[woodman]

And old chestnut on here now but after this quote worth mentioning again,

I did and estimate today for a customer of mine who then produced a leaflet she had through her letter box from a local firm and a price she had been given for the following:

Lounge/diner 18' x 12
Sitting room 13 x 12
HSL slightly larger than average.
(Total area approx 70 sq mts)
Quote Price £66.00

Mine was £245.00 + VAT and this was accepted with out hesitation.

I know  this firm and I know that they do a good job and are not a 'bodge it and leg it' outfit.

So it begs the question why charge so little, under a pound a sq mt,  when you are a qualified trained up professional carpet cleaner.



He would have to do another 3 jobs that day to match my price for one.That surely can not make any sense.

Customers in mine and his areas would be wary of such a cheap price any way for obvious reasons.

[Shaun_Ashmore]

people just can't sell there service as good as others, perhaps he's had a couple of knock backs and puts it down to price so he goes lower to compensate not knowing his own reprocussions.

[Alex]

Woody are you a millionaire £245 + VAT!

I think I need to spend some time with you so I can charge that. How the hell is the other firm making any money at £66. That's less than 10p per sq ft.  

alex

[squeaky]

I do not entirely agree,In some areas the only companies that charge £200 plus for that amount of carpets are the national companies.
I suppose it does depend on what area of the country that you work.
I would have charged in the region of £90 to do this work,but I am always busy , I have excellent equipment have been well trained and above all have over 10 years experience.I earn enough money with what I charge and am happy that the customer gets extremely good value for money and a 1st class job,70% of my business is from referals and repeat business , so I cannot be doing much wrong !
Why charge so much ? How long does it take you?
It can't take you 5 hours surely and that would be £50 an hour.
Don't knock us for doing things our way , I am happy my customers are happy , if you are content to charge what you charge so be it.
Most of the new customers are phoning around for a good price and I am sure that our price would be more favourable. :

Mark

[John_Flynn]

My price for this job would be £220.50 and I would dedicate the day to dooing it.

[Derek]

Mark

Just to pick up on a point you made... you said that 'the only people to charge this sort of money are the National Companies'

If they can do it so why not the rest of us... ?

When Chem-Dry (love 'em or hate 'em) entered the market place their marketing strategy worked superbly well and they raised the earning potential almost overnight for every other cleaning company who wished to climb on the bandwagon.

For years our industry has undersold itself and even at the prices John is quoting he is undoubtedly giving value for money... otherwise he would be out of business

We all have our own ways of doing things and we all have our own ideas on the prices we should be charging and are charging.... that's as it should be.

My prices are around the same as the two Johns' and I try to give value for money and produce the best job possible without the constraints of worrying about working to a low price.

That's simply my own point of view but I respect those of you who think otherwise.. there is a market for us all.

Regards
Derek

[Alex]

Mark,

Why you so upset about the post mate, I agree with Woody on this one as I personally think £66 for this amount of work is way to low - But each to there own.

I look to earn around £30 per hour, however, this includes equipment and getting to site.

Do we now if the carpets are dry or wet when they leave?

Alex

[Ivar_Haglund]

I just love these pricing threads

Reguardless what I say I charge someone will charge more than me.

could his over head be much less than others

no truck or machine payments doing volum over one job or two a day

at the end of the day the only thing that counts is how much is left in your pocket.



IVAR

[Les]

Personally I'm glad that these National Companies charge so much...
They tend to produce Flyers which I then use to show my Customers when pricing the work. Most of them like to use local people and there's definitely NO guarantee that their work will be better than mine   In fact I have been asked to go and redo jobs already done by these people and they been .... well not good  
So thank you 'Nationals' for helping me earn more money  
Oh and I find that I can allow more time on the job than I used to and that allows for that extra nice finish...and about 3 more cups of Tea  
Les

[jmj]

I've recentlly up the pricing of my work, I've been cleaning carpets for 8 years with the wrong attitude on pricing totally.My prices were less then the first quote posted. I would tell the customers that i used the same products, the same technique's and i wouldn't let them down, as the major companies for less then half the cost.Totally under selling myself!!I've have increased my cost roughly 40% and still get the same amount of work as before.Why i didn't do this before, i don't know.I've even had old customers ring to book in and they are more then happy with the new price. At the end of the day we all want the jobs and if you can charge top dollar and get the work then good luck to you.

joe

[Ian Gourlay]

Is this £3.50 square metre price for a gold service clean.

Is Promite etc extra or included.

Is there a spot a stain guarantee, call back etc included








Ian

[Ken Wainwright]

I raise the question "What are you?" Most people would instinctively reply "A carpet cleaner"  WRONG We are all businessmen. We're in the business of cleaning carpets. At some time in our lives, we made the conscious decision to start our own business in order to provide better for ourselves and our families, and some of us have further ambitions to build a small empire. With this in mind, wouldn't it be reasonable to expect to earn more than the average industrial wage? (a little over £400pw)

As a one man band, working from home, you can't get a much smaller business than mine. No business premises, no business rates. Yet it still costs me in excess of £10k per year in overheads to run my business. This doesn't include any drawings for me or salary for my wife. It doesn't include any capital expenditure or income tax. You need to earn quite a bit with your wand before you start putting money into your own pocket.

If you charge a lower rate, but have high productivity, whilst this is admirable, believe me, you will burn yourself out. You can't physically work flat out, day after day, week after week, year after year. I've been in this industry for quite a while now. Since I turned 50 I've noticed that muscles and joints now hurt if I haven't worked for a week or so. I've just returned from almost a month's break, lost my working fitness and boy, am I suffering now. So don't expect to be able to have the same productivity in years to come. So, you will eventually need to realign your prices to earn a reasonable living.

Ask yourself this. In this ever changing, fast moving world, what would you consider to be a realsitic income for a person of your skill, dedication, commitment and entrepeneurial spirit. £20k pa? £30k? £40k......? Are you falling short and if so why? Without wishing to be rude, if your goal is to earn a shop floor salary, you're missing the point of being a businessman.

Safe and happy cleaning:)
Ken

[Shaun_Ashmore]

Well said Ken, and I hope you had a good holiday!

Remember s/e people don't get paid hols or sick pay and if you are a little quieter than normal you have to accomodate for this, apart from the 40 hours work cleaning how many hours repairing or preparing your machinery or paper work etc and all of this to find out that most self employment NI contributions will not be enough to give you a basic state pension when you hang up your pink marigolds or what ever you use, to get more then working for an employee financially costs a lot more than you think and mentally and physically can be even greater.
One of the reasons for me being s/e was for security, I could make a better living for myself by myself with nobody beating the drum of job or pay cuts or the mundane Monday morning blues but you do give up certain things to hopefully gain in the long run but looking into the future ie saving for tomorrow by making enough today is a goal we could all do with

Shaun  

[nick_brown]

We run a Chem dry franchise-yes love us or hate us ,I couldnt agree more with ken's last post ,  if I wanted a job i could go and get one ,from the sound of  it we are not a;lone in investing large amounts of money in capital equipment ,but having tried to do most of the cleaning myself in the early days  ,you can do it for a short time but  not for long ,you want to build equoty value in your business ,a free standing unit you can sellor even if you dont why do we as an industry go on being cheap, a social service we arent?Taken your van to any garage recently  £35 hou min + parts more like 40/60/hour plus parts .plus vat. I think taht many forget  that your wages  should be after depreciation and a net profit   to cover replacing the equipment we are busy depreciating otherwise you are always  in debt!
Frankly I dont know many industries that are such physical hard work, actually save people money in eplacements and are of benefit to their health- why would you want to give it away.I hear in our industry that" I can clean so much in so long or a suite  in    1 hour" etc  I hardly ever hear about profit  as ken says we are in business or   are we all private  millionaires doing this knackering skilled work for therapy???

As they say  in USA  there  is no pride in  poverty!!!!
Regards Nick Brown

[Len Gribble]

Hi Guys

What would your prices be for Rugs?
3x3 £5
6x4 £10
6X10 £25
Over 6x10 £35
Oriental same price

This came though my letterbox today not bad prices

Don’t you just love the Oriental rugs thing?

Did hear a whisper today came from a carpet whiper, Taiwan is going into carpet manufacture.

Hi Ken nice to have you back.  

Len

[Shaun_Ashmore]

I know Chemdry have to set themselves apart from other cleaners to become unique but I thought Nick Browns comments were very much on the same lines of Kens, who comes first when living life you and your family or customers and there families.

You don't have to become richer just don't become poorer for all of your hard work

Shaun

[SMP]

And don't forget that unless you have a business that you can sell - which if you under price is unlikely, you need to be putting a LOT of money way every month for a pension - unless you plan to clean till you drop!!!!!

Cheers
Steve

[Shaun_Ashmore]

The way pensions are going it'll be better to drop!

shaun

[Dynafoam]

Hi Guys

What would your prices be for Rugs?
3x3 £5
6x4 £10
6X10 £25
Over 6x10 £35
Oriental same price

Len,

I have a minimum job charge of £50, but assuming that I was on site for other work, the price would vary dependant on the type of rug, soiling type and level, and especially, if fringed, the level of cleaning required to achieve customer satisfaction.

I might sometimes be about 250%-300% of these prices, sometimes higher than that.

John.

[Derek]

Hi Guys

I refer to my previous post when I replied in the first section to Mark

The thread has developed and I may have been writing at cross purposes. I assumed when Mark mentioned the 'National Companies' that he meant the major franchises.

I had forgotten that there are 'other' National organisations including those who rely on the half price offer leaflets... apologies

My final comments following some excellent posts on the subject.

This is a business that relies on hard work but you also have to work 'smart' too

Cheers
Derek