I'm I crazy or does signing on to clean a lower income complex and agreeing to do all the cleaning, repairs, pet damage, dies, stains, water extractions with fans, stretches, transition replacements (with parts), etc for one price of under 100 sound crazy to you! I have a number of large complexes here in NV that stone look me in the face and tell me that I'm out of line for wanting to charge more then a flat rate of $95 no matter how bad or trashed a unit is. O and they think I should wait for 45 days to get payment, and carry enough insurance for war? So they want me to clean and repair and make every unit they schedule (on no notice) perfect for rerent for $95 NO MATTER WHAT. And they don't even bother to tell us there is repairs half the time! We end up getting there and finding a whole or bleach stain in the carpet, then we let them know its there , we take pics , they tell us "to take care of it" then when they get the bill if its more then $95 they call and complain? They keep saying we are ripping them off and nickle and dimeing them? Its like 1 if every 3 units we walk into that we need to spend an extra hour of time in due to heavy soil, pet urine, red coolaid stains, holes in carpet, broken transitions. but they expect us to fix all that and never charge more? Is this just the cost of apartments? I'm I out of line thinking my time has value? and that I should be allowed to charge more for chems and time, and skill, tools etc? Please I want to know because at this point I'm about to shut the doors and move on! I'm just so sick of every person we work for acting like, I'm ripping them off after they or some tennant trashed the floors.
Cleaning apartments, with ALL stains, pet treatments, repairs, dies, PATCHS, STRETCHS, ETC inc, in the price of under $100?
- Thread starter Jonah Crawford
- Start date
Dan The Carpet Man
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I’m tempted to say that it depends on how often they call you and how many bedrooms, and if carpeted living and dining room, but as I sit here typing, I’m realizing there’s no way in hell I would do all that for 95.00 flat fee. No way bro. Value your time and equipment, 13 years ago I started charging 25 per room, worst mistake I’ve done as a business man, i build my clientele for years with those prices and then a few years later I increase My prices to 35.00 and most of my clients dropped me because they didn’t Want to pay the increase, long story short, all those clients are back with me and now they happily pay my minimum of 150 for two areas, why you ask? Because I do an excellent job, all those clients came back to me over the years because they compared my quality of work vs other companies that would charge less for a mediocre service.
Tell them they can replace it for 1500 to 2000. Have to show them or make them understand the value of restorative cleaning, when there that trashed its not just a clean its a retorative clean that saves them a replacement. 100 for water damages absolutely not id tell em to kick rocks on that to much equipment, education, time investment to do it correctly. Its alot cheaper to do it correctly than to fight and or lose a lawsuit when a tenant gets sick
Jim Davisson
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You are going to have to fire a pile of prospective "good" customers to get the "right" ones. If they are greenhorns under 30, you have an uphill battle and probably two to four 911 cleaning situations a week, screw that customer.
When I sell, I market face to face directly to their wallet. I introduce myself, explain what I do and tell them when they are tired of replacing carpet and want to stay under budget and make bonus, give me a call.... then I shut up. They typically take charge of the situation from there and then I tell them that I would prefer to show them the difference and that is the easy part.
We just clean and repair, don't pull call and are home by 3 bells. I will be 75% property management by Christmas and only cherry pick the good guy referal commercial jobs and our repeat residential jobs, some of which I am farming out to other cleaners.
When I sell, I market face to face directly to their wallet. I introduce myself, explain what I do and tell them when they are tired of replacing carpet and want to stay under budget and make bonus, give me a call.... then I shut up. They typically take charge of the situation from there and then I tell them that I would prefer to show them the difference and that is the easy part.
We just clean and repair, don't pull call and are home by 3 bells. I will be 75% property management by Christmas and only cherry pick the good guy referal commercial jobs and our repeat residential jobs, some of which I am farming out to other cleaners.
Because you are allowing them to treat you like a cheap carpet cleaner. Time to say goodbye. I turn down apts whenever they call me.
Ive said this before but when our company joined Service Team Of Professionals, the VERY FIRST THING that Mack Clark (a true Management Guru) told us to do was dump cleaning apartments. At that time it was 1/3 of our gross income. We did and it truely was one of the best things we did.
Whats happening here is that the reason they can tell you the price is because if you dont do it, some other schmuck will. Doesnt mean its profitable.
Whats happening here is that the reason they can tell you the price is because if you dont do it, some other schmuck will. Doesnt mean its profitable.
OMG just reading this makes me angry. Tell them to f off, don't waste your time with shitty people like that unless you are desperate for income. If you do quality work I wouldn't waste time with the cheap asses like that because there are tons of great customers who wants to pay for a good quality work out there.
Your wasting your time. Sounds like an awful customer. I wouldn't waste 1 second on them
sbsscn
Well-Known Member
You need to drop them.
Let them feel reality
I use to have folks like that but I have dropped them. There was no point having or getting new clients that are like that. I need work but I am not a fool. Have some standards. I do hope that you are communicating with them before the work is done, and getting approval, if not then you deserve what your going through
Johnny Bravo
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You already know the answer, there is some serious ripping off going on but it's you getting ripped off. I did 2 stairways in 2 different apartments on the first floor side by side for $150. The owner paid me in cash and was very glad to. I am not a high end cleaner either. I have a $150 minimum for an apartment because set ups and parking can be a nightmare. I like them because they're usually empty. Powers stretching, dyeing bleach spots etc., that's an additional $200 minimum for me.
There are a lot of desperate, ignorant guys out there that screw themselves doing work like this for nothing. I'd rather stay home and do nothing going broke then work all day sweating my butt off going broke.
There are a lot of desperate, ignorant guys out there that screw themselves doing work like this for nothing. I'd rather stay home and do nothing going broke then work all day sweating my butt off going broke.
OxiFreshGuy
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I did a 2 hour job this morning for a coffee roasting facility. $475. Did it myself. 2 hours being the time I got there, set up, cleaned, packed up, owner took me into the coffee lab and brewed me a cup straight from the roaster.
Really think you should do $100 for something like that?
Really think you should do $100 for something like that?
About two years after I started Carpet Cleaning, I obligated myself for a restaurant job every 2 weeks where I underpriced my work for the sake of predictable cash-flow. After three months they did not like how much I was charging so they re-negotiated me down, and I made a poor business decision and caved. A year later they told me only to clean every three weeks to save money. At two weeks the carpets were almost black from grease and traffic. and when I cleaned every three weeks it took me 25% longer and a lot more chemicals to complete the job. Then they complained because the extra water I used to get their filth out of the carpets left them too wet by the next morning, so I had to buy extra fans, set them up at 2 A.M., go home, then drive back by 7 A.M. to retrieve them. What sounded like a good gig turned out to be progressive six-year nightmare.
They built a big fancy restaurant and moved... no carpet. I was never so happy to get out of a contract!
Chalk it up as "lessons learned."
They built a big fancy restaurant and moved... no carpet. I was never so happy to get out of a contract!
Chalk it up as "lessons learned."
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