[fitz2kleen]

Ps Wat machine did you start off with fitz2clean?

started off using a ninja
baught a couple of prochem powermax machines and upgraded one of them i now have 3 prochem machines one that is soley for sewage and one spare or in case i need have a large enough jobbie to warrant taking two on site.

[creighton foyle]

jamie ,i am a new start up and i just checked back through my emails to see if  i had saved an attachment from matt at cleansmart with a choice of start up packages, anyway i still have it and you can get a budget start up package for under 4k including vat it would be for the airflex pro which i think most people would agrree is a fair bit of kit but you would also get a free training course for carpets and upholstery and the package includes everything you need to start including some chems which you will probably never use if you would like me to forward the email to you contact me at dryliner@hotmail.com and i will send it to you. my experience with cleansmart has been fantastic and i would recomend them but do your own research as there are a lot of good suppliers out there

[MAX Carpets]

I would say more like 5 years to start to get comfy, and 10k to start!

[Steve Barnett (Carpet Care Plus)]

Firstly, sit down and work out what your domestic running costs are - home, food, bills etc; and what your business costs will be (estimated obviously as you are just starting) marketing, fuel, cleaning equipment and ongoing consumables.

This will give you your monthly running costs and profit required to break even.

Then you can set your prices accordingly.

Too many people just find out what someone local to them is charging and then match it or go lower.

You need to work out what YOU NEED to earn to run YOUR BUSINESS.

[wynne jones]

I reckon £4000 is plenty to get Jamie going if he spends it wisely. It makes me laugh when I hear people almost bragging about the huge sums of money they spent to start up their business as if others are supposed to be impressed.

If someone tells me they spent £20,000 I say "more fool you!"

Do as much as you possibly can yourself and look for bargains every step of the way. That's what I reckon. The sooner you recover your start up costs, the sooner you turn a profit and can start putting some of that money back into your business.

Sounds like your the one whos being smug about it Mr Seymour. So when you started your business did you make enough money to pay all your bills from day 1, or did you scab off your wife or do it on the side at first?

To grow a business you are likely to be putting at least 10/20% back into marketing. Then there is insurances, etc.

'Go for it' by all means but in the beggeining and especially starting now, have a realistic view of what is entailed financially have to do. All the posters here won't pay your mortgage for you when you are in the poor house.

[jasonl]

Almost everyone gets hung up on start up costs as if the equipment /van is everything.
It is the marketing that is everything, and even with wise spending 20k is what it takes to get you to a place where you have enough revenue for one man to keep a family properly , this may be spread over 3-5 years, or one year , the amount stays the same though.

[Ian Gourlay]

Matt

Do you actually charge the prices on your Web Site

I am not being critical but it does say From

I think £45 is to low for a suite

However as you say you are starting and kept your cost base low .

Hopefully you will learn to raise your prices

[Jamie Lindsay]

Matt,

great advice there think I am on the same level of thinking as you just reassured my head... think you are right about the van aswell ppl spend allot of money on unneeded eye candy and can take up allot of funds...

how did you set up your own web page? really impressed with your work sir...

where did you buy your machine aswell ? ebay ?

also where did you buy your sign writing look gd on the web page

Have you got an leaflet in pdf format or sumthing that you could send me to give me an idea?


must say matt really have done well with the budget you had to work with but the price range you are charging could be a bit more? or are you upsailing once you enter the costumers house?

email me if you like matt jc-lindsay@hotmail.co.uk

 

[Jamie Lindsay]

thanks again for the response

I have done my business plan and have wored out my projected monthly and annual turnover

has anyone got a rough idea on how to price should i put prices on the net and flyers? do you make your money on up selling when you get into the costumers house?

has anyone got a rough idea of what there flyers look like ?

what would you say the average salary (rough figure) per annum of a self employed cleaner ?

[Matt Seymour]

Matt

Do you actually charge the prices on your Web Site

I am not being critical but it does say From

I think £45 is to low for a suite

However as you say you are starting and kept your cost base low .

Hopefully you will learn to raise your prices

Yep, I do charge the prices on my website. They are all based on average sized rooms that need a standard clean. They are also driven by some of the competition's prices. I clean at least one room for £10 on almost every job I do. The way I see it, if I get £100 a day I am happy - especially at this early stage. I am slowly increasing my prices though.

The trouble is that there is a lot of competition in my area including the £8.99 for two rooms bait and switch scammers and they are hitting everyone quite hard.

I'm basically trying different things. Originally I didn't display my prices on my site and then I changed that because a lot of people said that they like to know a ball park figure before they make contact.

The website as it is isn't the finished article, it's just something to be going on with. I am building another at the moment and the prices will increase slightly.

[Matt Seymour]

I reckon £4000 is plenty to get Jamie going if he spends it wisely. It makes me laugh when I hear people almost bragging about the huge sums of money they spent to start up their business as if others are supposed to be impressed.

If someone tells me they spent £20,000 I say "more fool you!"

Do as much as you possibly can yourself and look for bargains every step of the way. That's what I reckon. The sooner you recover your start up costs, the sooner you turn a profit and can start putting some of that money back into your business.

Sounds like your the one whos being smug about it Mr Seymour. So when you started your business did you make enough money to pay all your bills from day 1, or did you scab off your wife or do it on the side at first?

To grow a business you are likely to be putting at least 10/20% back into marketing. Then there is insurances, etc.

'Go for it' by all means but in the beggeining and especially starting now, have a realistic view of what is entailed financially have to do. All the posters here won't pay your mortgage for you when you are in the poor house.

I'm not being smug. I'm saying that you don't have to spend a small fortune to get yourself up and running if you do everything yourself and look high and low for bargains.

I made money from day one. I think I made something like £400 in my first week. It has been really up and down though.

I agree about marketing being the most important thing. It's a bit trial and error really and depends on what works in your particular area. I have quickly learnt that referrals make up a very large percentage of your work in this industry and you can't buy that.

[james roffey]

Well i do not see that telling people what you invested as bragging, i calculated what i would need to invest and have some set aside just in case.
I invested about £13,000 i spent £4000 on a van simply because i was able to get a three year old Citroen dispatch with only 26000 miles on the clock which i thought was a bargain i
wanted a clean looking vehicle to display the graphics i have on my van wich cost £700 and has paid for itself many times over plus the van will see me good for several years.
None of this was to show off its about how i wanted my business to be displayed if i turn up outside a customers home in a rusty shed, i think it implies i will be at the lower end of the carpet cleaning spectrum and charge accordingly.
I had a professional design and optimise my website, we all bang on about customers not hiring machines when they should have hired a professional, well i can think of no better example than having this done by a professional, again this has been a worthwhile investment as it brings me a lot of work probably 50% when you think how much you can spend on leafleting and other forms of marketing it is dirt cheap to have a site designed and optimised.
I have been established about 18 months now and am happy with the progress i have made with it really starting to pick up recently,  i have ploughed so much into marketing and new equipment to further build the business to ensure it continues to grow, of course you can start on very little but when you look in your van at all the stuff you have that you use on a daily basis it's a lot more than a machine, hose and wand.
My first goal when i started was to build my bank balance to a comfortable level where it could withstand a severe quite period or a breakdown of equipment etc, but its a balance between investment and saving, without a large investment you will not reap the rewards or it will take a lot longer, take leafleting for example it is very costly, and has been mentioned has to be done regularly, its alright doing it yourself but when business picks up you wont have the time, then the work you used to get from leaflets stops, the only way aroung this is finding a reliable person to deliver which is not easy and costly.
Last and not the least the driving force to make your business work for me was fear, the fear of the alternative.

All the best of luck, refuse to fail and you wont

[Matt Seymour]

I'm not knocking people for spending a lot of money on start up. I'm just trying to reassure Jamie (who only has £4k) that you can start a business with that amount of money.

His original post prompted a few replies suggesting that £4k isn't enough and that just isn't true.

A limited budget just means you have to work that bit harder and do much more yourself. I would love to have had more money to spend so I could have had a site professionally built or had a newer van, but I just made the best of what I had and I am managing to get by.

If your budget is small, then start small, make a success of that and then move up a level. That's all I am saying.

[wynne jones]

Matt I actually agree with a lot of what you are saying about start up costs, like you can save a lot if you are prepaired to invest in good second hand kit.

What I want new people to really take on board is the liklihood is in your first year you will not make enough money from that to support your outgoings, you will probably have to dip into savings, have another means of income as well or go into debt.

There will always be exceptions but most people think you will be up and running in a few months and replace your old income. It could easily take a year or two for even a very commited person, just be aware of what may be in store .

[Jamie Lindsay]

dont think hard work always pays off... feel that allot of useless ponds can be spent on marketing and wont see any return on investment for it... think what to remeber is thinking is free so buy lots of it 

[Matt Seymour]

Matt,

great advice there think I am on the same level of thinking as you just reassured my head... think you are right about the van aswell ppl spend allot of money on unneeded eye candy and can take up allot of funds...

how did you set up your own web page? really impressed with your work sir...

where did you buy your machine aswell ? ebay ?

also where did you buy your sign writing look gd on the web page

Have you got an leaflet in pdf format or sumthing that you could send me to give me an idea?


must say matt really have done well with the budget you had to work with but the price range you are charging could be a bit more? or are you upsailing once you enter the costumers house?

email me if you like matt jc-lindsay@hotmail.co.uk

 

Hi Jamie,

I'm just trying to reassure you mate. You CAN start a business for £4000, but you'll have to put in a massive amount of time and effort to compensate for the lack of funds.

In an ideal world you would be able to buy a brand new top of the range machine and a nearly new van, but you don't have the funds to do it, so make the best of what you have.

The most important things are training, the machine, cleaning products and marketing. You can get all of those for a couple of thousand or so with a bit of luck.

I got my machine from a guy on another forum and I had to go a few hundred miles to pick it up, but it was still a real bargain. You do come across professional machines on Ebay from time to time though.

I think I got my sign writing from a site called signbuilder or something like that. You basically choose the van you have and it brings up an image of it so you can play about and design your signwriting, upload any images and see what it will look like. Once you are done, you click "buy" and they send it all to you with the adhesive etc. Mine cost about £80 or £90 as I only have a small van.

No, I don't upsell. My prices are low to start with, but I am planning to increase them. I wanted my prices to be low enough as to make it possible for the less well off to be able to afford to have their carpets professionally cleaned as well as the more affluent. Why go in high and price people out so they end up going out and hiring a Rug Doctor? That's work you could have had even if it doesn't pay top dollar. When you first start off you need all the work you can get. It all depends on what you want or need to earn.

First of all get some training though. You'll also find that this and other forums are full of vastly experienced and knowledgable people who are willing to share that with you and it is invaluable. There are some really wise heads on here who have been there and done it.

I'll email you as well mate.

[Matt Seymour]

Matt I actually agree with a lot of what you are saying about start up costs, like you can save a lot if you are prepaired to invest in good second hand kit.

What I want new people to really take on board is the liklihood is in your first year you will not make enough money from that to support your outgoings, you will probably have to dip into savings, have another means of income as well or go into debt.

There will always be exceptions but most people think you will be up and running in a few months and replace your old income. It could easily take a year or two for even a very commited person, just be aware of what may be in store .

I agree.

First year is hard in any business. I am finding it really hit and miss, but the positive is that I have already almost covered my start up costs, which was my first aim.

You also need to put a few quid to one side to cover unforseen events such as problems with your machine (I've had a couple) and there will be weeks when you earn almost nothing.

[james roffey]

Mat i agree that you may well be able to start a carpet cleaning business on a very tight budget but it will be a slow build, one thing i do not agree though is very low prices, how do you intend raising them laterwith your present customers.
But for a new starter maybe its the way to go, i have gone the other way bigger investment targeting middle to upper bracket and charging what i think is a fair price allowing me to do a thorough job, it may be abit riskier and slower to build but long term i am hoping it will build a good customer base willing to pay well for a professional service.
One of the benefits is that customer recommending you to someone and not having to even go into how much it will cost, most people are willling to pay for good value rather than just cheap, this idea was never mine, i read it on the forums from you guys when i started and i agreed, i think the phrase was "busy fool" as has been mentioned on here already, trawl through the forums past posts pick what you think will work and what you need to make your business work you have the benefit of hundreds of years experience at hand, use it.

[Steve Barnett (Carpet Care Plus)]

The biggest problem with people new to the industry is they think they are carpet cleaners  - first and foremost you are running a business.

If you can't understand and employ the fundamentals of running a business, then I guarantee you will be still on this forum in a years time bitching about how quiet it is and how you could never charge the prices that others mention.

Your priority must be marketing because without clients you are dead in the water.

Buy the best equipment you can afford, attend as many training course as you can afford, re-invest heavily back into marketing and spread your marketing net, don't just do leaflets for example.

Your prices must be in direct relation to your operating costs, some of the cheap prices I see mentioned on here and other forums beggar belief, I wouldn't get in the van for those prices, it would actually be costing me money - I could earn more on the phone or visiting companies cold calling.

Profit is not a dirty word and without it you can't run a business.

[Matt Seymour]

Mat i agree that you may well be able to start a carpet cleaning business on a very tight budget but it will be a slow build, one thing i do not agree though is very low prices, how do you intend raising them laterwith your present customers.
But for a new starter maybe its the way to go, i have gone the other way bigger investment targeting middle to upper bracket and charging what i think is a fair price allowing me to do a thorough job, it may be abit riskier and slower to build but long term i am hoping it will build a good customer base willing to pay well for a professional service.
One of the benefits is that customer recommending you to someone and not having to even go into how much it will cost, most people are willling to pay for good value rather than just cheap, this idea was never mine, i read it on the forums from you guys when i started and i agreed, i think the phrase was "busy fool" as has been mentioned on here already, trawl through the forums past posts pick what you think will work and what you need to make your business work you have the benefit of hundreds of years experience at hand, use it.

I agree. Referrals are hugely important in this business. Most of my business has come through referrals. I've already had 5 jobs in one family alone.

I am trying to set my prices at a level that doesn't price the less affluent out. Every carpet cleaner seems to want the more well off clients, so I thought I'd go after the the other end of the market to begin with. I have had a lot of jobs through Facebook and most of them haven't exactly been blessed with a lot of cash, so I've lowered my prices for them. It is leading to lots of referrals though and I got my first big paying commercial job through a Facebook referral.

I don't mind being a "busy fool" to begin with - just as long as I am busy and building a reputation as a person who does a good job. That's the most important thing to me.

I set myself up to try and earn £100 a day in my first year. That's my target. I am not quite there yet, but in my best week to date I earned nearly £600.

Of course I will be increasing my prices in due course, but right now it is about building a reputation to keep the referrals coming.