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Thread: Your area your rates

  1. #31
    Senior Member Arfa Brayne's Avatar
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    Default Re: Your area your rates

    Quote Originally Posted by Curly Cleanup View Post
    I'm actually thinking of attaching quotes to some of the flyers as an experiment, based on what I can see from the road. (Front strip, front lawn).
    If you are just starting - try this, it works a charm.
    Say you reckon it's a $45 lawn - on the flyer put "first mow $30 including edges, pavements, clippings caught and Quotation for regular service" (excludes overgrown lawns)

    Pros - you get paid to quote on a job that you know exactly how long it takes to mow. No wasted time doing dead quotes.
    - the customer meets you properly and you get to suss them out too, you leave them with a good impression and a beautifull lawn.
    -do the "sell" and leave them with some fridge magnets for thier friends
    -save buckets on advertising, and get only the properties you want in the areas you want. I have plenty of streets with multiple neighbouring customers = less time in the truck.

    Cons - there is a chance you might get "used up" by someone who only wants the offer, but $30 is better than $0 sitting at home. If the place is really dodgy, you may be 'too busy' to do it for a while, which means it may get overgrown (excludes overgrown lawns).

    Try it - the books will be full in no time!
    "Can't" is a dirty 4 letter word.
    If someone says "Can't" , take the "T" off the end and brew it.
    Sip on a mugfull, relax, and take a look at what you've got left to work with.

  2. #32
    Member Andy B's Avatar
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    Default Re: Your area your rates

    Arfa your a bit more than arfa! That's a great suggestion, I think I'll give it a few goes.

  3. #33
    Member Curly Cleanup's Avatar
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    Cool Re: Your area your rates

    [QUOTE=Arfa Brayne;48028]If you are just starting - try this, it works a charm.
    Say you reckon it's a $45 lawn - on the flyer put "first mow $30 including edges, pavements, clippings caught and Quotation for regular service" (excludes overgrown lawns)

    That's a beauty! I'm certainly very keen on starting from scratch with a personalised approach, based on a little prior knowledge of their needs and therefore treating them like a customer even before they are one. Yep, I'll add this to my toolkit, thank you!

    John

  4. #34
    Senior Member Scooby Steve's Avatar
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    Default Re: Your area your rates

    Todays Herald Sun paper on page 17 had average rates for tradies.

    Service seeking which as the name implies is a website where you go to look for trades and services did a survey of quotes that came through there site from 2007 till march this year.

    The average gardening rate per hour was $34.59 cheapest of all trades which to me was way to cheap ,in fact alot of the other rates were under what i would consider average eg. carpenters @ $42.35 an hour and landscapers @ $44.55.

    Either they get the cheapest tradies go through there site or its a load of garbage. Sad part is we will have customers read that price for gardening and expect that as the norm.

    Double it and you would be getting close!

  5. #35
    Member Andy B's Avatar
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    Default Re: Your area your rates

    Quote Originally Posted by Scooby Steve View Post
    Todays Herald Sun paper on page 17 had average rates for tradies.

    Service seeking which as the name implies is a website where you go to look for trades and services did a survey of quotes that came through there site from 2007 till march this year.

    The average gardening rate per hour was $34.59 cheapest of all trades which to me was way to cheap ,in fact alot of the other rates were under what i would consider average eg. carpenters @ $42.35 an hour and landscapers @ $44.55.

    Either they get the cheapest tradies go through there site or its a load of garbage. Sad part is we will have customers read that price for gardening and expect that as the norm.

    Double it and you would be getting close!
    Lets hope they think we take twice as long as we do! I reckon most people take 2 hrs to do their own yard.

  6. #36
    Senior Member geoff's Avatar
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    Default Re: Your area your rates

    spot on andy...how often do hear clients saying that would of taken me all day ( you have only done it in 2 hours ) lawns are done in 30 mins or less and watching my neighbours ( nothing better to do )doing their lawns and taking over 2 plus hours then our 35 40 dollar lawns will equate to 70 to 80 bucks a lawn ...by 10 to 12 lawns before 2 its surfen with 700 to 800 bucks ...geez roohead you thought you were doing ok

  7. #37
    Member Andy B's Avatar
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    Default Re: Your area your rates

    Quote Originally Posted by geoff View Post
    spot on andy...how often do hear clients saying that would of taken me all day ( you have only done it in 2 hours ) lawns are done in 30 mins or less and watching my neighbours ( nothing better to do )doing their lawns and taking over 2 plus hours then our 35 40 dollar lawns will equate to 70 to 80 bucks a lawn ...by 10 to 12 lawns before 2 its surfen with 700 to 800 bucks ...geez roohead you thought you were doing ok
    More like 770 to 880, they charge get 10% more cause of the green trailer don't they. Hi Jim.

  8. #38
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    Default Re: Your area your rates

    i really like the prices on there website i mean
    Plumber From $25 Per Hour
    Electricians From $30 Per Hour
    Small Business Accountants From $40 Per Hour
    as i said i like the prices but then i also believe in santa
    Anything Ian says may or may not be garbage, it may also be his own opinion or it may not be his opinion at all, it may just be something he felt like stating anyone following his advice does so at their own risk and may be doing something Ian would actually advise against.
    And if you don't like what Ian has to say use the ignore function if you don't know how ask i will gladly tell you

  9. #39
    Senior Member Scooby Steve's Avatar
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    Default Re: Your area your rates

    Quote Originally Posted by ian View Post
    i really like the prices on there website i mean
    Plumber From $25 Per Hour
    Electricians From $30 Per Hour
    Small Business Accountants From $40 Per Hour
    as i said i like the prices but then i also believe in santa
    I know, what sort of plumber would you get for $25 an hour, more like $25 per minute.

  10. #40
    Member Andy B's Avatar
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    Default Re: Your area your rates

    Key word must be "from".

    Read below...

    http://blog.serviceseeking.com.au/20...gardener-cost/

    Not sure about the average quoted price??? But if we're sitting at $39.42 for our average in a range from $15 to $120 do we want to be averaging $50- $65???

    The more I think about how we would go about reaching that, the more I think about this site and wonder how forward thinking Dean Bartorelli is! Look at how IMLCOA, is educating and uniting lawnies, a step in the right direct for all of us. A step we can all be proud of, keep up the good work!

  11. #41
    Senior Member holdenhead's Avatar
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    Default Re: Your area your rates

    Maybe I should get a plumber as an offsider at that rate. I would be able to do plumbing work then too.

    Cheers Rick

  12. #42
    Member Of Forum Wattle GC's Avatar
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    Default Re: Your area your rates

    Going on their formula fuel should be 75c a litre and running our business should not cost more than a couple of grand..Mabey these "averages' were taken from a planet we dont know of and the newspaper has finally made alien contact..At least the editors are off the planet.

  13. #43
    Member Andy B's Avatar
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    Default Re: Your area your rates

    Quote Originally Posted by Wattle GC View Post
    Going on their formula fuel should be 75c a litre and running our business should not cost more than a couple of grand..Mabey these "averages' were taken from a planet we dont know of and the newspaper has finally made alien contact..At least the editors are off the planet.
    Good call!

  14. #44
    Member of Forum Stripes's Avatar
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    Default Re: Your area your rates

    I'm tipping a lot of tradies from that sight are weekend warriors or just have no idea how to run a business. It may be a lot of people starting out who don't know the proper rates also. They go from earning $16 -$20 an hour working for someone to starting their own business in a beat up old hilux with hardly any tools thinking they are killing it when making $35 an hour. I'm tipping if they did another survey to find out how many of them are still in business 3 years later, they will be in for a shock.

  15. #45
    Member Of Forum Wattle GC's Avatar
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    Default Re: Your area your rates

    Quote Originally Posted by Stripes View Post
    I'm tipping a lot of tradies from that sight are weekend warriors or just have no idea how to run a business. It may be a lot of people starting out who don't know the proper rates also. They go from earning $16 -$20 an hour working for someone to starting their own business in a beat up old hilux with hardly any tools thinking they are killing it when making $35 an hour. I'm tipping if they did another survey to find out how many of them are still in business 3 years later, they will be in for a shock.
    There are many ways they make statitics and figures look depending on the mood of the month.I feel these current figures are driven by pot smoking uni graduates who have never worked or lived in the real world but tell us how to run it.I want to live on their planet and be surrounded by virgins but when I tried to book a space ship to get there it costs trillions not 40 bucks plus departure tax according to their figures.

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