[Steven Butler]

Have any of you CC ever dabbled with domestic cleaning. I dont mean personally doing the cleaning but taking a cleaner on. I get asked alot and its only something im considering for the future. Would rather not employ but is there another way, like taking somebody on in a self employed way.. Is it worth the hassle for the little money per hour??
Any advise appreciated.
Cheers

[Andrew Briscoe]

We have a contract and domestic division, rates average £15-18/hr and make about 33% profit nett.
Winter time we do about 250 hours a week, in the summer it is more like 350 hours a week.
Hope this helps.

Andrew

[Simon@arenaclean]

anyone self employed is going to be looking for the hourly rate you can charge. The key is super reliable staff and paying above the average wage for your area, sorting PAYE insurance etc. Must admit we sold that side of the business about 10 years ago as it just became a pain in the arse

[Simon@arenaclean]

To add.
Our core staff were mothers with the day time spare.

[Ian Harper]

Steven

In a past life (first wife) we had a maid service with 20 staff. coming from a contact management back ground i had learnt lots about people and trust and was determined  that I would put responsibility where it should be with the maid service.

long story short. contract cleaning is done on a price so your count on staff doing what they are paid to do. well it turns out some dont. also the imbalance between hard workers and slackers. Its so unfair when you work along someone that is getting paid the same as you but is doing half the work.

So what is the answer, paying people by a spec and not by the hour. this way the slackers can take as long as they want and the hard workers get to got home early. now to stop people playing the system you have to get in their contacts that if the customers has any problems with standards they will go back free of change and put it right.

The written spec is the check list. the way we did it was split up each area so you have kitchen, bathroom, and normal. then have tasks that need doing each week within that area and then four monthly tasks. make sure on the monthly you have week 1 which would be the first week in the month, etc. this way customer can check themselves and you dont get any gray areas as to when the monthly task should be done.

add in spot checks and standards should be fine.

also get contacts that say customers cant employ staff for x period after they stop using you and have this in staff contacts as well. I never had this tested but most people honour it.  this way you dont become a recruitment business for people.

we also had staff call customer by surnames old fashioned but familiarity breeds contempt

As the old saying goes " dont work in your business work on it"

Good luck

[dustee]

I do it the opposite way round  , domestic / commercial cleaning & carpets as an add-on

Doe's it work / profitable  , yes

[Steven Butler]

Thanks for the replies, some good info there cheers.
If i do decide to give it a go which i probably will i assume it would be best to set up a new business entirely...website etc.
I just think even if it just generates an additional income its worth doing just for thr sake of some marketing and planning. Although im not suggesting for 1 minute it would be easy.

[Billy Russell]

It can be vey easy if you have good staff,

staff are the biggest problem you'll face most of the time, sub standard work, last min calls not coming in, leaving early from jobs etc etc,

A good employee are worth their weight in gold

[Carpet2Clean]

Hi Steven

Just done today a full clean for a regular customer of ours which  has just bought another house and now renting out their old house (their new tenants move in Thursday)..

Windows inside/out....Bathroom/shower/toilet.....Kitchen/down stairs toilet..Living/dining room all woodwork/ doors etc dusted/clean in all rooms & now to our main work vacuum all rooms and then clean all carpets.

We try not to do domestic cleaning because it can take along time so we sub it out to another cleaning lady we trust but she has now stop doing it....More and more companies around my area are offering this service (carpet cleaning- domestic cleaning-driveway/patio cleaning-oven cleaning). The reason why the customer ask if we can do the clean for them because they trust us..

They had quotes from £400 to £550 from 3 companies, we charge them £300 (a very happy customer)

This Monday we had two jobs ask if we can do domestic cleaning when we clean their carpets so the wife just booked them in, one is a 5 bed house.

Richard

[Steven Butler]

So how could i run it without actually employing? If there is a way...
Cheers

[Carpet2Clean]

So how could i run it without actually employing? If there is a way...
Cheers

It just me & the wife now doing the domestic cleaning the only thing we sub out now is oven cleaning.

Richard

[dustee]

Steven  why not set the wife in her own cleaning business , that way you can pass any work on to her  ( just a thought )

                             

[Steven Butler]

Would be a good idea but shes got a good career, she works full time.
I do have family members i could take on though and trust.
Do you think a seperate business altogether would be best rather than an add on service?

[dustee]

Set it up as a separate business that way you can generate more work both ways IE  you can recommend a cleaning service when asked & visa versa

Also if things go tits up you've always got something else to fall back on