[Matt Seymour]

Matt

I noticed on your carpet cleaning site that your prices are a on the "good value" side. Nothing wrong with that just saying.

Have you worked out your potential outgoings for the new business? wrote a business plan etc?

Just make sure you charge a good rate and cover yourself! Cheap prices are the killer of many small businesses.

Tony

Hi Tony,

I lowered my prices recently to try and bring in some more work (like a lot of people), but it made no difference.

I was never the most expensive but also not the cheapest either. As it turns out changing my prices made no difference either way.

The new business is a completely different kettle of fish. I don't intend to be the cheapest and I am looking into finding some kind of niche market as Garry suggested. In the first instance I will attempt to offer as many services as humanly possible and just find the right market. There is far more scope than there is in carpet cleaning.

[derek west]

when you say it made no difference lowering your prices, does that mean you still did the same amount of jobs? in which case, maybe you should of put your prices up to see if that made any diff? just a thought.

[Matt Seymour]

when you say it made no difference lowering your prices, does that mean you still did the same amount of jobs? in which case, maybe you should of put your prices up to see if that made any diff? just a thought.

No, I mean it made no difference in terms of generating enquiries from the web. I didn't have prices on my website originally, but looked at some of the competition's prices that were displayed on their websites and matched or bettered them on my own.

Didn't make any difference at all.

[derek west]

so when you say no diff, are you saying you got no responce what so ever, or are you saying you still got the same amount of jobs?

[Matt Seymour]

It's fair to say I got no response whatsoever... I also had no response whatsoever when I didn't have the prices on there.

Web enquiries died a death after August and, although I am no longer trading, my website is still online and I still haven't had a single web enquiry since early December.

[derek west]

arrrr roight, am with ya now ted, a mean mat.

why not for a laugh, put..... "carpet cleaning, one pound" yes thats right ladies and gentlemen, for £1 we will clean any room, with discounts for more rooms"

that way you can actually see if your web site is being viewed by potential custies.

don't worry if you do get a call, just tell them you went out of business for being too cheap.

[Matt Seymour]

  I like it!

I might as well say I will pay them to let me clean their carpets while they kick me in the nuts at 30 second intervals for all the good it would do.

[derek west]

I like it!

I might as well say I will pay them to let me clean their carpets while they kick me in the nuts at 30 second intervals for all the good it would do.

 

well theres some out there that will pay good money for that service