Clean It Up
UK Floor Cleaning Forum => Carpet Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: Simon Payne on February 08, 2011, 07:08:47 pm
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Hello all, we run a contract cleaning firm and we undertake lots of large contract type work but we are trying to get more into the residential carpet side of things,
but
It does appear that lot of carpet cleaning company's are working for exceptionally cheap prices. Our equipment is top notch as are the chemicals we use,
Is the margin low on it or are some company's simply charging less as a volume based theory to making profit.
Not a dig at anyone charging competitive price but interested to see how low some prices appear to be
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Welcome to the madhouse, where you have asked a mad question on a mad Tuesday. 8)
Hourly rates, yeh right, stand by for anything between those who won't get out of bed for anything less than £80/hour and those who are happy to cover their petrol expenses. ;D
If you could get 100 people to answer this honestly you'd probably end up with an average of £40/hour.
The choice is yours. Hard sell and do less work over the day for £80/hour or possibly get more work but at £20/hour.
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As neil said some will work for an amount that suits them..
Look in any local papers and some prices are very low with the carpet cleaning and upholstery with doing both for under 50 pounds ::)
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It does appear that lot of carpet cleaning company's are working for exceptionally cheap prices.
what do you consider to be 'cheap prices' perhaps the prices you have to charge to cover your cost make your prices high.
One man bands may be working with low costs so can price very competitively
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according to your website you say this
Intocleaning can offer customised cleaning contracts and will beat any present price you have by 5-10%*
and you saying you keep getting undercut. ??? ??? ??? i'm confused.
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and you saying you keep getting undercut. ??? ??? ??? i'm confused.
Dear Mr Confused West,
Did you not see the asterix?
That'll be the get out clause which everyone who uses the words "we'll be cheapest" uses to get out of it.
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aaaahhhhhhh roight, got ya now ted, cheers neil. i am no longer confused. i'm unconfused, i'm confusedless. ;D
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Your site says you employ 100 staff, is this the case?
Mark
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Hi Mark,
That is correct, we are an office cleaning services provider but we also undertake other services.
The one we would like to get heavily into is carpet cleaning, we undertake lots of window cleaning some of which we sub out. We would also like to undertake more carpet cleaning on domestic and commercial contract basis
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Simon
You should try adding value to your service as it sounds like your being judges on price alone. you could try adding free carpet cleaning or floor scrub once a year.
Many contractors just give a basic daily clean and don't price in periodicals. Its about value for money then and not who is the cheapest.
Learnt this a long time ago from Amway. they teach you how to show that it takes say 5 cheap washing up liquids to match their one and when you add the cheap ones up they are more expensive. This can be used both ways in your marketing get in cheap and increase the services or times you clean, or adding value into your services.
Respect
Ian Harper
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Simon
If you are vat regestered you are 20% dearer than some of your compeditors
on domestics to start with the hourly rate will depened on what you need
if you have a t/m and work your self then £100-£80 per hour as you will know
getting staff that are as productive as you can be hard for domestic work do
your research decide how much you need per hour then target that market
We have a company about 25 miles away doing 3 carpets for £38 and another
charging £10 for a rug.
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Simon....having looked at your website, i find it strange that you want to get involved in domestic carpet cleaning.I just think it's an odd match to what you are offering now.Why are you thinking of adding domestic carpet cleaning and what is your thinking behind it?
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My advice is very simple - ignore the competition - forget about them. If you try to compete with people soley on price terms then in my view you are being very silly. Compete on a service and quality basis and charge what YOU want for that service, just make sure what you give the customer fits the bill. In any area you will find customers looking for the cheapest price and if you're in the cut throat market that is the type of customer you will attract, but in the same area there are many more people who are looking for qualityand are prepared to pay for, this should be where you should be looking for custom, otherwise your competitors are in effect dictating how much you charge.
Simon
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Dear Simon,
With 100 staff at your disposal and cash flow you are obviously a big time player, with resources to knock out all competition.
You can do this by working out your pricing structure and going in low price for mass market.
Or you can go in at £5 a metre fore a niche market.
What ever way you go you are going to have to spend on advertising and marketing.
I would imagine you would like a £100k turnover out of carpet cleaning so to achieve this you will need to commit £25k on advertising and promotion if you want 200k it would be 50k
Obviously the market is bigger than Carpet Cleaning.
Although I am not recommending it you need to talk to Alltec Success Coach
It may cost you 3k but with 100 staff and your cash flow that should not be a problem
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Mike
Ive just been on your website! its very good isnt it ? knocks the spots off most ive seen! Love the video!
regards Stu Clark
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My advice is very simple - ignore the competition - forget about them. If you try to compete with people soley on price terms then in my view you are being very silly. Compete on a service and quality basis and charge what YOU want for that service, just make sure what you give the customer fits the bill. In any area you will find customers looking for the cheapest price and if you're in the cut throat market that is the type of customer you will attract, but in the same area there are many more people who are looking for qualityand are prepared to pay for, this should be where you should be looking for custom, otherwise your competitors are in effect dictating how much you charge.
Simon
This is the key to success in carpet cleaning , and indeed in any business, Robert Harris said almost the same thing 15 years ago , just before he sold his company Harris research that he founded in California for $100 million, Harris research own The chemdry brand name, he started out in a car .
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but in the same area there are many more people who are looking for qualityand are prepared to pay for, this should be where you should be looking for custom, otherwise your competitors are in effect dictating how much you charge.
In a good market maybe but just at the moment even these so called 'Rich' people are looking for a bargin. Trust me, getting a bit sick of people out in the country with £2m mansions bartering over prices.
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I had a compliment just now
Got told i was expensive
Still got the job ;D ;D
Back to the phones
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A bit naive of you Helen to believe that people in £2 million mansions wouldn't bargain, they might be feeling the crunch too. I have more respect for people that discuss costs it shows that they live in the real world - that's just business surely.
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a) people in million pound mansions got there because they don't pay top prices for anything else. ( A 1.8 mil flat in Birmingham has just been sold for 1 mil and the developers were so pleased they put it out on local news)
b) It does not matter how cheap you quote, someone will be prat enough to undercut you. Go for the top end and give a service to match. ie Nothing is too much trouble- as long as they pay.
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A bit naive of you Helen to believe that people in £2 million mansions wouldn't bargain, they might be feeling the crunch too. I have more respect for people that discuss costs it shows that they live in the real world - that's just business surely.
Jeez, did I really put that ???
Not I'm not naive at all. Everyone looks for a good deal and so they should, I always do, but I never ever go on price alone. My actual statement said that I am sick of the "rich" people bartering. (in my book bartering is not discussing costs and services). I am not daft either and so when I quote at a largish place I always add a bit on, gives me room to come down a bit if necessary and if the potential customer feels they have knocked you down a bit then everyone is happy.
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Ok,,
The thick man who is sat at home with nothing to do takes 15 calls. He needs the work, so thick head under quotes all of them in a vain attempt to bag them all. He manages to convert 10 of the calls into work. Each job ticket is around £40.00. So he achieves £400.
He spends £50 on petrol getting from job to job.
He puts 350 miles of associated wear on his van.
He spends 8hr in total on the road servicing the jobs.
He puts 20hrs of associated wear on his machine and tools.
His FREE valuable marketing time is spent on other things (servicing the cheapos)
So the thick head above comes out with a gross profit £350, a worn van and equipment and more worryingly, an empty diary for the days ahead (he was too busy working to market the next batch of cheapos)
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The clever man is sat at home with nothing to do. Again he takes 15 calls. He needs the work so tries to compose himself correctly on the phone, he keeps the customer talking by asking questions essential to the proposed work and also sells his services and explains in great detail the process. He also states that a visit would be beneficial to establish what needs to be done.
By doing the above he happily manages to secure ONLY 3 jobs, but each job ticket he has got is worth £250. So he achieves £750.
He only has 3 jobs to service so only spends £15.00 on petrol
He only puts 75miles on his van
He is sat in his van for only 2hrs
He puts 7hr wear on his machine and equipment.
So clever man comes out with a gross profit of £735. And with the extra time he had on his hands, he has managed to do plenty of marketing and filled his diary with another very small batch of premium paying customers.
Does he feel guilty about losing most of the people who call him. Does he hell, he’s a clever man! 8)
Matt
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Simon....having looked at your website, i find it strange that you want to get involved in domestic carpet cleaning.I just think it's an odd match to what you are offering now.Why are you thinking of adding domestic carpet cleaning and what is your thinking behind it?
Dave, Thank you for your interest in what we do and for presenting such a great question.
We have staff in to us every day asking for extra work, so................
What is the point in sending them away telling them no when we could train additional staff in a trade such as carpet cleaning, it has high yields and low cost, we have the kit that is already paid for and due to the amount we spend already with suppliers we get massive discounts on carpet cleaning chemicals so it is a credible business move, just trying to find our feet with charges.
Any help would be great.
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350 miles for 10 jobs is a lot of mileage - for me anyway.
Probably less than 100, maybe 65.
About £8 in petrol.
2.5 hours max driving.
Can't remember the last £250 domestic I did.
Sounds like me though, get lots of single roomers at
£40 ish.
Can see where your coming from but if all those £40 jobs
are near at hand it's worth it.
About 7.5 machine hours.
John
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What Matt omitted from his post was the work that gives him £250 plus per job....................it's NOT carpet cleaning.
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What Matt omitted from his post was the work that gives him £250 plus per job....................it's NOT carpet cleaning.
Out of every 15 calls we receive, I would say that only one would be in the region of £200 plus.
We are finding that although people would like to have more cleaned, they are settling for just main areas, as they are having to cut back on expenditure.