm doing that I am at least empathizing with them a little (that can be a potential customer or the woman at the checkout scanning my goods).
I agree with honesty too, be straight with your potential customer, don't be hesitant of diffident (neither could ever be said of Tosh by the way
).
On one off cleans you do need to charge at least double, well, I say that, but half the trime I cave in at the point of telling them the price and probably do very similar to Squeaky and then mentally kick myself for not charging more!!
On the subject of turnover, of course Squeaks doesn't turnover 24k per year, if he did he would have plenty of ready cash and plenty in the bank too.
It doesn't matter how often you can regularly turnover £25 per hour, or £30 per hour, Roger needs to look at his end of year figures (as do you all) divide that 52 and you have your weekly income, or business turnover I should say.
Take 5k off that total for business costs & overheads (like it or not, your vehicle IS an overhead, without it you wouldn't have a job) and that will give you your realistic income.
When it comes to tax purposes. various other things come into play to further reduce your profit, but I'm not talking about that.
For the trad window cleaner, 5k per year is about right as a business running cost.
I honestly don't know what squeaks turnover was for the last tax year and I don't expect him to tell all on an open forum, from what I can gather the tax man re-evalued him and has charged him on account for the following year also, so his tax bill isn't actually £1000 for the year he submitted, no doubt next year that forward payment will be taken into account when he does his return.
If Squeaks submitted somewhere between £15,000 and £17,000 for his turnover the tax figure he quoted sounds about right (especially if they have made him pay some on account).
Lets say he's submitted 17k, lop 5k off that and that leaves him with an income of just £12,000 per year.
No one needs to come back at me with tax equations, we leave all that for the end of the year, but if you are turning over roughly £17,000 per year, then your income is going to be in the region of £12,000
Every 3 years or so, most of us will replace our current vehicle, maybe many of you can only afford to pay out a grand or so on some old banger, but that's hardly surprising if you are only on an income of 12k per year is it?
Claiming to turn over £25 per hour is of no use whatsoever if at the end of the year it only equated to a 12 grand wage.
If you are turning over £25 per hour and only getting £12,000 per year out of that, then you are seriously screwing things up...what are you doing wrong?
Ian