[A_to_Z_Clean]

Hi
I'm not pointing fingers on enyone. I don't know how he is doing this, but the immigrants are in this country, and the do work like this!!!

If my post was to strong i'm really sorry.


If you want the names of the companies with that practise call any cleaning company with employes  from filipines, rusia,poland,macedonia, and many more .

I do pay propely, and i check work permit etc.

Adam
AtoZ Clean

[Paul Davidson]

I havn't started my CC business yet but plan to after the turn of the year but i am planning something like the following  opening residential offer.
Two carpets cleaned for £49.00 (upto 40 sq yds) then £1.50 per sq yard after
I will be working a few fairly rural towns with around 15k population plus the inbetween areas and from what i have found out so far this £1.50 rate is similar to the other more established local outfits.
Your thoughts!

[Tony_Browning]

This one draged on didn't it!!!
Oh ..Mike...you don't have any overheads when employed by tesco's!!!
Rgds
Tony

[Ken Wainwright]

I may be wrong, but I get the feeling that Poolking and perhaps others may think that my postings here are having a dig at him. That couldn't be further from the truth. Poolking is the first person I am aware of from the lower priced end of the market who has the confidence to stand up and defend his position. I truly admire and respect you for that. My grumble has been about others here who, without any knowledge of the individual circumstances, have presumed that Poolking must be a "Cowboy" because his prices are so low. As I stated originally, the low price/high volume  market is an area I wish to avoid. So, rather than knock Poolking down, lets encourage him to continue to contribute, maybe he will encourage some of his colleagues to join in, and we should all be richer for the experience of being able to have an insight into ALL areas of the marketplace rather than just the middle and upper ends.

Safe and happy cleaning
Ken

[woodman]

Agreed, but....

I don't agree with the methods/prices etc and with many on here have campaigned for higher prices for professional cleaners but he stood his ground and fought his corner well and must be happy slogging away for his guvnor.

Trouble is his first posting gave the impression that he was the employer of 14 badly paid cleaners and was reveling in it, hence the response.

[Dave_Lee]

Harvey,
Interesting your last post. You are thinking of charging less for the first two rooms than those after. Most operators do it ither way round. e.g. 15% discount after the first 25 - 30 sq mtr, then 25% discount after 60 sq mtr etc. Some go High price for the first room then half price for any others.
Dave.

[Derek]

Wow... what a debate

The sad fact is that the people who get wrapped up in this type of blanket operation do so out of innocence and often desperation following a redundancy.

I have met many in recent years and I sympathise with their plight. they themselves get ripped off... Paying £2400 for a machine at a catalogue price of £900 for a start

These people are then left to their own devices with very little or no training.

I know of at least two NCCA members who started out with such Companys and left realising that there was far more to it.

Poolking... May I suggest you do go on a training course and get into business on your own....you can do it.

Both of the people I mentioned within the NCCA have gone on to have very successful businesses and one of them now runs a Truck Mount. If I mentioned the names many of you reading this would know them as 'very' respected carpet cleaners within the business.

Regards
Derek

[poolking]

hi guys back again to continue to defend myself!!

i will address the main questions from the reponses since my last post :

re safeclean : soggy ,shrunken carpets?? you only get soggy carpets if operatives don't dry them off after cleaning. my average dry time for carpets is about 2 hours , depending on the time of year . and i have never EVER  shrunk any carpets !!. and if you read a previous post i stated that circa 70% of our work comes via recommendation in one way or another..

re Mike Boxall : i ,for one , am of the opinion that these courses are valuable , although i have never done one , i would not turn down the offer if it came my way  

re Tony A-Z : careful what you type mate , the statement you made is bordering on libellous , and i ,along with others it seems , think you are way out of line. apology accepted though  

re Ian G : maybe we are the 'easyjet' of the carpet cleaning industry . i was only thinking about using them as an example earlier today! you kind of make my point for me Ian , if B.A fly me to madrid for say £200 and easyjet will fly me there for £39 , who is to say that B.A is better , just because its more expensive?? . now you may get a meal for your money on B.A , just my opinion is as long as you get me from heathrow to madrid , i don't care about the meal!! . it is the fact that we don't have minimum order values etc that helps us succeed maybe where others might fail . i will gladly do a 20 mile round trip to clean a £5 bathroom as that job may bring others in and that then is where you see profit as these are jobs that you would not have got otherwise. an example of this is today , i cleaned a lounge ( 10'x12') for a couple who were on the breadline. both worked long hours for no money and the lady was due to give birth next week. she wanted the carpet cleaning so that it was ok for her baby to be on ( it was a mess to be honest!). 45 minutes i spent there , until the carpet was spotless. all for £14-50. now with respect guys , none of you would have done that i bet for less than £40 , which is way above the amount she could afford. i get back to the office tonight and she has phoned up to book us to go and clean her 3 piece suite as she was over the moon with what i had done..( her mother is paying for the suite to be cleaned as an xmas present!!)

my training was 15 weeks on the job , quite a long time . i felt after 2 or 3 weeks that i was 'ready' but hindsight proved me wrong! .jobs are all within a 1 hr drive of me so i dont mind that . i use an old hydromist machine at the moment , i love the machine but spares can be a problem apparently.....

re ken :the prices are not my prices , they are the company prices!! i personally would love to charge £30 or £40 for a lounge!!  
i fully understand you and others wanting to avoid the low price/high volume market ,but as highlighted by the example above , we do provide a good service to those people who cannot afford you guys to do the work. as i see it , you dont actually lose that much,if any, work to us because the majority of people we clean for simply could not afford most of you to do the work that we do.


hope this answers a few questions and poses a few more

[Ian Gourlay]

I am still learning about this business.
Your business depends on your company putting out lots of leaflets each week.

I presume you have someone answing the phone.

Do they book you on sensible distances apart.

How do you achieve two hour dry time, is the hydromist twin vac. How heavey
From what you have said you are working in the low end market.

I find the carpets are dirty at one house I was cleaning mud.

How many passes do you do.


Sorry to keep pumping you but I have heard how the top  end lads work

From what you have said you have been doing it a number of years.

Are you self employed.

Did the boss provide van

[poolking]

yes mainly bottom end of the market , not many passes to be honest , mainly asians in inner city who expect their 15 year old wilton to look like it did the day it was laid!! .

hydromist is twin vac single jet , quite large and can do a four bed house with the machine parked by the front door!

we have 2 secretarys booking jobs in the same postal areas . i.e if the first job is in liverpool for example , then we will work in liverpool all day.

i am self employed , the wife takes care of my ni , tax and insurances , company suppplied my van and pay me a diesel allownace each day depending on where i am working.

hope this helps!

[Paul Davidson]

Poolking

if you and your boss are happy with the incomes you both generate and you do a good job, then good for you! its a different market that you are catering for than most others in this Forum.  I think there is room for all of us out there. (ever the diplomat)

DAVE LEE

Yes i realise that most other CC'c discount the other way around but as a marketing exersice to get me through people's front doors, i think it will work.
 
As far as i can see that is the most difficult bit 'finding the customer in the first place'.  One thing i didn't mention is that i will also mention discounts for complete house cleans etc etc.

I dont want to be the cheapie Carpet Cleaner but do want the work and in my early days am willing to work for a liitle less than some, after all if i can hit my target of 3 jobs a day then i will be more than happy earning Approx £150.00 per day for approx 4/5 hours on site cleaning!

Your thoughts please

Too Cheap?  Too Dear?

Good Idea?  Bad Idea?

PS I want to do this with a Truck Mount    

[Nigel_W]

Harvey,

When you start up you will find it very difficult to find 3 jobs per day for every day in the week. You need to allow for the fact that you will have some days where you don't have any work. Also you need to allow for quoting, sales calls, leaflets etc. Also for time off, maintenance etc. It strikes me that even if you could meet your target you will struggle to pay the running costs of a truck mount business with £150.00 per day. That is roughly £39000 per annum. By the time you deduct advertising/leaflets/phones/fuel/chemicals/equipment leases/spare parts/insurance and van insurance, parking charges etc - you will have a small profit. Every day you don't make your target a bit of that profit disappears.

I am not doubting your ability - it is just that it seems to takes some time in this industry to fill your diary every day of the week.

Nigel

[Kinver_Clean]

I have a lad working for me who worked for one of these outfits a few years ago and when he ran out of powder a few days after starting was told to buy some Bold.......
Trevor

[Dave_Lee]

Harvey,
I think your doing the right thing gathering as much info as possible before starting up, after all the better the foundation the better the chance of success.
Refering to your last post, I understand what you mean about initial pricing. The main danger is that if you start low you may well find yourself in a position where it then becomes difficult to change to the higher price, especially when it comes to repeat work. It happened to me. One lad on the Fast Track just starting up last year, started out at 35p per sq ft and stuck with it. Initially he had some resistance, but the jobs he did get more than compensated for the ones he didnt. Hes now on 40p per sq foot using a portable and doing very well, now that the repeats and referalls are coming in.
Dave.

[Ian Gourlay]

Interesting post about BOLD

I mentined about Carpet Cleaners using Tide somewhere a week ago.

I felt no one believed me

[Dynafoam]

Ian,

I would have believed you- I met a 'carpet cleaner' in a local janitorial suppliers who, chatting whilst waiting to be served, told me I should always use Bold 3 Automatic....."Does a good job and the punters love the smell"

Further discussion was interupted by the counter hand returning with the scrim an squeegee inserts.

Well, I supose he needs an indoor job for rainy days

[chrisw]

Used to clean for one of those 'bait + switch' outfits until I made my escape and wised up. Had on quite a few occasions done 6 suites in a day at £36 where I got paid £9 per suite, plus extra if we convinced the customer to allow us to put ' comfort' conditioner on their fabrics at an additional cost of £16, also we were allocated 1hr 30mins to set up , clean and be at the next one .  Disgraceful and shameful antics

[Alan_Kennedy]

Poolking

I agree with your analogy about easyJet but I'm afraid that your theory of doing a 20 mile round trip for £5 to bring in extra work will only result in more very poorly paid work. You have merely trained your customer to expect all work by you to be at rock bottom prices.

Regards   Alan

[Forum Admin]

Can anyone suggest a workable pricing structure along the lines of bronze,silver and gold service.I'm thinking bronze service vacuum & hwe clean,silver service vacuum,hwe & turbo dry.Gold service vacuum,hwe,protection & turbo dry.I don't know wether this would work but do any of you guys do this sort of thing?Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated

[strakercleaning]

OOOOOOOOOOPS looks like another 3 page thread on prices starts here
I have only just joined and missed all the fun when this PRICING thread began but I admire poolking for fighting his corner. We all start somewhere and usually there is a boss earning of our backs. No one I know admits to preferring McDonalds to TGI Fridays for burgers  :-/ but I bet most people eat at McD's once a month and TGI's once a year..........same principle. Most of us go for cheap to get job done and for dear if you can afford the treat. (Now i get sued by Burger bars : Not all of us have customers that can afford to spend 100's each visit. I price to my pricelist but discount accordingly, old couple on pension get better discount than proffessional couple in Chelsea/Battersea. Makes sense to me