[Craigp]

Yes mate.....

I was struggling to make ends meet at the low prices.... Tried upping the price and hey presto work again...

same here, I was cheap at the start, I never realised the low price puts people off, except the ones I don't want anyway 

[Mike Halliday]

My replies did seem a bit harsh and too soften it abut I will mention the..... price is in the mind?.... problem is the biggest obstacle carpet cleaners have.....especially new starters.

Hopefully Paul  Mckiegh won't mind me using him as an example, he came to work with us for a day before Xmas, 4 jobs all hitting the £100/hr price, living rooms being cleaned for £85....... Every time we talked about pricing he could not accept he could  charge  high prices and kept referring to a half price leaflet he had received, his response to any piont was this leaflet and that's what people expect to pay. In his mind people won't pay more that £25.

 another reason he believed this is he got his carpet cleaned all downstairs for £60 so if he would only pay £60 then so would every body else.

Unless he overcomes his own mental limitations he will be starting post like this in a few months

[Phil @ Extreme Clean]

Prices taken off site from now on gonna quote all individually and price accordingly if i get the job good if not then i'm no worse off than i am now also anybody have a survey form i could use if i'm going to charge more then i need to be more professional when viewing and not quick look it's x amount lol.

[Deep Cleaning Solutions]

Phil you live in one best areas in the country for potential work, i know one carpet cleaner who lives down the road from you and is in constant work and i know of a guy near me who regularly travels a 45 minute trek to Blackpool to do commercial work, so the work is there in your area. I would not worry about the £20 pr at the moment, just get the work in and when you are constantly booked a week in advance start easing up your prices. The advice Mike gave about contacting contract cleaners & facilities management is a very good one, it's a tactic i have used and once you have a rapport you will get loads of work from it. I would also contact small cleaning companies, domestic cleaners are always turning carpet cleaning work away. I have about 10 good contacts for commercial work in the North West and about 5 good local domestic cleaner contacts all passing on constant work. The first thing i would do is hire your self a helper for 2 or 3 days and drive from your town down then beach front right down to st annes and blitz every pub, b&b, amusment arcade, industrial park and business you can see with flyers or postcards, do this 2 or 3 times and if you are confident enough follow this by going into the same business yourself and start selling, this is the perfect time to start and promote the fact that they will have all the work done before the busy summer season. I would not bother selling your DryFusion, they don't sell for what they did on Ebay, i would get yourself a cheap second hand hwe machine for a few hundred quid off Ebay for now, you can always run your DryFusion over after any really bad carpets if you are not entirely happy after extraction, just get the work in first, spend as much budget as you can afford on marketing and invest in better equipment as you go on. I see so many carpet cleaners spending 4/5 grand on equipment and getting a brand new van on tick and then complain they have no work and no money to market, doing it the wrong way round if you ask me. I have about 10 ideas that could transform your business, i will email them to you when i have time.

[Great Outdoors]

Here's 1 idea.... Delete your membership to this forum, commit to spending the 90 mins every day you spend reading the mostly chit chat on here to searching google for business that have carpets and send them emails Or if they don.t have an email address showing use thier contact page, have the text typed out in MS word and just cut & paste into the box.

I bet you can do 20 an hour that's 30 a day. Commit to Doing this for a month

Spot on Mike thats what I did back in October last yr deleted my account- transferred the time to Facebook, now use that as an online ' Photo album' for customers (mainly for the other side of our buisness) works a treat. Having re joined this forum starting to come to same conclusion, its great at times but time is valuable

[Phil @ Extreme Clean]

Thankyou sounds good advice and that email would be good allthough funds for hwe machine are nill when i only have 12p in my business account lol i am trying to sell my gutter setup to purchase a hwe but unsold at the minute

[davep]

Try rewrite your site

If I was looking for a tradesman and read "are prices may not suit everyone" I don't think I would read further?

[Phil @ Extreme Clean]

Phil

  I have been in this business about the same time as you and have read most of your posts and the replys you have had
most have been very good advice like the post on this thread from simon you need to invest to get on in my first year I
worked in a factory 3 to 4 days a week and for myself the rest of the week after a year I changed to 1 day per week this
allowed me to invest what I made. My advice to you is to do the same get some training on hwe and a machine contact
business gateway and do a sales and marketing cource look at other companys websites and get ideas how to improve
yours I am not knocking dry fusion and am thinking of getting one this year and pushing commercial 
hope this helps
Jim

Hi jim i've been looking for a part time job but theres nothing around i think that may be the way.

[dan paton]

hi deep cleaning solutions could you possibly e mail me your 10 ideas as well . much appreciated if u can
     dan

[Simon Gerrard]

Phil,
Don't get a job, just end every spare minute you have emailing potential clients, then leaflet, leaflet, leaflet, the results will bring you far more money than a part time job. The problem you have got is you bought your setup from a friend and just went with what you got. You will never break this cycle of poor sales, equalling no money to invest in the development of your business and if you don't do something about that you will be in the same position in a years time. There is lots of work out there but you have to go and find it and when you get it, the results have to be good enough so that you keep the majority of those customers, but with the df system I think you will struggle with that. But if you had more sales you could use the money to invest in more equipment and better results so that you begin to build a loyal customer base, which is the whole grail when building a successful carpet cleaning business.

Simon

[Dominic Carnell]

I agree with the comments regarding your pricing. You're providing a professional service so your charge should be more than it would cost the home owner to hire a rug doctor and do it themselves.

For example; Rug Doctor hire with chems for around 3-4 rooms is about £45 - you're currently charging £20 per room, ok a little more than rug doctor hire for 3-4 rooms but not enough for the average home owner to not feel the pricing is comparatively too cheap.

Price really is key to your customer proposition which is the main driving factor behind a successful business. How about offering a 3 rooms for £99 (as an example) it looks like a more believable price to the consumer and still offers excellent value-for-money, you'd most likely get people taking up hsl as well for an extra charge -  or set your prices per 2 bed house, 3 bed house etc.

The other issue with your current price is by the time you've factored in tax, ni, materials, fuel etc you're not making enough for £20 per room to really be worthwhile.

Whatever happens keep going, don't let your confidence in your own abilities waiver, you will make it in business if you keep on trying.