[carpetclean]

hi gary i think john is just having friendly banter with you  as everyone knows especially me being a decorator for god knows how long that we are blamed for all the spots and mess on carpets like plasterers have a name for messing the house so do decorators. i dont think he was being offensive

[John_Flynn]

10/10 goes to Carpetclean.  Good man!!

Honestly does anybody ever leave such a mess as Plasterers do??, then they have got the cheek to tell you that they have cleaned up.

6 years 9 months of their 7 year apprenticeship should be dedecated to cleaning up.

[cleaning co]

evening john lol  ok i get it now lol   thought u was being horrible to me   but all better now 

[John_Flynn]

No I still luv ya  : : :

[ABLECLEAN]

Therapist

Cor blimey mate, the garages in your area are cheap!!

Even though I only pay £22 per hour to a one man band garage most of the main dealers charge £70-£80 per hour
and a full service at our local BMW dealer does not include checking the brake pads!! They charge £10 per wheel to do this!!

[therapist]

I gave up BMWS and the like ages ago and don't care about the car I drive as long as it does what it's supposed to.

We have a number of garages offering  ' fixed price servicing ' around here, forced, parhaps by Arnold Clark who is probably the most successful motor trader in the Uk.

Arnold Clark is a Scottish business, incidentally and anyone interested in marketing could do worse than study this business, also , perhaps, another few Scottish success stories of recent years,eg,
KWIK FIT , SMILEY ( NOW NATIONWIDE ), JJB SPORTS ETC.

What they all include in their marketing strategy, is PRICE AWARENESS.

Think about it.

r m

[Len Gribble]

Rob

Agree but who owns them now! One on you list thinks of me as a nightmare, do like life time guarantees.  In my former life most if not all overseas managers were Jocks (this a team of endearment)

Len

[therapist]

The point of who owns them, now, is irrelevent Len. The point being, that their marketing skills resulted in massive success and these gents becoming multi millionaires, as a result.

Just used a couple of well known companies to illustrate a point, could just have aesily been Branson, or Dyson, or

Sad old world, when you have to qualify the use of the common term Jock !


rob m

[Len Gribble]

Rob

Point taken Branding is a must! Will I go back after the warranty runs out a big NO! Silly old sods I keep old motors and store

Yes a sad NEW world! Just being PC some people get so upset! So I thought I had to quantify and not be termed a as you know what! Which I, am not Dose citizenship comes before nationality, what a quandary

Len

[Spot On cleaning]

I have put in 2 commercial quotes recently, and nothing back from them. I think the answer has to be something along these lines.

I never worry about time. I your goal is to make £200 a day in 4-5 hours great. If it takes you 6-7 so what. You are still making your £200.  In other words, if in the back of your mind  you think that they will think your price will be expensive, lower it. I don't know what equipment you are using, but obviously after spending £20000 on a new Truck Mount, i am not going to keep oosing work.

Three years ago i was made redundant from the cable industry. I worked for Pirelli and made very expensive optical cables for them. In 1991 because  of my shift pattern i was earning £25000 with overtime a year with some on the other shift patterns hitting £34000 with overtime. Big money in 1991. However 4 years later with a change to shift patterns, my basic went down to £17000. Redundant in 2002, i finished up on £20000 basic which was under £10 an hour for a skilled job.

What am i earning today?  £40 - £60 an hour when i can get it, but if i work a bit longer to get it then so what if i am then working for £20-£35 an hour. Look in your local jobs pages. Dont be too greedy.

I quoted £340 for a large doctors surgery with lots of consulting rooms. The carpet was dirty and i explained that removing marks was time consuming. Nothing heard from them. I wish id have gone in with £240 and worked a bit quicker. Still good money for a days work. Chemicals cost pennies and my fuel bill for my Truck Mount is only 8% or approx £19. Good profit and maybe they will have you back.

Another thing i do is to ask them how long since the carpet was last cleaned and if not how old. Then i use this method. I dont know whether it works well as yet though.

Cost to clean  =  £240 Divided by age in weeks or date last cleaned in weeks
say carpet is approx 4 years old and never been cleaned so is 200 weeks old

Example  240 divided by 200 weeks = £1.20

Tell them the carpets upkeep is £1.20 a week and if it was not left so long it might have been cheaper.

In your case though, £250 was very low for what you have described. Would you have done it for this price? Do you have lots of work to write this job off, and was the md bluffing you with this quote to force your price down.

It's a difficuly business. Sometimes you have to hold your ground, but don't go overboard to the detriment of our business. I hope this helps you in some way. I would like your feedback off this please.

Dave

[Doug Holloway]

Dave,

You have made the classic mistake  , made by people who come from salaried employment into running their own CC business .

To run a successful business you need to invest and repair and replace equipment.

Your £20,000 set up will be worth , say £5,000 in five years time, thats depeciation of £3,000 a year ,£60 a week!

Repairs approx £1000 a year,insurances £1,000 a year,etc

Point being that when you were salaried all expenses in relation to your job were taken off before you were paid , now its the other way round.It probably cost Pirelli £60,000 a year to employ you.

I am a great believer that the maths when done properly never lie , so don't underprice yourself , your worth more than that.If you want to offer a low price on a particular job because you need the money thats fine but don't fall into the trap of being too cheap.

cheers

Doug

[Spot On cleaning]

Good point Doug

When you look at it this way you are right. I used portable for 3 years which i spent 5k on. All i ever spent out on was a new vac motor which i fitted, so profits were good. I've had a tm since Aug 05 so am moving hopefully in a new direction. As i have been in the business only 3yrs six months, it's still early days. Surely a business succeeds from a certain point then it's relatively down hill of sorts and you are established.

Dave

[cleaning co]

dave imo to go from a porty to a truckmount u hav to hav the amount of bizz to justifie it ,  a truckmount will not and i repeat will not get u more work it might make your jobs more easy and faster  but u got to get more work if u can just to pay the extra expence it cost to buy and run a truckmount,  when u was using a porty and earning say £500 week with low costs did u not think if i buy a truckmount ive got to find £800 to make the same profit as my porty ?   just a thought
gary

[Spot On cleaning]

I went to a tm because a lot of my areas where work came from was now being service by a second hand unit that i could have bought. When i first became self employed, i kjnew that if i earned x only, the working tax would be y and wed survive. On the basis of this, our earnings needed to be kept low or receipts high.

In a way, it can be a millstone because i need a lot of commercial work to achieve what i would lose here plus an additional sum on top to make it worth while to loose it.

There must be others in a similar position out there. When i first started i only needed to earn £79 a week to pay all my committments. The tm is bought outrigt and we did this on the house because we had a small house with a lot of equity on it. As a qualified motor vehicle technician, this tm will last more than four years, that i am determined. As for the vehicle, it's 3 years old and could last another 7 years. We'll wait and see.

Dave

[carpetclean]

hi doug holloway
   glad you pointed all this out. i had a job passed on to me the other day he asked me what i charged for a 4 bedromm townhouse carpeted through out plus a 3 peice suite with 5 seats after i told him he said he had a quote of £260 to do the whole lot including scothguard. i told him i doubt that very much . he said he would get back to me. 10 mins later he rang back and aslked me to do the whoile thing for £280 i told him no . i dont want him to play me off with other c/cs tryiong to undercut to a level thats quite ridiculous. we all need work but i refuse to haggle to such an extent with such ar###les. i have spent quite a lot of money in the last few months as an investment  not to let some chancer take advanyage of the equipment and training i have laid out for.

[Doug Holloway]

Hi Guys,

We all go through tough periods and CC is a hard business to get established in.

However once established you can be choosier in who you work for and at what price.

I have always found it better to have pretty much fixed prices and to stick to them , this gives you confidence  and reassures the customer that you are not just plucking figures out of the air.

Its worth working out what your true costs are because it's very easy to think what you receive , particularly if its cash ,  is your wages., it's not

I certainly did this in the past.

Having higher prices also allows you to buy better equipment , get better training etc

Cheers

Doug

[therapist]

Carpetclean

Why is someone who is seeking the best deal an a/h, do you honestly never attempt to get the best price when buying a product or service!!!!

In spite of the many posts on forums about targeting people with high income, the reality is, the people with money are more likely to try to beat you down, unless you appear to be competetive in the first place.

Nobody gives a damn about your outlay, your overheads, or running costs and many tradespeople have considerably higher running costs than c/c s.

What your prospect wants, is value and different people perceive value differently.

You should be flexible in your approach.  Being stubborn and inflexible will only result in other people getting profitable work and .........what about the referrals

You can't win them all and you are being offered a pretty good return for about three hours work

r m

[the red carpet]

i would of done a 4bed house and 5 seater suite for £280 and been happy enough about it, even with your overheads theres gotta be about £200 profit there for 1/2 a day to a days work depending how quick you are and what equipment your using.

(i done a 4 bed house today £210 took me 5 hours)
( and iv gotta 3 bed in the morning £190 will take me half a day)

i think a couple hundred pound a day is good money.

what do you aim to take in a day

[therapist]

Completely agree Red


r m

[Spot On cleaning]

This is what i am saying. In future when i price for commercial jobs i am going to be more flexible as well. £200 a day for 8 hours is still good money.

Dave