Hey Grant I believe it was you a while back who wanted me to let you know how buisness was going when I raised my prices, well my old prices were 0.15 per square foot and 0.10 per square foot for over 1000 feet, I changed it to .25 per sq ft and 0.20 per sq ft for over 1000 sq ft(probably another raise will happen with time), buisness has stade about the same since the price change but I am not a very aggresive sales person I have very little advertizement most of my buissness is from word of mouth ( a few fliers)so I am just getting a job here and there I stay to busy with school and my other job to really get out there, but I have been getting about the same number of jobs, Yesterday I did a job qouted the lady at 200 dollars when I finished she gave me 300 dollars, I made sure she knew that the price was 200 but she said I did such a good job and worked so hard she gave me extra. To recall I have only done about 4 jobs who have not tipped me, and 3 of those 4 where a landlord so only two people have not tipped me. I have been a food server for about 4 years I hope I do not have that desperate look for a tip permanatly stuck on my face.
Jon
That's a pretty high batting average for getting tips. Keep up the good work. Your reputation for doing quality work will serve to separate you from the "pack" of carpet cleaners, further justifying your higher rates. Not everyone is satisfied with a fast food meal every time out. There are many who prefer the finer ambience and better service of a good restaurant to the same-old, same-old burger & fries. Be the French chef, not the burger flipper.
nice job, now your rates seem like you are a REAL CC... the fact that biz didn't drop at all means you are giving a good value.
the place i currently work for is going though all their prices as they recently gave a price quote to somone and got the response of "WOW THATS CHEAP" they finaly figured that .18 sq/ft was to cheap (note this is HWE)
i kinda laughed because i knew that... but then again this company doesn't realy care about the CCing end of things unless it's a slow time of year for water damages and such, a good week of CCin'gs MIGHT compete w/ a day of a good water damage...
of corse water damage/restoration is not cheap to get into... and a lot of work... which is why a CCing biz is in my future ;-)
Thanks for the update Jon. I always like to hear how others who are struggling with the pricing issues are doing.
As I started my biz last April, I started to get a lot of repeats this last month as the custies want things freshened up for the holidays. I'm glad b/c that means they think I'm doing a good job. I've raised my prices a bit, but the main thing I've been learning to do is to not let them take advantage of me. ie: the other day a guy told me the whole place was only about 750 sf and I had quoted him 135 + tx, when I got there it was really 1100+, so I called him and told him it would be more. He initially was questioning a little, then when he went to the house that night to check my measurements he saw how good it looked and instead just called and said he'd happily send me the check. Another that had some large ink stains I knew would take a lot of extra time (and cyclone) to clean so I also charged them for extra time.
