[Mike Halliday]

Just look at these screenshots....... 3 rooms for £50......seen 138,000 times!!! No wonder people think that’s what it costs

[Mike Gwilliam]

A bloke near me has a bazillion reviews on his FB page doesn’t have a web site.. I met a house keeper who knows him and she was asking me how much I charge, she said he charges a lot less than me. 

I have a much easier life and earn a lot more while ‘’he is killing him self’’ carpet cleaning.

I have a FB page and don’t take many of the enquiries seriously as they don’t respond when you give them a price. ‘’How much wud u charge’’ is not uncommon     

[Cleanevangelist]

mike

reminds me of the old day when businesses would tell prospects to find them the yellow pages right alongside all the completion. Have you ever noticed that when you get a prospect that has got your number from a place that has competitors that they are way more price sensitive to ones where you get from places where its just you.

Mike Gwilliam, take back the power dont respond by text.

guys lets not forget that you can buy bots for this stuff and most is fake

Respects

Ian

[*Hector*]

Ian.... suggesting that Mike use leaflets is like trying to teach granny to suck eggs.....

 

[Cleanevangelist]

i know.

[Mike Halliday]

I target people who would never dream of getting a company off Facebook (some of them are not even computer savvy) but it’s getting harder, as the older gerantion die they will be replaced by the Facebook generation  who  seam to ask “whose the cheapest.....?” Or even worse say how much they are willing to pay ..... Eg:  I’ve got £20. need my living room cleaned... any suggestions”

Dark times ahead

[Cleanevangelist]

The numbers will not surprort that price point.  The cost of a customer is much higher. That is why I think that advert is fake

[Cleanevangelist]

Btw it's bait and switch. The upsell might happen over the phone or when they arrive or worst after the clean. " Sorry madam our minimum charge is £50"

We are too trusting. do you think the price you see on Amazon for an item is the same as me? Also what they show you is not what's available. Because that would mean low price. They maintain the price economy.

Here is a example of Facebook controling reach. So I was posting every day. One day I decided to check if any chat about carpet cleaning. Some girl in my town moaning about not being able to get a carpet cleaner.

[Mike Halliday]

The numbers will not surprort that price point.  The cost of a customer is much higher. That is why I think that advert is fake

This advert is genuine,  I see him replying to questions and generally interacting with posters and its not a paid advert its on a local sales page so cost him nothing

[neil 47]

The printing press killed off scribes .
The steam engine killed off horses

You just need to adapt

[Cleanevangelist]

Mike

When I bought out woodman he was spending loads on AdWords but he still went out business.

That type of reach. He must be running same post over and over. If thats right then it worth a try it's something I had not thought about doing. But when prospects see all that interaction it must give them trust. "If all these other people are using him he must be safe" people like safty in numbers wherever they find them.

So do you think he has built out from a core group of friends band family? And getting customer to like or follow his page? 

That would work.

Facebook wants interaction between users.

Have you seen Twitter with all these people begging rug doctor for a free clean? It looks like a new promotion. Nice idea. Not sure how it works as it looks like a lottery type draw. Though those where not allowed.

Might try that Facebook thing out. Was going to start offering stuff to make sure people follow thought, when they say they will and don't. Give them something and they feel they must do it because of that exchange.

I also heard that if you can get people talking on messenger that you can really pressure them. Things are changing so fast and they are shutting down lots of stuff because of all that fake stuff

Anyway great stuff well done

[Cleanevangelist]

Mike

its fake.

why with that much interaction would you clean ovens and do other services. you would be so busy. plus its a one off by the looks. sure he getting interactions but not that much.

you can buy all that likes and follows. twitter just came down on this stuff and some of the big names where at it. 

where the numbers are on the post click on them and you can see the 4.6 shares looks like some kind of link exchange group going on. (its a facebook marketplace group)  https://www.facebook.com/groups/136069403154342/about/

Facebook has just started testing in USA a service paid version of marketplace. so you can take from that that posting services in marketplace is no allowed.

the thing is its not cleaver as if I did it i would post a carpet cleaner for sale and that would identify local people interested in carpet cleaning. then get their details and market to them offline 

[Adam Bateup]

There is a guy near me who offers a 2 bed house carpet clean for £80.00 !!!! .

That being said I get about 25% of my work though Facebook .
You do get lots of the people wanting everything for nothing but it’s all about education , I explain my process and why I charge what I charge and most people understand.
Plus more and more of the older generations are getting on social media and on all the gossip pages people ask questions eg recommendations for a local carpet cleaner . That’s where we get a good amount of business and the more you do on Facebook the more recommendations you get .
Plus it’s FREE .......

[neil 47]

£80 that’s expensive 😂

[Deep Cleaning Solutions]

You would be surprised at how many on FB charge these rates or a lot less. They are springing up everywhere. You would also be surprised at how much work there is on FB at those prices too. I know because I've tested many different prices with ads when I had 4 operators on my books and I booked in over 150 jobs in 3 days once with a video ad I tested out. Unfortunately the numbers didn't quite add up but if I was a one man band, especially if I was starting out it would of been well worth it to say the least!

The carpet cleaners on FB still make £200 per day, so that is 1k for 5 days work, which is miles more than they would make in a factory. It will be hard work but they will have no advertising costs as they tend to advertise on FB groups and with word of mouth. I know one lad on there who only does Asian homes for £10per room  but he absolutely loves it, gets shed loads of work and is making far, far more than his previous job without a manager breathing down his neck! They must work bloody hard though but they are happy so leave them to it I say.

I have recently given up carpet cleaning to start a lead generation/website marketing company and I now pass my carpet/upholstery cleaning jobs for a commission onto 3 local carpet cleaners. I found the 3 operators on FB and they are amazed at the prices of the jobs I send them and keep asking how I do it 

To be honest I would think twice about starting up with carpet cleaning now. No matter what is said on here, the prices will keep coming down and the quality of customer also. Social media will be where customers find tradesman in future. In fact I would say at least half of carpet cleaning jobs in the UK are done through FB already.

[Shaun_Ashmore]

Deep clean I always enjoy your posts you seem to have got your finger on the pulse when it comes to social media but my thoughts (after looking on your website) that your prices are very affordable these guys who sub work from you must be really cheap? 

There a guy on fb Enviro clean I think they’re called and he really is savvy with his fb marketing it’s very impressive.

[Mike Halliday]

To contradict myself I do belief Facebook will kill carpet cleaning for the majority of carpet cleaner but there will always  be a market for the higher priced companies.

We have 2 prestige cars in our home we have just got a valeting company off Facebook,  we saw lots of  £35-£45 a car companies but ended up using a company that cost £180  for an exterior machine polish valet. We paid more than double for what we considered a premium  service.

People on Facebook ( and in general ) will pay higher prices but they need to be given a reason to spend the higher amount  but unfortunately companies are being lazy with their marketing and using the simplest technique to gain customers which is low price.

[Shaun_Ashmore]

Because fb is ‘in your face’ we think that customers will go for the buy it now price but I do get calls from customers not wanting a in their words ‘not one of those cleans’ and are looking for what they perceive to be a better service (choosing my words carefully)

[Doctor Carpet (Ret'd)]

I can’t be bothered to start a poll (partly because I don’t know how to having never done one)  but


Who has upped their prices this year, or reduced them or stayed the same?

I’m guessing the answer in your head will be much to do with how your bookings have been so far this year.

[Stoots]

I stopped carpet cleaning because of these kind of prices.

Just wasnt worth it.
 
In order to compete at that price point you need to turn up an extract and go, no messing hoovering or pre spraying etc, no testing fibres or agitating. Just the strongest solution you can in the tank, blast over it, looks clean, cash in back pocket and off to the next.

best to use a very small lightweight portable to blast through jobs,

[john martin]

a one step clean is as good as any sometimes though 

wasnt this the groupon discussion a while back  ... and that passed ... or at least i havn't heard it mentioned in ages

Thankfully i exist in my own bubble  of repeats and referrals  , i dont even know what others charge in my area .

[Robin Ray]

I stopped carpet cleaning because of these kind of prices.

Just wasnt worth it.
 
In order to compete at that price point you need to turn up an extract and go, no messing hoovering or pre spraying etc, no testing fibres or agitating. Just the strongest solution you can in the tank, blast over it, looks clean, cash in back pocket and off to the next.

best to use a very small lightweight portable to blast through jobs,

The secret is to compete on service and quality rather than price.

[Shaun_Ashmore]

That’s a secret though and many enquirers will look for ‘value’ let’s face it if you go into Aldi for baked beans and you pick up value beans or big brand beans at more than 3/4 times the cost you have a visual item in front of you ok not a taste comparison test but with carpet cleaning it’s sold on the cleaners say so of how good they are so there’s nothing to visually back it up.

[Kev Martin]

All sales regardless of what are down to approach and how you identify and gain an affinity with the customer.  When we were Tiling our prices were often at least double the price of what everyone else cost but we were the busiest and most booked up company!

Why?  Because every Tiling Company I ever came across talked to their customers about one thing "PRICE"  things below never seemed to be discussed like:

The finish of the Tiles, Lay out, where insets ids applicable would be exactly on the wall, grout colour palette, silicone colour palette, etc etc.  They all worked on and concentrated mainly on one thing:

  "errrrr..........How much der yer charge per square metre mate!,,,?.."

Price has nothing to do with 98% of any sale regardless of what you are selling IMHO

[Stoots]

I stopped carpet cleaning because of these kind of prices.

Just wasnt worth it.
 
In order to compete at that price point you need to turn up an extract and go, no messing hoovering or pre spraying etc, no testing fibres or agitating. Just the strongest solution you can in the tank, blast over it, looks clean, cash in back pocket and off to the next.

best to use a very small lightweight portable to blast through jobs,

The secret is to compete on service and quality rather than price.

Yes, tried that, unfortunately these days its mostly about price...at least where i am, i suppose if you work in affluent areas and have the right demographic in front of you its much easier.

If you cant beat em join em.

[edward coller]

 Two weeks ago on an average working week,ie, 5 working days, the average age of my customer was 89, yes, 89 youngest 82, oldest 97 .....50% were repeats, others recommendations...none unsuprisingly facebook...not sure that any of them used the internet... I love parish magazines which the older members of the community still use and has a legitimacy of their own. I have not raised my prices this year, only on 3 commercial accounts that I do, and I guess im not chasing the money...being a mature operater I get knackered enough as it is. As soon as I hear,rarly, a young voice on the phone making an enquiry, usually asking price immediatly, I smile ,suggest a call to view to ascertain fabric type, level of soiling and access, and if they ask again about price , they are somebody elses customer, not mine.
If you have been going for a while and have a reasonable customer base , and treated them well, im my opionion ,they are the best customers. Regards Simon

[Cleanevangelist]

edward

well done. thats where i am going old skol marketing.

i would watch that age thing you only need a bad winter and thats your customer base gone. (joke) 

you should read

No B.S. Guide to Marketing to Leading Edge Boomers & Seniors: The Ultimate No Holds Barred Take No Prisoners Roadmap to the Money .

[JandS]

FB works for getting leads and a foot in the door you just got to convert them.

[Angelo]

I charge £50 for 2 bed house and I’m making a lot of money  , soon I will have my own private plain  ;

[MarkSutcliffe]

£40 first room, (standard terraced/semi), £20 a room after, standard clean vac, prespray, agitate rinse and up to 2 spots...if they're localish

Works well for me, but it's still more than most around here..

One who will drive an hour, do a three bed house and sofa for £90.. no thanks..

[Shaun_Ashmore]

How do you class hall/stairs/landing?

[MarkSutcliffe]

How do you class hall/stairs/landing?

case by case, landing i'll normally include into the stairs unless it's daft huge, hall seperate..

WIn some lose some, tend to find most jobs are around 60/70 quid anyway, book 2 in a day minus expenses and i'm happy. I can't really push above that as people won't book in.

[Mike Halliday]

Yep it’s a race to the bottom....

Now it’s 3 room for £45

[julianb]

I almost never get jobs from Facebook people are a actually offering £20 for two rooms. It gets a bit silly easier to clean windows or any else at that price. Having said that if you went to a multi millionaire and did such a low quote they would think that you are an idiot.

[Marius Alexandru]

If i was running a cowboy business, £20 a room works and here is why, £20 minimum £60 booking. You get 3 jobs per day, you give them arrival time of 12-4 but will confirm on the day arrival time, So in the morning when you have all the jobs you just book them in at what time suits you and closer to the other job (Yes ! I know companies which do such thing....good thing they don't say, We will come monday-friday between 9-6, wait for us )

£60 for 3 area (you tell them to vacuum and move their stuff), pre-spray and extract, easy 1 hour

You could easily do 4-6 jobs per day like this

3 jobs =£180, £900 5 days, £50 diesel, £20 chemicals

[Mike Halliday]

But for that formula to work you are hoping for a number of things,....

That every job wants 3 room cleaning

That’s you will get  3 jobs every day

One man it’s hard to do 3 rooms in an hour even with a truckmount & very little complicated stain removal  and no big rooms.

But I agree it is possible, 

but why work yourself to death doing it?  There is a quote often used In marketing  ( which I actually hate) .....’charge twice as much, do half the work =but earn the same money’ .......but in this scenario it actually rings true. 

EG: In most people’s catchment there are 1000 people willing to pay £20 to have their living room cleaned but also in that area are at least 500 people who don’t mind paying £40 and at this low price range they are just as easy to find. I don’t think you would need to change your marketing too much to find those 500 just give A slight incentive or reason to justify the difference. So why not aim for those 500 instead of the 1000?

Where it get interesting is...... in your  catchment  area there will be 6-8 people willing to pay £130  and even  2 or 3  willing to pay £180 but ignore them ( they are the ones I want😂🤣😂)

[Shaun_Ashmore]

There was a guy on a pod cast I was listening to while I was on holiday and he sets up franchised or chain eateries such as  Pizza Hut, he says that there’s a price and formula to sell to everyone in different markets so Pizza Hut is more middle but Pizza Express (same company) offer a better experience but more expensive but has far less footfall for more or less the same food.

[RPCCS]

Strangely enough I was just discussing this with a mate who did the job 30 years ago. He was asking about prices and I said what I charge approx. He quoted a fb ad and I said, at those prices the advertiser is probably a part time cleaner. Anyone can buy a rug doctor or vax type machine and call themselves a carpet cleaner, but will they do a professional job? Have they been trained? Are they insured? Will they come back and re clean if the jod doesnt come up to customers expectations?

[Mike Halliday]

Problem is some of these Facebook cleaners are lying gits, got one  near me who I know, He was a baker until  February  this year but he says he’s got ‘20 yrs experience of carpet cleaning’ 

They all say fully trained , years & years of experience etc...... it’s all just lies,  they talk the talk but it’s all bullsh11t. But unfortunately the general public don’t see it

[RPCCS]

Problem is some of these Facebook cleaners are lying gits, got one  near me who I know, He was a baker until  February  this year but he says he’s got ‘20 yrs experience of carpet cleaning’ 

They all say fully trained , years & years of experience etc...... it’s all just lies,  they talk the talk but it’s all bullsh11t. But unfortunately the general public don’t see it

Should be  asked to,produce their certificates.  Thing is though, someone such as yourself, who has been in the cleaning trade,obviously for a long time, will likely get repeat customers anyway?  Should you be worried? I would have said it’s more the likes of myself,new to the industry who should be concerned,despite the fact I have  done two training cours3s.

[Mike Halliday]

The problem is customers are fickle and easily taken in by cheap prices.

 who doesn’t like a cheap price, i’ve Just been on holiday and got taken in by a hotel offering great location but a much cheaper price than the other hotels in the area, when I arrived I realised why

And I have had customers lured away by what seems like a great offer only for them to realise they made a mistake but it’s too late I have lost them for that year they might come back next year but i’m Still out of pocket.

Having a big data base of customer does give you a buffer zone but it’s not a guaranteed thing

[Simon Gerrard]

We get a good few jobs from Facebook. We don’t advertise or boost posts and  we most certainly aren’t cheap. The conversion rate is nowhere near the same as people contacting us through referrals and our website, but it is what it is. Are there lots of price shoppers, of course, but there are also people who are put off by low prices and are looking for a professional company to do a quality job and they are happy to pay for it and they exist on Facebook  you just have to point your business at them and ignore the price shoppers.

Simon

[RPCCS]

I mentioned this thread to my supplier, who is also on here, he said for me not to focus on what other people and fb are offering, decide on a price that I want and stick to it. Flyer drop decent estates upmarket desirable areas.   I have given a flyer to all my customers and had 1 job from it. Need to get advertising.

[John Kelly]

Yep leaflets need to go to those same houses every month. Only way they work, drip drip drip.

[Simon Gerrard]

I think the idea that Facebook is only populated by price shoppers has changed, in fact it never really seemed relevant as our experience of it is that it has to some price shoppers, but mostly people looking for and willing to pay for the kind of high quality service that we offer and in that respect Facebook is no different to the people that come to us through our website. So, perhaps the truism here is that you get the type of customer your marketing is pointed at, regardless of the medium you use to achieve that.

[Mike Halliday]

Your right Simon you do get the customers you market too,  i’ve Did a Facebook paid campaign last week to see if Facebook would produce the type of customer I want. Facebook constantly tells me “Boost this post for 20$” so I though I would give it go to see if I was wrong about Facebook users.... so spent 100$ on a week campaign

it was a disaster. it produced 4 enquiries which were from  people who in a million years would not pay my prices. Even though I targeted it at people over 40yrs old living in rural areas ( not inner cities )

Facebook might be great for finding customers but not the customers I want

[Cleanevangelist]

mike

the goal on facebook is not the same as other media, you need to get them onto messenger and then you build a list which facebook lets you do. 

respects

in harper

[Mike Halliday]

My main problem with Facebook is the constant advertising of very low prices and how it will subliminally educate people that the cost of carpet cleaning is  3 rooms for £50, i’m Seeing this price all the time in my newsfeed.

it’s like me constantly seeing a billboard at the end of my street advertising van tyres at £45 each. if I didn’t know any Better when I come to need new tyres on my van I will have the idea that they cost £45 each.

It’s easy to say ignore what other people charge and do your own thing but it going to get harder as time goes by, at the moment my target market is the older generation who are not big Facebook users but as these people become more scares ( die off) they will be replaced by customers who live in the facebook  world.

[Robin Ray]

Isn’t Facebook just another media type, like flyers, tv, radio, magazines etc...? The bare basics of marketing is the message to market match. So in theory presenting the correct message to the correct audience on Facebook should bring results. The practice of this for me so far is that the audience I would like to communicate to on Facebook doesn’t seem to respond. They do seem to respond via other meadia types though. Perhaps they don’t view Facebook as a good place to do business where as the lower end of the market do?

[Shaun_Ashmore]

Years ago I advertised in our local daily newspaper it brought in some varied enquiries to say the least one job I did win I asked the customer why they chose me and why they got me from the ‘lineage’ from the newspaper, the answer was that the lady of the house said she wanted her carpets cleaned and asked her husband to ‘just get a cleaner from The Star newspaper’ they thought it would be a cheaper clean than the big yellow book where companies were very expensive the fact that I advertised in both they’d never thought about. So it’s down to perception really,

[MarkSutcliffe]

five seater microfibre couch messaged me last night (funny name for a customer i know). Quoted £90, £20 per seat with a little discount to make it sound cheaper.

She's had 4 other quotes, between 40-60.

Leave them to it, Take me 2 hours to clean it, after overheads leaves me on £30 to clean it, and taking onboard all the risks etc...

[Cleanevangelist]

Mike here is an example

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/how-to-write-facebook-lead-ads-that-convert/270945/

We need to keep learning the news of doing business. the old, name, rank, number does not work any more. these big companies will take your money because they see it that if we dont understand how it works that our fault.

Just stop and think how facebook works the user is their product. that user is giving something that it thinks has no value away for free to facebook then turns that into money. that is the new way of doing business. harvesting data and then using it. the best example for use is emails and access to the user thought these platforms like messenger.

we dont post an advert and get the call any more. its get  their info then you follow up with a campaign.  like you would if you had their home address but in this new world their mobile phone.

we need to look and learn from people that are around us that use these platforms and how they use them. Plus these platform tell us how they want us to use them as businesses like the big change from pages to groups. or google changing adwords to google ads and all the changes that have come with it. as i said if you dont learn how to use them then your going to lose money. plus that the big thing here is that it costs you money to learn what works and what does not. you cant just say it does not work or that price marketing rules. just like copying something you only see the face and dont understand the backend. if you doing lead gen then your not going to see whats going once a prospect shows interest.

start reading and learning guys

respects

Ian

PS dont use these price guys as an example use people with ads that work and that are repeating those ads. look outside cleaning for great examples. hat your looking for is relationship building not sales

[MarkSutcliffe]

popup galore that site

[Simon Gerrard]

As the most sceptical of sceptics, we set out to give Facebook a try, primarily as a means to be able to communicate with a lot of our clients in one click and that aspect of it works very well indeed.
Having heard all the stories, ‘Oh Facebook is only populated by price shoppers,’ we were even more sceptical at the prospect of generating any sales through it, but low and behold we do and - at our price!
We’ve run a few competitions and that has boosted the number of likes and through that increased the number of potential customers, all without having spent an money at all.

The myth is that because Facebook is populated by price-shoppers you can’t do good business. But how can that be true? Facebook members come from every possible walk of life, its like a compendium of humanity, so to say that they only have one shopping mindset - the cheapest simply isn’t true.
I am astonished at having made so little effort, spent zero cash, that Facebook provides a steady trickle of jobs, yes we get what everyone calls, ‘price-shoppers,’ but who doesn’t through whatever medium?
The one aspect that is lost in the negative notions of Facebook as a price shoppers paradise and is therefore to be avoided is that there is a bigger dynamic at work. Yes, of course it is all about sales, but sales come to you through lots of different routes and long term exposure to your company is really what it is all about and whether we like it or not Facebook is where our customers are at, yes even the older generations and yes, even people that are as turned off by a cheap and cheerful carpet cleaning price as they are anywhere else.
If you look at the Facebook as a medium that has to produce immediate sales for it to be worthwhile then your likely to be disappointed, but if you’re a bit savvy with it and are prepared to play a slightly longer game, you can boost your business profile, get in front of the right type of client that may not need your services today but when they do......
The mistake is in thinking that you have to price match the cheap guys in order to get a share of the pie, but you don’t you just go fishing in a different pond.

[Cleanevangelist]

here is a great example on how to use social media

https://twitter.com/rugdoctoruk/status/1050770569426132992

the cleaver part is now you have a list of prospects from the losers. they have all said why they need carpet cleaning. so the cost of the prize is paid for. with some follow up something like a voucher to them.

people cant moan when they get marketing stuff when they give away their details for free like this. as i said that how facebook earns its money.