Do any of you run two cleaning companys?

[hogjowl]

If you're pricing via in-home estimates, then you price the need for scrubbing only when it's needed. If you're pricing over the phone then you go over the potential "options" when the sale is made.

The need to scrub is certainly encountered on every job. So you make it a upsale option.

 

[Rex Tyus]

I did the package thing for years. All it did was confuse the customer. Scott is right on the money when he says they want it clean. Clean is clean in their minds. Heck, only here is clean defined in some ICS circle jerk, orgasmic way.

If you can't compete in your market place by pricing a basic vac, prespray and rinse method, then you seriously need to re-evaluate your business practices. In my opinion, the way to do this is to price the basic three steps at your expected profit margin, base you prices on that figure and upsell everything else NEEDED on the job site. If it needs rotary scrubbing, suggest it and price it extra. Deodorization, scotchgard, urine treatments, etc. are all extra.

This whole subject comes around every couple of years, we beat it to death.

How do you reconcile this post with...

Do you always pay for car detailing even when a car wash will do?

I think joey was right

If you are upselling rotary scrubbing when it's "needed" then aren't you upselling your level of "clean"?

Just curious. That's something I've questioned myself about. As of right now I include it when it's needed, which is rarely.

I've recently switched to sf pricing and at the same time made the switch to packages. I have three packages with the only differences being how much furniture is moved and whether or not protector is applied.

Intead of confusing the customer you have decided to confuse yourself.

If you're pricing via in-home estimates, then you price the need for scrubbing only when it's needed. If you're pricing over the phone then you go over the potential "options" when the sale is made.

The need to scrub is certainly encountered on every job. So you make it a upsale option.

The more you post on this the more it sounds like package pricing to me. But I AM just an ignorant panhandle redneck. Not a sophisticated Alabama Capitol City suburb redneck.

 

[hogjowl]

I don't know how you could be confused, or why you've spent so much time thinking about it.

At the present time, I don't package price. I am discussing MIKEY'S questions about it. Follow me so far?

What I DO, is price by in-home estimate. So, I see the job and price accordingly. However, to run a low end company, you simply can't afford in-home estimates. So, my advice to Mikey is based upon that fact.

You simply have to stop looking at past posts trying to come up with some zinger and focus on keeping up with the current conversation.

 

[Rex Tyus]

I am not looking for a zinger. You can call it upsell or anything you want but if you offer a "higher level" service in addition to your "basic" service and you charge a different price you are offering a friggin package. Like it or not. If you offer deodorizer and or protectant and you charge more for applying it it is a friggin package. But if it makes you feel more simplistic to not call it a package, call it anything you want to. Just don't be hipocritical and critisize something you are doing. With me so far? I have spent time thinking about this because frequently your post are while juvenille, they are clear and concise. This time you are all over the place as well as juvenile.

Just curious do you giggle everytime you type masterbation or circle jerk?

 

[Mikey P]

Marty


Do you inspect all your new customer's homes? Or just the ones who wont settle for a ball parker phone est?

 

[joey895]

I try to be a medium/high company. I give estimates over the phone and exact quote before I start the job. If somebody insists on me coming out just to give a price, I'll do it but I try real hard not to.

Going to sf and package pricing has helped me sell more protector but for some silly reasons. When I room priced I would just walk in take a quick look around and throw out a number(usually a lower number because I hardly ever charged extra for big rooms or walkin closets, halls,ect I also always thought people thought I was just making up a price). Since switching to sf I carry in my clip board, measure each room and write down the sizes, then add up the total sf, then while I've got the calculator out figure 3 prices and write them down on the quote sheet, then show the customer in writing the prices, tell them the difference and ask which they prefer. So far no one has gone with the highest price (which is good because it includes moving most all furniture and I do not like moving furniture) but quite a few are picking the middle price which includes protector and a little furniture moving. As it turns out that is exactly what I was hoping for. I've probably sold more protector in the last month than I did in the previous year and really without doing any "selling"

 

[XTREME1]

you can call me and get a 5 room quote without me ever seeing the place everytime. I have NEVER done an in home estimate. My prices are fixed. I may nail you with a PITA charge if I get pissed but it will be reasonable

 

[Bill Soukoreff]

This is a interesting idea and may be the future. I am noticing more and more up scale families that have a very expensive car and a very inexpensive car in the garage. The consumer of the next decade is going to be more complex. I would be interested to hear what Jim Pemberton says on this subject.

 

[hogjowl]

Jeez Rex, you CAN'T keep up can you?

Mikey:
I go inspect every new customer. After I have cleaned for them once, then I usually feel comfortable estimating it over the phone, with (of course) the verbal agreement that the price may vary a bit once seen again.

I always price the job doing only prevac, prespray and HWE. If it needs scrubbing, I discuss that with the customer at the time of the job. If they don't want it, then I don't do it. The visual difference between the dirty carpet and the cleaned carpet is so vast that they are satisfied either way.

 

[Steve Toburen]

I'm with Scott and (regretably) with Sutley on this one. Customers will TELL you they are willing to accept less than perfect visual appearance of the carpet to save money. BUT when the rubber hits the road during their "post-inspection" they alomost always forget the "saving money" part.

Steve

PS In my companies everyone got the same basic visual quality and the steps to acheive this appearance. No basic steps missed. Too complicated otherwise.

 

[Curtis Pennington]

2-companys doing the same thing IMHO is a waste. Just keep promoting waht you got the only I could say is you narrow that phone shopper down...lol..... Im going to have 2 different companys but the new will be for water/fire/mold restoration.

 

[Scott]

2-companys doing the same thing IMHO is a waste. Just keep promoting waht you got the only I could say is you narrow that phone shopper down...lol..... Im going to have 2 different companys but the new will be for water/fire/mold restoration.

Curtis has it right, IMHO.

Going from a restoration company to a cleaning company is a fairly easy connection for the customer/prospect to make. But going from a cleaning company to a restoration company is a big leap and confusing to the customer/prospect. I've surveyed enough customers over the years to know it can be done but if one is looking to be a player in the restoration game having a separate division/company/name for each is a worthwhile endeavor.

Insurance companies don't generally view companies with the name "cleaning" as restoration companies. If ins. companies are the primary target market it would behoove the cleaning business owner to seriously explore running at least a separate division with a restoration-related name.

As for 2 cleaning companies, it would bother me personally that the standard of clean in one of my companies was higher than the other. It goes against my internal ethics and I would most likely pull my hair out trying to make the cheapo company of higher quality thus defeating the purpose of the 2nd company.

I know better than to say it can't be done because I've heard about some successful companies pulling it off. Just saying it wouldn't work for me.

Scott

 

[Jay D]

Dalworth.com has a nice website Xplaining there package pricing system. They have different cleaning for the masses but are set up the sell the middle pkg first. As high end as you are now with your current clients it will be hard to shift your current company to the new mindset. And it will be hard for you to do a lesser cleaning if only in your eyes. You will have to be off the truck doing the manager thing and constantly changing hats for the second company you want to start. You might be better to set up the other company as a separate recommended subcontractor (for the value minded) and get a "Referral fee" from it. But you will need a capable business owner/tech to run said co. Just putting out some ideas.

 

[Jim Pemberton]

Great thread and insightful comments from all.

From my experience with the cleaners that I've known to have tried these ideas, here are some of the issues with which you need to be prepared to face:

1. Its very difficult for someone with your sense of pride to have a company doing things differently than in which you believe they should be done. If you have any involvement in any of the jobs, you'll probably tend to do the extra steps anyway, and therefore you would be either cheating yourself, or you would be cheating your customers who pay the premium from your original company.

2. Can you afford to offer a lower cost service at your current overhead? The investment in this machine may be of low cost, but it still uses fuel, it will require maintenance and repair, and I think you'd have to pay the technicians the same wage for either company.

Also, remember that companies like Hagopian are not just profitable because they can make customers happy with "less steps" in cleaning. They are also run very efficiently. Will your small "one truck/trailer" company be able to run with the same efficiencies of scale as Hagopian?

None of this is meant to discourage you. Just do what you are doing now: Get advice from the bright people who've posted thus far, and also take a long look in the mirror and convince yourself that you could handle a system where you sold "less steps" for "less money".

 

[Contemporary Carpet Clean]

Mikey,

I would not offer a lower priced alternate way to clean EXISTING customers. What will happen is the custy will ask "well I was never informed about a lower priced cleaning method." They might think that they got taken advantage of. You may lose money by some of your existing custys downgrading thier normal "full shot" for cleanings.

I would drop the pre/post scrub on middle of the road cleanings. I would even drop the pre vac step as well. This business for the middle class to lower class is based on what YOU CAN SEE. Take an apartment complex for instance. The property mgr or rental agent could give 2 shits if you pre/post scrubed, pre vac, post pad ect. He/she is only interested in price and did all the stains/spots come out. I could get out all the dirt and spent all day on 1 apt., but if it still has eye sore spots...the carpet is gonna get shit canned.

We do not pre vac, and we get 32 to 35 cents to prespray and rinse. People hardly ask about vaccuming. If they do I say when did you vaccum last. They say a couple days ago. Which, visually is fine. Vaccum the crap out of a new carpet.....then half way through the house go out and empty your external filter. The thing will be half to 3/4 full if you have good vacuum.

Mikey I have toyed with the idea of owning/buying out another carpet cleaning biz and run it under a different name. I would like to see what happens. You could always combine them. Make the custys from the old company get used to you...then change the name to your other biz in a few years. At that point people will not care what its called, they will know that they get the cleanest carpet job in town.

 

[renegade_cowboy]

Usually the easiest anwser is the right one. Just do better at the company you have and not waste time and money of a side project because you get side tracked. To be honest you should of researched your area better when you went into business years ago to come up with the best long term solution.

I dont think I have ever heard what you want out of a company.

A. do you want to be a O/O (clean everyday) for life and sell when you are unable to clean carpets (maybe have enough to retire)

B. Do you want a multi-truck operation that you can run till you die. One that is a turn key operation. (where you can retire easily)

C. ??? something else that is in your mind.

 

[steve r]

lets see if my post on this gets lossed today.

it seems to me some here are making things more difficult than it has to be.heres what i do.

i have room prices up to a certain sq ft. from there the price goes up but the original price will clean most rooms.
in other words if i have to prevac its extra prescrub extra protector extra stains extra.and with prescrubbing if it needs it it needs it otherwise i wont touch it.ill give it free before ill do it half assed.

i also charge extra for moving furniture.

i explain this to some customers on the phone not all.and my most usual response is that sounds fair,i hear that often.if they call and want to book it i just book it and deal with it when i get there.but with most the furniture is cleared out its prevacced and im in and out.thats what they want so i give them that.

the more upscale want me to do everything so i charge for the work i do.i price the job depending on the work load so every job is different after the room price.i might just add an extra $50 for some stains and moving a couple pieces of furniture or if the job is big enough ill throw it in it just depends.
this isnt rocket science ya know.

not as good as my original post but you get the point.

oh yeah then theres apartment prices thats a whole other thing but still being done with the same truck and same level of clean as room prices.i can do a couple apartments and then go do a 5000 sq ft house for the rest of the day.

 

[dallasdj]

I'm starting to run into the same problem, lots of custy's in every price range. I just simply accommodate all of them for now.

I also added a service of junk hauling that seems to be working really well...no training like carpet cleaning, you can put ALMOST anyone in these trucks, yet the money is pretty much the same...$300-$1000 per day.

 

[Able 1]

Dallas,
do you advertize junk hauling with your carpet cleaning advertizing?

Just seems like a wierd mix, but it sounds like it's working $300.00-1000.00 a day thats nice!

 

[Greenie]

When you were a Miller hack, you could go in on a $49 ticket and turn it into $249....and...they would call back, so all things are possible.
Just lay out the Menu Pricing by room/sq.ft. and let them select how much scrubbing and deo. they want to pay for, the $99 ad could possibly work wonders in your market, then you just might grow them to the big truck experience, in essence your value truck is jsut a farm for the better customers (who don't know they actually want better yet).

 

[John Buxton]

ask Craig Jasper. He had 2 companies, one high one low end.

I used to work for a fortune 500 OTC drug company (Schering-Plough) They made Tinactin, Dr. Scholl, Aftate. All were the same product but priced and marketed differently.

 

[Scott]

ask Craig Jasper. He had 2 companies, one high one low end.

I used to work for a fortune 500 OTC drug company (Schering-Plough) They made Tinactin, Dr. Scholl, Aftate. All were the same product but priced and marketed differently.

Buck - the margins are just a tad higher in pills vs cc. Not only that pills are regulated by the FDA and don't represent a true free market economy that we cleaners have to abide by. Lastly, the pills are the same quality no matter if they're name brand or generic. As you yourself stated, they're the "same product but priced and marketed differently".

In Mike's scenarios the quality of the 2 cleaning companies wouldn't be the same.

Not a fair comparison.

Scott

 

[Mikey P]

You all have my head spinning.

 

[hogjowl]

As the WORLD turns ...

 

[tmdry]

I try to be a medium/high company. I give estimates over the phone and exact quote before I start the job. If somebody insists on me coming out just to give a price, I'll do it but I try real hard not to.

Going to sf and package pricing has helped me sell more protector but for some silly reasons. When I room priced I would just walk in take a quick look around and throw out a number(usually a lower number because I hardly ever charged extra for big rooms or walkin closets, halls,ect I also always thought people thought I was just making up a price). Since switching to sf I carry in my clip board, measure each room and write down the sizes, then add up the total sf, then while I've got the calculator out figure 3 prices and write them down on the quote sheet, then show the customer in writing the prices, tell them the difference and ask which they prefer. So far no one has gone with the highest price (which is good because it includes moving most all furniture and I do not like moving furniture) but quite a few are picking the middle price which includes protector and a little furniture moving. As it turns out that is exactly what I was hoping for. I've probably sold more protector in the last month than I did in the previous year and really without doing any "selling"

Just wondering what is your cost sq footage wise on your second/middle package? Im assuming it's between .30-.40 or more...let's say you only had 2 prices written down on your sheet, one would be the .30-.40 price(in this case w/out protector), and the second would be the higher one(protector, extras) that your customers dont usually go with, now you're still making profit, and you didn't have to spend a dime in protector...you could've also up sell them on the protector on that higher price.

I believe in protector for the client benefits, etc...but i also see that we cc can make even more $ by not even having to always use protector(your case as u explained) and still getting a good mid-high price for our jobs.

Im just guestimating on what your middle package sq ft price is.

you follow me?

 

[tmdry]

you can call me and get a 5 room quote without me ever seeing the place everytime. I have NEVER done an in home estimate. My prices are fixed. I may nail you with a PITA charge if I get pissed but it will be reasonable

How is your closing ratio in giving what the price shoppers want over the phone?

No disrespect meant either.

Out of curiosity, since i ONLY do in home consultation quotes for carpet cleaning and we close just about every lead/appointment that way. Most of the time it doesn't have to do with the "quote nor the price", it's what they see in our company that tells them in their little head, than "hey, this is who i should go with".

I don't mind the gas as long as it's no more than 20 miles from the office, if it's more than that, than we just take the company sedan, and schedule the appointment as early as possible.

I only give the patels what they want on the phone, and that is usually high in the .50s and up depending on what they tell me, but that is only if they will not let us go to their property, obviously they are looking for price over quality and see every carpet cleaner alike.

 

[tmdry]

In regards to getting more money per hour per job.

I've noticed that if i look back to my previous jobs that i've done, say the last 2 weeks. Usually what i do is, determine what time I was at the appointment and what time i left with the transmission on DRIVE. To me that's when the clock stops. I've started noticing that i was not always making $100 a hour, some jobs were as low as $70/hour, and other jobs over $200/hour, depending on the size small/large/stains/etc.

What i started doing now, is timing myself with my phone and watch on how long it takes me to clean 500, 700, 1000, 1200 sq ft homes, etc. Also i've timed myself how long it takes to unpack than pack everything up, also talking, smooching, persuading, listening to clients can take several minutes. Reason for this was, we all want to make more money, so why not keep track of how to not waste time at each job. By concluding this "experiement" I was able to track down where i was wasting most of my time in, and where i could improvise so i could always be at exactly or almost exactly $100/hour or more.

I don't believe i am rushing jobs, i do infact want our clients to have the best cleaning possible, but the more i hear the $100/hour payroll for us ccers, the more i think about what im actually doing.

Time is money, i try not to waste it.

That is the reason i decided to go into carpet cleaning and not work for corporate america.

 

[Moser Bros.]

.45 cents for pre-scrub with Cimex and rinse with ti wand

.30 cent vacant for property managers, 1/3 of my work.

.25 cent for commercial (prescub, rinse with quick post pad with encap) and .10 to .15 cents for encap maintenance

I like my clients, but instead of lowering the quality of my work, I'm targeting commercial accounts. Just got a $830 commercial job with a $240 maintenance every 3 months and that won't take more that an hour and a half with encap.

I can hire employees and still make more per hour with the commercial accounts ( no customer to chat with, no small spaces to clean, no raking, permanent stain, no problem and faster wanding) and leave my repeat residential clients to myself, they deserve the best cleaning, I can't trust to an employee, but you can teach anyone to encap late at night and no one will be there to see what they look like.

 

[Brian R]

Bringing this thread back.

The way I do it is...

I have one price for Cleaning...get it clean...is there cleaner than clean?
If the carpet is not that dirty or there is a lot of square feet, I offer a discount per square foot to where I think it is fair.
If it's dirty, I stick to my prices.
On the discounted carpets I always tell them that "not everyone gets this price so if you refer me to anyone, don't tell them what you paid."
I know they may or may not tell but I depend on the "I don't want to ruin the price I got for next time if I tell someone" rule.

With that said, I have been thinking about starting another company for the "low end" stuff I don't want to do. There is alot of it.
The Idea is, it will appeal to the dirt bags who don't care or want my image because of the high price they expect. They want that bargain basement deal. Rental moveouts, illegals, etc.

I will contract out 50/50 to carpet cleaners I know who operate out of unmarked station wagaons or whatever. They will still get it clean but might be smoking a cig or saggin there pants or whatever all the while not reflecting on my "real" business which I will be doing myself in my spiffy, marked vehicle wearing my uniform and all that.

I think it will work, advertise in the penny saver or whatever.
There are enough hacks in the area who need work...all I have to do is advertise for their dumb asses.

 

[Greenie]

Bringing this thread back.

I think it will work, advertise in the penny saver or whatever.
There are enough hacks in the area who need work...all I have to do is advertise for their dumb asses.

Ya know, I think I might just agree with you, too many try and run a business year after year, most of them should just be happy subing from you, they'd probably do better.