[Ian Gourlay]

I have noticed a trend just recentley of experienced members ans supper heroes claiming to earn £100 an hour cleaning carpets.

I would like to know cleaning houses how many carpets and what size they clean in an hour.

Was the carpet dirty to start with.

Obviouisly I am slow

[Buster Ingram]

What you have got to ask your self is, This £100 an hour as they all claim!
Is it the odd  job or is it continous ever hour on ever job.
I'd say not!
Even a Porn stars don't get that, so for a carpet cleaner to claim £100 an hour on a regular basis is talking out of his A*&S.

These so call supper heroes would be turning over well in excess of a hundred grand a year. And would they be on here moaning about the price of fuel and such like.
No not on your nelly.

[carpet guy]

Precisely my thoughts Dave, but they don't like you to burst their bubble. Sure there are days when it all falls into place and the money is good, but what's the point of one good day in seven, which gives you £500, but no work for another week,  when you can have five decent days at £50 an hour worked and clear £1000 or more ?

Particularly, when the marketing cost of the latter is likely to be considerably less.

[liahona]

Dave, point taken and accordingly those who are making it and consistantly arent the ones moaning about the fuel prices.

There are one man bands consistantly turning over 100k and one I know is in access of 150k on his own just protecting.  No cleaning machines, just a small van with a few good sprayers.

I have helped a few on here who first thought £100 an hour was too high a target.  A couple of weeks on, with a different attitude to them selves and their clients they have realised how easy it is to work at £100 an hour. 

With a needle and thread it is way more than that but then of course usually it is only a few minutes at a time.  Still 40 or 50 quid for 10 mins work still equates to  decent return.

Rob, by your figues but adding a day...... 2 days for a 1000 or 5 days for a 1000.

But at least you have us working for more than minimum wage now.

Anyway, this subject has been beat to death so many times before.

Best, Dave.

[PaulKing]

Even a Porn stars don't get that, so for a carpet cleaner to claim £100 an hour on a regular basis is talking out of his A*&S.

Hello I'm am the Svedish Carpet Cleaner I'v ave come to clean your carpeting!

Dave its odd that you should hold up porn stars as a high earning bracket of workers. Don't have a side profession do you.

[Mike Halliday]

I read all the post on this forum, I see the £100 an hour quoted quite a lot, I've even started a thread on the very subject.

I've yet to see anyone say they continuously, on every job earn £100 an hour ( apart from Dave L ) 

I often earn £100 an hour, what this means is I can pull up at a house clean a LR & HSL and leave in just over 1 hour, earning on average £110, it doesn't  mean I leave home at 8am come home at 4pm and have earned £800.

I clean very dirty carpets and carpets that look new.

mike

mike

[stevegunn]

The top and bottom of it is you earn what you can whether it be £100 per hour or £20 per hour.Or do you go for a daily rate because no one works a full 8 hour day.I aim for £200-250 a day don't always achieve it, but you cannot do it everyday,some days I earn more than that but its not everyday.

People have different priorities being self employed eg more time off,spend more time with family etc etc . I for one don't want to be working 7 days a week amassing a fortune and missing the kids grow up or die early of a heart attack because I'm stressed out all the time.

[Doug Holloway]

Hi Guys

Another way of looking at it is aim high and you might get there, don't and you won't.

If you aim for 500 per day and get 400 isn't that better than aiming for 250 and getting 240.

100 a hour should be what you try to get and if you don't always succeed then at least you tried.

Cheers

Doug

[carpet guy]

Dave L

I can count Dave and I have never suggested anyone capable of aquiring highly paid work should do it for less. My suggestion always was and still is, that encouraging people, with no experience , or training,  to start in the business with top end prices, is wrong.

Too cheap is also wrong and my opinion has always been, that you gain experience while charging low prices and taking on all comers, so to speak.

As you learn and get better at the job, you charge more, progressing, after a couple of years to moderate pricing, eg, prices that would gross around the £25 - £35 mark and by the end of three years you should be competent enough to justify charges that would give around £50 - £90 per hour.

That is the level I've worked at over the past couple of years, having started 24 years ago with my target at £20 per hour.

I have never suggested that you were a cowboy, but that others trying to emulate you ,or others -  who work in "specialised" markets and get considerably higher fees -  could be regarded as potential cowboys, as they would simply be charging a lot for an average job.

You have done a considerable amount of research, training and have gained much experience, plus you appear to have a " craftsman " attitude and I'm sure endeavour to supply the best possible service on every job you do and you also have the self belief to charge accordingly, with which I have no argument and never have.

It's probably 10 or 12 years since Robert Saunders " went on the road " with his " I can show you how any c/c can earn £1000 a week " presentation.

At that time I was grossing more than £1k per week, but was working harder than necessary, as many do. I knew that by increasing my prices I would reduce my workload but still earn as much, or slightly more. So why had I not done so? Because the phone just kept ringing and I just kept working.

Having earned £50k ten years ago, from lowish prices I reckon it would be well within the reach of many operators to achieve £100 k today, but, they would have to market themselves pretty aggressively to do so and learn more about time management, what constitutes acceptable shortcuts, best use of chemicals, etc, rather than just raising prices and hoping.

Again, I am saying work cheap, but you need to be out there in peoples homes, to get paid.

They won't come knocking on your door.

Bye.


Just read Steve's post as I hit the button

I agree to a fair extent with Steve's comments and while it's great to have the flexibility to work the hours you want, most self employed people actually work much more than 8 hours a day. Not as slaves to their work, but with an objective, maybe 5 years ahead or 10 years ahead.
Most of them will expect to sell their business and their objective will be to get the highest possible price for it. Most c/c businesses will not be sold, so you need to earn enough to build a " nest egg " for your life beyond c/c.
That being so, working part time could let you down in a few years time.

[Ian Gourlay]

It was late when I asked this question, but what i was trying to work out is how much cleaning  square metres are being done in an hour to claim  the £100

Mikes example would take me more than hour although the charge is similiar
.

[davep]

Maybe an average ££s per hour is a more realistic way to look upon earnings?

[Mike Halliday]

Ian do you quote over the phone?

if yes then you will take longer than me because to start with you have to have a little site survey and discussion with the customer before you even start.

 I've already seen the job and instructed the customer to prepare the room for my arrival, when I turn up I walk to the door carrying equipment, then I'm in & started.

I was thinking about this this morning as I drove away from a job having earned more just short of the £100 within the hour, I have already been to the job and inspected it (most quotes I do I'm already driving near so can just pop in) which took me 20mins.

So in real time the job actually took a total time of 1hr 20mins.

If I take into consideration the amount of time I take to do a site survey I probably never earn above a £100/hr

[Doctor Carpet (Ret'd)]

If say you have a minimum charge of £50 and it takes you 30 minutes to say remove a stain then does that mean you are earning £100 per hour?

But as Mike says you have to factor in travelling time and surveying time.

[Ian Gourlay]

Ian do you quote over the phone?

if yes then you will take longer than me because to start with you have to have a little site survey and discussion with the customer before you even start.

 I've already seen the job and instructed the customer to prepare the room for my arrival, when I turn up I walk to the door carrying equipment, then I'm in & started.

I was thinking about this this morning as I drove away from a job having earned more just short of the £100 within the hour, I have already been to the job and inspected it (most quotes I do I'm already driving near so can just pop in) which took me 20mins.

So in real time the job actually took a total time of 1hr 20mins.

If I take into consideration the amount of time I take to do a site survey I probably never earn above a £100/hr

I do both, but one of my problems is I talk to much

I did a survey yesterday and by the time I had played with the kids etc i was there an hour

and Ive still got to do the job £120


I also find working on stains can take time maybee I should factor in a cost for stains

[Doctor Carpet (Ret'd)]

I've always charged on a time basis for stains.

Most are covered by the minimum charge but occasionally I've gone over my minimum charge/time period. It's quite a funny feeling working on a little area, sometimes waiting for a reaction to occur, and yet the meter is ticking over.

I try and minimise any surprise at the final bill by explaining all this before I start and then having frequent checks with the client.

[Ian Gourlay]

Most Carpet Cleaners offer stain removal Free as part of the package and this can be where a lot of time is lost.

Just be to survey again another hour, Stains look easy but on investigation they are going to be difficult due to customer trying before hand.

[Steve Chapman]

Surely a realistic way of really working out what you get an hour, running the

business and not just at the wand, is to take your annual profit divide by

number of weeks worked during the year and then divide by average hours

worked on the business each week, mine generally is thirty hours, and then see

what you get. 

This figure represents what you get paid for running the whole business,

including being at home doing invoices and taking calls, designing flyers etc etc.

I just did mine, and although have done plenty of jobs in hour @ £100, the

result was quite shocking  :


Where's that tesco application form again? 


steve

[Mike Halliday]

Steve  but we need to remember the title of this topic its '£100 an hour' not 'profit per hour'

its like the other topic running at the moment 'would you work for £20 an hour' lot of people have said no but if they worked out their actual profit many are working for £20 an hour.

we can only answer the question as asked, not change the goal post

[liahona]

Ian, back to the question.   Kind of too many variables to give a definitive answer.  Sometimes I clean a very small amount of carpet for £100 and other times I clean quite a lot of carpet for the £100. 

I cleaned a bedroom the other day which was only approx 12ft x 18ft but had to charge £300 for it as it was 4 floors up and so by the time all the hoses were covered, tied up etcetera it took me 3 hours.  The actual cleaning took less than 15 mins.

When I first started cleaning over here I charged per square foot but found how useless that can be.  So now I charge accordingly to get what it is I want per hour. 

Other than that the only way to answer your question would be for each of us here to work out what we charge and therefore would know how many feet of carpet to be cleaned to reach the £100 mark, that is if we charge per area, whatever that area may be.

Steve, if we divided what we "make" on the day or at the wand so to speak by all of our down time then we dont actually earn that much per hour.  Thats why we need to earn as much as we can at the wand.

If I did those figures I would be less than 50 an hour, maybe even less, not sure and not going to want to find out either.  Based on 2080 working hours a year.

Best, Dave.

[Steve Chapman]

Guys, you are probably right, thats what happens when you start to analyze

things too much  :

I was only thinking about it that way, because i spend alot of time doing

invoices, and doing surveys, and that time has to be paid, so realistically comes

out of what you make when actually cleaning.

Also at the end of the day it is the actual profit that counts, so if you make £100

an hour but make £10 for yourself, your still probably better off working at

tesco's 

Regards
steve