How Much to Clean 5 Rooms? Homeowners Price Shop House Cleaning - YouTube

How much should I charge for five rooms?

We're going to talk about that today.

Hi there, I'm Angela Brown and this is Ask a House Cleaner.

This is a show where you get to ask a house cleaning question

and I get to help you find an answer.

Now, the great news is this, this show is brought to us by HouseCleaning360.com

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All right, onto today's show, which is from a house cleaner who has a question.

And the question is, how much should I charge for five rooms?

Speaker 2: How much should I charge to clean five rooms?

Angela Brown: All righty, how much should I charge for five rooms?

Now, this is a question that I could answer until I'm blue in the face but let's go ahead

and answer it, because when a customer calls you on the phone, and they say, I have five

rooms that I need cleaned, we need to have a conversation.

So let's go ahead and have that conversation now.

So we're going to pretend, I'm going to pretend like you're the customer,

and I'm going to be the house cleaner in this scenario.

So you call me up on the phone, and you say, "How much does it cost for you to come and

clean five rooms?"

And I say, are those five bedrooms or are those five rooms total in the house?

And now you have a chance to say, "No, that's five bedrooms," and I say, "Are all of those

five bedrooms occupied right now used on a regular, everyday basis?"

And you say, "Well, four of them are and one of them is not."

Okay, that's helpful to know.

Of the four rooms that are used on a regular basis,

is there somebody sleeping in those rooms?

Like every night they go in and there's bedding, and there's clothes, and shoes, and stuff

like that, or is one of them a music room and one of them is an office?

Because that's a very different clean then a bedroom.

And you say, "No, there are four people that are living in those rooms, one of them is

a music room."

Okay, great, now we're talking.

So there are five rooms, four of which are being used as bedrooms, one of them is being

used as a music room.

Okay, moving on.

Before I give you a price for the five rooms, most bedrooms in modern homes are connected

to a bathroom.

Do your bedrooms, your five bedrooms, also have bathrooms and are you including that

in the cleaning or does someone else clean that?

Wow, great question because guess what?

Your price just went up.

Are you quoting for five bedrooms now or are you quoting for a whole house?

All right.

So they say, "Well, yes.

There are five bathrooms as well."

Okay.

Now, the five bathrooms, are those also being used all the time?

Yes, they're being used all the time.

People shower in them every day, people use the toilets every day.

There's hair care products in there, people shave.

Yes, there are five bathrooms, every day, that get use from everyone else in the house.

Okay, so we have five bedrooms, and we have five bathrooms.

That's a very different story.

Then you say, "Oh, but I only think I need the bedrooms cleaned.

I can have the family clean the bathrooms."

Okay, so is there someone right now in the house that cleans all the toilets and scours

out all the tubs?

Because if you have five people in the house, it's likely one of them has long hair, and

it's clogging one of your bathrooms,

and one of your bathtubs is backed up and kind of nasty.

Is that possible?

And they say, "Well, actually, that sounds like three of my bathrooms."

Okay, so on a regular basis, if the people in your house are not doing that, is there

ever a chance that you would want to throw that in, so that we can either rotate through

those bathrooms that they are cleaning, or is it completely covered?

I just want to make sure so that there are no surprises.

And you say, "Well, can we throw three bathrooms in there and the five bedrooms?"

All right.

So now we're talking about three bathrooms and five bedrooms.

Let's keep talking about this because most bedrooms don't live in a house by themselves.

There's usually a general area that we call a living room, or a sitting room, or a family

room, or a playroom, you can call it whatever you want, a bonus room.

Is there something like that in this house?

Oh yes, there's a bonus room and there's a living room.

Ah, okay.

Do the people in the house take care of that as well or did you want to include that in

the regular cleaning?

And then you say, "Well, just the dusting."

Okay, so now we're going to do the dusting as well.

What about wiping down the furniture?

Is any of your furniture sticky or whatever?

I'm guessing if there are five people in the house, there are probably hand prints, sticky

prints, food being eaten elsewhere.

I'm just guessing.

And they go, "Oh yeah, our furniture is kind of sticky.

So what does it cost if you wipe down the furniture, and you just do the dusting?"

Okay, I'm upping my price.

We call it upselling, I'm just asking a series of questions.

I'm not trying to be interrogating.

I'm trying to get to a real, honest answer because a lot of people call us on the phone,

and they just want a quote, and you say, well, my price is $300.

Based on what?

Where does that come from?

Then what happens is, they hang up the phone on you and they call the next person, and

the next person says, well, it's $250 for five rooms.

And so they say, well, I'll go with the cheaper guy.

But they have no idea what you're talking about.

Are you talking about five rooms or are you talking about five rooms and three bathrooms,

and wiping down the furniture in the living room?

Now, I have another question to ask you.

Tell me about the kitchen in this house.

There are five people that live here, what are the eating habits?

Does everyone sit down and eat at once?

Or are people coming and going and eating all day?

Oh yes, people are coming and going and eating all day.

Is it fair to say that the kitchen is in a constant state of use and there are always

crumbs and things being left on the counter, and dishes, and, oh, yeah, it's a mess.

Okay.

When we come to clean those five rooms, is there ever a possibility you will want us

to budget in time and money so that we can go ahead and clean the house and do a top

to bottom in the kitchen area, so that its regular and maintained for the people that

come in and make their sandwiches or whatever?

Oh yeah, how much does it cost if you do my kitchen?

Now, you're adding little things on, but you're getting a whole view of the house.

By the way, how many square feet do you have in the house, just so I get an idea in my

head.

If you have a five bedroom, five bathroom house I'm thinking this is going to be 5,

6, 8, 10,0000 square feet.

I want to make sure that I'm not budgeting for a 2,500 square foot house if this a 10,000

square foot house because it's really different.

Once you break it down a little bit, and you get the customer talking, and you're not giving

any prices right now because you can't.

There are so many factors that you don't know.

When a person says, “how much does it cost for five rooms?”

What are we talking about?

Do any of those rooms connect by a hallway or a stairway?

Is there an entranceway in your house because all of those areas need to be dusted.

They all have lights.

They all have cobwebs.

They all have fingerprints.

I mean, this story goes on.

What are we talking about?

When you finally get all these things out what happens is, the customer starts to trust you.

And they say, wow, this person is asking me a lot of questions, but I thought I could

kind of skate by and just get a qui ck price, but they actually act like they're really

interested in my home.

And the other three companies that I called just gave me a price.

This is going to cost me a little bit more money, but they might do a better job.

And so start asking questions that then involve your customers.

So is it just five people that live in your house or do you also have pets?

And do they pets have their own room in your house?

Because you might get there and find out that the laundry room is also used for pets, and

there's a cat litter box in there that then gets strewn all over the house.

So that would be helpful to know if there are pets in the house, and how the pets live,

and do the pets intermingle all throughout the house, or are they crated.

When you get there to clean, will they be crated?

What happens here?

As you answer the questions, and you keep asking questions, you get the customer more

involved, and the more involved they become in their own story,

the more invested they become.

If you call somebody on the phone, and you say, how much does it cost for five houses,

and you quickly give them a price, there's no investment.

So they're going to hang up the phone and they're going to go onto the next person.

They're going to keep calling house cleaners until somebody takes an interest in them,

and says, where do you live?

Oh yes, I have lots of houses in that neighborhood.

I love that neighborhood.

Here's the reason why.

By the way, do you have one of these houses that sits up against the lake?

Do you have the sun that comes in from the back?

Do you see all dust in the morning with those sunbeams?

Okay, I know exactly what you're talking about.

You've got one of those great big archway windows in the back.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's my house.

Okay, now, you're already in their neighborhood.

You're in their house.

And so they see you as a person that is like them.

You already clean for their neighbors.

And so, get them talking and get them participating in the conversation because before the conversation

hangs up, you're going to set an appointment to go over there and to give them a free estimate

for their house.

I would love to give you a quote on the phone, and I can give you a price range, but the

price range, but the price range is going to vary, and can vary widely base on a variety

of different factors.

So do you want me to get your hopes up, or do you want me to just swing by?

It will take me just a couple of minutes and we can take a walk through your house, and

you can show me anything that's really important to you.

And they say, well, I've already invested a lot of time with this person on the phone

that's really interested in me, that already know my neighborhood, and the layout of my house.

I'll have them come over.

And before you know it, you've got to the next point, which is to set the next appointment.

When someone calls you on the phone, and they say, how much does it cost?

Your answer is not XYZ amount of dollars.

The answer is, I'm going to be in your neighborhood later this afternoon.

I would love to swing by, meet you in person, and see if we're a good fit, and give you

a personal quote based on the information that I have.

Then, they go, yeah, yeah, that's fine, let's do that, because they have an investment in

you as well.

All right, you've already started building that rapport and now, when you get to the

customers house for the walk through, you've saved yourself a lot of time because you've

already answered those questions on the telephone.

Then, when you get over there, now, you've got five bedrooms that are on your worksheet,

and you're rocking and rolling and already prepared because you already know the parameters

of this customer's life, right?

And so, as you walk through the house, if you see the cat, and you've already asked

on the telephone when you were having your initial conversation, are there any pets?

And they say, "Yeah, I have two cats."

Really?

What are their names?

So then, when you go over, now you're doing your walk through, oh, is this Amanda or is

this Avery?

And they're like, whoa, how did she remember my cats' names?

Because I wrote it down.

And so, this is your sales pitch.

When a customer calls you, they don't want to know how much does it cost for five rooms.

They want to know, can you sell me house cleaning services?

That's what they're asking.

Please sell me house cleaning services, I need some help.

All righty.

That's my two cents for today.

Until we meet again,

leave the world a cleaner place then when you found it.