[cleanability]

Maybe I'm a bit naive but with Chemdry and Servicemaster which seem to be the high chargers, do they get most of their work from non domestic work? Maybe insurance work etc. So perhaps they give very high domestic quotes because they dont need the work and getting the high quoted work domestically is a bonus??. As I said before I'm in the Welsh valleys which is where the £400 quote came from and you could wait til hell freezes over and you'd get no work round here with that quote.

Chris

[COLIN BRIGHT]

with such sad stories and tales of woe, you guys are making me weep 

[nick_brown]

I am afraid to say that it is called running a business to employ people  and allow enough for reinvestment and profit- as people have said more go out of business by not charging enough than charge a professional price -and for goodness sake the amount we charge  is the businesses income not your income -out of which all the overheads chemicals repairs phone depreciation accountancy insurance internet new computers,uniforms ,premises ,training etc etc,I know of no other industry that is so proud to make poor incomes-I had a small petrol mower serviced cost £99.00 incl vat no repairs .just a spark plug and oil.
If people stopped trying to be the lowest and concentrated on  it as a business -what happens when you cant work-  and what is so wrong with making a profit or god forbid creating some wealth?

As they say in the states there is no pride in poverty-!!
Best Nick Brown

[Steve Barnett (Carpet Care Plus)]

Well said Nick

Just read your previous posts - it's a shame you don't post on here more often as you have the right attitude to business.

Steve

[Doctor Carpet (Ret'd)]

Are those who express dis-belief doing so simply because £400 in itself is a fair amount of money or simply that it seems a lot for the job described.

But a "smallish" bill in amount for a small job can hide a lot of pitfalls.

For example, I've just done a lounge in a house 6x3 metres. Not the largest room you'll ever come across by a long chalk. It was for a regular client and with a large immovable object taking up about 1.5 square metres.

If doing other work for the client it would gave been around £40 mark. AS it wasn't it triggered my minimum charge of £50. Add on some anti-staining treatment and VAT and the bill came in at around £76, thus getting on for twice the price I would charge for a basic clean of the carpet as part of a larger amount of carpets to clean.

£76 isn't a lot of money in itself but for what was cleaned it does seem so.

My point is that whilst the £400 quoted above is more than I would have charged, I can see how it might have been arrived at and have no problem with that. Expertise comes at a price, apprentices (and new-to-the-game-of carpet-cleaning) don't.

[Gordonnis]

 a price is what a customer is willing to pay  people will only pay if they think they are getting value for money  nobody likes to think they are being had/ scamed   try and explain your prices when flyer come through the letter box like this  i have hidden the phone number , but this is a long established firm

[The Great One]

Hi

Guys, there are always exceptions. We have all earned on certain jobs £100, £150 an hours, maybe one 1 or 2 jobs a year, you have to price on what you think you can get for the job at hand, if you can get £400 then great but we all know that you won't get that every job, evryday.

I recently had a job opportunity through the post to teach to be a Inventory Clerk, reckons he earns £9-13000 every month!  My answer is Bo**ocks, he would have be doing 10 check ins a day every weekday at an average of £50 to get £10,000 a month, some inventories can take 3-4 hours (4 bed house fully furnished) 10 check-in a day is a 10 hour day plus report write up, and he wants to charge people £5,000 for the privilage of teaching.

I have had jobs at £170-190 per hour but I can count them on one hand, at the end you price what you think is achieveable at the time of quoting.

Regards

Martin

[clinton]

Had a job mid morning for a regular and it was a through lounge ended up charging £90  as i added a protector as well to the carpet,supose i could have done it a lot cheaper.

Maybe if it was a quote from the web site i might have not got the job as it was a highish price

[richy27]

i think this whole thread high lights the fact that we all know what we have to charge to run our own companies. Yes the large franchise companys our on the whole goin to be the high er end of the spectrum as oops may upset people they at the end of the day our govened by what royalties thay have to pay for the previlage of having the companies name they have invested in.

cheap prices will in some instances get custys wondering why and over in flated prices will only encourage price shopping as nobody likes to feel ripped off.

we all have the right to value ourselfs how we feel fit. 

i love the freedom of being my own boss and charging what i feel is correct to sustain my business and hopefully produce further growth and a good relationship with existing customes

 

[robert meldrum]

Everyone 's idea of " what to charge " is different.  If you've invested £40k plus before training and marketing and before taking a penny it's pretty obvious that you will have to earn a hell of a lot more than someone whose invested £1k plus training and whose marketing consists of advertising in local newspapers / magazines, or whatever.

Not only do you have to allow for replacement of the £40k kit ( about £150 per week over five years ) not including maintenance costs or even day to day running costs.

Now, if you've invested at that level you will have to charge an awful lot more and work an awful lot harder ( at everything ) than the guy who will have recovered his initial investment in a couple of months and only has to set aside about £8 - £12 a week which will buy him an upgrade on his original machine at 5 years.

The guy with the smaller investment can earn just as much as the big investor but will keep a lot more 

[master-clean]

a price is what a customer is willing to pay  people will only pay if they think they are getting value for money  nobody likes to think they are being had/ scamed   try and explain your prices when flyer come through the letter box like this  i have hidden the phone number , but this is a long established firm

My clients would never call someone from a leaflet like that with those prices, Dont compete with them, ignore them, they may be in my industry but they are worlds away from me and my clients know it! 

Some of you guys just don't get it

[Steve Barnett (Carpet Care Plus)]

Quite why any business would base their prices on the cheapest in their area is beyond me.

Surely you must have worked out what your operating costs are and what wage you need to earn to pay your household outgoings - that will determine what you need to charge as a minimum based on x amount of jobs per month, just to keep afloat.

We are running a business guys - work on your business, not in it.

Steve

[Neil Williams]

Steve & Robert,
I won't disagree with what you have both said but let's look at it this way:
If you have invested £40k and are trying to get it back then surely you'll get that money back by doing plenty of mid range jobs which are more easily got. Compare that against the effort needed to get high paid jobs and subsequent lack of because of the price.
Who is going to retrieve this £40k first?

Now I put it to the test today. E-mail enquiry that went back and forth a few times whilst I dragged the info out of her, and here it is......
>>I live in Basingstoke kings furlong area, size of the lounge is 18 x 11 >>ft, beige carpet, few general marks on the lounge carpet and stairs, and a >>little bit of spilt matt paint on the landing

And this was my reply......
> Thanks for coming back with the details> From that information you have given me, I would estimate the price to be:> £101.00 plus vat which would be £116.15 in total.> Please note that whilst every effort will be made to remove any markings > or paint spills, no guarantees can be made to total removal.

And that was the last I heard from her
Now if I'd gone in at a reasonable £70/£80 (one mile away and 1.5 hours work) I'd have got it and been £70/£80 better off.
Not to worry it was an interesting test, so back to reality pricing

[Steve Barnett (Carpet Care Plus)]

I agree with you completely Neil, it's a difficult one.

I did a quote last night, literally 5 minutes from my house - bedroom, through lounge, stairs and landing (small house)  - I quoted £ 125 and offered a 10% discount because she got my number from our local mag.

She said thanks I will get back to you, but I wasn't convinced - now I could have said £80 or £90, but who knows with some clients.

I dont know about you, but when I turn up to quote I pretty much know before I even give them a price whether or not I am going to get the job.

Steve

[Neil Williams]

I dont know about you, but when I turn up to quote I pretty much know before I even give them a price whether or not I am going to get the job.

For sure. If the outside of the property is well maintained and manicured, two newish BMW's on the drive, smartly dressed and the inside of the house tidy etc etc then you know you're onto something.
Start taking these elements out and one by one down goes what their willing to pay even before you start speaking.
I've been to some places and just parking up tells me I'm about to waste 20 minutes of my life, but having gone there I just get on with it. Perhaps they pick up on my body language but I know when I'm wasting my time.

[Steve Barnett (Carpet Care Plus)]

For sure. If the outside of the property is well maintained and manicured, two newish BMW's on the drive, smartly dressed and the inside of the house tidy etc etc then you know you're onto something.
Start taking these elements out and one by one down goes what their willing to pay even before you start speaking.
I've been to some places and just parking up tells me I'm about to waste 20 minutes of my life, but having gone there I just get on with it. Perhaps they pick up on my body language but I know when I'm wasting my time.

Lol 

Yeah know exactly what you mean Neil - you psyche yourself up saying to yourself " I've driven all the way here so I am going to get this one no matter what "- then you pull up outside and your confidence drops 10% - you go into the house and it drops 50% - by that time I just want to get back in the van and go and do something else 

Steve

[robert meldrum]

Neil....I'm NOT supporting either side of the argument as I don't believe there really is an argument.
What has to be appreciated is that a fair number of people will invest very little but still be very, very successful, while some will spend £50k - £60k and expect success, but fail to achieve it.
You can be the best carpet cleaner in the world but lack self confidence or have difficulty with marketing and never achieve the success you deserve.
That is a sad fact and unfortunately it applies to a lot of decent people.
If this is you...............get someone to market your service for you and do what you're best at. Doesn't mean your a lousy businessman, just means you know your strengths and are delegating to cover your weaknesses.
Some people have difficulty asking for a higher than average price
If this is you..........get someone else to do your quotes

[suffolkclean]

I feel there is a lot of people in my area just don't want to pay the going rate. Lots of big houses, cars, both working - they want a cleaner but don't want to pay, same with the carpets too. I'm doing so many quotes at the moment went to a huge house the other day, quoted £170 for about 3/4 of the house. She then told me they have a bissell carpet cleaner, her husband was thinking of hiring a RD but there are marks on her carpet which don't come out. I gave her the sales pitch - NO JOB. Carpet Cleaning is very quiet at the moment, in fact its all really quiet apart from Quotes !

[master-clean]

Sounds like your not marketing yourself very well.

PS I have quoted twice other c/cers prices and got the job.

What reason do you think the other cleaner THOUGHT he never got the job? 

I'll tell you he probally thought his price must have been to high. but infact it was to low and probally the customer felt he would not do as good a job!

[suffolkclean]

Hi masterclean, I feel I'm very confident at sales/marketing especially when face to face. I feel that if I charged the prices as on the cheapo leaflet above we'd be fine!!