[Paul Redden Countryfresh]

Andy just tell em "if you pay peanuts you get monkeys!" emphasize how you want to give them a good job
and you can buy cheap and pay twice as eg simons job.

[davep]

You need to charge more if your spending a lot out on flyers and big ads, after say 5 years you should have enough regulars and recommendations to keep busy

It's all very well charging high prices for suites but how much does each job cost in advertising?

[Mike Halliday]

Dave that's a good point, I spend £200 a week on advertising, as i do on average 17 jobs a week.... so every customer cost me £11,76p

imagine if I did AdWords on google and had a PPC bid set at £11

[AshWhite]

But that's not the same Mike, unless you converted every click to a job? Your cpc would more likely be £2-£5?

[Mike Halliday]

your right Ash but even at £2-£5 I would be top of the page and with a budget of £800 a month it would be an interesting experiment to see if AdWords would beat leaflets with the same amount spent

[AshWhite]

How wide an area do you cover with your leaflets? If you wanted to cover a relatively small area (12 mile radius, the way the crow flies), I bet £800 would last months!

[Mike Halliday]

my leaflet were delivered  4 miles from my house but just started to deliver to another area which is 8 miles away.

[AshWhite]

The other thing of course is that google adwords is reactive, leaflets are (largely) proactive - so difficult to compare apples with apples

[Jim_77]

I often hear this argument of offering your services to higher end clients who are willing to pay more.

Do you not find that these clients are hard to come by for various reasons.Here are 2.

There aren't as many of them to market to and higher end houses dont require CC as often as these people are much more likely to look after their carpets the houses are a lot bigger so dont get dirty very easily as soiling has more than likely been got rid of in the hallways,unlike in an average sized house where you are directly in the lounge.

There are many quite affluent areas in my vicinity but I very rarely get calls from these places.

Wayne you've got completely the wrong perception.  As already said, we're not talking about mansion houses and stately homes which are indeed a very tiny number of customers within your area.  We're talking about those who live in 3 or 4 bed semis or detached houses, work in reasonable jobs who make the money available to use decent professional services.   It's a state of mind coupled with a state of bank account.

There are more than enough of these customers near to ANYONE to run a business off.

It's all about aiming above council house level.  I know some people will take exception to that but it's a tough old world, get used to it

[Simon Gerrard]

Wow that's quite an impressive difference, what did you use Simon, and did you find out what the other carpet cleaner used?


Richard,
SPM and a Titan 875, but I could have got it clean using my porty.



It doesn't matter how much you charge, high, low, or in the middle, but if you want to build a successful business you have to be able to deliver top quality carpet cleaning.
Like others, the vast majority of our domestic customers are 3/4 bedroom houses, people willing to pay our price for a top quality job. There shouldn't be any difference between a cc willing to do it for half the price because that is his price, but why, as is so often the case, should that result in the customer getting half the quality?

Simon

[wayne zabel]

I often hear this argument of offering your services to higher end clients who are willing to pay more.

Do you not find that these clients are hard to come by for various reasons.Here are 2.

There aren't as many of them to market to and higher end houses dont require CC as often as these people are much more likely to look after their carpets the houses are a lot bigger so dont get dirty very easily as soiling has more than likely been got rid of in the hallways,unlike in an average sized house where you are directly in the lounge.

There are many quite affluent areas in my vicinity but I very rarely get calls from these places.

Wayne you've got completely the wrong perception.  As already said, we're not talking about mansion houses and stately homes which are indeed a very tiny number of customers within your area.  We're talking about those who live in 3 or 4 bed semis or detached houses, work in reasonable jobs who make the money available to use decent professional services.   It's a state of mind coupled with a state of bank account.

There are more than enough of these customers near to ANYONE to run a business off.

It's all about aiming above council house level.  I know some people will take exception to that but it's a tough old world, get used to it

I wasnt really meaning working in mansions I was meaning the type of property I worked in the other day - a large 4 bed detatched with big hallway, that only needed a job doing because of a wine spill,the rest of the carpets were immaculate.

There are thousands of these around here.

I would say that the majority of my work is done in 3 bed semis,but I doubt I would get some of the prices some on here charge.I would try asking more if I got the volume of calls to take care of those refusing to pay higher prices and still get me enough work.

[Mike Halliday]

just to make the point about higher prices, i find that a lot of people pay my prices which are slightly on the higher side but  not everyone is happy to pay them, i do a lot of quotes ( i did one just now which made me think about what I'm typing about here) and they practically tell me to get stuffed.

This morning i did a quote for some powerwashing which is even harder to sell at a high price than carpet cleaning because most people have an electric machine in the garage and can do it them selves , (its a bit like every home having a rug doctor under the stairs)

 I gave him the price and he said straight away..... "not a chance" then he called his wife outside to tell her the price.....and she nearly passed out!!

HERE IS THE IMPORTANT PIONT!!!!!!

a high price often is a shock, it needs to sink in for a bit so they can come to terms with it, most newbies will accept the first refusal........ if you pack up and go you will miss the sale.

I just listen to their refusal and carried on chatting about how we work and i told them that they did'nt need to worry about moving the plant pots as we would put them on the lawn and replace them when we finished......it was a good 5 minutes before he said that they needed it doing on a thursday or friday morning as thats when his wife plays badminton I just said "we'll do it next Thursday as the second job  about 10.30"

higher prices are not about just saying the price and hoping they say 'OK" it takes a bit more work before you give the price and after... this is were most new starters and slightly less experience carpet cleaners slip up.

[AshWhite]

Good post Mike, makes sense.