Clean It Up
UK Floor Cleaning Forum => Carpet Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: spindle on April 06, 2007, 11:35:50 pm
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i have seen a local cc offering his services for 199+vat per day(commercial)
does anybody else offer a day rate for your services??
and how long would your day be. ?
do you guarantee a set amount of work per day?
just curious
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I do a day rate for hotels its £325+VAT. Although its easy work you could earn more else doing houses, they do use you quite regularely so it does fill thoes days when theres not much to do.
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Lavinia,
What are you doing for this sum, as a hotel can hire 7 - 8 cleaning staff, for that kind of money ?
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Rob, I am sure Lavinia is refering to carpet and or upholstery cleaning services. This being the case over an 8 hour day is only £40 an hour and not excessive by any stretch of the imagination.
To pay someone 5 pounds and hour I am sure you wouldnt get the same service as Livinia would provide.
As Livinia also pointed out, more monies can be earned doing other work but for the days when nothing else is boooked I think it is brilliant.
I dont think 40 an hour is enough but thats my own opinion. It is still good as a day rate so it would suffice as opposed to nothing at all.
Best, Dave.
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if someone wanted me to work none-stop from 8am to 5pm (with only an 1/2 hour lunch break) I would want £650, but when you work out how much carpet I could clean in that time it wouldn't be an unreasonable amount to ask for.
if I was pressure washing I'd want a grand.
Mike
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Mike,
Did you get my email?
Phil
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Mike, spot on. Even at the prices you have sugested isnt excessive. Best, Dave.
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Phil, No I did'nt, if its important call me on 01482 805118.
or go to Cleeentalk and send me a private message.
mike
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A grand a day for pressure washing ? Ive just been out and quoted a customer £300 , 50 square m clean sand and reseal block paving , he looked at me as if i had interfered with one his daughters, I must be doing something wrong
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Ok mate, thought I had upset you! :'(
It's nothing much, just wanted to know where you had that leaflet done with you & the Taski machine with the 3 great special offers and how much did they cost you!
Does your henry@hull.com not work then?
Cheers
Phil
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no i don't use that address any more, since i change ISP.
i use DP design, I get them free ;) for services provided.
I think they should cost about £250 for 20k full colour both sides (but don't quote me on that)
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Ok,
Cheers Mike.
You dont mind if I change your head to mine. ;)
Phil
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John
Mike is only saying that he would 'want' a grand a day for pressure washing. He obviously doesn't want to do pressure washing and is therefore pricing himself out of the market.
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not the market I visit ;D ;D
phil we are looking at swopping heads for a mate of mine,
Mike
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I constantly get a grand a day for pressure washing, isnt it the norm? Best, Dave.
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Mike,
Do you have their website address?
Cheers
Phil
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www.leafletsforyou.co.uk (http://www.leafletsforyou.co.uk)
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So go on then and tell us how you do it. Size, type of stone, method/tools used, clean or seal etc.
Mike
£650 for 8.5 hours is £76 an hour. How do you earn that in domestic with one man. Not questioning the amount but rather how to clean quickly to achieve £76 an hour constantly esp for two 12x12 rooms for example.
Making money on big jobs is easy. but making the same on small domestic jobs is an art I need to learn.
Mark
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I worked with Mike for a day 2 weeks ago, it's quite easy all he does when goes to quote is inform them that they need to move small items before he gets there.
Carpet cleaning has never been so easy sometimes you can forget the basics!
Don't forget though Beverley is full of 'old duffers' and they live in bungalows so there are no stairs but more down stairs rooms.
Shaun
PS That's why they call Mike 'Bungalow Bill' - nowt upstairs ;D
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Mark
Remember he has a HO near him they charge top £ for cc a lot-lot lower for FF work. Ask mike to send you some pic of his roof cleaning the man got some balls ;D and charges accordingly.
Len
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Mark
I just love some of the figures that are trown around. I hope that any members on this forum who are new to the business just don't take them as gospel
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Alot of cleaners who are fresh to the industry perhaps may be shy of charging some of these figures but they should be looking to aspire to them. Charging lower end does not pay for a rainy day, although every job is a God send but you don't want to be looking at a job as a dayly rate or an hourly rate you should be looking at what you have for the week.
I've been at the low end of the market, when you get 3 jobs a day at £25 each or less in quiet times you know you will struggle, if you get 2 jobs at £150 you feel alot better and richer.
If you dare be brave you will have a longer and prosporous carear and life ahead of you.
Shaun
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don't any of you lads go out drinking :D :D all these questions while I've been out,
answer tomorrow
Mike
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Grand a day for washing flag stones Mike! ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
You could train a monkey to hold a lance and blast the ground clean, then pay it with a banana.
Some people come out with the most ludicrous s**t its almost pant wetting stuff to read.
Give us some real facts and stop making us all look like a load of gullible fools.
Matt
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Matt, do they sell monkeys at the pet store? I've just bought another pressure washer i could do with a reliable worker who'll take payment in bananas.
lets just put this straight, i have never earned £1000 a day for pressure washing what I said was if I worked a full day pressure washing I'd earn around a £1000. I've just booked a housing association complex at £1150 which will take me a very long day.
I've done lots of jobs this year and they all earn around £100 an hour, these are medium sized driveways that take about 2.5 hrs, I don't re-sand them (but offer to bring the sand so the customer can do it themselves)
last year I had more £700 days (including lots of £450 jobs) than i can remember I i never finished later than 4.
in some ways i agree with Francis, that some figures on this forum shouldn't be believed. but what is worse than people inflating the amounts they they earn is the daft people who are charging stupid cheap prices and try and convince any new starters that this is all the can expect to earn.
I see it all the time. " you should be earning £25 an hour for carpet cleaning"......."no one will pay over £80 for a suite clean"....." no one will pay £300 for pressure washing"
believe what you like.
mike
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On another post Mike had given me the advice of charging per hour to clean some roofs I had booked up. I have pressure washed for years but had never come across having to clean a roof before.
His advice and I took it was to charge per hour which accordingly I did. These roofs take about 12 to 15 hours to do. 12 was the smallest and of course 15 was the biggest and there has been some inbetween.
With charging anywhere between 100 an hour to 250 depending how many machines I have going it is easy to get over a thousand a day.
The difficult part is getting the amount of "surface" to be cleaned. Be it carpet, upholstery, concrete or any other textile you can think of.
Mike and I hope most cleaners will get 2 or 300 to do a driveway. If it takes 2 or 3 hours to do it is no different that what I am fortunate to get for the roofs and other hard surfaces that I clean.
I have a load of dwarf walls, walkways, kerb stones, mowing strips and similar to clean this Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday I have a large roof to clean.
I am guessing it will all take about 72 man hours to do. However long it takes rest assured I will not be charging £360 as has been suggested is it's worth.
If you want to have work day in and day out then carry on charging the stupid low prices that are being charged. If you want to run and own a business then charge accordingly.
To the "newbies", whatever you are cleaning, listen to the advice of people like Shaun and Mike for their advice is fair and sound. Don't be charing at the low end of the scale for if you do thats the type of work you will get. There are pessimists on here that think we should earn minimum wage, why? Is it because thats all they think they are worth, or is it thats what they think cleaning is worth.
I happen to think, rightly or wrongly that I am worth a fortune and so I charge accordingly. Doesn't matter if I am worth only pennies I will still charge as high as I can for what I do.
Why else be self-employed and create the life-style that I want to lead?
Why also is it that when cleaners on here do well everyone else is quick to condemn them. Especially when it comes to prices being charged.
Paul Moss has got a very good contract which he advised on here and then was slated, suggesting an April fools post.
He will be charging way in excess of what a lot of people on here rather cautiously charge. Why aren't we pleased for him? Why should he take the stick of the return posts he received?
I say fair play to the man for getting the work that some idiots on here suggest isn't out there to be had. He even offered to pass on some of the work for an amount that the same idiots say isnt attainable.
It is attainable and this is what the "newbies" need to be aware of!!!!!
Best and Happy Easter Sunday, Dave.
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i wish i could get some of the rates you are charging we have been in business since 1960 and can honestly say we never achieve the high rates stated by mike we have all the latest machinery to do the job faster and so be more competitive and yet for powerwashing would be extremely happy if i could achieve £300 a day which i sometimes do but rarely so mike if you get to busy pass the work to me you can sit at home make a bomb and i would be happy with what i got. like said earlier when i try priceing higher people look at me like i have broke in their house and sh..t in their shoes. ;D
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Happy Easter
A good time to look at your business and where you would like to be in the near future...........what Dave , Mike and others say, should be an inspitation, to people who are either new to the business, or have never realised their potential.
I have been criticised for suggesting, that newcomers should gain experience and competence before attempting to earn the same as the highest earners, but continue to believe this.
However and Ive always said so...............when you become competent through training and experience, you should aim to earn considerably more !!!!
But................
This is where a minority, will earn a lot more than the rest, not because they are better, some will be pretty average, but they will be blessed with, DRIVE / SELF CONFIDENCE / GOOD COMMUNICATION SKILLS and some will just be BRASS NECKED.
I'ts not about BEING INFERIOR or COWARDLY or a lack of self esteem..................it's about HUMAN NATURE and it's just been illustrated perfectly, by a gent, who has decades of experience and quality equipment, which probably gives his clients a high value service, but he fails to get the return he could.
Not everyone can be great at marketing , or selling and it's simply a human failing.
What these people need, is to have someone else doing the marketing on their behalf, because, they will NEVER break the mould. They are, what they are.
This is not being negative, it's simply a fact of life and it exists in every service industry in the world, where the majority GET ON WITH IT while a minority are naturally gifted, or become inspired through others example.
To the high earners....................it's great that you are setting an example to others, some of whom will become inspired and simply attempt to charge more......................others will attempt to discover YOUR SECRETS ...............others still, will find it impossible to believe, what you earn........................while others still...............will carry on, doing the same, that they did last year and the year before.
What the OTHERS have to realise, is, these guys MAKE IT HAPPEN they don't daydream or wish it could be different...............THEY MAKE IT DIFFERENT.
What you have here is the TRUE FAST TRACK IN ACTION
rob
Me.............I've been there / done it / 20 years ago and was looking for a quieter life............BUT .......guess what............I'm about to resurrect the business that gave me £2000 a week in my pocket 20 years ago. Well I'm only 62 in a couple of weeks and my heart condition has stabilised and it's the time of year, for miracles.
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Trevor, I would be interested to know which machines you are using, however thats a side issue.
My comment would be.......... You are suggesting that you are trying to be competitive, I pressume you mean in price.
I am not saying it works for everyone but the way I do things is to not be competitive. Else I am after the same work as the "competition".
If you go after a £300 pound job would you do it for say, £275. If the answer is yes then you will always struggle to get a higher price for your services.
If I was going after a £300 job (which i wouldnt) then I would charge maybe 600 or even 900. It realy doesnt matter if I get the job or not. As long as I got one in three we would be at the same place so to speak. If I got the one in three which I would as I do (I get everything I go after) then I would be working at the best part of a thousand a day, getting a reputation for doing good work as I am sure we all do and best of all GETTING the recommendations for the next job which in effect you have already sold for hopfully a £1000. Bad English but I hope you get the point.
You must be good at what you do, so the next job you get that you think is worth 300, ask for 4 or 5 or 600. Just dont ask for 3!! What do you have to lose? If you ask for 5 and the client barks at you then discount it to 375 or 400 and I am sure you would still get the job.
Mike must have a reputation for his 450 and 700 jobs, no reason you cant have the same. I am sure you have a reputation for the 300's that you do so there is no difference, just the price.
Best, Dave.
P.S. I would still be interested to know the machines you use to power wash with.
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Rob, good post. Glad to hear about your heart. Good luck with your business, keep us all informed with how you get on, again good post. Best, Dave.
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it seems this has gone day-rate for carpet cleaning onto pressure washing.
One thing I will say is, often I hear people say (and it is often written on these forums that;
'why would people pay me £350 to clean carpets/driveways/suites etc..etc when they can get my competitor to do it for £150'
...or...
'the price around my town is £55 for suite cleaning, so no one will pay higher than that'
these 2 statement rely on one fact; that the person they are quoting for has a comparison to compare your price to. I could quote £300 for a drive and tell them that is a really cheap price and I'm doing them a favour to do it so low. unless they have had another company quote £100 they will believe me and think that £300 is the going rate for their job.
most people have no idea what price something is until we tell them. I have a set value for my time and this is what I charge. If they can't afford me that's OK,
Mike
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Good positive stuff Mike and Dave.............rob
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hi liahona
i have my pressure washer mounted in a box trailer that is all sign written the same as the van,the trailer has a door at front to store whirlaway surface cleaner 3 lances , turbo nozzles spares and waterprooofs fixed behind this is a 1000ltr baffled tank which keeps me going for apprximately 70 minutes without having to fill which is ideal for jobs where water access is an issue , my washer is positioned behind the rear door it is a lavor thermic 17 it runs at 21ltr a minute and a pressure of 3000psi the temperature can be adjusted from cold upto 150 degrees the pressure and flowrate are also fully adjustable,at the front of trailer i have a high pressure hose reel holding 60m of hose but i have run the machine with much longer than that, i can also split the hose to run two lances ,the pressure remains the same on each lance but the flowrate is halved this is ideal for chewing gum removal where two operatives can work at once . we also use telescopic lances for facia cleaning and feed chemical through a ventura.
any questions please feel free to ask
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carpet guy i certainly agree with you about marketing , this is certainly one of my downfalls and find i dont bother with it. I feel i am extremely good at my job and when i speak to my customers and hear some of the garbage they have been told by ones so called marketing their business it makes me cringe. I know that all businesses are marketing more and more but we only have to watch watchdog and realise that a lot of these marketing strategies are nothing more than false promises and lies. I can honestly say if a workman turned up at my house did 8 hours work and billed me £1000 he certainly wouldnt get any recomendations from me and i certainly wouldnt use the firm again so my question is are these high charging firms getting much repeat work or are they constantly chasing new accounts to stay in business.
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Im more interested in HOW you can make more money per hour/day in terms of procedures and techniques. therefore my question to Mike and Liahona is how do you do it for both residential carpet cleaning and powerwashing.
Ive no problem with the amounts made its getting the right work.
Mark
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I think that what has to be clearly pointed out when you start reading about a days work in the thousands, is a paragraph Liahona posted above which says:-
"with charging anywhere between 100 - 250 per hour depending on how many machines I have going, it is easy to get a grand a day"
I do a bimonthly pressure washing job for £1600 and it has to be completed in a day. I need to run 2 machines to achieve this and ergo 2 operatives.
Would be misleading if I were to post here that I can get £1600 a day for pressure washing without giving the full details of how many people I require to do this.
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Mark, I don't completely understand your question, I'm sure with carpet cleaning my procedure is just the same as yours, although I work as a 2 man team
as for pressure washing, I use a petrol pressurewasher hooked upto a turbo lance ( I have a flat surface cleaner but prefer the turbo) the only difference i think I do from other P/w companies is I use my T/M to suck up the water as I clean so i don't waterlog everything.
the only way i can see to make good money is to price high, I don't get all of the jobs i quote ( i think I get about 60%)
at the beginning I said for carpet cleaning i would want a day rate of £650, but this is what I would want it I was at 1 job working none stop for 8hrs, in this time I would clean a massive amount of carpeting probably 3 times as much as i do now on a normal day. So when you put it like that £650 is not an extreme amount of money
you also asked about getting the right work, but this is more about getting the right customers, which is a whole new topic.
but its not about what equipment you have, Trevor has an impressive set up but says he can't make £300 a day, my gardener offers a P/W service and uses a £500 second-hand electric machine, and he often earns over £300 a day
Mike
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As an average my ticket range from £0 to £2k commercial cc that is! I sometimes have one helper and sometimes have up to 4 porty-boys (they work I rest in a manor of speaking) but my profits are good. :-*
It’s been about two years since I targeted domestic work (have the regulars plus referrals) so am out of touch with today’s market, would you say Whole house cleaned £210. 2bed house, carpets-curtains-upholstery-window, kitchen & bathroom, or the premier gold line service £105. 3bed house 2 receptions & hsl, deodorized & stain protected.
Would you say this more realistic day rate pricing, subject to cleaning requirements and size?
Mike
Do you use a Hydofilter when using the spinner?
Chris
Stop being curious and get back to the sink ;)
Len
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Mike i too have a petrol 13hp pressure washer ,flat surface cleaner and power lance i would love to no how you use your trunk mount to suck up the crud and excess water
Thanks John
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i don't suck up crud, only water. all i do is stick the hose into a hollow piont and suck away, i do use a hydrafilter to stop any really big crap going into the tank.
mike
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When I first started this game I would do a carpet for £19 a through lounge £29 h/s/l £19 a 3 piece suite £50.
I worked hard with loads of work for £500.I had fair to med equipment.But that was the early days even though I had done the training courses an could deal with most situations,I did not understand the marketing/selling part of the business.
Now I work just as hard but with not quite as many jobs but I have invested in better machinery,more trainning and have learnt to sell my self and market my business better
Last week I earned £3500, this week it will be more.
So when guys like Mike, Dave,Len and Rob say they do the same you can take it from me that it is true because over the past 3 years I have taken all the relevent tips from these guys and used them.
And yes it does work,cos as Rob said earlier
MAKE IT HAPPEN
;)
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Francis, most people who know me will understand what I meant when I posted. When I mean a thousand a day I am refering to each person on site. Not charging 250 and working for 4 hours. These next few days which will add to I guess 72 hours will be charged for at £7,200 or more.
If it needs clarifying then here is the clarification.
Each operative of a machine whatever the machine is used for is £100 an hour or more, but for now we will leave it at 100.
For pressure washing the 250 would be 200 for 2 machines an hour and 50 an hour for a lad to help sweep the slurry and anything else other than the use of a machine.
I hope this now makes sense.
Please note and note well, I dont charge a lot more than some people. In some cases I charge the same. The difference is the jobs I go after take a dxxm long time to do. I will get 1200 a day per machine which is not excessive, just remember that is 12 hours non-stop save a mars bar or 3 and an odd bottle of fruit juice. For the 12 hours it will take the machine will run for at least 10 of them. Allowing 2 hours for the above mentioned mars bar and the moving of the machines as well as set up. Its no different a cleaner making 5 or 600 a day but only working half a day or 6 hours. I just do two days work in one day.
I must admit I wish I had decided to pressure wash a lot earlier in business. Its a doddle compared to the cleaning I do. Nothing shrinks, no colour run, no coffee or tea stains again what a dodle.
Oh yeah what a visual difference too. Before and after pressure washing pictures are incredible. The work is easier to do and it pays more. What more can I say. Best, Dave.
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Paul, I just saw your post. I think you were writing the same time as I was. Anyway, thats awesome news about your last week. Even better you will do it again next week. As we talked about on the phone the other day, I said it was out there, you just have to go find it. YOU DID, well done, now if everyone else does we wont have to see these kind of posts again. Having said that I think this post is doing well, best, Dave.
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Thanks for the replie Mike ive just done a search on google to find out what a hydrafilter is i cant find what you mean, i wound be grateful if you could tell where to get one from
Thanks John
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(http://img46.i.us/img46/2452/oeilfeacu8.jpg)
lots of places sell them Chemspec, Hydramaster, prochem etc
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John it is a inline filter that fits on the extraction pipe and collects all the crap before it hits the tank.Its good because the customer can see all the crap out of the carpet,but it does slightly restrict the vacuum and needs to be emptied regularly on really dirty jobs.
You can buy them from most suppliers like Hydromaster,woodbridge etc.
Cost around £150.
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Thanks
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A very interesting read on this post, and would just like to add that after about
12 years carpet cleaning i've come to realize that at leats 50% of the business is
to do with marketing, if you don't think seriously about that then you will be just
grafting for few hundred pound a week!
I've implemented a good few of the ideas i've scrounged from the web and
here! and Ithink it would be a good idea to have a section or at least some
good post about marketing and what can be done to grow a business.
Unless you've done fasttrack or the like it can be one of the important things
about this business you miss. ???
I'm in the process of spending more time looking for decent clients and focusing
on my marketing and letting others do some of the graft, now the business
seems to be growing and making some decent money :D
It seems though some may be lacking in this area as i was or just not knowing
how to go about it!
Those pointers I think can be just as important as the cleaning itself! - I did a
newsletter recently, inspired by Ian Harper and I can tell you i was amazed at
the response it brought, just from my regular customers :o
The moral of the story is (for me anyway) is that intead of looking constantly for
new customers, looking after the ones you've got gives you the confidence to
charge those higher prices, because they want YOU and nobody else. ;)
Regards to all
steve
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Liahona
I was not trying to throw any doubt on your figures. I was only trying to clarify what you had posted and this you have now confirmed.
Obviously you have built up a lucrative pressure washing business. Can I ask, whereas I am prepared to work 12 hours non stop because it is my own business, I find it impossible to get employees to do this no matter what I pay them. How do you incentivise your operatives to do these kind of hours?
Can I also ask how long it has taken you to build up this pressure washing business, as you say that you wished you had got into this line earlier yet in your previous post you say you have been pressure washing for years
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Francis, I didnt think you were questioning thats why I just clarified.
I pay 80% of what I charge and Paul who works for me knows what I charge. So he makes 800 or so a day but is prepared to do the hours. He works for a couple of days, in this weeks case 3 and doesnt do bad out of it. He can have Thursday and Friday off having earned a good weeks wages.
I understand it not being clear about the pressure washing side of my business.
I mentioned I had been pressure washing for years but it was only as an odd add on now and again.
So although I have cleaned hundreds of "things" it has never been the foremost of the business.
Other than that it has taken me a month to get the jobs that I am getting now to pressure wash. It was fairly easy to get into as it was for an existing client.
I also have a big mouth and a lot of front and accordingly I am not afraid to ask for what I want. I convince as Mike has mentioned that I am the best thing or company that they (the client) should use. They trust me for the work that I already do so are more than happy to have me do other works, saving them having to find someone who may or may not be trust worthy. I emphasise again, its not that I charge a lot for what I do, its that I do large jobs. But thats what I go after, I have never said I work a lot of days, I have always said purely that I get paid well for when I work and so I should. And so should everyone else.
Best, Dave.
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len
do u know who was offering day rate.............he is local to us........
the sink is empty........., 8) 8)
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Chris
Probably and probably a bit peeved what I was paying him! thinking he could do better, which he may, but he will have to work for it.
Len
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he also has some great special offers :o :o ;D