Clean It Up
UK Window Cleaning Forum => Window Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: Rogue Trader on June 07, 2009, 09:39:07 pm
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Hello Lee,
A customer of mine (who i have had to reduce the price) tells me that you are quoting any house without conservatory for £12 and any house with conservatory for £15.
Is this true?
any house???
:o
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::)
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hes out canvassing your work ;D ;D
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;D ;D
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stan
;D ;D ;D ;D
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and clean the whole conservatory as well?? for that price impossible
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That's nowt, I've had one canvassing any house for a fiver!!!!!! :o
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That's nowt, I've had one canvassing any house for a fiver!!!!!! :o
should have got him to do yours ;D ;D
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Hello Lee,
A customer of mine (who i have had to reduce the price) tells me that you are quoting any house without conservatory for £12 and any house with conservatory for £15.
Is this true?
any house???
:o
why did you drop the price?
You should have just dropped them.
I set the prices if custies want it cheaper they can go elsewhere. They want back, its an increase in price.
Sell on service NOT price ::)
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Hello Lee,
A customer of mine (who i have had to reduce the price) tells me that you are quoting any house without conservatory for £12 and any house with conservatory for £15.
Is this true?
any house???
:o
why did you drop the price?
You should have just dropped them.
I set the prices if custies want it cheaper they can go elsewhere. They want back, its an increase in price.
Sell on service NOT price ::)
once their out their out
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your a hard man Mike ;D ;D
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my mrs says the same ;D ;D ;D
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Hello Lee,
A customer of mine (who i have had to reduce the price) tells me that you are quoting any house without conservatory for £12 and any house with conservatory for £15.
Is this true?
any house???
:o
why did you drop the price?
You should have just dropped them.
I set the prices if custies want it cheaper they can go elsewhere. They want back, its an increase in price.
Sell on service NOT price ::)
i am expanding and looking to put my third van on the road so i am not in the business of dropping good customers and awarding them to a competitor who is cheaper , i will take the £5 knock and carry on.
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I think it's a case of economy of scale really. I believe Lee Pryor has a few vans on the road now and he probably has to pay his guys whether they are idle or working - so he might as well have them working even if it's a lower margin. Most of us sole traders will have our target turnovers of £x per year which will break down to £x per hour. It's necessary to charge a certain rate in order to achieve that. When employing though, it's about profit over and above operating costs. If the clear profit on a job is a measly £2 when employing, if your guys get through 3,000 jobs a month that's a 6 grand profit - with the ability to undercut if you want to wipe out the opposition. Most won't or can't do this due to the initial outlay or maybe because they want to keep life a bit simpler. Bank loans for small businesses have always been a bit tricky to get - especially without collateral - so it can be useful to have a source of private funding to get started. The prices quoted by the OP are doable if they are based on making a profit margin rather than securing an income. Also, those prices do not have to be sustained year on year. They only have to be carried by the higher paying work until the business feels secure enough to increase them.
This hasn't been an issue until recent times and the advent of WFP. Previously, this sort of stuff was more restricted to the commercial field. I expect to see more and more of this going on. I don't actually believe that it is necessary to cut your rival businesses throats in order to be successful. Although work is a lot tighter now, I am finding that there is still the opportunity out there to make a business. I also cover some of the areas covered by Pryors and I can think of a few of my customers who might go with his prices. However, most of my work is on a par with that type of pricing - or close enough that they may not wish to make a change (the devil you know can be worth a couple of quid over the devil you don't with many customers). It's just some of the larger jobs that I might be a bit concerned about. I can think of one of my jobs that I do for £65 (no conservatory). If someone wants to try it for £12 they will be cutting their own throat. £12 wouldn't even pay the wages for that (estimate 2 guys @ 1 hour each) never mind the other operating costs.
Good luck to him as long as he doesn't get any of my work ;D
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Hi Matt
We have reduced our prices this year in light of the recession. The figures you have mentioned are what we have advertised if a customer decides to use us every 4 weeks. but we are trying to encourage a frequency of 6 8 or 12 weeks for which we would charge more.
The idear of this marketing campaign is new for us and the next wave will have a second price menu designed for bigger houses.
I would also like to mention that I do not believe in undercutting and never have, frankly I have no idear what others in the area we cover charge. This year we have thought about the prices we are comfortable at and posted them across large areas letting as always the customer decide.
Oh and I lost a customer this week as someone else was £5.00 cheaper. so we are all in the same boat.
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We are offering any house any size for £1 right now - got to squeeze the competition out somehow!
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We are offering any house any size for £1 right now - got to squeeze the competition out somehow!
Is that inside & out or just outside? ;D
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lol youll be earning a £10 a day before you know it.
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My next campaign will get them in droves - we're going to offer FREE cleaning for a year. Sometimes you have to work on a loss leader to get rid of the competition.
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Hey I might even start paying the customers to clean their windows! ;) ;)
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Hey I might even start paying the customers to clean their windows! ;) ;)
lee02 you can come and clean my windows if you want the job £15 allright save my mrs keeping on to me.dave
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leaps and lee, some good posts. I'm not in your area but can't fault either of you.
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leaps and lee, some good posts. I'm not in your area but can't fault either of you.
It makes us sound like that singer from the 60s (Leapy Lee) ;D
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leapy_Lee
I haven't yet really experienced much pressure with my current prices. Much of my current work is probably on a par with or a little cheaper than some of the rates I've seen quoted on this thread. Some is a bit higher. A bit of it is a fair bit higher. A piece of advice I got when I very first started was to spread my work around to make me less vulnerable if prices ever got tight. As a consequence of that, my blocks of work cover a fair sized footprint in all directions from my base. Also, I have a variety of work types - especially since I went for WFP a few years ago and can now do work that I would never have considered from a ladder. I even still have a very few little jobs at £5 - £6 but they take very little time or effort.
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Hi Matt
We have reduced our prices this year in light of the recession. The figures you have mentioned are what we have advertised if a customer decides to use us every 4 weeks. but we are trying to encourage a frequency of 6 8 or 12 weeks for which we would charge more.
The idear of this marketing campaign is new for us and the next wave will have a second price menu designed for bigger houses.
I would also like to mention that I do not believe in undercutting and never have, frankly I have no idear what others in the area we cover charge. This year we have thought about the prices we are comfortable at and posted them across large areas letting as always the customer decide.
Oh and I lost a customer this week as someone else was £5.00 cheaper. so we are all in the same boat.
Hello Lee,
So how is the price reduced jobs gonna work with your staff (who is taking the hit?) do they have to do more work to earn their days money or are you upping their percentage? - or are you doing all the new cheap as chips jobs yourself?
Matt
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my answer would be? - None of your business!! ;D you never know he may answer ;)
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the longer this downturn goes on, the more we will see people offering cheaper prices to get work
will the bubble burst ? ? ? ? where are them days of 800 quid a day gone ::) ::) ::)
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the longer this downturn goes on, the more we will see people offering cheaper prices to get work
will the bubble burst ? ? ? ? where are them days of 800 quid a day gone ::) ::) ::)
i'm still looking for them per person ::)
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Matt
I think you should read my first paragragh again, without giving my prices away a lesser frequency = higher price with us, and they really arnt cheap as chips.
with regard to my staff I think they are greatfull to have a job, you only have to see the ques at the job center to understand why.
I understand how it feels if you have to drop your price to keep a customer because someone else has put something through their door, but at least they gave you the option.
Wouldnt it be nice if we could all build our businesses and never loose a customer to someone else. But the fact is it just doesnt happen, every year we win some and loose some, get some at a high price some at a lower price and so on. thats the way business is. As i said before we dont undercutt, (never have never would) we have no idear which window cleaners have which houses or their prices.
I have no desire to hurt anyone elses business, but you have to look out for number one first. Matt if your thinking about a 3rd van on the road then in my mind you must be doing well, dont forget most are one man bands. (not that theres anything wrong with that). Lets hook up and talk shop!