You're free to do whatever you want to do.
Attract whatever price point you want to attract.
Clean for whomever you want to clean for.
There's nothing wrong with a price point company, just as there's nothing wrong with a higher priced niche-based company. Whatever floats your boat is what you should do.
A couple people in the thread nailed it, though. If you see yourself as an owner/op, chances are you're probably better at doing the work alone, and thus need to charge higher prices.
If you see yourself growing to a several truck operation, you will have to be a fantastic businessperson because the margins are much tighter at lower prices.
I think people like HP are the exception because they live in an area where there are many rich people who would never dream of cleaning carpets themselves. If memory serves, Houston has more millionaires per capita than any other city in the US. If it's not number one, it's at least in the top 5.
It's all about percentages and market share. Nobody talks about market share on the boards. NOBODY.
If you want to grow a business, you could do it via value or niche; but there's a thing called market share that needs to come into the equation - but never does. Let me give you 2 examples.
If I lived in an area where the population was 50k and the avg. household income of homeowners was $50k, there's only a small percentage who could afford to pay .50 per square foot - at best 10%.
If we assume that of the 50k population, approx. half own their own homes, that means that 25k would be our POTENTIAL. Out of that potential, only 30% ever get their carpet cleaned professionally - so 30% of 25k is 7,500. (btw, that's a very conservative number)
If I'm a high-priced cleaner, MAYBE 10% of this Potential would ever pay my fee. That brings the number down to 750. Out of the 750, if there are others in my area that are charging similar to me, or who are attracting my clients, I need to put them into the equation. If there's only one company that comes close to servicing my demographic/psychographic niche, at best I could, potentially, capture 50-60% of that niche. Now my Potential is around 375 - 450.
Let's guess high. 450 clients x avg job ticket of $300 = $135K / year gross revenues. Decent, but not a lot of room for growth.
If I take the same service area and charge $99 for whole house Shotgun-style, now my market size is much bigger. It's at least ALL of the homeowners who might consider getting their carpets professionally cleaned. So lets go back to Market Share. Are there others in your area that charge $99 for a whole house? Probably. There's probably a lot more that charge that price point in your area than charge niche prices.
Let's assume there are 10 cleaners that charge $99/whole house in your area.
Your market share is 1/10, so 7,500 divided by 10 is 750. You have 750 clients @ let's say $150 (being generous here) job ticket. That equals gross revenues of $112,500. You'll have had to do 2x the # of jobs to equal $22,500 LESS in revenue.
So.....it all comes back to what YOU want to do. If you are a price point cleaner, you'd better think about dominating your market share via multiple trucks. If you're a niche based cleaner, it's usually easier and with less work to dominate your niche by charging significantly higher and delivering unparalleled quality.
Scott