[groundhog]

How can you say he was ripping them off as they obviously agreed the price?

[Paul Coleman]

I've picked up a couple in a village near me because someone was pricing too high.
They're good jobs too.
The last window cleaner doesn't know he's dumped yet, but he was charging so much they asked me for a quote.

He wanted £30-odd for what I asked £20.
I see it as 20-25 mins work, so I've got a really good price.

It's going to lead to others too.
Don't know if it's a cleaner I know, but I don't feel any guilt when they were ripping people off.

You can't price too high, people will look elsewhere.

It can be difficult pitching it right.
I know a several W/Cs within a few miles from me who quote a lot higher than I do - and I already quote a fair bit higher than I used to.  It can be a tricky situation really.  Personally, I would just prefer people to ask for a quote without giving me the lowdown on whether or not they currently have a W/C.  If they have already sacked a W/C and tell me that it was someone who I know that quotes very high, then I have been known to quote a bit higher than normal knowing that I will stay within the customer's previous price.  I have turned work away before if a guy I know is currently cleaning for them.  Perhaps I shouldn't but I get along OK with other window cleaners and don't want to spoil that.  A couple of guys have even put bits of WFP work my way because they were using trad tools and were unable to do the job.  I've put work other people's way that weren't really suited to WFP.
In a price war nobody wins except the customer so I try to avoid it.  To go higher than a pound a minute with domestic does make the job vulnerable to be lost IMO.  In fact, I lost one job several years ago for daring to up the price from £5.50 to £6 when I should have been charging a tenner.

[Sir Squeaky]

How can you say he was ripping them off as they obviously agreed the price?

Yeah, then a month later they asked me.
Clearly too expensive.
Perhaps he was the only window cleaner they'd seen.

His loss, my gain.

[Sir Squeaky]

Theres plenty of work out there without the need to undercut others!!    I hope some nipper comes along and offers to do it for a tenner!!!!

How can I have undercut if they ask me for a quote, then afterwards tell me I'm £10 cheaper?

Not my problem.
If he didn't overprice they wouldn't have asked me.

[groundhog]

I doubt he will be that bothered as there are plenty more customers out there prepared to pay a good price for a quality job!
You just carry on building your low priced round and undercutting other window cleaners and you will end up with a round full of crap, and customers who will drop you the first time a cheaper window cleaner knocks on their door!!

[simon knight]

I feel that if people can get away with £50ph then good luck to them but personally I think that £25ph is plenty for what is basically unskilled labour.

As I said before if i charge £25 I'll go back 6 times a year. But at £50 it'd be 2 perhaps 3 times because very very few people are going to want to spend £300 on their windows...certainly none of my customers.

Also at £50 I'd have to deliver pretty damn near perfect results...and with the best will in the world I can't deliver perfection.

Finally at £50 I'd be open to being undercut...and rightly so!

[PaulTh]

groundhog get in touch with me if your selling any work doesnt matter if you live in lands end and im in john of groats,im sure it will still be worth my while lol :-) seriously if your looking to offload work in the future give me a shout.

[NWH]

Simon let someone else do your pricing for you mate,you obviously don`t value yourself.

[trevor perry]

i agree with squeeky if someone asks for my qoute and i am cheaper then i will take on the job and if someone undercuts me then that is ok to, each person works for what they think is necassary groundhog mentioned paying someone £7.50 an hour and their are good window cleaners working for others at that rate so to ask for £50 or £60 an hour i think is a rip of and to say that you do a better job than others because you charge more is just ridiculous there are people charging a lot and doing a crap job the same as people charging cheap and doing a good job.
  On the other hand if you are getting those sort of prices then it is no good complaining if you do get undercut because you are leaving yourself wide open for that to happen, if someone undercuts me then it is only going to be by a small amount and the customer probably wont bother changing but when you are undercut the price differance will be worth trying a new window cleaner.

[NWH]

If i charge £50 per clean for a house and do it for a year and do it say 6 times that`s £300,if another wc does the same type of house and charges £25 he makes £150,so really compared to my prices he will clean them for a year for nothing.This is not just an example there are wcs working and pricing jobs far to low,i doubled the price of a job another wc used to do and all they said was that`s great but can you come more often than the other wc,say no more if you charge to low it can work against you beleive it or not,they can think your just in it for the bear money if you price to cheap.

[supernova77]

How can I have undercut if they ask me for a quote, then afterwards tell me I'm £10 cheaper?

Not my problem.
If he didn't overprice they wouldn't have asked me.

Squeaky,

Perhaps he wasn't overpricing? Perhaps you are underpricing?

Perhaps it took him an hour to do each house to a high standard, whilst you'll take 20 mins and do it to not as high a standard?

Andy

[trevor perry]

or maybe squeeky will do it in twenty minutes and do a better job when will people see that price has nothing to do with the quallity of the job.

[groundhog]

As I said before if i charge £25 I'll go back 6 times a year. But at £50 it'd be 2 perhaps 3 times

So you would rather work 6 hours for £150 than work 3 hours for £150? Thats not good business sense!!

[groundhog]

Also at £50 I'd have to deliver pretty d**n near perfect results...and with the best will in the world I can't deliver perfection.

I think this statement effectively explains why some window cleaners are able to charge a higher price than others! - enough said 

[simon knight]

Also at £50 I'd have to deliver pretty d**n near perfect results...and with the best will in the world I can't deliver perfection.

I think this statement effectively explains why some window cleaners are able to charge a higher price than others! - enough said 

Obviously you're implying that you do deliver perfect results...which I don't dispute. So on that basis with your perfect results your services aren't needed 6,9 or 12 times yearly....unless of course you have super rich clients who have nothing else to occupy their minds than their windows always being spotless.

On your profile you location isn't filled in...where do you live Mayfair?

[Paul Coleman]

i agree with squeeky if someone asks for my qoute and i am cheaper then i will take on the job and if someone undercuts me then that is ok to, each person works for what they think is necassary groundhog mentioned paying someone £7.50 an hour and their are good window cleaners working for others at that rate so to ask for £50 or £60 an hour i think is a rip of and to say that you do a better job than others because you charge more is just ridiculous there are people charging a lot and doing a crap job the same as people charging cheap and doing a good job.
  On the other hand if you are getting those sort of prices then it is no good complaining if you do get undercut because you are leaving yourself wide open for that to happen, if someone undercuts me then it is only going to be by a small amount and the customer probably wont bother changing but when you are undercut the price differance will be worth trying a new window cleaner.

I get £50 or £60 an hour for a small proportion of my work and I haven't ripped anyone off.
Let's take two of those jobs (these are actual examples):-

Job 1.  I originally quoted it over two years ago before I started with WFP.  I quoted it at £32.00 .  I reckoned it would take a little over an hour.  A bit of it was tricky as I had to use swivloc applicator and squeegee for a window over the conservatory.  After a couple of cleans, I managed to get my time down to between 55mins and one hour.  OK so that's close to £33/£34 for an hour on average.  Then along came WFP.  I invested around £16,000 for a second hand van, van mount, trolley, backpack, poles and all sorts of associated stuff.  The debt for that lot is still costing me around £300 a month.  After I had got used to using it, I eventually managed to get job 1 down to 32 minutes if I shifted myself but more typically it will take me nearer 40 minutes.  So that's between £48 and £60 an hour.  Remember, I invested borrowed money to achieve this.

Job 2.  I originally quoted it at £58.00.  I reckoned it would take a bit over an hour for the actual cleaning and now that the first couple of cleans are out of the way, that guess is about right.  However, the job is a few miles out of the way so it takes a while in time and vehicle costs to get there.  So I suppose that one is about £55 an hour for the actual cleaning.  The people are absolutely delighted because previous window cleaners (non WFP) either kept letting them down, missed some windows, or trod on (and broke) some of their tiles in spite of being told not to go onto the roof.  Bear in mind that these windows are mostly Georgian so I probably do them a lot faster than someone using trad methods.

Now I think it's important to realise here that we are talking about WFP hours and trad hours.  I can't speak for others but on most jobs I am faster with WFP than I was trad - sometimes a LOT faster.  Because I have taken a risk and borrowed 16 grand, I can reduce the time taken on most jobs.  There are also parts of my business where I rush to turn over £22 an hour.  These will be passed on when the time is right.  At the moment - mostly due to WFP - I have gaps in my workload.  Therefore I will not be dropping any more work for now.
I do not rip anyone off.  My customers are charged the same amount as when I cleaned the trad way (except for some where I hiked it up by £1 this year).  The faster work time is used to offset the higher outgoings.

With the Georgian job, I reckon that would be two hours trad.  2 hours at £29 an hour is £58.  I take one hour and charge £58.  Where's the rip off?

[williamx]

I hear you Groundhog but:  At £25ish ph I get all the work I want and have not too much fear of being undercut. Also at £25ph Mrs Smith is happy for me to have me back 6 or 7 times a year...at £50 it'd be 2 if I'm lucky.

But when all's said and done barring petrol £25 is net money...I might replace a scrim/rubber from time to time :

I haven't canvassed for 18 months as all of my new work is from Recs.

I never took up w/c ing to make a fortune...just a nice living being my own boss.

Simon

You say that you are happy with earning £25.00 per hour, which on it own looks like a good figure to earn.

But you are not earning £25.00 per hour, you say that apart from petrol you only pay for scrims/rubbers from time to time.

What happens if you have a holiday or day off, what if you are sick and can't earn, this comes off your £25.00.

You pay for petrol but what about the insurance-road tax-breakdowns and even replacing the vechicle when its worn out.

You buy shoes and work gear because of you job this also comes off your £25.00.

You might have public insurance, but you will have to pay Nat Insurance and Income Tax.

Every year you have to do your books for the tax man, you can either pay an accountant or spend xxx amount of hours doing them yourself, this also comes out of you £25.00, if you get them wrong and the tax man fines you then this also comes out of your £25.00.

Do you pay for a pension, more from that £25.00.

At the end of the day, its dosen't matter what you charge per hour its what that figure is really worth when you take all of the deductables from it.

You say that £25.00 is a good amount to earn from an unskilled job, don't run yourself down, window cleaning is both dangerous and skilled and you should charge accordingly.

If you ask Mrs smith how much she pays a plumber-electrian-decorator just to turn up then you are charging a pittance for a skilled job.

If you want to earn £25.00 per hour net, then you need to start at this figure and then add on all of the other bits that you will spend to come to a gross figure to charge.

[simon knight]

You just cannot compare plumbing and electrical work to window cleaning. The first two are highly skilled and involve study and recognised qualifications (unless you're a cowboy!) and the third is just cleaning glass!

As for income tax, Ni, shoes etc etc....this comes with any job.

[NWH]

I like people who think like you simon,i`ve had lots like you work for me for £5 an hour LOL.

[groundhog]

Simon I don't really understand why you are being so defensive? As William, myself and other members are actually trying to help you - by suggesting that perhaps your worth a bit more. I don't think of myself as being just a window cleaner, but as being a businessman who is striving to achieve the best profits that I can from my business!