How to charge more to clean stuff
What’s going on guys Spencer Claeys here back again with another episode of me cleaning stuff while talking to you guys about the lessons I’ve learned to make more money, get more customers, and how to get the most freedom and enjoyment out of your life.
If you’re not familiar with what we do here we teach how home service businesses like pressure washing, gutter cleaning, roof cleaning, junk hauling, car detailing, and landscaping can make more money.
With that being said let’s dive into today’s topic which is how to charge more money and in general get paid what you’re worth.
A couple of points I want to make on this topic.
#1 when you’re charging money to do something it should feel good.
One of the questions I asked one of my mentors was “how much should I charge?”
And he gave one of the best answers I’d heard which was “you should charge on whatever FEELS good”
If you get a gig and it’s like “ughhh I have to do another one of these”
Or you get a job and it’s like Awesome! I got another one!
You need to chase that feeling.
And it changes over time
You get better at doing your tasks, I remember my first driveway clean was $120 bucks! Now I don’t even leave the house for less than $200
And I charge even more to do roof, gutters, etc and I really only try to charge what feels good to me.
If you have a skill and are providing genuine value (which if you watch this show I know you have both of these) then you owe it to your customers to be charging what you’re worth.
It’s good for you, AND it’s good for them.
Imagine for a minute if there was a guy who said he was a dentist that knocked on your door or you found on craigslist or whatever and said he would do a cleaning and cavity check for $50.
You would be super suspicious right?
He obviously would not come off as legit.
And that’s what would happen if you tried to charge wayyyy to less to do something.
It would just seem off you know?
Because its actually the market that sets the price for something. It costs like $20 to make an iPhone but they can charge $1,000+ because the market is willing to pay that much for an iPhone.
This is why it’s so important to price your service correctly.
its fair, justified and they can tell that you are a professional who knows what they’re doing.
In fact the more you charge, many times the better people feel you do.
We could go into a whole conversation about the psychology behind this but basically when we pay more for something we automatically assume it’s better right?
And not to mention higher prices = better customers.
If you’ve been in business for any length of time you’ll know that the cheap customers (you know the ones that haggle you down) often are the ones who critique your work and aren’t happy, call you back to fix something they didn’t like, and in general just be a pain in the ass.
Better customers are more than willing to pay well to get a service done and done RIGHT by a professional like you and me.
Just don’t go too crazy alright?
Today I did a job that I honestly felt like I had overcharged for.
It was a roof clean for $450 and I had it done in like an hour and a half.
I’ve done similar jobs for way less but I had given the quote and the customer had gladly accepted.
And I was able to do a great job and he was super happy.
Come to talking about ti with him and he said another company had bid him $1,000!
TO do the SAME JOB
I was blown away.
I jokingly replied “damn maybe I need to start raising my prices”
But the point is, even though I felt like $450 was “high” it was actually less than half of what the customer was expecting!
So you really never know.
And in general, its always good practice to start high with your price, it’s much easier to haggle down or walk away than it is to try to charge MORE if the job turns out to be more work than you thought.
Start charging more, and see what happens!
One of the best tips Ive learned is to give them a price, say $500 is what you’d be happy doing the roof or house for. Tell the customer “yeah I could do it for$550 and watch their reaction.
If they seem relieved like that’s a good amount stick to it.
If they get worried you can quickly say “OR $500 if it was cash”
This gives you an easy way to test a price and either get a higher price or go down a bit but not actually “lower” your price.
Because lowering your price is also damaging!
It tells the customer subconsciously “he’s not going to do as good of a job”
But if you MUST lower your price, always give a reason or something you won’t do.
If they absolutely won’t budge from $300 for a job but you want $350 say “ok I could do it for “300 BUT I won’t clean the ____ “ you have to have some sort of reason otherwise they won’t actually feel like they’re getting a good job done.
Anyways guys that’s all for now I hope this gives you a bit more clarity and confidence on charging more for your jobs.
After all, you could be underbidding your jobs by a lot! You just don’t know.
So charge what feels right to you, charge what you’re worth, and keep your customers happy.
Don’t forget to leave a comment below on what you thought and download my FREE pdf below on the 7 crucial steps before running paid ads as well as the book I have on everything you need to run ads, it’s 5 bucks and it answers a lot of questions that most people have about marketing their pressure washing/exterior cleaning business
But either way guys hope you enjoyed the post!
Full video available on Youtube here
See you next time, peace.