[Susan Dean (1stclean)]

i guess im lucly that i only need to stick the smallest on adds in the local rag which is 35 pounds aweek    thats all the advertising i do and ive never drop leaflets for years due to haveing a big cust base built up for years 

what people need to think about is how rich are the people you are cleaning for and most in teeside are lucky if there takeing home 200 pounds aweek and if you trying to keep your family on that you have no chanse of paying someone over a 100 pounds to clean a suite that half of the familys income

guss im lucky that my four vans come cheap due to hubby repairing bumped or stolen vans that why i never have more then 1200 pounds in van that are less then 4 years old with him doing the the repair work on them free its anthor bill i havnt got

i still have a very good liveng and my five staff work hard and well , i look at it this way while the dear boys are walking around pushing bits of paper in too people doors where most get binned all of my exels are working flat out    still makeing money my dad use to say" if the vans not moveing its makeing northing"

as for saying im wiinding people up im not i charge what i like and do the best job i and my staff can do useing extracta and po chem stuff ive seen lots of these so called dear lads come and try and give it large saying" the cheaper the job and poorer of job you get "well were still here and its a great feeling going round there houses with a pocket full of cash to buy there gear cos there skint

maybe beeing a woman im not as greedy as some of the men on here ? why have one big hit with a job when you can go back year after year and get the rest of there family to clean for aswell ?

[Dave_Lee]

Simple facts are, you cant perform a 'Professional' job for £45 a full house of carpets. A quick wizz around the open areas is about the best you could do. You cant run and maintain 'Professional' equipment on that sort of price not to mention carrying an assortment of effective 'Professional' solutions. 
Dave.

[AquaMagic]

There is nothing wrong with aiming your pricing at your typical customers, i personally aim at the typically more well off person and charge more than some guys local to me.  With regards to greed, i dont think its a matter of greed really just getting what you think you are worth, for example

In my area im one of only 3 NCCA members- a customer benefit
In my area im one of only 3 or 4 guys that run a truckmount. - a customer benefit
From some of the stories ive heard im posotive that most in my area have no formal training (or choose to ignore it) we do,- a customer benefit.
I know there are a few local guys who are part time and not insured, we are - a customer benefit.
Most local to me dont Pre-Vac or agitate, we do - a customer benefit.

So the way i see it is this, if ive bothered to get training, insurance, joined a trade organisation, invested in expensive machinery if i employ steps within my cleaning process that most ignore, if ive dedicated all my time to carpet cleaning they why should i charge the same or less than people who havent, surely im worth more. 

I think the problem most people have is "why charge less than you have to, unless its all you can get away with", it would appear that you have a working plan in place so if its not broke then why change it, but arent you at least tempted to put up you prices by say 10%, by the sounds of it you do volume so this 10% would make a huge difference to you bottom line.

Dene

[Susan Dean (1stclean)]

i here what your saying dene and putting say 10% on top sounds good we have just done this  thats why its now 45 pounds was cheaper i dont think it down to what you think your worth im more then happy with what i charge not realy in to the ncca but if that your thing then thats great .

my working plan works for me i mean its a quict time and ive still got 4 lads out and are now booking two weeks ahead of myself 

[Susan Dean (1stclean)]

Simple facts are, you cant perform a 'Professional' job for £45 a full house of carpets. A quick wizz around the open areas is about the best you could do. You cant run and maintain 'Professional' equipment on that sort of price not to mention carrying an assortment of effective 'Professional' solutions. 
Dave.

how do you work this out ? i have more gear then i know what to do with and this comeing year after ive looked into a truck mount ill be haveing one of them and ill pay cash for it no chucky here mate instead of saying stuff like this why not get some figers out to back what your saying up  ??

[Matt Read]

If you do a full professional clean of carpets in a property for £45 then you have to lose out on the job. It must take a min of 3 hours (if its empty) add in staff wages, travel cost's and job cost's what would be the profit for the company ?

I doubt it would cover the paperwork or telephone time , if it did you wouldn't end up with much from it.

Maybe if you were a one man band dealing in cash then you may see some profit.

I can't see the point in running a business this way.

The bit about owning 7 houses ,now thats good business sense ,always be money in property,as for deeds to house's then surely that depends on whats been inherited, how rich family's are etc etc some of us start from scratch others have  a bit to fall back on.

[carpetguy]

When I started in this business, just over 20 years ago, I charged the prices you are quoting for today...................I was one of the cheapest at that time, but virtually everything has increased in cost, a great deal in some cases.

I priced my work, initially, to earn more than the hourly rate I was earning at that time, as a driving instructor, which was about £9 per hour...............20 years ago !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In every service sector, there are people who work for "washers" and others who, believe in quality, which they, and hopefully their clients, will perceive to be professionalism, through training and possibly membership of trade associations / bodies, also, their vehicles will reflect this by their signage and they will also make a big effort to look good and communicate in a pleasant and helpfull manner, etc.

Incidentally, it's my experience and that of many others, that there is more disposable income  in Housing Schemes, than Private  Estates and the people in Local Authority houses are just as likely to use Chem Dry, or BSM, because these are the names they recognise and assume will deliver quality.

[jasonl]

Carpetguy, 13 years, mate as a chem dry,most la prop in teesside cant afford chem dry! and would not know quality if it hit them in the face.

[darrenlee1]

hi
read this post with great intrest, and makes me giggle. if you charge what your worth as some say, why are you intrested in what others charge, let them get on with it.
we market to both sides of the coin under two different names, better end customer willing to pay for there arse licking, and the lower end.
and do you no which is more profitable??
ok little harder graft but come on, get yer back into it keeps yer fit and strong, better than workin darn pit
 darren

[Chris34]

At them prices you are not running a business, you are running a charity.  Sorry 1st but if you hadn't been born with a silver spoon in your mouth then you wouldn't survive on them prices, you would be bust in no time.

[jasonl]

With no prevac, a full 3 bed house can be extracted in an hour easy, sorry love , them stains are permanent, £45 , £200 a day , easy money, he will not go bust , its a good plan in his market!

[Matt Read]

There is cheap ,reasonable,and expensive, 1st is cheap !.

I dread to think what the quality of living is in this area,if all the plumbers ,sparky's and builders are of the same mindset it must be dangerous to live there !

You do get what you pay for 95 % of the time.

[Susan Dean (1stclean)]

At them prices you are not running a business, you are running a charity.  Sorry 1st but if you hadn't been born with a silver sthingy in your mouth then you wouldn't survive on them prices, you would be bust in no time.

if you call getting four old astas max vans with over 200k on each silver spoons  then your right ! two of them went stright to the sales

i started in a counil house and got four old exles with over 15,000 hours on each but they were wll looked after and looked like new ! ok they were free

ive busted myself in half to get where i am to day with no help from nobody apart from the hubby . i havent had it easy and my hubby worked over 18 hours aday for free to get us where we are today , 9 hours cleaning them the rest down the unit doing up bummped cars to keep us a float

as for the standed of liveing here its fine as long as you work hard , why wouldnt you make a liveing at what we charge  ? i do very nicely . and trust me im not going to tell you how to do it but lets just say this when profits need to be watched i drive hard bargins when buying in , this way you save lots of cash like when i went to the suppyers today i got a pallet ! of gear half powered the rest stuff like three boxes of c. gel ect ect ect

a long with the fuel cards i i can save i lot that way as well,  why buy just a few bottles when you can buy loads getting stuff at a very good rate this way makeing the jobs worth doing

as for doing a full house in one hour it takes longer to do a single front room 3-4 hours for a full house thats a 2 up 2 down

ive been looking at a lot of peoples web sites telling people that cheap cleaners are poor so ive told my web man to add a new saying called the CON. this is where people are conning people like window sales man into dear jobs and lerking over them makeing them feel like they have too book the guys that stood in there houses explaining this is how old people get ripped off  and how they need to rip into cheaper cleaners to try and get work cause they havent any

 anybody that pushing bits of paper in to there door should be given a miss cause if they have time to do this they have no regaler customers cause they wont go back cause they have had the eyes took out    (it will be in better enlish then the way ive put it)

whats good for one is good for the other not all cheaper cleaners are poor like what most of you have on your sites why tar us all with the same brush ?  ive looked back in the history of this site and its the same old same old cheap is poor and theres a few good cleaners that come on here that just sit and watch this and say northing !

    that like me saying every dear person is ripping people off !  where not all the same

iam not being funny just putting my point across looking from the other side as it were AND HOPEFULY WE MAY ALL LEARN from what we see on boards like this makeing both sides see how each other work , maybe even giveing our custmors a better service that way ?? 

[jasonl]

Like I said , living in Teesside has ti be seen to be believed, loads of illiterates lol, there are nice areas but mostly low deprived areas, with people who cant type.

[DanielWelford]

I totally agree with 1stclean.

In any market place there will lots of people offering the same service at different levels of specification. You just set yours to suit your marketplace.
e.g Car Sector Mercedes & Daewoo. Both cars different spec, different price bracket.

Me, I am at the lower end, but make a very very nice living. No one could call my service spash and dash or cowboy or whatever derogatory name the cheapies are refered to.

To be honest I would not pay the prices that some of you allegedly charge, so how could I expect my customers to!

Dan

[nevil]

The con,  I like it. 

Do you mind if I use that one 1st clean? 

[nevil]

Price really doesn't tell the whole story. As 1st clean said it's all about working hard.
It's a marketing trick convincing people they have to pay the most to get the best. That way doesn't work for me simply because 80% percent of cleaners seem to go down that route. But they are marketing to less than 20% of the public because most peole can't afford them. I would be happy with a couple of very lucrative jobs a day. But for now I will continue working hard.

[Neil Grainger]

Daniel

The whole point si that you dont sell to people like you. market to the right people and you will be able to charge higher prices.

I would buy at my prices but I am not selling to me.

If your happy with what you charge then thats fine but you should not be marketing to you.

[Pureandclean]

Hi 1ST CLEAN,
 To still be in business after 20 years is always worthy of praise, even more so, when you are charging fairly low prices. It means that you do have to drive hard bargains, and keep costs down.
  You know the area that you work in, and quite possibly are well known through your community, how do your customers view you and your business ?
Are they appreciative of your bargain prices, and do they use your services time and again ?

I know when I first started window cleaning, many years ago, I had a sense of providing a service to the whole community, and therefore set my prices at a fairly low level, for years I struggled to keep my head above water, and went out of business once.
I came to the conclusion that I needed to raise my prices, to a level where I could make a decent living, and funnily enough I still do the majority of the people in the area's that I cover.
I applaud you for still being in business, and I applaud you for providing a service to your community, I would challenge you though, to raise your prices somewhat, so that you can remain in business for another 20 years and be able to afford some newer vans.

Blessings,

Graeme

[AquaMagic]

1st clean, i agree that not all of the less expensive cleaners are cowboys, and if you are happy working for a fiver an hour then good luck to you, however by saying that all Expensive carpet cleaners are CON artists you are your self just as prejudiced.  I also dont like the comment about people who deliver leaflets not being anygood, you will have to explain this becuase we deliver leaflets (so do many on here) and i know for a fact that we clean a lot better than most in my area, i know this becuase i have cleaned after a local cc and had the customer gobsmacked, (they certainly didnt think they had been conned, you could tell this by the tip they gave me), if leafleters arent anygood could i ask how you built up your business?, advertising is one of the most expensive costs when starting a new business and i certainly found that leafleting got us started and upto a level where we now advertise in local press, internet and telephone directories, we are by the way a new company  ourselves and have been trading 1year so still find leafleting an essential part of our advertising process without it when we started we would have had to resort to door knocking, is that what you did?

Dene