Douglas Hicks

barebonesbiz.com

Ellen Rohr has 2 great book on how to set your rates. At present you are not makeing enough to pay for your internet service.

And you are a scab! You are preventing others from making a living doing cleaning by being so cheap! Raise your rates, if you are as good as you say, you will not notice any slow times.

talkcleaning

This thread is full of emotions, which is very bad for business. English is not my first language so I apologize if I lose you at some point. I've tried to get a good hold of the English language but she just doesn't like me very much. I can be an incoherent moron at times for my lack of English vocabulary.

Sorry to say this and no offense to anybody, but silverdot has billionaire blood unlike most in this thread. Now please put it down, put the gun down Cheney, we can talk about this.

Silverdot has OWNED all business owners on this thread. It's fox like him that now are millionaires, billionaires today. If he was a cleaning business in any of your towns, you'd be out of business per the comments I read on this thread. You guys spend too much time bitching and getting all worked up for nothing instead of adapting. The ones undercutting your prices obviously are very smart individuals that obviously did the foot work and are doing a good job. They are making a truck load of money and quietly expanding their businesses (without a freaking name for God's sake) like true smart/foxy businessmen/women while you are bitching about not being able to charge more, worrying about bonding, insurance, legal papers, pretty businesscards, the going rate, blah blah blah. They'll boot you out of town and then raise their prices while they keep the girl because you didn't know how to court/treat her.

Most of you guys in this thread have the wrong mentality about business and some plainly shouldn't be in business at all really. Some will no doubt will fail at some point. Businesses are for the tough and foxy, not the whiner. You have to be BOLD & RUTHLESS if you want a very successful business (learn from Simon Cowell himself). Otherwise, you can sit on your hands while silverdot is laughing all the way to the bank, or you can come here, sit and bitch about what a bad boy the silverdot type are, which is supposedly affecting your business. The Silverdot type is not affecting your business, you are, your mentality. You keep this mentality and his type will boot your business out of town soon for real. Silverdot is a very smart man. He doesn't let anything get in the way. It's little unimportant things you guys worry about that stop many startup individuals before they fire the first bullet. Like some billionaire guy once said and I am paraphrasing here "sometimes it's better to go into business as a clueless, inexperienced business person than as a high achieved biz individual" or something like that. It's people that started like Silverdot that are making headlines today. The boy will reinvent himself as he goes along. I hope you guys didn't give him nightmares with your negativity and sometimes plain nonsense and make him quit. Some of your comments are as laughable and naive as the type "please raise your prices or you will make our businesses die", as if that will fix the world. Come on guys.

You know what most of your problem is? You need to do badly some paradigm shift. It's really getting in the way. Look, search for "Paradigm Shift Bob Proctor" in Google and watch those free videos. There are like 6-7 videos. It will help many of you.

Silverdot, I'll be the bad guy on this thread and applaud you for what you are doing. If you have some cleaning biz owners asking for water by sign language on this thread, by God that can't be nothing but good to you. Keep it up. You have something special in you. Hope you file taxes though. You don't mess with the IRS.

Here are the videos and moderator feel free to delete the link if it is not allowed. I don't own that site at all and the videos are free. Just trying to help. http://www.betterdaystv.net/play.php?vid=144

I love you all.

Love,
Uncle TC

bluehawaii07

wow TC,

obviously you don't understand the concept of making a profit margin to expand your business. If we all went for the undercutting prices, we'd be losing money or making well below minimum wage. How do you expect to survive, have and hire employees? From what you are saying, that means going out and finding 100 accounts just to make a profit?

That is now how it works, son. You are about as clueless as the illegal mexican or fat black woman with 9 kids at home.

Either that, or your post is a joke.

talkcleaning

Ha ha ha. That bold statement above was priceless. Had me laughing for awhile.

Anyway, son? I have been 20 years in the business. You obviously didn't understand an iota of what I stated. Never said you had to go for the undercutting prices. What you need to know is how to run a business. Undercutting prices from the illegal Mexican or the fat black lady means nothing if you have a sound/smart advertising plan and great service. In this business not everybody goes for the cheap prices. It won't affect you if you'd known how to run this type of business. Obviously you don't have a clue how to run one, if you have any. You can't sit on your ass and expect money to fall from the sky anymore. Work it kid.

There are plenty of Lolas and Jesus around here doing their damage to other companies, never mine. For God's sake, I don't even see my competitors being advertised on the darn paper!! How do they expect to make any damn money! They do complain though. Ah, and eat Mcdonalds all day on them pretty vans.

Spicnspan

I don't have a huge problem with small-time cleaners making a little money off the books. Taking a handful of clients that you know or live nearby poses minimal risk to the cleaner or the client. Most cleaning co. employees I know take jobs on the side.

That said, I'd encourage a person who's starting from scratch to work for someone else for a little while to get a better sense of the work and the market and liabilities involved before trying to expand. And if you want enough business to make a living on, then I agree with all the posts about why you should go legit.

I worked for a little solo operator who specialized in getting over on the system last year. As far as I know, he was a one man show for tax and business license purposes but trolled for inexperienced workers and tax and child support dodgers to pay off the books to help him out.

He presented himself as a businessman and touted his chamber of commerce membership and city business license as proof that he was an established employer. Meanwhile, he started underbidding real cleaning services and putting one person on two-hour jobs that previously had two or more people doing them. He called his employees "contractors," giving them straight pay and leaving them liable for their own accidents and injuries and earning barely enough to get by on without paying into social security and medicare.

Thank goodness nothing ever happened to me on the job, and thank goodness I only spent a quarter at that job and was able to figure out how to report and pay the payroll stuff I ended up owing at the end of the year.

Unless you keep it very very casual and lose the attitude about getting over on the system, you're headed to becoming a predator like the guy I worked for. There are easier ways to make money than by ripping off down-and-out workers and small businesses.

Now I work for small franchise owners who pay everything they're supposed to. I get paid a lot better for the time I put in, I get more assignments, and I have the same number of solo accounts as I had with my previous "employer." Only now, the places I do myself are a third to a fourth of the size. The work's easier and I'm not spending four and five hours getting the job done for two hours' wages. My legit bosses aren't filthy rich, but they're doing very well by competing fairly and doing business above-board.

As far as I know, my previous employer's still running around town pretending to be a legitimate business owner. He always claimed to be bidding on big crew jobs and believing that a guy with no employees, no insurance and no payroll responsibillities could muster, train and keep as many workers as he'd need if any big account ever came through.

Maybe bored guy who doesn't want to get a job and has delusions of grandeur is a better way to describe him.