Took me 6 years to realize I was pricing my cleaning jobs all wrong

I used to just guess a flat rate based on square footage, but last month a customer told me 'your price is half what the last company charged' and that's when it clicked. I started timing myself on 5 different houses and figured out I was losing about $40 per job because I wasn't accounting for the extra bathrooms and staircases. Has anyone else had that moment where a customer's comment accidentally taught you how to run your business better?

2 comments

2 Comments

lunaw727d ago

My friend runs a dog walking business and had the same thing happen. She was charging per walk but never accounted for her travel time between clients. One lady mentioned she used to pay more for a walker who had to drive across town, and that made my friend pull out a notebook and realize she was basically paying to walk some dogs because of the gas. She changed her pricing to include a small travel fee for houses more than 2 miles apart. It added up to an extra $300 a month for her.

christopher9527d ago

Wow @lunaw72, that's smart but I feel like customers would just get annoyed by extra fees popping up.

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