[Mike Osbourne]

I'm not the person to ask Dave, there are loads of loaded CC on here and I'm not one of them yet.

[liahona]

Dave, get in touch and I will try to help you out if I can.  Both the jobs you refer to are below what I set out to be a minimum so it doesnt surprise me that someone else is 30% more.  There are plenty of things to do for you to become "better" and be able to charge more.  But you also have to have the attitude to charge more because you simply are better than anyone else.   Thats how I do it.  I am sure there are far better cleaners on here than I am.  But I have the attitude that I am better than everyone else and accordingly I charge that much more.  I know the realisation is that I am not but I dont let that info on to the client.

I bluffed my way into extremely high end clients almost 14 years ago and have been there ever since.  Only just got better along the way....

Best, Dave.

[David_Annable]

Hi

Dave

With repect you are in the top 1% of CC.

I would be happy in the top 10%

Mike

Your being a bit hard on yourself, you know a lot more than most about sales and all our work starts with sales.

Dave

[Doctor Carpet (Ret'd)]

I guess for many of us the first contact we have with a new client is when they phone us up. SO the first impression is how we answer the phone and then how we guide the conversation. Projecting confidence in our skills and knowledge is definitely a knack.

Assuming the customer then wants to meet us is the next hurdle. I arrive in a sign written van but my attire is somewhat unusual. I have blue zipped overalls which I have tailored by cutting the sleeves back to the elbow. They are cotton and quite tight fitting.

To some customers I am the bloke in scruffy blue overalls (with holes in the knees-but only when my overalls become old. When the holes get really bad I cut the legs off the overalls as well and use them as my suimmer attire!).

Some customers think I am a "ghost-buster" (gosh, that dates me!).

However the purpose of explaining all this is that irrespective of how I look my own personal take is once having met me do my actions then reinforce the first impressions created in the first phone call.

[carpet guy]

What's obvious, is the fact that there 's a real mixed bag, in this industry and some have " followed the marketing manual " and others are " there own man "and there is really no point in trying to score points.                                                                                                                                        You have to follow your instincts and hope you get it right, or or as Dave L says, just get out there and tell them how wonderful you are, but make sure you come up to scratch.