Clean It Up
UK Window Cleaning Forum => Window Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: dai on December 18, 2006, 06:36:18 pm
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Most of my round is under priced, according to the prices I read on here, well under priced.
A couple of months ago, I was asked to price a detached 3 storied house.
I told the lady that it would be £16. She asked how much for bi-monthly. I said £20 and she aggreed to this. It took over an hour to do the first clean, the plastic was minging.
Went back today and did the job again. The job took 40 mins.
When I'd finished, I knocked, her husband came to the door. £20 please. Now if I had kicked him in his juicy bits, he couldn't have looked more pained.
How much! "£20" Here you are, and don't bother calling again. You havn't even dried them off. I tried to explain how WFP worked, but he just closed the door.
This was an honestly priced job going by what I read on here.
How the hell do you get them to pay your prices? Dai
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Move down south,coz you wornt get many like that up north lad.
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Most of my round is under priced, according to the prices I read on here, well under priced.
A couple of months ago, I was asked to price a detached 3 storied house.
I told the lady that it would be £16. She asked how much for bi-monthly. I said £20 and she aggreed to this. It took over an hour to do the first clean, the plastic was minging.
Went back today and did the job again. The job took 40 mins.
When I'd finished, I knocked, her husband came to the door. £20 please. Now if I had kicked him in his juicy bits, he couldn't have looked more pained.
How much! "£20" Here you are, and don't bother calling again. You havn't even dried them off. I tried to explain how WFP worked, but he just closed the door.
This was an honestly priced job going by what I read on here.
How the hell do you get them to pay your prices? Dai
It's a numbers game Dai. The more decent priced quotes you do, the more decent priced jobs you get. I know it sounds obvious but it's so true. It may be harder for you than me though as I am in the southeast of England which is probably the most expensive area (to live in as well as for W/C prices).
You just got unlucky with the guy's attitude I think. I've had a few like that. They are around in every part of the country.
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I couldn't get away with £20 for 40 mins on many jobs.
Although I do have some which are, due to me getting quicker and the price is better then.
That's what it is with daft pricing...getting away with it. :-\
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Hi Dai
The way to get good priced work is to just ask for it. If the customer doesnt
like the price they can only say no.
Most of the window cleaners that I know only get 1 quote out of every 3.
the trick is do lots of quotes.
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The guy's attitude was disgusting given that the price had already been agreed!
Unfortunately by and large the average person living in southeast england earns a fair amount more than their northern counterparts (probably need to because of the higher cost of somewhere to live) so most services tend to be that much more expensive.
To give a comparison a detached 3 storey house where I live and work (Putney) wouldn't come cheaper than £75 with 90% of w/c I know. I personally wouldn't touch it cos I'm not wfp.
Dai, go back and kick the guy in the juicy bits ;D
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You often find that its the husband that does that. The wife probably doesn't even know he's done it.
But just a question, why put the price up for only going every other month? With WFP this is going to be the normal interval soon unless I'm very much mistaken.
Hitting £20 takes it past the psycological barrier. You should have said £18 and the bloke possibly would have given you a score anyway.
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Leave a sexy message on her phone and hope he, the finger, gets it. Don't forget to send anonymously though.
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You often find that its the husband that does that. The wife probably doesn't even know he's done it.
But just a question, why put the price up for only going every other month? With WFP this is going to be the normal interval soon unless I'm very much mistaken.
Hitting £20 takes it past the psycological barrier. You should have said £18 and the bloke possibly would have given you a score anyway.
You're spot on re the hubby! I've had that before....she's perfectly happy with the service/cleaning for ages. Then one day "he's" at home and gets all macho and starts giving it the large. I always find this hysterical....for Heavens sake I'm cleaning yer windows not doing a loft conversion.....some people ::)
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Hitting £20 takes it past the psycological barrier. You should have said £18 and the bloke possibly would have given you a score anyway.
That's very true.
I've got lots at £9, £14, and £18-19! ;)
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We have had the same problem a few times ,I just explain to the husband that his wife has waited 6 mths to get on our customer list and if he cancels then the wait right now is a year (sometimes its true sometimes its not)Usually they wont eat pie right there and then just mumble something about discussing it with the wife and she will let me know etc, then just wait for the phone to ring and depending on how much of an obnoxios git he was we will continue cleaning or explain to his wife that we are not interested in working for them anymore
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Bingo. She came round to my house tonight, apologised for her husbands rudeness,
And asked me to please continue as arranged. Dai
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Bingo. She came round to my house tonight, apologised for her husbands rudeness,
And asked me to please continue as arranged. Dai
I'm glad to hear it Dai. I once had a couple start arguing about me in front of me. Was excruciatingly embarassing. In the end I told them that I would make it easy for them and politely canceeled the job. Hope they didn't get too stroppy with each other after that.
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You Ask :o
There are a lot of very cheap window washers up here in the North West.
I dont give a monkeys if another w/c wants to clean for peanuts. I wont.
I am only willing to work for a certain price per hour. Its what I firmly beleive I am worth. When customers stop paying me what I am worth I will pack window cleaning in. Three more months and I will have done a 27 year stint. My round is paying the most its ever paid per hour and I have at the momment the biggest customer base I have ever had.
But too pack it in I would have to lose 80% of my work. I dont think thats going to happen for a long time. I will canvass next summer for another 20% extra in my income. All the new work will be priced higher then what I allready earn, then in 2008 I will put up my prices by 10%. If I lose 20% of my work which is highly unlikely it will pay me more per hour in less time with a bigger profit margin.
And before anyone says I am ripping customers off. Thats completly untrue. Window cleaning is not a Necessity of life, its a luxury. The customer can easily get someone else to clean their windows, our town is overrun with w/c. but if they want a high quality service by a PRO cleaner then it will cost um.
Nel.
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Its really hard sometimes to price a job so that its worth doing,while at the same time representing value for money for the customer. Like others have said, the trick is to price loads of jobs and you're bound to getsome of them, don't go cheaper, you'll only end up with work you don't like and the you're back to square one. My own work took 3 years to reach £1k a month, where I live is overrun with crap, cheap wcs too. The difference now is this, my work makes me £30-£40 an hour, its slowly building but I know I won't lose customers, they are real steady jobs. Now comes the good part, every job I have taken on in the last 6 months has been a min of £60/hr - people know that I do a brilliant job, am reliable and so what if I cost a little more? Last job I picked up was Thurs, on recommendation - 3 storey house, new PVC windows, last cleaner charged £16 (she showed me his receipt), but he was rubbish. I quoted £45 AFTER seeing the receipt, she was delighted that I was even interested in doing the job since I clean her friends and she likes wfp, frames cleaned blah blah blah point is, be confident in your pricing, you set your price range, budge a little - I do and it works, I just overquote at first so they bargain me down a little - I end up with the price I want anyway!
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The way I see it is this. (and I have not started yet but already have this bit worked out) the numbers are totally theoretical and pulled out of the air.
Imagine you have 100 customers that average 10 quid a pop
that is 1000 quids
You rise your prices by 10%
That is 100 customers average 11 quid. total = 1100 quids.
You lose 10% of them across the board though.
That is 90 customers average 11 quid. total = 990 quids.
Canvass (if needed) for the 10 customers lost
Total is 100 customers average 11 quid. total = 1100
Obviously this shows that if the percentage of lost customers is equal to the percentage of the rise then the effect should be a 1% drop in takings.
If you just decided to replace 1% of your customer base back instead of the full 10% then you would reduce your workload by 9%, but be more or less on the same money.
What is more interesting is that you can focus your canvassing on the more profitable customers and change the shape of your customer base. Therefore effectively increasing your profitability by much more than 10%
The problem is not "should I rise prices" but "What is the magic figure?".
If it was me I would do this...
work out my actual hourly rate in total over a month. (lets imagine 20 quid per hour)
work out what sort of rise I would like to see (say 10% to make it 22 quid per hour)
Look just at the hours less than 22 quid per hour.
Lift them up with big rises.
Replace any that got lost with ones that were more than my new required rate.
I know someone said about do not be shy hitting your biggest customers with big rises. But to me this could drive your hourly rate down if they are more than your new required hourly rate. If there is one thing I am trying to say in this post it is this...
"The only way you are going to improve your hourly rate is to rise and replace the bad stuff"
Thats how I would do it any way, but like I said, I know nothing about the philosophy of this game yet.
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If I was you Karl, I'd consider accountancy as a career, rather than window cleaning - think you've found your niche there mate!
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My bank manager would take issue with that I am sure.
Which probably means I am the last person you want to listen to.
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Ok - Psychological barriers on price are in our heads (mine included) as much as the customers.
If you have a busy round and want to do a cull take your worst customers and tell them you are going every 8 weeks instead of monthly.
You also tell them you will be removing almost twice as much muck but "only" charging (insert round figure between 25% and 60% extra depending on how much you care whether you lose them or not.)
Explain that their annual spend will be reduced.
Some will say yes, some will say no. You will win out becuase you will earn more for less cost.
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If you have a professional outlook, have confidence in dealing with people, show good manners, be firm but polite, show them you know what you are talking about but above all look professional most customers will believe in you and therefore believe that you will do a good, thorough job and be worth the money
I always quote high and if there is any hesitation I say the price includes cleaning the frames and sills ( which would have been included any way, so I am not giving anything away )
At present I am reducing prices in certain cases because I feel embarassed charging £35 for 30 minutes work since changing over to WFP. I dont believe in overcharging in rural areas because I think I will pick up more work in the long term instead of frightening potential customers away.
JohnL
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£20 for forty minutes sounds a reasonable wage to me, let me see £240 for eight hours suit me nicely I can put up with the whinging!
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Pricing is always a thorny issue, I bumped into Squeaks in our local Tesco car park earlier, we didn't chat much cos I had 'Er Indoors' by my side and she wanted to go home :-X But we were discussing prices.
Upshot was that Squeaks thinks I am ripping my customers off (I have one every weds that is £55.00 per clean and it now takes me 1 hour 15mins.
Rog says, 'Your'e ripping them off!! :o'
But my price is identical to the previous window cleaner and they were taking 2 hours to do the job.
Just because you are quicker is no reason to lower your price! This is how you make more money!!
Lets take it down to your standard semi detached house; by and large this will take the average window cleaner about 20 minutes to clean, a newbie will not do it this quick, this will still some experience to get up to that pace.
Now all of you experienced guys will also know that it can be done far quicker than this, if you can get it down to 10 minutes you are flying (I'm talking trad here by the way)
I personally hold that you should always price up your work at how long it should take an average window cleaner to do.
For instance, in the building trade there are reference books (Sponds used to be one when I was in the game) that mean that you can price up work by looking at the plans, everything is standardized.
So if we have priced up work going by times that your average, skilled window cleaner can do then you are not far wrong.
what you believe you are worth per hour is up to you.
For arguments sake, lets say you have priced up you standard semi at £8.00 (as a unit price this is roughly average)
Potentially your Mr Average can do three an hour, but the way you make your money is by being able to do 4 an hour, or even 5.
So if you have enough of them grouped together, and you are skilled enough to be able to do 5 in an hour then you will have knocked out 40 quid.
Lets also assume you have also done a top class job.
does this mean that you are now ripping off your customers because yo uare earning £40 per hour?
Or should you chop your prices until you are down to £24 per hour?
This will now make your competitor across the road (who can only do 3 an hour look vastly over priced, but he isn't is he? He is still earning the same per hour as you are.
It's you who are the numbnuts for lowering your prices :o
When (or if) you transfer to WFP then you will be considerably quicker again, particularly on larger accounts or accounts with georgian or leaded windows, but if you drop your prices you are making a mistake, you are reducing your possible imcome (at against increased overheads and vastly more expensive setup costs)
And another thing you must remember is that you are not actually earning £24 per hour.
Look at your bank balance and add up what you've paid in over the last 12 months.
THAT will give you your real turnover.
Take off your overheads, they are more than you think.
remember also that your business itself should also have a profit at the end of the year for future investment and so on.
what is left is your income for the year, and it won't be anything remotely close to £24.00 per hour.
If your tax bill is piddling, then your true income is peanuts, unless of course you are conning the tax man and fiddling your accounts.
So how much do yo uwant to earn?
And by that i mean what kind of a wage do you think you are worth?
A student teacher, after training will be on roughly 20k per year (think of the holidays!! 8))
Do you reckon you are worth that much per year?
Well if you do then your business had better be turning over 25k and above (minimum)
When you look back on your years turnover (money paid into the bank) you are going need to be showing close to £600 per week (especially if you are WFP)
don't kid yourself that you do this all the time, those accounts you submit to the tax man tell you the true tale.
When you consider that most of us only work about 5 or 6 hours a day even on a good week in the summer you really do have to reassess your hourly charges.
According to the tax man, the average window cleaner turns over approximately 17k per year.
you can lop off about 4k in costs and overheads, and that also allows for a very modest amount left in your business at the end of the year.
Your income - YOUR WAGE - is going to be as low as just 13k (not that you'll be paying tax on that amount, you have your various allowances to come off that)
Are you happy with such a modest income?
And don't forget, if you are WFP and only turning over that much, your income will be lower again.
So armed with this fresh knowledge, have another think about how you should price things up.
And have the confidance to go in a lot higher than you are now.
If you want a decent income then you just have to.
I know it depends also on your location in the country, some things you can do little about unfortunately, but once you believe absolutely in what you are charging, and you also know you are delivering a first class service then this transmits itself to your potential customers.
And even if you are belting out the work in double quick time, you should aslo feel safe in that the price you are charging is a fair one for the work being done...and if you are now WFP...this is also one of the single biggest reasons for making the change!!!!
Ian
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Upshot was that Squeaks thinks I am ripping my customers off...
Ah, he's only jealous 'cos he's too cheap and his customers keep telling him, 'not this month mate'.
There's no 'ripping off' if an agreements been made to clean a property for X amount of pounds and the customer agrees and you fulfill your side of the bargin. How can that possibly be ripping someone off?
Just recently I was quoted 10K to sort some stuff out from a bank; whereas I found a solicitor who'd charge me 1K for the same thing. This solicitor charges 140 quid an hour and what she's doing is pretty routine, and I could possibly sort it out myself and save a grand!
I don't feel ripped off by the solicitor, as long as she does what she said she'd do.
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Ah, he's only jealous 'cos he's too cheap and his customers keep telling him, 'not this month mate'.
Fine mate.
You keep taking the p1ss out the public, and I'll keep getting your work. ;D
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Squeaks,
Take what you can, honest! There's loads of work out there.
I'll give you some if you want.
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so if we look at the list of options of people who could come into window cleaning
people made redundant
imigrants
people holding several jobs
tradesmen expanding their present list of services
commercial window cleaners going back into domestic because they have lost several commercial
and not to mention window cleaners who have worked for other window cleaners
it might not show up for a couple years but it will come, the question is are you prepared to take on the increase of competition,
And look at all the people who start up, make a big effort, then don't survive the first Winter.
I think we're safe because it's unglamorous, sometimes dirty, usually hard work and getting a half-decent round together from scratch isn't easy and takes time, but this is a whole different post altogether.