Are you the most expensive cleaner in your town?

[Mikey P]

If so, how long did it take you to get there?

Do you have a YP ad?

How do you deal with price shoppers?


If not, do you want to be?

What will it take to get you there?

Are you willing to give up your "Low rent" clients?

 

[Ron Lippold]

yes

I am the most expensive, I don't price over the phone, estimates only.
My min is 125 job average over 300. I love it. don't want to give price any more because I offend people. But OMG what a fantastic day.

 

[danpauselius]

In my town, yes. But I don't know about the entire area. Mike Hogan is on the other side of the river from me and I think he may be really close in price. But they do good work, I have seen it.

Anyway, overall, I'd say yes.

How did we get there? We just started charging more, LOL. I went to SFS, came back and raised our prices ... ALOT. I still don't get Mikey P. money though. We make most of our money in restoration now so it doesn't bother me ... too much.

 

[XTREME1]

I am one of the cheapest, if not the cheapest......I am the most through cleaner in the area and am looking at adding a truck next spring. I am proud of my position and work hard. My goal is to be busy as hell build a client base and then start to raise prices a little. I have a large coverage area and starting to get as much business as I can handle, I think that is because of my philosophy of exceptional service and prices...We will see

You guys will laugh if I told you(again) what I do
1. Pile lift(all the time everytime)
2. Spot and stain treat(water claw later if needed)
3. Prespray and rake
4. Rotovac steam clean then wand entire place
5. check Ph groom post innspection and groom if needed

 

[danpauselius]

I'm a lazy bastard. If someone is going to make me work ... I'm gonna get paid good, LOL.

 

[Derek]

If not, do you want to be?

What will it take to get you there?

Are you willing to give up your "Low rent" clients?

no. there is a fella in town i know of who i think is and kudos to him. he works a partial week and spends time with the fam...nice.

i hope to be someday so i can do the same thing. i won't make the most, but will charge the most, so i can have more time with the fam, and for more important work.

thanx --- Derek.

 

[floorguy]

ok that does it dan...you have made me laugh more tonight then i have in a while.....maybe cuz my yr has been shitty.....


anyway, I have noooo idea if i am the most expensive...i know the last few mths losing accts youd think that....or my work is shit...but i knowo better.....i just dont use enough lube/snake oil to win over the custys i guess...


went to an acct i lost about 6 mths ago...they just stripped and waxed itlike 1 or 2 mths ago...looks like they used a paint brush to put it on...streaks everywhere...very little pop to the shine and well just looked shitty..stupid franchise that had a salesman sale the job and different franchises do the work at different stores.....The thing that pisses me off is corporate didnt even ask if i wanted to do all them...

ok just part of my issues latly

 

[vincent]

Commercial work yes, residential no.

I give up on the low ballers and price shoppers.\

It has taken me 5 yrs on the commercial side. Since improving my methods over the last 2 yrs, I am becoming more pricey even to my regular customers.

Yes I run 2 books, just the 2 inch in column ads though. Next year I'm going with just the free ad.

I might ad though, a cleaner who I work with alot, is working on a commercial deal worth almost 2 million sq.ft. He met the guy in his BNI group.

 

[Guest]

It's not important that you are the most expensive. I believe you should charge what you are worth but more important is how profitable are you.

Dave

 

[joey895]

I have no idea. I've never checked any other cleaners prices. The only reason I know I'm not the cheapest is because of the coupons I see around.

 

[danpauselius]

I might be the fattest.

Do I win anything for that?

 

[XTREME1]

I am 6'3" 280lbs. Only you can tell if your the fattest LOL

 

[Fon Johnson]

I really don't know just exactly where we stand compared to others, but I'm sure not the cheapest. I recently bid a job where I found out that we were $1,600 higher than who they awarded it to. I bid what I did because they said they were interested in quality and not lowest price. They called the other company in to do the job. They worked for 2 hours until someone came in to check on the job, and they kicked them out. Seems the carpet looked worse than before cleaning.. I offered to reasess their needs and see what we could do to save money.. we have not met yet. Ya get what ya pay for!

I just ran into another similar situation. It was a job we subbed a while back. This time we were called direct. My price was too high (about $150 more than the other company), however they commented on how much better we were than the other company.. I did get it worked out to hit what I need per hour, but it just kills me how people don't want to pay, but they expect the sun and the moon.. :roll:

 

[The Preacher]

i just let the customer pay what they think is fair, and if they screw me i show up to eat at their house for a few days with my wife and kids in tow!!!


PS i figure it by the hour and estimate my time to hit my cost + profit of 40-60%. this ain't rockit science ya no!!!

 

[XTREME1]

JB from down below, my retirement is allset and I just turned 38 last week. I own all of my equipment and my wife is a Brain Injury Specialist. We are doing good for now, I will make more this year than I did last when I left my job. The plan is to ad a van down on Cape Cod this coming spring and start raising prices. I work alone most of the week(helper on Thurs and Friday) and work weekends when I have to(saturday is by far my busiest day). I have been very lucky in life to afford me the oppurtunity to build and grow this business without having the financial constraints that some have. My lean times weren't lean.

 

[Dolly Llama]

Dough no and don't care.

Some jobs we turn $200+ per hour
Some we squeak by at a $100 pr hr

Honestly, I think Dave nailed it with this,

"more important is how profitable are you."

..L.T.A.

 

[Fon Johnson]

Forget square footage, forget "hourly" rates. Know your costs, and charge what percentage you need for profit! PSF does not mean much. What you put in your pocket is what counts. Then you factor in cost of living. Some need a lot of money to "live" in some places. Some need a little.

 

[steve r]

as far as i know no one carges morebut many are a lot less.one gets more for his apts i hear and i dont know his res. price.i have a $22.00 a mo. yp ad but thats all the adv. i do. its all referals now some lowballers from yp. i have a high profit margin. all labor.

 

[-JB-]

DR & FG nailed it.

Charge what your service is worth.

Charge enough to support you family, and thank your clients for the opportunity to support you family.

Manage your money with the respect and responsibility that it warrants!
Because if you don't you can charge 2 or 3x what you next closest priced competitor charges, and you will never have enough!

>>>It's funny how focused we as an industry are on "how much do you get a square?" But not on what's the best retirement plan, the most beneficial way to make a large purchase and so on and so on...<<<<



GC-

If you meet the above criteria, at .20, you are a better businessman than about 98% of the "cleaners" out there.
I mean that as a compliment, not a jab.

 

[Ken Snow]

Nope, not hardly~ just the largest by a long shot and I assume the most profitable which as was said earlier is what really matters.

Gross means almost nothing, net means almost everything.

 

[GRHeacock]

I tried to be the most expensive in my town.

For the money, I gave service that was well worth the money, and most customers saw it that way.

Any time I found out someone else was charging my prices- or higher, I would raise my prices to where they were still the highest.

Now, that said, I would do additional services like a dual system clean, even a triple system clean and nobody could match my results.

At any price.

One way to separate me from the chaff locally was something I came up with around 1996, I called "Turbo Steam Cleaning."

It was a hit with my customers, and the referrals would come in a steady stream.

And since nobody else had this system, they could not compete with it, so they had to go with lower prices.

Sure, some potential customers would go with the lower prices, I am not saying I got every referral, but I did get most of them- enough to retire on.

Gary

E-mail me if you want info on my "Turbo Steam System." No charge.

 

[Jose Smith]

I am much like Gary. I charge the highest in my area because, simply put, that is how I want to be known. I have an ego problem that makes me charge what many would think is outrageous.

I am very profitable. I am very happy with my business because I am grossing a lot, and netting a lot. Both are important to me.

Jose Smith

 

[Mikey P]

Finally the answer I wanted to hear.

 

[Rex Tyus]

you will also find many of the ( highest priced cleaners and guru's have wives with very good jobs)

That makes sense because successful people are usually attracted to successful people. :shock:

 

[Jose Smith]

My wife does not have an outside job. She stays home to take care of my kids, and more recently, has been keeping me company on my one or two jobs I do in a day.

Jose Smith

 

[John G]

On residential, I don't know who is the highest, I don't care, I know I make more per hour than most anyone, on commercial I am far and away the highest, but get the work anyways.

We are concerned with what WE make, could care less about the competition, it you want to call it that, my clients consistently call me, and that is what I can concerned with.

 

[Steve Toburen]

Yes Mike, we were by FAR the most expensive RESIDENTIAL cleaner in the area. I think it is important to make this residential distinction because we ran our commercial work on a totally different philosophy. We were happy to get in there and root and grovel around like pigs at a trough for commercial work IF we could make our profit figures. However, our residential pricing was sacrosanct and high end. (Commercial work and restoration gave us the financial backbone to be choosy with residential.)

If so, how long did it take you to get there? It isn't so much how long it took to "get there" as how long did it take me to see the light even BEFORE I started trying to GET THERE. Once we jumped on the "prestige cleaning" band wagon my guess was two years till we had converted the flock. (Or they had left in sticker shock. but very few did.)

Do you have a YP ad? Yes, we did Yellow pages but since we had a small market the ads were not expensive.

How do you deal with price shoppers? Actually as you raise your image and prices the word gets around and we seldom had issues. A good phone script that "converts" the "people-who-ask-about-price-because-they-don't-know-what-else-to-ask-about" is essential. And yes, e-mail me if anyone wants a copy of what we used.


If not, do you want to be? N/A

What will it take to get you there? N/A as I sold the company almost sixteen years ago and am semi-retired. (Even though Sioux says if you count my internet time I probably put in a full time week.)

Are you willing to give up your "Low rent" clients? Absolutely. "Pareto's Law" is so true when it comes to customers. 80% of your net profit will come from 20% of your clients. And the inverse is true. You will also encounter 80% of your problems from 20% of your clients. Guess what- much (but not all) of the time these people will be the low end customers.

Steve Toburen CR
Director of Training and internet gadfly
Jon-Don's Strategies for Success

PS Where do you come up with all these ideas for threads, Mike? this is a good one.

 

[Loren Egland]

It's no secret by now that we are the highest priced in our area, usually double the average.

My wife is my boss, answers phone, books jobs, pays bills, etc. She does not work an outside job. Our marketing cost almost nothing due to repeat and referral.

We don't have commercial or restoration work, so it all has to come from residential. No apartment buildings either.

It suits me. Average job the last 3 years is about $340. But we don't do as many as we used to. I like the slower pace and being debt free. Not getting any younger.

Others who charge less, likely do as well or better than we do, but do more running to get there.

Loren