[carpet guy]

Conflict, contradiction, accusations, jealousy, the recipe for TV soaps, or the life of carpet cleaners......

If some one has been providing a low cost service  for many years and has buIlt a property portfolio on the proceeds, that person IS A SUCCESS, should be congratulated and used as a ROLE MODEL.

There is more than one way to skin a cat, as the saying goes and to criticise and mock such business success is, in my opinion incredibly NAIVE and that is being very polite with my choice of words.

If you want to be a success and build a money making business from cleaning carpets and furniture, YOU NEED A STEADY SUPPLY OF PEOPLE WHO ARE REPARED TO PAY YOUR PRICES.

There is a fair amount nonesense posted  alongside a fair bit of sound advice.

Theory is great, a bit like Idealism, but reality is where we are and it's where the majority of prospective clients are, with their feet firmly on the ground.

Sure, it's great if you can successfully target and win clients who are prepared to pay higher prices, but, only ten to twenty percent of c/c's will operate in that sector, regularly.

Some, including myself, will take clients from across the board, while many, possibly the majority, will work in the lower priced sector, where they will have to work longer and possibly harder, but many will make a very good living and if astute, will be more succssful than the " dreamers "

I know of at least a dozen businesses around my locality who charge low, or comparatively low prices and have been in business for 10 to 25 years.

Keep your prices to yourself and look at practical ways of helping each other. Sharing experiences and information can be more  inspirational than telling people they are likely to be a failure if they don't charge at least £150 for a suite clean or £60 for a lounge.

[Susan Dean (1stclean)]

Conflict, contradiction, accusations, jealousy, the recipe for TV soaps, or the life of carpet cleaners......

If some one has been providing a low cost service  for many years and has buIlt a property portfolio on the proceeds, that person IS A SUCCESS, should be congratulated and used as a ROLE MODEL.

There is more than one way to skin a cat, as the saying goes and to criticise and mock such business success is, in my opinion incredibly NAIVE and that is being very polite with my choice of words.

If you want to be a success and build a money making business from cleaning carpets and furniture, YOU NEED A STEADY SUPPLY OF PEOPLE WHO ARE REPARED TO PAY YOUR PRICES.

There is a fair amount nonesense posted  alongside a fair bit of sound advice.

Theory is great, a bit like Idealism, but reality is where we are and it's where the majority of prospective clients are, with their feet firmly on the ground.

Sure, it's great if you can successfully target and win clients who are prepared to pay higher prices, but, only ten to twenty percent of c/c's will operate in that sector, regularly.

Some, including myself, will take clients from across the board, while many, possibly the majority, will work in the lower priced sector, where they will have to work longer and possibly harder, but many will make a very good living and if astute, will be more succssful than the " dreamers "

I know of at least a dozen businesses around my locality who charge low, or comparatively low prices and have been in business for 10 to 25 years.

Keep your prices to yourself and look at practical ways of helping each other. Sharing experiences and information can be more  inspirational than telling people they are likely to be a failure if they don't charge at least £150 for a suite clean or £60 for a lounge.

bang on rob just think that to many are willing to have ago at people like me , ok i may be holding the market up as when i lifted my prices so did every other low priced cleaner around my way and some of them are realy in the poop where there money and cash flow is at 

yesterday i was thinking of halfing all my prices buying anthor t.m. (full set up) and realy makeing my competers struggle and running at cost for 6 months to see whos lefted at the end of it     then lifting the prices back up for the xmas rush its called buisness how

ever the help ive got off this fourm and off some great people ive met as stopped me.  it would be like sticking the fingers up at them and saying i know better mybe a do but im always willing to learn 

so im going to lift them a little higher and start my new area from next month going in a topend stuff this way speanding the costs involed

dave i should of know you were not haveing ago but it just read like you were and im sure that if we all look at both sides of cleaning cheap / dear its got to help people under stand each others markets and if you think im cheap i can name cheaper  much cheaper ! 

[carpet guy]

Sensible comment Susan, as you know, I was one of those who suggested raising your prices, but my suggestion was only to raise by around 10% which should have been acceptable to the vast majority of your customers.

Cruscifying your competitors is not necessary and only loses you money and for anyne to suggest the lower priced operators are holding the others back, is rubbish. This has been put about for years.

The reality is, the people who overcharge and fail to deliver the superior service thay claim to, are the ones who have a negative effect on the market.

I'm referring to individuals who claim to be better, because they have a more powerful machine, spend more time vacuuming ( often unnecessary ), take twice as long to do the job ( not because they 're doing a better job ), often overwetting and getting longer drying times.

If you are seriously running a business, time management is critical and the objective should be, assess the job, prepare the area, get in, get out, get paid.

Reading many posts, I've come to the conclusion that a fair number of people are using c/c as a part time job which gives them loads of time off between jobs to follow their hobbies / other interests.

That is kidding yourself and none of the truly successful business people in history worked that way, they all work / worked very long hours and focussed on nothing but the success of their business.

That is not being a " busy fool " it's building a saleable commodity which acts as a cash cow along the way.

[Dave_Lee]

Susan, I never said I thought your prices were cheap again, I was not reffering to you. Carpet Guy, you make some good points, but you were obviously having a dig about me taking time out to follow my other interests. Well excuse me but in my opinion you are wrong. Any established businessman, takes time out to do the things that they enjoy outside of their working enviroment. It keeps them fresh of mind and makes them perform better in their work and prevents them becoming blinded by the work, work, work ethic. After all isnt the purpose of work intended to finance your lifestyle. If your lifestyle if just work, then thats just plain boring. As for being part time, I can tell you, I put more hours on my TM per annum than the majoriy of CCs and I wouldnt call an average of 50 hours a week, part time.
Dave.

[Susan Dean (1stclean)]

at last a good debate about both sides well done dave and rob

ive have put my prices up about 40-50% ish  over the last 15 months and kepted 90% of my custys  and ive now had many comments that went like this " i thought you were to cheap to start with " 

i think i am now at tipping point where go for just topend jobs or stop where am at.  so the best way forward for me is to stop where i am at with what i am chargeing then move outside my area buy say 50 miles and start again with the top end this way i wont lose any of my work and can write off any loses off my tax costing my northing

people saying that you cant make money at low prices are wrong and go for more of a one big hit if that wroks for them thats great but it doesnt work for me i dont have any marketing cocts due to the good job good price area saveing many many pounds 

[spencer davies]

This is a debate that has been thrown around for years, I am not bothered about others in my area, if they want to work lots of hours for small money that's fine, I concentrate on our business and get top end clients regularly, if I survey a property, I will usually get 9/10 jobs and the low end customers will be as interested in me as I am in them.

Everyone will have different qualities on offer, I just can't see the point in toiling for small money. Customers will usually relate to cheap prices, qualified service, allergy treatments, drying times etc etc, they know what they are looking for, although logistically, requirements will differ.


S

[Dave_Lee]

Susan,
We are not that far apart in our operations you know. Some people think because Ive got a big, all singing etc van & TM and have done the FT, and criticise the Low, Low charging fraternaty, that I must be a high charging operator. Well that simply isnt true, I am often b-----cked for not charging enough by certain other operators. I can tell you there are porty users out there, chaging more than me, b ut would I do a full house as mentioned for £50, no way, not for twice that either and the reason is, because the jobs worth more than that, and people WILL pay it. In fact another member of this forum, just a few weeks ago, beat me on a telephone quote and got the job to clean several carpets in a house. He won the job because he quoted £100.. MORE than than the next highest quote (mine) and they didnt think I could do a good job for what I quoted.
Like you a few years ago I increased charges in one go by 50% and kept almost all my customers. People told me too that I wasnt charging enough and I am now at a point where my instincts tell me, again, that I should and could increase prices.
Dave.

[Susan Dean (1stclean)]

dave when julian went to see and train with an operator near you he came back and could nt belive what this guy was chargeing. 

now i am not saying this guys wrong but when he told me what he was chargeing i thought of footballers houses and big posh placeses but guess what they were the same type of people we do just 100 miles away . same streets same income just diffent towns this realy opened our eyes

ive add a  few emails in the passed buy watchers  from  this fourm saying that they find people intimerdateing about there out look on cheap cleaners and have said im brave for poping my head up above  the fireing line 

however if people like me dont do this once in a while how will people see boths sides when we spok too david li. at the ccdo we came back with anthor boat load of info (which was free) and started changeing things from dayone ok we may never been in davids  leage but we larnt suff we never thought off and it was some of the simple things he showed use that as made the biggest changes  to the way we work and earn money

we have saved alot of money buy getting chems in pallet loads ! if i buy 25 bottles of cit gel then i want 4 for free i rember gong to a local prochem deal a few years back and buy 100 tubs on crs. green and getting a good number for free  this is just one of the ways we have made money in the passed 

[gwrightson]

can think of better ways of putting my money to use susan,
a pallet load and you get 4 free bottles, come on who the hell wants to store a pallet load to save a few quid.
certainly not me, i would rather pay a touch extra when I need it. I reckon the interest you would have got on the money paying for that amount would have matched your saving , in the time you scale of using all the chems,
unless of course you use a pallet load a month , then fair play.

geoff

[Susan Dean (1stclean)]

can think of better ways of putting my money to use susan,
a pallet load and you get 4 free bottles, come on who the hell wants to store a pallet load to save a few quid.
certainly not me, i would rather pay a touch extra when I need it. I reckon the interest you would have got on the money paying for that amount would have matched your saving , in the time you scale of using all the chems,
unless of course you use a pallet load a month , then fair play.

geoff

i was running 5 portys seven days aweek a few years ago , trust me these guys wacked though the stuff  i wouldnt just buy a pallet of one stuff there would be all sorts in there and i was always want 35% of the total 

[stevegunn]

Up to a few years ago I was charging £65 for a suite and £20 a carpet went to SDO in Leyland and had my eyes opened put my prices up lost a few customers on the way even though they said I had done a good job but too expensive.Now charging £120 for suite and from £43 for a carpet.

Last week had local paper on doing a survey of regular advertisers one of the questions was "where do you want your business to be in 2 years and who do you aspire to be like?"

I replied like revita couple of vans on the road charging a fair price for a fair job" now I get on well with the girl asking the questions who told me all the local competitors aspire to be like me,told her they could not afford to charge the prices I charge as they would go bust.

I thought like that a few years ago. 

[nevil]

I did a job for a regular letting agent in Plymouth in the week. I havn't done anything for them for a while as we had a problem with payments.

While at the job the neigbour came over to ask why they are getting the carpets cleaned again. Because they are filthy I replied. I went on to ask when they were cleaned and by who. He couldn't remember the name of the company.

When I went back to the agent, I commented that I thought the tennant may have had a go with a domestic or hire machine. To my suprise she told me the had responded to a leaflet offering very cheap carpet cleaning. Didn't give me the name but it could well be the same lot. Seems a shame that she has had to pay to have carpets cleaned twice to get a decent job done. :