How was your April?

[Brian R]

I was about dead even with March...hmmmm...must be doing something wrong.
I'll work harder for May.

How was your April?

 

[tim]

Best April ever, up 35 percent! Hope it keeps up

 

[Terry]

best april ever mainly due to the bump from the flooding issues.


Every month this year so far is up on last year.

May is projecting very well also, it's usually my best month.

Terry

 

[Brian R]

I'm actually 65.7% up from last April so I guess that's not too bad.
I'm 42.7% up for the whole year compared to last year.

This is real money income...haven't checked the bottom line yet. lol


Ok...checked it....up 154% in Net Income. :shock:

This is Quickbooks talking...not me.

No where near where I want to be but I am gaining momentum.

 

[Mike Draper]

up 100% over April 09. April up 120% over March this year, which is no surprise. winters are really hard on us cleaners in my valley.

 

[Carpet Cleaning Fool]

I did about the same volume as March but with MUCH higher over head.

The up side is I didn't field a single carpet cleaning call all month. :-)

The down side is I'm not sure which causes more hypertension. Dealing with price shoppers on the phone all month long or paying big bucks for someone else to answer the line.

OUCHIE CHIHUAHUA

 

[Brian R]

No need to pay big bucks

 

[Carpet Cleaning Fool]

Seems like everyone's getting top dollar for their service but me. It feels like I worked the entire month for free.

This month I've been beat down, ripped off, under paid and negative reviewed. Neg review for not removing 6 kool aid stains, 3 orange stains and 2 giant furniture stains the size of basket balls on white carpet in a 3200 s/f two story house plus clean 3 rooms of carpet for $99 special.

Also, added a CPA to payroll and cut a big fat ugly check to Obama. My total communications bill normally runs bout $300 month but now will be closer to $850-$1000. Oh ya, and gramma died too.

Other than that it was a fantastic month!

I must be doing something wrong like not charging enough foe my service. :-(

 

[Mike Draper]

I just raised prices. It's hard to do. But you deserve it.

 

[Curtis Pennington]

Busy, spring break is finally over...thats when we kill it.

 

[Desk Jockey]

Busy, busy, busy.......but the largest portion of it was restoration and isn't billable yet, so my April was lame on paper.

 

[Brian R]

Seems like everyone's getting top dollar for their service but me. It feels like I worked the entire month for free.


I must be doing something wrong like not charging enough foe my service. :-(

George, the idea is to at the very least make $100.00 per hour every hour. Are you getting at least that?
Square footage price or room price is important but what you make at the end of the day and month is what really matters. Some clean better and quicker than others.

If you're not making $100.00 per hour you should "raise your prices". That's a very broad term. It also means create ad ons to bump up your hourly rate. Sell more Scotchgard first if you're not already. Ad Tile cleaning if you don't do it already.
If you're just cleaning too slow, maybe step that up a notch without sacrificing quality.
It's not just saying "well I'm raising my prices from 25 cents to 30" but that can be part of it.
Raising your prices should involve stepping up your image or even changing it.
It also means, market to your past customers because you make more money off of them anyway. Spend a slow day on the phones letting them know that you are there if they need anything.
Hope this helps.
There's plenty more involved.

If you're working all day everyday and not making money...yes, you are doing something or some things wrong.

 

[Royal Man]

Being busy and broke will kill your business. Too many cleaner unfortunatly operate this way.


If your getting price shoppers. The solution is not necessarily to raise your prices to fix the problem.

The problem is likely that you are using marketing that is drawing in price shoppers.

Sure raise your prices if you want. But, more importantly to get less price shoppers calling in.

Change your marketing!!!

A good approach is to switch over from using traditional cold marketing to warm marketing methods.

You'll have clients calling that love your company before their first contact, higher tickets and more referrals.


I very rarely get clients asking about price. Except a few asking more of a ballpark. So, that way they know what to expect. (Not to shop price.)

 

[Carpet Cleaning Fool]

thanks Brian!

think i need to get away from phone pricing and instruct the girls to schedule in home proposals only.

Is that how you do it? or, do the girls phone quote your services?

 

[Brian R]

It's all about ballpark figures and explaining them. I always use the common sense approach.
Try to get the pre inspections if you can first.
I will talk more later...I gotta leave right now. Sorry.

 

[Derek]

only 4 jobs in March.

26 jobs in April. was a great month.

10 jobs set for May so far.

 

[rhyde]

april was alright up a little nothing impressive this moth (today ) started off very good

 

[Warren Wallace]

Great april job average was 433.00 march came in at 466.00 but less work..

 

[ACE]

My Best moNth so far! I hOpe to brEak a bUck Fity And keeP hAlf This yeaR!

i’M worKing my rAnsOm foNt. It’S nOt as gOod as HaRpErs yEt.

 

[BLewis]

April seemed really slow. However, we ended up being up 97.9% from last year. For the year so far we are up 126.6%. Just as a reminder we are comparing to figures 7 months into business for the first year and commercial has boosted this considerably. For the year we also hit our marketing effort in March this year but the ROI isn't what I was hoping for so far. Since I'm fairly new into the game seems last years April was slow and it really didn't kick in until the rains subsided in May. Is this your experience as well?