I keep thinking I should narrow my marketing to my nearby 3 towns vs whole county to keep driving down but not sure if doing that will translate into more local jobs always.
Or are you adding a charge (or just upping the whole quote) when you drive more than say 20 minutes out?
It is all relative.
I live in a rural area, if I didn’t drive 30 minutes one way I would sit at home most of the summer. What I do is I bump up my prices the further I travel, not crazy high, but I have to recoup gas and time. In a rural area people understand that, maybe not in your area.
I’ve driven up to an hour for a job that wasn’t for family and that’s about my limit… If I drive 30 minutes north I’m in a different county, 30 minutes east I’m in a different county… never really thought about just marketing toward the county I live in… apart from sales tax being different I haven’t given it much thought. If you really wanted to line item ever last detail you could add the IRS mileage rate (70 cents this year?) and just bill that on the invoice.
My area is price sensitive so I’m thinking of putting a value on reducing drive time to say 3 jobs that are 30 min or over that might allow me to fit in another job locally.
How are you booking/scheduling jobs? I typically get enough lead time that I can stack jobs in the same vicinity for the same day… definitely helps for not driving back and forth across the city.
Honestly asap because if not they just end up looking for a lower price.
I charge $1–$1.50 per minute I plan to be driving. I believe this is low for most people. Could be higher depending on the roads I’m having to drive (lots of stoplights = lots of gas). Up the quote organically. People don’t like to think “Oh, I am getting charged more just because you have to drive further? I should just call the guy closer to me then.”
Tangentially related, not necessarily a direct answer.
Fresh Rinse has a very good system for this he mentions on his YouTube; not sure how standard it is.
Divide your week into quadrants. One day is one town/locality/geo-grid, one day the next, etc. Make your travel time efficient. If you have to travel 45 min to a certain area in the morning, but then do 4-5 house washes that day, then drive 45 min home, that’s not a terrible price if it keeps you busy.
Basically, don’t just rely on trying to make your route between jobs efficient day-of. Come up with a system that guarantees they’ll be SCHEDULED in an efficient way. This should take some of the pain out of having to travel a bit to the next town over.
Like I said, I know this isn’t a direct answer, but I felt it was relevant enough to the conversation to mention.
