[Nathanael Jones]

By my price list it would be €190,.. approx £125 sterling, and I'd be upset if I was there much more than 3 hours, working on my own.

[Shaun_Ashmore]

Paul you make my wife laugh, you've either showed her your willy or she can't understand what you are saying.

Carpet Guy if you are grossing £700-800 a week what about your overheads, leaflets or telephone bill, van, petrol? then there's accountants bill, taxman, breakage!! what about holidays or illness?

£700-800 a week when you properly add up those will give you a real figure of a national average wage (£447 a week for a semi skilled manual worker)

If I was earning the same as that I wouldn't be self employed I'd let someone else have the risk of paying me when I'm ill, I could go home at 5pm and think about anything I wanted to instead of walking around my home eating peanuts and annoying the Missus asking her stuid questions about carpet cleaning marketing. OH and the free pension !!

Easy life is employment, I think I should be paid extra to take on the risk of no frills self emplyment and I also need the extra to save for a rainy day just incase things go POP.

Shaun

[the red carpet]

Couldnt have put it better myself, how i would love to go home at night at 5pm and be finished for the day.

Instead of having sleepless nights thinking about leaflets or raising prices, if we are gonna lead such sad lives we deserve to be well paid for it

I think you should earn the best part of a £1000 a week after you have paid everything, not that i am but thats what i would like

[Mike Halliday]

 : : :

some people need to think before they start putting figures down, just because some one earns earn £80 an hour does not mean they earn £80x 7-8hrs.

if it was so, yes they'd earn a fantastic income, I actually 'work' on average 5ish hours a day

I spend £200 a week on advertising plus £100 on the van lease, £50 on diesel, ..etc..etc

so why would I be happy earning £600-£800.

Mike

[the red carpet]

And that job would take just under 2 hours
and would cost £150+

[Shaun_Ashmore]

Where's Mosschops he's a greedy little so en so, come on put your 2 peneth in now you've insulted me!

Shaun

PS Your Missus says when I make love to her she floats 6 inches above the bed but when you do she hits the roof when you wipe your tiddly bit on the curtains

 

[*paul_moss]

Mike is just winding you up Shaun,I know for a fact he makes at least £200 a week.

[Shaun_Ashmore]

Paul i like your new site really is customer friendly.

Shaun

[colin thomas]

too much talk about earnings, we all earn different amounts and quite honestly i think it's becoming too common for people to come into this industry and expect to earn fabulous money straight away even though they might be relativley clueless, too many of you tell newbies just to up their prices all the time, surely there is a learning curve, the more experience you gain, the more loyal customers you get and then you can up your price when you are sure and confident that you are doing a good job, i think that just to ask 'what would you charge' shows inexperience.
colin

[Shaun_Ashmore]

cbt- rubbish

If you only get a few calls a week how can you make it pay at £40 a job? if you can get a higher amount say £100 and you get 5 jobs a week then at least you can make money from day 1.

2ndly when you start to grow and up your prices because of your experience and costs going up how do you get your customers to pay for the big price rise without losing them after all it is the customers that make our businesses.

My recommendation to anyone starting is price as high as you dare, as you learn your trade also learn the art of selling, go out and visit the customer to quote, keep it high to allow for slack months - it is YOU that has to pay the bills not anyone else and if you come across price resistance you can always drop your price for that customer if you want to or walk away it's your choice but have you ever dropped an already low price? it hurts!

Shaun

[davep]

Think i opened a can of wormys here..  only wanted to know if my cleaning time v hourly rate where reasonable!

Heres another..  How many jobs do you tend to do on an average day? (if there is one)

Also are you porty or tm, 1 man team etc...

[colin thomas]

ok shaun, buy a new car, have a problem with it and have the garage tell you that the new apprentice who has been on the job 1 week is going to have a go at it without any  supervision or help, i'd like to hear you say that would be ok. we always tell customers how expensive their carpets are to replace, how can we justify top prices until we have learnt to do a professional job?
colin

[Shaun_Ashmore]

Our job isn't rocket science, I could take a car to bits but I havn't got a clue on how to put it back together again, carpet cleaners have and still do go on NCCA courses and go out and clean carpets from day 1 so it's not like for like what you are saying.

Shaun

[Liahona]

I have to agree with Shaun.  Well not have too but as is most often he is right in what he is saying.  From day one I charged high with the theory of if it was too high I could come down.  It just doesnt work the other way around.  I can drop my prices from a pound to 75p thus reducing my price by 25%...... but I couldnt start at 75p and then go to a pound as, well you know why.  I understand high pricing isnt for everyone but low pricing shouldnt be for anyone.  As has been said, why would you do a job for 40 quid when you can do pretty much the same job for maybe 75 or in most cases 100.  If you get a lot of work at 40 then you will be busy doing 40 pound jobs.  The same goes for getting the job at 100 and then being busy doing 100 pound jobs.  Hardly any difference in the work but the 100 man is earning or at least turning over 150% more than the 40 man.  I know which one I would rather be.  Best, Dave.  As to the car and the mechanic.  You as a customer are paying the garage the same amount of monies for the rookie as you would for the more experienced mechanic...........

[Shaun_Ashmore]

When I first started I thought probably the same as everyone else that I made profit from 1 job well actually you don't start making a profit or wage until Tuesday or even Wednesday.

This is how most small and young businesses fail, if you are working for someone at say £10 an hour and then come into cc and charge £20 an hour you may think that you have doubled your money when actually you have halved what you were originally on.

Shaun

[spindle]

i am still a new 2 cc.although  i have been doing it for a couple of years now....

when i started i was cheaper because that gave me the chance to get practical experience.....i sacrificed  earning so i could practice!!!

i would agree with shaun.....it isnt rocket science  spray chems.....extract!!! hey presto clean carpet!!


imo the more exp. you have the more you can charge....
exp. gives more than just the confidence to hike up the prices, but you gradually learn the" gift of the gab"

i started with ....oh well nevermind

now i have a ninja...............

my prices are still quite reasonable............but with experience you can spot a "earner" a mile away.....

 i think if you are smart, polite, friendly and punctual....that also goes a long way


answering the original question......i would think bout 2/3 hrs....@£120

i can afford to charge slightly less others because i dont have any overheads!!

[carpetguy]

When you get involved in hourly rates, or earnings in general, it always amuses me, how one persons reality, is anothers dream, or fiction.

At the moment, I am slowly backing out of c/c and have not advertised for about three years, nonetheless, I have just had my busiest January / February, ever.

I run a small Susuki van with a Berlingo available as back up ( never been needed ). Previous van was a little Diahatsu and before that a small Honda.

These small vans are clearly not suitable for t/m's, but I've never found the need for one, but can carry a second person.............Ninja, with 100 ft of hoses, wand and a couple of upholstery tools.
                                       17 " Rotary
                                       Puzzi plus hose and tools
                                       Selection of chemicals, brushes, sponges, towels.
                                       Turbo drier
                                       Steamer with vacuum
                                       Hunter vac
                                       Yard brush

The cost of this vehicle ( new ) was £5400...............about £180 for tax............£300 for isurance..........returns about 55 miles to the gallon............servicing costs are extremely low.

Phone costs, are the cost of diverts to my mobile, from our domestic line, plus around £12 per month for 0800

over the past 2 - 3 years I have halved my workload, only doing a couple of jobs daily, rather than the 5 - 7 per day, when advertising.

This only takes up about 3 - 4 hours daily and leaves the afternoons for other business activities.

So, the £700 - £800 IMO represents a reasonable return, for the time and  effort and is about 3 times the charges of 7-8 years ago.

No big van..........no big machine ...........no big advertising bill..........no unnecessary office expenses.

Incidentally, for the past 5 years, or more, Chem dry operators have been changing to these small vans, so they cope adequately for whatever they carry around.

I'm not criticising any individual, or system,or business sense, just suggesting that, what's perceived as reality and absolutely necessary, to one person is'nt necessarily correct, or even best practice.

Best practice, in business....................is bottom line.





                                       

[Shaun_Ashmore]

Carpet Guy we were under the impression that this was your only income business all of this thread is constant with a full time cc and that is what the figures are based on, you are running 2 or more businesses so the equasion for you will be different.

Shaun

[*paul_moss]

Carpetguy, good post with good reply.

This has been a good and interesting post for all,but mainly new cleaners in the industry.
There is no right way or wrong way,no best van or worst van, no best system/machine or worst system/machine.
You aim your business down the road you can afford with the experience you have.From that you build it up.Some people are very lucky and get work quickly and big contracts, others arnt so lucky and have to work harder.
The best thing the new carpet cleaners have over the last 2 years is this forum and others like it as in no time in the past has there been so much free info from experienced cleaners availible.

My advice to any body new is.

Go and get trainned and certified in as many disciplines as you can afford.

Get an experinced c/c to take you under his wing for a year.

Read , read and read more on all the back posts on the forum regarding marketing,pricing and presentation.

Then put it into practise and change it as you need to as your business developes.

Normally you will have 2 hard years and in those 2 years invest as much as you can back into your equipment/marketing.

In year 3 things will start to take off and you will start to earn decent money.

UNLESS YOU ARE VERY LUCKY OR HAVE GOOD BACKING YOU WILL NOT DO IT STRAIGHT AWAY.

[colin thomas]

shaun, i know there are plenty or courses out there for people to take but how many people new to the industry actually take courses? do you consider yourself a professional or do you tell people that you are self taught cowboy? i read post after post from people who stand on their soapbox and tell me how to clean a carpet and then we find out a few months later that they are giving up their other job to go full time carpet cleaning!!!!  with people like you giving advice no wonder that carpet cleaners have a bad name with the average joe public, charge as much as you can for as little work as you can do.
colin