Who's the most expensive

[GeneMiller]

I don't mean on this board but in your area. I'm pretty high but Dry Concepts charges almost twice what I do and they bonnet clean. he has a large company and runs multiple trucks covering 3 counties. he also has a in house rug plant. his operation is impressive.

what do you think he does and says that sets him apart ?

http://www.dryconcepts.com


gene

 

[Desk Jockey]

We charge .35 and are near the top here, however there is an owner that does OP guy that is charging .50.

He is small on man band and not real busy but he gets the .50 or so I've heard.

 

[Guest]

and I here he is real basic

 

[Desk Jockey]

Not that guy. This guys must be a viking or something to get .50 a square. :wink:

 

[sweendogg]

What i think is fricken hilarious is that the dry concepts people... bonnet clean in home but do full immersion rug wasing.. IFFFF that is their plant.

 

[Royal Man]

Cleaning dry in-home gives them a more unique marketing position.

Cut down on the competition.

They also are smart enough to set up maintenance program cleaning.

 

[Jim Nelson]

n

 

[GeneMiller]

it is their plant. i haven't personally seen it but my supplier told me about it. he said it is very impressive.

gene

 

[The Great Oz]

We used to be the most expensive, but there are a few guys in the area that make sure they stay a penny or two higher.

what do you think he does and says that sets him apart ?

Probably mostly just a desire to grow and build a sustaining business. One big difference from guys that zigzag through diversifications to try and find a niche is their decision to spend the money to join the association with the most successful membership, then spend the money go to their events and locate and network with the people that could help flatten the learning curve.

The Dry Concepts guys built their own water recycling system for the rug washing division. Is water really expensive there, or just really polluted with minerals?

 

[joeynbgky]

Probably Hicks they charge .70 cents a sq foot and a buck a sq foot for wool. I think thats there price. But they are good. If I needed my grannies carpet cleaned and they were close id pay the premium.

 

[daniel@procarpet]

I don't know but I see some people on this board desperately need to raise their price or move to an area that will support a higher price. I don't see how a professional carpet cleaner can not have atleast a hundred dollar minimum truckmount or not.

 

[-JB-]

 

[tmdry]

it is their plant. i haven't personally seen it but my supplier told me about it. he said it is very impressive.

gene

I was fortunate enough to meet the owner Mike, and got a grand tour of his facility. They have roughly 16 vans, and clean carpets with the Ultra Dry system by Paul Lucas, It's not OP or Encap. Their rug plant facility is 5 stars, and every single thing at his facility is organized to the T. They also have a room for the CSR girls.

He does owns Truckmounts and Portables.

If you do rug cleaning and don't have a pit or don't do rug repairs I'd hook up w/ him for at least that. You guys are close to one another.

 

[hogjowl]

I really don't know what is being charged by my competition. I used to keep up with it, but it really doesn't matter to me anymore. I would imagine that I am somewhere at the top. It's really pretty easy to be on top, price wise, when you've been in business for over 20 years, provide excellent service, everybody in town knows you, and you work off referrals.

And, being a one horse business makes it possible too.

If I ever grow up, I'm gonna have to be more price aware.

But right now I have a bad case of Werner disease.

 

[Ryan]

My highest competior gets .52 psf.

 

[mirf]

what does the price per sq. ft buy you.

wall to wall move everything

wall to wall - furniture

traffic patterns only

pre vacuum

stain removal urine problem

goal 100 .00 per hour maybe charge that way :shock: :shock:

 

[Jose Smith]

I always thought I was one of the highest priced in my area. There were two guys that were extremely expensive, but they are gone.

However, I recently found out that ZeroRes is a little higher than I am for carpet. I am probably the most for upholstery and drapes.

I am not nearly as expensive as many so-called "rug cleaners" (really carpet cleaners in disguise) claim to be. The funny thing is they all sub the rugs out, either to me or larger operations in Los Angeles.

Jose Smith

 

[Brian R]

If you are going to charge a high price, you should be worth it. You may get a customer once but not again if you do a crap job.

If you make 50 cents and spend 4 hours in house
You can make 30 cents and spend 2 hours and do the same great job without all the bells and whistles.

You've just made more per hour with the 30 cents method.

But you can do less jobs with the 50 cents method to make the same or close to the same money.

You will attract less customers with the 50 cents but they will probably be higher quality customers.

Point is, you can afford to do less jobs with higher prices but at the end of the day...it's how much you make...at the end of the day.

I know a guy who gets 65 cents for carpet cleaning. but he takes 3 days to do the work. Pre-inspect one day, clean the next, pick up air movers etc on the third...I'm not sure it's worth it.

With all that said..I've raised my prices because of the SFS class and have added Value to my services ...along with up-sales.
Not so much that my guys will have to spend too many hours to justify it...but enough to make us very happy at the end of the day.

 

[bonesheal]

I base my prices on $100/hr--.22/foot for 2-step and .35/foot for 4-step cleaning. I make a little less per hour for 4-step but it gives me more time to take responsibility for stains. I don't know where this positions me locally, but I think it's somewhere in the middle.

 

[Ron Werner]

there are 2 LM cleaners here in Victoria area that charge as much or more than I do.
One uses bonnet/OP, not sure which, but he's about 65/sf last I heard. Long established busn.
Another company is about the same but uses HOST. They still use a lot of JP's marketing, the free recorded message, etc,. Must be doing something right, OR they are hurting, cause they took out 4, FOUR full page ads in the YPg's plus have a 1/8pg and a 1/16 page ad. That's a LOT of money to hang over your head each month!

 

[Chris A]

I have no idea.

 

[mikepo]

I guess these prices are for residential because we could never get that for commercial given commercial property managers are trained to bust us on price.

 

[Ron Werner]

Don't always get these prices.
Did a quote today, was supposed to be cleaning it, till they saw the price. I had given them my price via an email and they said "come on". All they said was there was a couple of flights of stairs, 4 bedrooms and a loft. Well, I measure it all up, 1011sf plus 13stairs in one flight and 14 in another, at 55/sf and $5/stair, that worked out to $691.05. They are also worried about dog and cat hair and getting it clean ie allergies because the new tenants have sensitivities.

Well, they choked, big time. They figured it would be $200-250. He just handed me my quote and told me he has other contacts.

I got thinking about it as I left. He has a doctor's title. Wonder what his response would have been if I would have asked what kind of Dr he was. Lets say he was an optician. So, how much for lazer eye surgery? Would you do it for half or a quarter of that if i gave you cash? Not.

For $200, a cleaner is going to walk in, not lay any protective blankets on the wood flooring, no corner guards, prespray and rinse, most likely with a typical wand which will leave a lot of hair in the carpet, be in and out within 90 min. They'll get what they pay for. The ones that will "pay for it" will be the new tenants; they are the ones that have to live in it.

Could I have cleaned it for $200? At 0.25/sf thats $252.75 PLUS the stairs, say $100 for the stairs, thats $350. Still more than they wanted. And at that price, all I would be doing is prespray/rinse, though I would do it more thoroughly.

Again, some jobs its better to walk. If they don't like the cleaning they get, they can hire me at my price once they figure out my price really isn't that high.

 

[daniel@procarpet]

Don't always get these prices.
Did a quote today, was supposed to be cleaning it, till they saw the price. I had given them my price via an email and they said "come on". All they said was there was a couple of flights of stairs, 4 bedrooms and a loft. Well, I measure it all up, 1011sf plus 13stairs in one flight and 14 in another, at 55/sf and $5/stair, that worked out to $691.05. They are also worried about dog and cat hair and getting it clean ie allergies because the new tenants have sensitivities.

Well, they choked, big time. They figured it would be $200-250. He just handed me my quote and told me he has other contacts.

I got thinking about it as I left. He has a doctor's title. Wonder what his response would have been if I would have asked what kind of Dr he was. Lets say he was an optician. So, how much for lazer eye surgery? Would you do it for half or a quarter of that if i gave you cash? Not.

For $200, a cleaner is going to walk in, not lay any protective blankets on the wood flooring, no corner guards, prespray and rinse, most likely with a typical wand which will leave a lot of hair in the carpet, be in and out within 90 min. They'll get what they pay for. The ones that will "pay for it" will be the new tenants; they are the ones that have to live in it.

Could I have cleaned it for $200? At 0.25/sf thats $252.75 PLUS the stairs, say $100 for the stairs, thats $350. Still more than they wanted. And at that price, all I would be doing is prespray/rinse, though I would do it more thoroughly.

Again, some jobs its better to walk. If they don't like the cleaning they get, they can hire me at my price once they figure out my price really isn't that high.

I would have done the job for 300 and it would be done right.

 

[Ron Werner]

Wish I could take the time I do for $300, I'd be a lot busier
Ive dropped my price many times in the past just to get work. I could find a use for $300. I'd know the job was halfdone. Ever try to get a hair off wet carpet? It doesn't.

 

[Ron Werner]

I let it go, and emailed her saying I was sorry it didn't work out, and I researched and sent her a possible fix to her laminate problem.

I remember hearing Joe Polish talk about how one would know when you had the right price. He said you will get some people saying "it is quite a fair price",
some saying "is that all?",
and some saying, "its that much!"
and for some it will be out of their budget but they know how they want it cleaned and are willing to pay the price or adjust what is done to bring it into their budget.

Steve Marsh told me that you set your price, and you stick by your price. IF you drop it you are telling the custy that you were trying to gouge them. Let them use another cleaner, or refer them to a good budget cleaner, if they are happy with that, good. If not, they will call you and will accept your price because now they've learned you do get what you pay for.

BTW, its not easy to do when I'm hungry, but I know there are other jobs out there and the other cleaner probably needed a job. I was able to spend time with my daughter .

 

[Desk Jockey]

In this case it didn't sound like you're selling what she was looking for, they want cheap, they don't see a value in a thorough job, they see carpet cleaners as a commodity and perceive us all as the same.

She would have been a pain to deal with because she would have felt you over charged her no matter how well you cleaned.

I think you can offer a discount as long as you have a reason, Winter Special, Cash, Quick pay without looking like you can arbitrarily adjust your price.

We would have been around $500.00 and we would have passed it on to some one in her price range.

 

[daniel@procarpet]

Wish I could take the time I do for $300, I'd be a lot busier
Ive dropped my price many times in the past just to get work. I could find a use for $300. I'd know the job was halfdone. Ever try to get a hair off wet carpet? It doesn't.

If you are turning down jobs becasue you are busy is one thing. If you take the time to do an estimate and go that far you owe it to yourself to make something off the job. Even if you spent two hours vacuuming and tabing furniture, you would have only had to run your machine for 1.5-2 hours if that so that job could be done in 4 hours and I could have done it in 3. A hack would have done it in 1 hour. Your costs would be low except for your time. I would have worked out a deal with the homeowner. I have been on jobs like that where the total for the whole house was too much so I offered to clean just the downstairs or upstairs etc and come back later to do the rest. I think you did the right thing if you want to keep your prices where they are, but I also think you should give the customer options. If they prevac and don't want furnture moved they deserve a discount. There are people that will pay you for the job you do, but there are also people that want a good job without all the bells and whistles. If I was loaded I would gladly pay you once per year. You have a unique business, but if I were you I would put together some cleaning packages and let the customer decide which package they want.

One other option would be for you to contact a local budget cleaner and sub jobs out. You can still make some money and know the customer got a crap job so they will likely call you back next time.

I don't think the lady was looking for a cheap job. She just wanted a decent cleaning at a fair price.

 

[Ron Werner]

I agree with you for the most part Daniel, but this was a vacant new house, they were complaining about spots/damage left by previous tenants, concerned about removal of anything pet related from the previous tenants. IMO they were looking for a complete job, "clean"; they gave no indication that they wanted a "make it look clean" clean.

I was going to refer him to some budget cleaners in the area but he dismissed me and said he had other contacts. This just confirms to me that my price is about where it should be. Too high for them, but I have plenty of repeat clients that are happy to pay my price. If this was 10 yrs ago, I would have cleaned it for 250-300 no prob and spent 4hrs doing the job.

 

[daniel@procarpet]

I agree with you for the most part Daniel, but this was a vacant new house, they were complaining about spots/damage left by previous tenants, concerned about removal of anything pet related from the previous tenants. IMO they were looking for a complete job, "clean"; they gave no indication that they wanted a "make it look clean" clean.

I was going to refer him to some budget cleaners in the area but he dismissed me and said he had other contacts. This just confirms to me that my price is about where it should be. Too high for them, but I have plenty of repeat clients that are happy to pay my price. If this was 10 yrs ago, I would have cleaned it for 250-300 no prob and spent 4hrs doing the job.

It was EMPTY! Ron you are a nice guy but you need to come back to reality. You wanted 650 to clean an average size empty home? Empties are the best thing about this business. Man I would have knocked it out for 250 not including specialty spotting and told them to run that Dyson before I arrived. You could have knocked that job out in two hours, put 300 in your pocket, and been eating steak with a coupe big face hundreds left in your pocket. That could be one of your cleaning packages (Empty house discount and extra discount if they vacuum). I have four like that tomorrow. I will work from 8-4 for 1000. I love empties that are cleaned and vacuumed, and I can get a decent price.

Every customer that purchases a new home has concerns about the last people that lived there. That is when you sell them deodorizer and protector. You could have easily got 500 for 2-3 hours work, but if you are established then don't discount your premium cleaning. You could still implement discounts for not moving furniture or vacuuming. Why wouldn't you want to save time and still make good money. And if you are concerned about a wet hair being left in the carpet, tell them to do a post vacuum the next day. Problem solved.