[Tessa]

Hi, can anyone help me?

I apologise if these questions have been dealt with before, but I could really do with some advice...

I've been doing several office & shop cleaning jobs for the last few months to support myself while starting property letting. The time is coming when I'll need to spend some time abroad every few months doing up properties to let, and I don't want to lose the possibility of work when I'm here.  So I thought about maybe setting up a small contract cleaning business so that I can employ other cleaners to cover for me when I'm not here.  At present I'm earning about £7.00 per hour for most of my jobs, so I thought maybe I could charge £10.00 an hour for office cleaning (I'm in Kent), if I supply the materials, but I don't know much about the whole business so would like some advice.  How do you go about getting work?  Do you just phone companies and offer your services, or what?  I notice that some of you seem to be charging quite a bit more than I'm thinking of for some jobs, ie for letting agents - is that just because they'll pay it, or is it because the work involves more?  If people want to know how many hours it'll take should I do a 'sample' clean myself and then base it on this? What kind of companies pay the most for contract cleaners, and what do they base it on?  I've never cleaned carpets or windows and don't really fancy it!  But any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Tessa

[martin19842]

one way to get round the issue of how long the cleaning will take,  is to quote for the cleaing to be done to the specification given in the quote.

therefore it doesnt matter if you are on site for a longer or shorter time.

regarding pricing, if you are going to employee labour, then your prices need to be high enough to deliver a nett profit.

for standard office cleaning contracts, you can probably factor say between 3 to 5 percent of the monthly billing being the cost of materials.

we operate on a couple of differing formats, when we first started we calculated that our fixed running costs divided by a number of jobs, plus labour plus profit element equals monthly cost to client.  by doing that you will then cover your costs when you have say 10 contracts.

but now i operate on a slightly different formula that a crewed van must invoice x per week to deliver a gross profit, then other overheads leaves a nett profit.  we are able to do this beacuase we have a mix of work.

however what we do, is make sure that every job returns an operating profit.

hope that helps

regards

martin

[Len Gribble]

Though I agree with Martin.

You may come across problems with the customer with time spent on the job (over they say nothing) shorter even though you/employees have carried out all tasks per spec; sadly they think you are paid by the hour.

Regarding materials to keep within the budget make sure you/staff read the label, cleaning agent’s springs to mind it all well and good having 5lts say neutral floor cleaner when it glug-glug it wont last long, but it will if fitted with a swan neck (pump) it goes a long way.

Len

[Musicman]

With respect Tessa, assuming that you actually get some contracts who is going to run them/deal with the day to day problems that we all get while you're spending all of that time abroad?

[paul@ctcs]

Tessa, If you fill in your profile you may get more replies, we dont want to give our secrets away to a company starting up on our door step.

Paul

[Paul Letts]

I feel competition is healthy and can only improve the service provided to our customers. I am only starting out, but a few months down the line if I can help anybody I will...It will help me "keep on my toes" knowing someone else is pushing me to be the best I can be.