I posted this on the VLM board, but no response yet, so...

I'm not asking your specific prices, because I know alot of varying factors come into play, like geography, market, etc...

But I am curious, how has everyone priced their encap rates as opposed to their regular "old style" commercial cleaning rates.

For example, before you ever heard of encap cleaning, what were you charging for comm'l work ? And now how much do you discount it for the faster, easier, and cost effective encapsulation cleaning ?

My regular comm'l rates are .18 /ft², and if it is a large job, then I may come down to .15 /ft², but not very often...must usually be an established acct.

But now with encap, I have been charging .10-.12 /ft², and even though it is easier and faster...compared to my regular .18 rate, it feels like I'm giving the farm away :p

Thoughts...???

Thanks

I have had jobs that i bid 0.10 to 0.15 on useing HWE
some 0.20 depening on the sq ft of the job, now if it's a job i already have say @ 0.15 then i still chg that. I have a library to do tomorrow 5500 sq ft all open it's for a high school i bid 0.10 got it the cimex will make me money on this one. I'm useing my truck mount a whole lot less these days :wave:



Ades
Carpet Magic

I charge the same as for any system of cleaning. No discount for easy or faster.

The customer is getting good results for the money, and that's what I base my charges on.

Gary

ALOT !!

Thanks Gary

I Disagree!!! The easier the job, less charge per SF, more money per hour. Money per hour is the point.
You can beat everybody per SF and still make lots of money.

if we're not careful, THAT will be the death of us and is now the great debate....how low will it go ..??

It's not like encap is a big secret that only a few know about...if we keep lowballing each other, where will it end..?? everybody fighting over 1-2¢ /ft² ?

Besides, my bids are for my quality work, an unconditional guarantee and a personal connection and caring for their needs...it matters not what my profit margin is, as long as they are happy with the service provided....the debate continues....lol

this is just me, but i have been able to do jobs a little cheaper with the encap method and the Cimex.
for example, if i do 3000 sq ft and it takes me 5 hours per say with the HWE and a great job. commercially speaking. maybe at .12 cents per foot, which is about the nat'l avg for commercial (10-12)
that would be about 360.00 dollars or about 72.00 per hr. Now with Cimex, i can do that area in about 3 hrs. or that comes to 120.00 per hr. My target per hr is about 80.00 per hr. I have my overhead in control so that is a great amount that i have worked out to be my target goal. Maybe yours is higher, that is fine.
but now, I know that i can do that job for say 240 at the lowest dollar and that relates to about .082 cents per foot. I have leeway to move down to that and get the job for sure< ???? and still be as productive and make the same amount of desired profit for the job.
I just play it by ear and see if it is open space, moving alot of stuff etc. and make up my mind.
as far as the pricing getting lower and lower.. i think we will see it avg out like all things. we are selling service and a quality. i already see people trying to shortcut the system.. so it will end up probably like regular HWE and shortcuts here and shortcuts there so we will maybe then have the typical defined ok, good, better and best cleaning efforts. We will find a balance. Quality cleaning and SERVICE will always get its payday. Quality is always in demand.

Yea what Steve says.

Jeff

In terms of price, consider this. I went to a residence the other day. The customer was a referral so price was not an issue. I had never spoken to this customer before in my life and noticed that both the husband and wife were very skeptical about our service. Mid job we asked the customer to evaluate our work (they both loved it) and both opened up about their most recent experience. It turns out they had been calling a company every 3 weeks to clean their carpet. The husband is a mechanic and the couple just blamed the quick resoiling on his work in the garage. They expressed that the last time they had their carpet cleaned, the company charged them $60 to do their entire home and were literally done in 5 minutes. The customer said she went to put her newborn in the crib and when she came out the guy said he was done. Both were astonished and disappointed, but never the less paid the bill. She also said it took 3 days to dry the carpet. Needless to say they were very disappointed.

To put things into perspective, even the guy that low balls a job doesn't really intend to loose any money. This guy is making about $360/hr at those rates. His workmanship and quality will eventually catch up with him and he will eventually go belly up.

I like these fly by night people. These testimonials make selling my services much easier when I can tell people about these negative experiences.

The moral of the story is we should sell our work at a fair price and do the best job possible. Everyone on this board is in for the long run and we want to establish real relationships with all our customers. We don't want them to remember ABC Carpet Cleaning service. We want them to remember that Joe or John is a fair and respectable person that they can always depend on when they have a problem with their carpets. We want them to tell all their co-workers and family member so all our future referrals become word of mouth. We can all achieve this goal and set this as our standard for charging and performing our services.

I am charging the same rate as I was charging before. The way I see it, the customer is getting, their carpets cleaned, with the added benefit of faster drying, some fiber protection and sanitizing, less noice and inconvenience. I have not have any customers say that they should pay less, why should you charge less. You can charge by the square foot or by the hour, depends on the size of the job. Do not forget to also have a minimum service charge. Sometimes smaller acconts take just as long as some of the medium to large accts!

You charge by the service not the results. You are a plummer some one has a leak.
You could easily say that as long as I stop the leak it really does not matter how I stoped it even if all I had to do was tighten a nut. Charging the same is wrong it is deception.
You charge by time in most service company's except for carpet cleaners who went to Sq.Ft. Many carpet cleaning companies who have grown move to charging by time first and then convert it to sq. ft. price. It takes the guess work out and keeps you looking at yourself on Sunday mornings. I am not trying to put out guilt but I truly believe it is takeing advantage.

I can see both sides of the debate, and even though I love Gary's approach, and would like to charge the same as my regular non-encap cleanings...,

as I said in my original post, since it is faster for me and less expensive also, I do offer a break, but I may increase it a penny or 2 and go to .12-.14 instead of .10-.12...I'm actually thinking of raising my regular comm'l rates to .20 also, but thats another thread

Thanks for all the replies...love these types of "debates" ...now if only Rick would throw some wisdom up here, we'd be set

why not base it on the size of the job, difficulty and sq ft. I just started charging more per sq ft on my smaller residential to cover setup,tear down,drive time, and all the other related expences. I still like cleaning the one room for the little old lady with the cookies but hey we need to make a living and be paid for our EXPERTISE. Do you ever do extras or extra areas or such and never get paid. I do. Or the job you inspected that you did'nt see the 30 gum spots in the low light they had turned down, I have. Whats wrong with actually make a living and a PROfit? Maybe
TRy this for commercial:
under 500 .25 per sq ft
to 750 .24
to 1000 .23 per sq ft
to 1500 .20 Per sq ft
to 2000 .18 per sq ft
to 2500 .15 per sq ft
to 3000 .13 per sq ft
to 3500 .12 per sq ft
you get the idea? set it up to give a better price with more sq footage. But Add in extra when the soiling and spotting will take extra TIME. Their will always be competitive situations where you will need to drop your prices, but why drop your pants I mean prices when to don't have to. You are a trained expert get paid what your worth Or the next thing we'll see is lawn guys pulling cimexs out of the trailer and cleaning at .03 just like they suggested we price at one class at connections. Am I wrong? If I am, I am sorry I offended anyone.
Have a great day

I commented on pricing a couple of weeks ago.

http://www.network54.com/Hide/Forum/message?forumid=228309&messageid=1075527304

Charge what you are worth and what the market will bear.

To argue Fred's analogy - when a plumber makes a service call - he charges for it! And I pay the plumber for his knowledge - for his tools - for his years of experience - and his ability to identify the problem.

I also would not ask the plumber what brand of wrenches he used. I don't care what brand of tools he uses. I only want the problem fixed for a fair price. And that's what our customers want too. We can do the same. We can fix their problem for a fair price. How we accomplish this is our business.


What can you reasonably charge? Good questions. Before you answer them, consider this story about Pablo Picasso:

A woman was strolling along a street in Paris when she spotted Picasso sketching at a sidewalk café. Not so thrilled that she could not be slightly presumptuous, the woman asked Picasso if he might sketch her, and charge accordingly.

Picasso obliged. In just minutes, there she was: an original Picasso.

“And what do I owe you?” she asked.

“Five thousand francs,” he answered.

“But it only took you three minutes,” she politely reminded him.

“No,” Picasso said. “It took me all my life.”

Don’t charge by the hour. Charge by the years.

This is a quote from the Book “Selling the Invisible”, by Harry Beckwith, published by Warner Books. The book is available at your bookstores and I highly recommend it.


They are paying for your knowledge and experience. They're paying you because you're SMART enough to have learned about encapsulation. They're paying you for your investment in good equipment (like the Cimex). The Cimex and encapsulation may open the door to offer lower prices - but I would offer lower prices only when I'm forced against the wall. Charge a fair price - they will pay for good service.




Rick Gelinas

One thing about plumbers (other than butt crack) - they all charge alot. Whats the first thing you say when you have to call one - "this is going to cost a fortune". They don't (for the most part) run around cutting each others throats - you never see "any toilet unclogged $6.95"
when I was a mechanic I often got paid "flat rate" that means if a job was supposed to take 4 hours I got paid for 4 hours - now if I had the correct tools and I could do it in 3hrs I still got paid for 4 and so did the shop. So the tools and the knowlege are what made the money - should be the same for us!

Just because you invested your hard earned cash in equipment that will get the job done faster, better easier cheaper, or whatever, that does'nt mean you "Have" to pass the savings on to the customer.

Heck, Car dealers have all the tools, and equipment to fix your car,...and they usually charge more than the local shade tree mechanic would for the same repair. With that said, why should we give the customer the break? We're the one's that put in the investment.
A mechanic that has invested in the special tools and equipment will be able to make repairs faster, and probably better than that shade tree mechanic, and you know you won't get a price break just because he got the job done quickly.

Just because you CAN now work faster, and cheaper, that does'nt mean you HAVE to.

Thanks for the last 2 replys, Think when you go to the Doctor to and he charge's you top dollar and spend's 5 minutes with you. Also think about moving furniture and everything that goes with this job, then reverse roles your customer's wouldn't do this job cheap, so why should we!

The big picture is where do you want to go. Do you have someone answering the phones? How many employee's do you have? Are you offering them medical benefit's? Paid vacations? What about your time experience in education? The more value you can add to your clients well being the more you're worth. When adding more value for your quality clients the price becomes less of an issue. Good luck, Tony