I understand just what you are saying Rex. I feel just the way you do about this issue.
I laugh at myself for this, but over the past few years I allowed myself to buy into the ICS (and now this board is becoming this way too) pricing and production BS. In the back of my mind it always nagged at me, and intuitively I knew better, but non-the-less, I let it happen. Times were good, and I was getting 35 cents a sf to clean. In Alabama that's an amazing price; however, at that price my market was severly limited. Who cares? It was just me, and if I only did one job a day, and none on a day or so a week, it was no big deal. When people asked me why I was so high I just smugly said because I'm worth it. Arrogant as hell and didn't care. Advertising? Who needs to advertise? Hell, if I advertised I might not be able to take a nap in the middle of the day ... funny, funny, laugh, laugh.
Well, I'm paying for that now. I'm working my customer list like never before and offering special deals. The thing I have already noticed is my customers really APPRECIATE me doing something special for them. Have I had to adjust things so that I can still make my hourly target rate at my special prices? YOU BET! Nothing is free. You have to adjust in one way or another. I suspect that my adjustments are the same one's you have made, and I don't have one bit of a problem with them, as I suspect neither do you.
High end cleaners are going to be hurting in this economy. "Serve the masses; live with the classes" is something I have always heard, but it is finally making some sense to me.