Clean It Up
UK Floor Cleaning Forum => Carpet Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: Neil Williams on January 16, 2012, 10:02:27 pm
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Right now I've got your attention ;D just what the flock is going on.
I've known for some time that one of my local well established TM'ers was a bit on the cheap side, but having spoken to another CC'er today I'm seriously gobsmacked.
No wonder we both lost out to the tune of 300 sq/m of local hotel carpet when this crew got it at 60 PENCE PER SQUARE METER.
I thought the idea of having an expensive fuel sucking machine (no offence and all that) was that you got paid decent money for a days work.
I seriously need to move to another area if this is what the supposed 'rich' Hampshire has got to. >:(
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:o
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the equipment you use bares no relevance to how much you charge or how much you earn, the only thing that effects these 2 things is the words that come out of your mouth
EG;" that will cost £80" or "that will cost £180" you choose what you say and what you earn
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And he grossed £180 in 2-3 hours if he worked in an organised fashion.
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Personally i think its all down to your overheads. what you charge.
If you have low overheads and basic living costs, then you can get away with low prices.
Low price = chance of getting more jobs. = more money
More jobs = more money, more recommendations, customer becomes frequent user= less advertising cost = more profit =more money.
Low over head and basic living costs = more money.
Its all about doing the maths and dont just take every job as you see it... Look at the bigger picture.
People may or may not agree with what i have said but the one subject i did listen to in my school days was economics.
Low demand dictates a high Price to maintain income rate (Norm)
High demand dictates a high price = GREED (Peoples downfall)
What I learnt was by placing a low price in low demand times means more sales thus more jobs/customers/income = more profit
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That’s good money that Neil.Just think,if that had been
A `Groupon Attack`it would have been 25 pence per sq.yd.
;D ;D ;D ;D ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) :) :) :) :) ::) ::) ::) ::)
Lewis Doubtfire
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I wouln't worry about it, we have one near us and he uses what he calls the best carpet cleaning chemical he's ever known...and it needs no prespray or rinsing...virosol degreaser.I did have a look at the data sheets and I wouldn't like to use it that's for sure! :o I do admit to using it myself occasionally.......but only to clean the engine on my truckmount when I'm servicing it! ;D
all the best
John
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Hi Guys
Economic theories are fine but just look how the so called experts have completely messed up the economy.
It is more an art than a science.
I only know that the hiigher prices I have charged the better off I have become.
Cheers
doug
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I only know that the hiigher prices I have charged the better off I have become.
Simple common sense Doug :)
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I think jason hit the nail on the head.
£180 for 3 hours work, tradesmen aren't
earning that now.
Just had a joiner round for a couple of small
jobs last week. Took him 3 hours.
Asked him how much and he said £25 per hour
cheque, £20 per hour cash.
And that, apparently, is a good hourly rate round
here for a tradesman.
Not knocking peoples prices if they can get it but
stop moaning if your being undercut at over £60 per hour.
John
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£60 an hours good going, surely. We'd all love to be making £100-£200 per hour, of course we would.
The fact that they use a TM means they'll be doing the job a lot quicker and probably better, then they'll be on to the next job.... So they'll be raking the cash in, theoretically....
'Pile 'em high, sell 'em cheap' was Alan Sugar's way, he didn't do too bad out of it... ;D
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'Pile 'em high, sell 'em cheap' was Alan Sugar's way, he didn't do too bad out of it..
It was also peacocks motto and they went into receivership yesterday
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'Pile 'em high, sell 'em cheap' was Alan Sugar's way, he didn't do too bad out of it..
It was also peacocks motto and they went into receivership yesterday
And sainsburys , they are not doing bad either , or Lidl , or Aldi , Or Ikea .
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Hi Guys
Economic theories are fine but just look how the so called experts have completely messed up the economy.
It is more an art than a science.
I only know that the higher prices I have charged the better off I have become.
Cheers
doug
Personally I think it's GREED that has messed up the economy. How can some of these higher paid people justifie thier wages and bonuses. ... Oh I know, I will get all these muppets to do the work and I will take the credit for it ... and oh I think I deserve 1million as a bonus.
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This guy actually shows the REAL (calculated) effects of price cuts (or rises). e.g what effect even a 10% reduction in prices has on your bottom line.
http://www.amazon.com/Sell-Margins-Higher-Than-Competitors/dp/0471744832/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_1
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'Pile 'em high, sell 'em cheap' was Alan Sugar's way, he didn't do too bad out of it..
It was also peacocks motto and they went into receivership yesterday
I didn't know they did carpet cleaning..... :P
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The leverage chart that I have shows this:-
Profit margin. Increase price by. reduce price by. To maintain same gross profit - can decrease sales by - must increase sales by.
50% ................. 10% ... 17%
50% ................................................... 10% ... 25%
50% ................ 25% ... 33%
50% ................................................... 25% ... 100%
This clearly shows that you have to be careful when it comes to discounting as even just a regular 10% discount can greatly affect your gross profit margin, whilst a 10% increase in prices can cut your workload by a sixth, whilst maintaining your profit.
Dave.
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On the other hand ,1 OPERATOR in the east midlands has 5 vans on the go all the time , charges £25 a room flat rate each van does £150 a day minimum he clears £50 per van minimum per day before office and marketing costs , it is a very simple 50k a year for him .
Discounting does mean profit in many cases .
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Jason have you made a mistake there? £50 per van BEFORE office and marketing?
But anyway £150 Gross per day, per van. Thats nowhere near enough! fuel, wages, chemicals machine and van repairs/consumables would soon swallow all that up.
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Surely a 10% price increase will reduce work load by 10%.
Plus increase profits by the same??
Or am I missing something?
John
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Jason have you made a mistake there? £50 per van BEFORE office and marketing?
But anyway £150 Gross per day, per van. Thats nowhere near enough! fuel, wages, chemicals machine and van repairs/consumables would soon swallow all that up.
Each man pays his own fuel and chems and a levy for the van which is £500 a week , some days each van does £300 , £150 IS A QUIET DAY.
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what company is it?
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Atlas in Nottingham been trading since the 70s
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The techs pay the fuel and a levy, interesting, wonder how that works on paper.
That's not a criticism, I'm curious.
Is the profit for the Boss just from the levy? Does the customer pay the techs? Are the techs self employed?
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This is an example of how with the right equipment, in this case a Tm, you can charge what a lot of people consider a very low price but still make good money. Having said that I wouldn't have done it at that price, but if I was quite.....who knows.
Simon
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Ok you've had your say!
Where did this idea it would take 3 hours come from?
The other carpet cleaner I mentioned runs a TM and reckoned it would be an all day job to do it properly. I was planning using LM and believe me 2 of us would have been lucky to get that done in 3 hours.
The one who got the job works on his own these days.
So let's forget the idea that this guy on his own would do it in 3 hours therefore earning £60 an hour.
What I find strange out of the comments is the total change around to only 12-18 months ago whereby you were saying "We were professional people doing a professional job, with correct solutions, training, correct equipment etc and therefore our service is worth more than £12/hour."
Oh how times have changed :o
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Me????
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Me????
Not you (SG) personally but You collectively (CIU) :)
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Times certainly have changed, everywhere you look. At the moment, the lack of confidence in the economy is amplified because it's January.
Sometimes it's easy to think you're backed into a corner and you MUST offer your bottom line prices, or else the prospect is sure to shop elsewhere... This is what I reckon your TM C/C has probably thought.
The truth of the matter is, who on earth can afford to have their carpets cleaned, having just forked out large amounts of cash on Christmas?
Sure, there are some customers who seem to manage, but in the main, people are skint...
Some of the more experienced C/C's will have plenty of work on because they have been in the game long enough to avoid the customer drought....
We'll all be busy bees again in a couple of months, wondering what all the fuss was about. Trust me... ;)
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I agree Neil, easy a days work, I'd have a helper with me on that too.
PS that's 3,300 square foot! Approx an area of 15 lounge carpets I believe.
3hrs..... ???
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300 square mtrs for me would aquate to a few hours work. Very often on large contracts £70 -£80 per hour is what the norm would be for our machine and 2 good switched on productive guys. If I was quoting to a new customer, knowing that I was quoting against others I would quite often go in very keen just for the opportunity to show the customer what I can achieve.
If you lost the customer in the future they would then have a comparison to see the quality they lost for the money they saved.
The trick is to stay busy and keep the money coming in. There are loads of guys on here who think they can earn £100 + per hour with not very good equipment and limited experience and skill. South Wales is very competitive with a lot of good well equipped people along with hundreds of badly equipped badly skilled people.
Peter
www.carpetcleanercardiff.com (http://www.carpetcleanercardiff.com)
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i tend to agree with Peter " Big ears" Maybury!!!!!!
;D ;D ;D
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Atlas in Nottingham been trading since the 70s
Is that Craig who runs that Jason ??
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"Sure, there are some customers who seem to manage, but in the main, people are skint..."
That`s a bad mindset Colin.
Okay, there`s money in Edinburgh where I work, but if you start thinking like that, Brrrrrrrrrrrr
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i'd do 3 hours for £180 in jan, wouldn't you ?
my tm i'd get thru 300 sq meter in 3 hours but probably have a break as well, if you don't like Truck mounts fine say so and be done.
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I do like TM's and if I could justify the costs I'd get one (but we've already had that debate/vote), but another experienced TM'er said it was the best part of a day's work to do properly on his own.
The one who got it works on his own too, so either 2 of us are dead slow at our work or the one works at break neck speed.
What I find strange out of this topic is that if it had been titled:
What would you charge to do 300 sq/m of quality hotel carpet I bet no one would have said £160 >:(
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Exactly, it would be £180 ;D
To be honest it depends on things like access, distance from the van and whether the 300m² is one big square room or a labyrinth of different areas on different levels.
On that cruise ship job with Simon recently, I blitzed through about 500m² in 3 hours with an RX-20, had a little bit of help with the hoses but plenty of hold-ups too. And it wasn't a big empty square, it was a ship's restaurant, no big open areas... all the tables are stood on permanent metal legs attached to the floor, and the friggin chairs were all turned upside down so you struggled to get the RX underneath them! (even broke a shoe off my RX hitting a table leg but that's another story)
I've got a commercial job that's 180m² and takes me 4-5hrs depending on how many football fields full of crud have been dragged through it this time. That was a revelation the first time I cleaned it with the RX and truckmount! I'd been making excuses before :)
Anyway I'm rambling :)
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How do you put o the little 2 on m2 ??
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Highlight your text and click the sup box on the top
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Exactly, it would be £180 ;D
To be honest it depends on things like access, distance from the van and whether the 300m² is one big square room or a labyrinth of different areas on different levels.
On that cruise ship job with Simon recently, I blitzed through about 500m² in 3 hours with an RX-20, had a little bit of help with the hoses but plenty of hold-ups too. And it wasn't a big empty square, it was a ship's restaurant, no big open areas... all the tables are stood on permanent metal legs attached to the floor, and the friggin chairs were all turned upside down so you struggled to get the RX underneath them! (even broke a shoe off my RX hitting a table leg but that's another story)
I've got a commercial job that's 180m² and takes me 4-5hrs depending on how many football fields full of crud have been dragged through it this time. That was a revelation the first time I cleaned it with the RX and truckmount! I'd been making excuses before :)
Anyway I'm rambling :)
You don't normally let that stop you, Jim? :P
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How do you put o the little 2 on m2 ??
You write m2 and then you highlight the 2 and click the box marked sup. This stands for superscript and means ABOVE WRITTEN super = above, script = written
Clicking the box puts in the code {sup} before the 2 and {/sup} after it (except with square brackets, not curly ones.)
So it looks like m2.
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or the easier way of doing it is hold down the ALT key and press 0178, then release the ALT key :)
http://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&sclient=psy-ab&q=alt+codes+list&pbx=1&oq=alt+codes&aq=1&aqi=g4&aql=&gs_sm=c&gs_upl=1161l2601l0l5180l9l8l0l0l0l0l593l2253l0.2.3.2.0.1l8l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=b33590611b023e65&biw=1023&bih=836
a whole new realm has appeared!!!!
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Times certainly have changed, everywhere you look. At the moment, the lack of confidence in the economy is amplified because it's January.
Sometimes it's easy to think you're backed into a corner and you MUST offer your bottom line prices, or else the prospect is sure to shop elsewhere... This is what I reckon your TM C/C has probably thought.
The truth of the matter is, who on earth can afford to have their carpets cleaned, having just forked out large amounts of cash on Christmas?
Sure, there are some customers who seem to manage, but in the main, people are skint...
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I actually disagree with this Colin , only last night i priced a job in a b/b , i do not do offers just because its Jan , and i do not lower my price if i know other quotes are been sought. i went in at full price , booked in the job ;D , yhis along with 2 more bookings and 2 appointments for today. jan is actually turning out to be a good month, and by coinidence, i had been talking to m halliday earlier , who i believe has a full book almost for this month.
I do however have a theory....... people are not skint, not the sort of people who tend to have their carpets cleaned any way, but importantly , the good ,mild weather we have been having makes all the difference, imho this is the factor to take into account , not the fact its jan :)
Whilst on the subject i noticed lots of people concered about quoting against others, made me think !!!!
How many times do you quote, and know your up against other quotes?
in my experience, a very small perecentage are getting more than 1 quote, and if how ever they are getting numerous,im not really sure i want the job..... :-\
geoff
Some of the more experienced C/C's will have plenty of work on because they have been in the game long enough to avoid the customer drought....
We'll all be busy bees again in a couple of months, wondering what all the fuss was about. Trust me... ;)
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"Sure, there are some customers who seem to manage, but in the main, people are skint..."
That`s a bad mindset Colin.
Okay, there`s money in Edinburgh where I work, but if you start thinking like that, Brrrrrrrrrrrr
I don't understand what you're getting at... Were you and Geoff at the same party last night..? ;D
It's nothing to do with mindset, that's the way it is, lots and lots of people are waiting for pay day. Some of my regulars, have been awaiting their fate with yet more redundancies from the Navy. So perhaps it's geographical too.... ???
I put out a special offer via email and have had over a dozen replies... a few of them said "We're skint because of Christmas" and some even asked if I would accept post dated cheques.
Like I've said to Geoff, I'm not doing too bad because I was expecting Jan to be poor so I planned for it. Sure, the sun and mild weather we've had has had the phone ringing, so weather has a large part to play too.
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Thanks
:)
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Colin, I agree with Rab, you're making the mistake that a lot of people make by thinking your customers think like you do.... not all customers are impoverished carpet cleaners like us!!
There's a very large proportion of the population who DON'T live hand-to-mouth every month (as you suggest) worrying about money and wishing pay day would come sooner... it really doesn't matter to them if they spend a couple of hundred £ on something this month, next month or last month. They have enough money to cover it.
I suppose it all boils down to the sector of the market we aim at. I aim at mid to high level; you don't see me on many terraced streets and council estates but I'll go if they pay my price!
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Perhaps it's where Colin lives, when I went to Cornwall last year at this time is was shut up for the winter break may be some of us who aren't tourist destinations can keep busy all year round.
Shaun from Sheffield by the sea
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My advice is concentrate on your own business and dont waste your energy on what others are doing,
the customer does not give a toss what equip you have,they just want a clean carpet.i do some jobs with my portable when and i cant use the tm,the job will still be great.
gary
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My advice is concentrate on your own business and dont waste your energy on what others are doing,
the customer does not give a toss what equip you have,they just want a clean carpet.i do some jobs with my portable when and i cant use the tm,the job will still be great.
gary
Got to agree with you, well said.
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My advice is concentrate on your own business and dont waste your energy on what others are doing,
the customer does not give a toss what equip you have,they just want a clean carpet.i do some jobs with my portable when and i cant use the tm,the job will still be great.
gary
Got to agree with you, well said.
Gary's got a point... :)
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My advice is concentrate on your own business and dont waste your energy on what others are doing,
or what i think is more important what others say they are doing.
all we can do is read what other posts and believe what they say are doing or charging,
and i'm getting more amused by the day how people say one thing then the next month totally contradict whet they said previously, the problem with talking waffle is you need a good memory
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Perhaps it's where Colin lives, when I went to Cornwall last year at this time is was shut up for the winter break may be some of us who aren't tourist destinations can keep busy all year round.
As an example, I did a job just before Xmas in a beautiful little cove with about 20 or so houses overlooking a picturesque river. This is where the money is. But at this time of year, only TWO properties were occupied - all the rest were second homes and most don't start coming down from the "Smoke" until after Easter.
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My advice is concentrate on your own business and dont waste your energy on what others are doing,
or what i think is more important what others say they are doing.
all we can do is read what other posts and believe what they say are doing or charging,
and i'm getting more amused by the day how people say one thing then the next month totally contradict whet they said previously, the problem with talking waffle is you need a good memory
You (in general) sure do...... ;D ;D
It also amuses me that on forums, that threads can become like chinese whispers and end up nothing to do with the original post. An observation, or something that you find unusual, then becomes "your moaning", your worried", my machines better than yours and all that, your not professional etc etc. ;D ;D
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Too true ;) All I say if I can see it, then the customer can see, it doesnt matter what type of machine you got or how much you charge, the customer is not interested in anything apart from the results.
A true professional knows this. If its good enough for me then its good enough for them, and I never lower my standards. ;D
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Perhaps it's where Colin lives, when I went to Cornwall last year at this time is was shut up for the winter break may be some of us who aren't tourist destinations can keep busy all year round.
As an example, I did a job just before Xmas in a beautiful little cove with about 20 or so houses overlooking a picturesque river. This is where the money is. But at this time of year, only TWO properties were occupied - all the rest were second homes and most don't start coming down from the "Smoke" until after Easter.
He's right.... I did 2 chairs yesterday down at Coverack at someone's second home... The place was dead.... :-\