[prodry]

Its worth it to me, its helped me buy two truckmounts. I also have three companies, one has low prices (the one you are refering to) one is the high end of the market in another two towns and one is commercial cleaning and carpet cleaning.

The cheap one pays my bills, truckmount, me, my staff. The high end one pays for my holidays and my car, the commercial only company is my pension and I invest back anything I earn from it to build it up and hopefully sell it one day.

Either way I would be screwed without the the cheap one. There are two sole traders near me who both do £100 lounges, they both drive around in little vans and use Portables. Both have their vans parked on their drives at most times of the day you pass and one stacks shelve at tescos in the evening.

anyone new to the business that is going to chase high end, will need deep pockets, big adverising and be able to pay their bills independantly for the first 18 months.   

[D woods]

What a great thread, good advice and constructive argument from all concerned

[jimmy tarbuck]

ummmmmmm, a post of mine seems to of gone astray, i dont know why, my mistake i guess, but what it states is this, prodry i think the way you are operating is not correct, that is if you really do charge a different price to mrs smith on her council estate as you do to mrs bucket who lives in her detached property round the corner, thats not ethical practice, i think that could be something trading standards might be interested in.
You could come seriousely unstuck , especially if mrs bucket happens to know mrs smith round the corner and doesnt tell you!!!!!! a dodgy practice at least, some might refer to that as discrimination.
We also do £100 lounges, myself and our techs watch guys like you chasing their tales like blue bottle flies all day, as d says there is two sides to every tale, i'm glad i chose my side, in a way though you have confirmed what i have said all along, if you are going to charge a proper price for a proper service, and use leaflets for your only form of advertising , you had better have deep pockets. Thanks for clearing that up prodry!!lol

[chrisg]

i dont think what pro-drys doing is unethical, its the same as package selling, some people only want a quick go round everything budget clean, others want all singing and dancing, drying, edges, grooming ect. clean.

2 different services for 2 different prices, i really dont think trading standards would be interested.

[jimmy tarbuck]

chrisg it most certainly is not like package selling, as you well know, with package selling the customer chooses what service he/she wants, what a thing to say , there is no comparison, if thats the case i am a high end customer as pro dry would like to refer to me as, not that i would like that personally but, there we are, i only want to pay pro dry's low end price, because i know mrs smith in the other town.......sorry it wouldnt work, i think it smells of pork pies....certainly i would not get away with it, nor would i try, and neither would i want to.I certainly would not advise a new starter to enter into this profession with those practices, not ethical..full stop

[carpetguy]

Nothing wrong in what you're doing P/D and it's the kind of service that almost every marketing course suggests.........and many people offer......
 
                                  Basic
                                  Silver    
                                  Gold, levels of service, or similar.

[jimmy tarbuck]

carpetguy, thats not what it says in his post..........what he says is he has 3 different firms, 2 of which are carpet cleaning , in 2 towns he is charging higher prices because they are high end customers, in the other he charges a different price for THE SAME SERVICE, he does not mention he is offering packages to either.....packages are fine, as long as the customer has the choice...thats is not what he says he is doing......can you read and chris g read ok??

[jimmy tarbuck]

strange how all his prices are the same for all the areas he covers, one hell of alot of low end customers!.....colchester and surrounding, ipswich, southsuffol, clacton, frinton, horwich, chelmsford, witham, braintree, dunmow, wicham bishops, silver end, halstead, earls colne, havehill, tiptree, tolleshunts, tollesbury etc etc

[Liahona]

It cant be wrong to charge different prices to different people for a similar service.  If it was I would be out of business in a week.  Jimmy, just one question, why do you think you need deep pockets to go after high end clients?  Domestically, all my clients are high end buy my choice and I dont have any form of paying advertising.

 I would have thought as an expression that you need deeper pockets to leaflet drop and yello pages or any form of paying advertising.

Not that they dont work as for some it works well and others it doesnt.

Just my comment is I get my clients for free as opposed to paying for leaflets etcetera.

My thoughts on the "high end" client is you cant pay to get them in the form of y/p, leaflets, etcetera as on the whole they dont look at y/p and certainly dont read leaflets.

Anyway, most people think I am nuts the way I do business and things in general but then thats fine by me, each to their own. 

Best, Dave.

[jimmy tarbuck]

in answer to your question dave, i dont think that, pro dry does??? my comment was if your only form of advertising were flyers you better have deep pockets!

regards

[jimmy tarbuck]

i also agree entirely with your comments about attracting so named'high end clients', they seldom look at yellow pages and/flyers, but then, yours and my idea of a 'high end'customer may not be the same as some of the other guys on here! horses for courses and all that

[Liahona]

Ok, sorry Jimmy. I thought you were linking high end to deep pockets.  I must have misunderstood and I am certainly not looking back over the posts.  Best, Dave.

[jimmy tarbuck]

no problem dave, have a good evening.

[prodry]

Tarbuck, if you are that concerned about my business pracices then report me to trading standerds.

I sleep well a night knowing that I charge someone in a council house one price and someone in farmhouse another. The person in the council house is not going to pay £100.00 (probably a day and halfs wages after tax) for us to spend 1.30hr cleaning their lounge.

As i said I have separate companies charging separate prices. My in-laws own the freehold and management on 650 holiday chalets and caravans on the east coast. And you guessed it they pay separate prices as well, for their carpet cleaning and pressure washing. We make it imposible for any competition to get in either and regular cleaning is part of their lease. Put that in your report to trading standereds.

I get my high end work and by high end I mean upper middle class and upper class clients from my in-laws, from recomendtion, and from contacts I have from being a an estate agent for a very excluse estate agency company for 5 years.

Chasing this type of work is only done this way and I do all this work myself. Cleaning their lounges is not a £50.00 job and doesnt take 1.30hr. You cannot advertise for this type of work.

[Neil Grainger]

Jimmy

Can I ask who you are and what area you work in, most people on here are open about who they are and where they are located.
Sorry but to me people who dont fill out there location and real details are just not worth dealing with as its a blind converstation.

Hi Dave

Good to see your back on the Forum again. Maybe calling on you in a few days as I may need some advice on dealing with a Special location in my area.

Cheers

Neil

[Liahona]

Neil, not a problem.  Phone any time and I will try to help out.  Best, Dave.

[jimmy tarbuck]

prodry, why on earth you think i would report you to trading standards i have no idea, you are being far to over sensitive, this is a discussion forum after all, if you cant stand the heat get out of the kitchen, and as far as profiles are concerned there are many , many others on here that are not filled in, chrisg for one....and sorry but if you follow the thread and others on here you would know where i am based........and so we continue

[jimmy tarbuck]

by the way, i live in farmhouse, and i would be very pi**ed off with you if i found out you charged my mate down the road in his terrace house  half the amount i paid...........

[chrisg]

Yes im anoymonius too, but i wouldn't critise from this postion as its unfair.

im here to offer advice well till you started picking on a newbie whom you knew his identity yet you wouldn't reveal yours to him.

[prodry]

Tarbuck, You live in a farmhouse, you have an office you have to ring to see what you are up to and you multiple operator. MMMMMMM.

Yet you spend your time on an iternet forum knocking others, others near to you that have never heard of you.

Where is your office? Docklands, Milan, New York?

Fill your profile in if you want to taken seriously.