Duct Cleaning Pricing & Methodology
YOU CAN AND SHOULD MAKE HUGE PROFITS WITH DUCT CLEANING…
This is a page from my Healthy Home IAQ Presentation manual from when I still owned our contracting business back in 1996. This is residential pricing. Commercial services were almost double, but quoted based on the scope of work.
I have NOT changed the pricing to reflect what I would sell IAQ services for today nor does it include all the ancillary products sold such as humidifiers, air cleaners, UV lights, Ozone Air Enrichment systems, ERVs/HRVs, HEPA filters, etc. We did not play the game and try to compete against Macy’s (yes, the department store) selling it over the phone for $195 or the duct suckers charging $325 flat - both using one-man crews for a blow-and-go completed in less than 3 hours.
WE CHANGED THE GAME.
Many times we would my sell replacement ductwork or even replace the system on a call for duct cleaning that was converted to an equipment lead.
That is why we NEVER quoted over the phone and always had a salesperson go to quote the job. We used a dedicated IAQ salesperson that would just blow away (pun intended) the competition with a 70%+ closing ratio selling for 2-3 times what the competition was charging and still delivering departmental margins of 75-80% gross profit. He would spend 60-90 minutes on a sales call and would close 40% of his leads on the first visit, getting another 20% in two-call closes, and another 10% via follow-up. He acted as departmental manager and handled all marketing with my approval and ran two two-man crews on two trucks. He was an extension of my residential sales department and handled what my equipment salespeople would sell as well. He would not sell replacement systems. He would convert leads.
We sent a two-man crew for a 6-8 hour day and did one job a day by expanding the scope of work and doing a more thorough job. Our average ticket in 1996 on the services off the attached sheet alone was $1100. This did not include the other items the salesperson or crew would sell such as replacement registers (a lot of them), air cleaners, UV lights, humidifiers, ductwork, etc. These items resulted in an average ticket regularly exceeding $2000. The same crew would install any ancillary items sold. Multi-system houses may take a couple days.
Throwaway filters were almost NEVER sold since a filter upgrade occurred on over 85% of the jobs. We replaced electrostatic nylon mesh filters (plywood wrapped in fishing line) and high voltage electronic air cleaners (bug zappers that lose efficiency within 72 hours) 100% of the time. Filter media was always charged separately since it could vary so widely.
I was on a coaching ridealong in 1997 with our salesperson and he did his normal routine of pulling off registers and grills and inspecting the equipment and ducts with the infrared camera, a complete home walk-thru, IAQ & Health questionnaire, presentation, etc. When George quoted the job the women’s eyes lit up. She paused and then asked a few questions and told George to write it up. As he was doing so, she commented that the quote of $1397 (for the attached services only – the entire job was $2731 – I remember this call vividly and you will see why) just about knocked her off her chair. She said she had seen Macy’s $195 ad that George also showed her and had gotten a quote for $595 from Indoor Air Care (we called them Indoor Air Scare internally since they had 3 names in less than 5 years) over the phone.
She said had George not been so thorough and proved to her that he was going to do a better job for the money and provide more value, than the price would have been ridiculous.
George’s in the home personal presentation was the key. Part of the preso was to show Macy’s for $195 with one man doing the job in two hours yielding them earning $97.50/hour for a horrible job with most of the contaminants and other problems remaining (we had pictures of the inside of ductwork for jobs that we did after Macy’s and others won the original sale and the customer was not happy) or other companies charging $325 flat earning $108.34/hour with a one-man crew doing a job in 3 hours versus our two-man crew spending up to 8 hours in a home earning $68.75/man hour and doing the RIGHT job and solving problems.
We did not bash the competition, but rather educated the customers with before and after pictures of our jobs and other companies’ jobs as well as testimonial letters from our customers and those that we resold after the competition did a horrible job. The customers that bought cheap, bought twice and regretted it.
If you want to make money in duct cleaning, don’t play the game and sell duct cleaning. Instead, change the game and sell healthy home services and do what’s right for the customer, their family, their home and their investment. Be sure to increase the prices to reflect inflation since 1996.
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