[Shaun_Ashmore]

I think it depends on how you sell your service if you sell personal service then you may have problems.

Shaun

[Carpet Dawg]

Yeah, this is the problem i think Shaun.

[robert meldrum]

It's been done very successfully through the Central Belt of Scotland some time ago with the owner making a lot of money at less than half the charges shown here.

Certainly not marketed as  " the best " it was very much " maintenance " type cleaning with a lot of feathering and minimal furniture movement but the owner made a lot of money and converted it into bricks and mortar.

[ianharper]

it works because he has cash flow and does his numbers. as long as he does not want repeats it will (and by the looks does) work great. with no overheads apart from adwords he is in the money. not all business models are the same. when you look at it he is never held back by the hours in the day.

respect

Ian Harper

[Paolo]

40% of those prices plus adword costs doesn't sound worth while to me.

He gets 60%, subby 40%

ah i get ya Steve.

I wonder how these kinda operations work, as in upsells OR the cleaner giving the cutsomer their business card so that the client goes directly to him next time they need a clean... How do you combat that?

Has anyone here (i'm sure there's a few) employeed lads to go out and clean carpets on thier own??

Its an idea I have been wanting to do for years but always feared in case they decide to set up on thier own, taking a % of my  busines with him.. after I have tought him the trade secrets! 
Different if its commercial work you get them to do i guess.

That appiles to any business.

If you can't get around that mind set, you'd never expand beyond a one man set up.

[Ian Gourlay]

Do these operations charge by Credit Card in Advance?

[Ian Gourlay]

Well if I was happy to clean a 3 bed house move funiture etc for £40 I would put ot loads of leaflets

Wonder what the response rate would be.

If this Guy is not VAT registered he needs reporting

[garry22]

Here's the main queries...

[davep]

What programme is that Gary?

[clinton]

What does all that mean gary is it good etc please

[garry22]

Hi guys,

It's free stats from www.alexa.com    It rates websites worldwide

They do a toolbar that you can download, that gives you ratings for sites.

A word of warning... this is not 100% accurate. The site has to be in their index to be rated, which not all are. Sometimes, keywords do not show up at all but it's useful (and free).

The Alexa score is a rough idea of visitors to a site. The lower the Alexa score, the better (I think Youtube is 3 or 4).

For cleaning sites, one million is pretty good, over say, twelve million is pretty crap. Some are twenty million plus (effectively, no visitors).

[The Carpet Cleaning Pro]

Hi Guys

Shaun, it also covers my area so there is no way it's a one man set up.

Using Google adwords to target all over, your post must have cost them a small fortune

Cheers

Doug

Oups I pressed the Google ad... I just had to have a look... never thought of pressing the link you put up for them Shaun

[Carpet Dawg]

40% of those prices plus adword costs doesn't sound worth while to me.

He gets 60%, subby 40%

ah i get ya Steve.

I wonder how these kinda operations work, as in upsells OR the cleaner giving the cutsomer their business card so that the client goes directly to him next time they need a clean... How do you combat that?

Has anyone here (i'm sure there's a few) employeed lads to go out and clean carpets on thier own??

Its an idea I have been wanting to do for years but always feared in case they decide to set up on thier own, taking a % of my  busines with him.. after I have tought him the trade secrets! 
Different if its commercial work you get them to do i guess.

That appiles to any business.
If you can't get around that mind set, you'd never expand beyond a one man set up.

I understand where your coming from Paolo but doesn't aplly to alot of businesses. i.e. relativley cheap setup (compared to renting out a shop, paying rates, setting up a shop etc etc) and many other factors like carpet cleaning being a niche spacific service and the fact that we CC rely heavly on repeat/regular customers.

Just the way I see it I guess. You dont see many multi van carpet cleaning operations.

[The Carpet Cleaning Pro]

Interesting the way he implies there is no VAT. Given what looks like the size of his operation those prices will have to include VAT as well. I wonder how the 40% split takes that into consideration?

He doesnt take the money ... the carpet cleaner does. His income is a % payed by the carpet cleaner to him, so probably not even vat registered. Who is to say it gets loads of work anyway. The risk is not his... it is the carpet cleaners who pays for the google ads so he has the risk.