[Paul Evans]

Been asked a couple of times this year are you alone.
Think customer expected 2 of us to arrive.
in general are you a lone worker or a 2 man team.

On the odd occasion I have a helper, but 95% I work alone.
 
Results would be interesting.

[maxcampbell]

1 TM with 2 people always, 1 TM with 1 person doing hard floor test patches, bits & pieces, etc. (1 porty in the garage )

The 2 man team thing is a big selling point for us, and allows us to use another one - "We will move all the furniture that you want us to."

I reckon 2 men with 1 TM will do nearly as much work as 2 men with 2 TM's.

[Shaun_Ashmore]

Without being too personal how long does it take you to do jobs? Perhaps you could give us an approximate amount of time you may put down in your diary.

I'm hoping that mike Halliday May add his timings as he runs a 2 man team.

Shaun

[maxcampbell]

Tomorrow:

4 beds, bath, S/L  from 9 to 12
Lounge (252 sq ft) & stairs 12 to 1
4 beds, lounge (274 sq ft), bath, S/L, rug on site 1.30 to 5

All fully furnished, all furniture to be moved.

[Barry Livingstone]

SO your JObs are 5mins apart Every day? and you dont stop for Lunch? Or your staff don't?

[maxcampbell]

Little travel time between jobs tomorrow. Arrival time always expressed to custy's as 1 hr window. No, we don't timetable for lunch - either pull over for 10 mins between jobs or take a few minutes individually.

Don't find low natural light to be major barrier.

[Mike Halliday]

Usually me and my son work together, over the last 3 weeks we have had Dale our leaflet distrubutor help us on big jobs so we worked as a 3 man team.

The 2 of us do a dirty suite and living room in 90mins.

We did an empty EOT empty 3 bed house on Saturday morning in 50 mins

Last week 3 of us bonneted a 6bed house in 90mins, using the TM on the double stairs.

We use Dale to do all the fiddly bits like filtration marks and putting furniture back

We do living rooms in 25-30mins

[Jamie Pearson]

I did a 3 bedroom house with a porty and my old man who has been retired 3 years but has aver 40 years experience.

It was stinking of dog pee and absolutely filthy.

It took us 45 minutes however the next day it still smelt disgusting. 
(Polyprop carpets, no underlay)

Maybe I should stick to commercials.....why do they never turn out well when they are your own carpets 

I would say the biggest advantage to a 2 man team is the meet and greet with a customer, the opportunity to upsell, take calls/bookings, get paid without losing too much time.  This all in addition to improved productivity.

[Luc]

Mike

I'm seriously impressed with those times. Hope you don't mind me asking is that dual wanding or do does one person scrub while one cleans or do you bonnet most jobs. I've been working as a two man team and are looking at how we can speed up.

[neil 47]

2 of us did

Through lounge and stairs arrived 9;15 left 10;15

Next a lounge finished and in cafe for 11;15 had meat and Tattie pie

Then a lounge and stairs all done for 1;30pm and that's with dinner .

I make sure sprayer is filled, and take hot water with me one unloads, other vacs and sprays

And all the carpets were spottless

2 makes a big difference and after working years by myself , i would say customers like it as your not in the house all day . seem to of had more tips as well second person being a woman also seems to make a difference in some cases .

[petermaybury]

When work as 2 man team I would agree with the advantages of booking more work on phone , upselling to customer and getting more recommendation work with a helper but also find it an advantage to drop surrounding houses with leaflets whilst 1 person is packing up.
For commercials find 3 man team the ideal for covering large areas.
If I only worked in daylight hours my income would drop by about 50% as I do quite a lot of commercial, so find it very difficult to understand anybody who can limit his work to daylight hours.

Peter
www.carpetcleanercardiff.com

[Mike Halliday]

Luc, the speed comes from us both knowing exactly what our individual job will be on each job, as we pull up one of us will say... " I'll do this one" which mean he will do the wanding, the other will prespray & scrub.

As we walk to the door I have a holdall with dust sheets my son has a 75ft solution line and H/F  after a quick chat and walk through I will start unwinding the solution line to the truckmount while my son gets in the rotary,  I prespray and scrub while he gets in the vac hose & wand then he puts away the rotary while I start cleaning, when he gets back he asks "any spots?" He treat spots as I clean. When we finish it's just a nod of the head to signal we are done and start packing away.

We are fast but very thorough,  even more so because there are 2 of us and my son knows I hate to see him or me inactive on jobs so we both look for things that need doing. I've seen him bringing in the dustbins for customers or playing with the dog anything so he's doing something.

We only use bonnets on clean carpets, which we often find on high end EOT cleans who have a dog so get them cleaned to get rid of any trace of the dog.

[Mike Halliday]

Just to add....

It's been said by Max about moving all furniture, we heavily sell ourselves on the fact we are a 2 man team and lift furniture not drag it across the carpet.

Also it's unbelievable how older people ( a lot of our work is the retired) love the fact we are a father & son team, I make a big deal about introducing my son when we arrive, (they have already met me when I did the quote) he shakes hands with them and exchanges pleasantries.  We get lots of comments about how nice it is to see us working together.

[mark_roberts]

A two man team is like a truckmount. Once used youll never want to go back.

Also the main benefit i like the most is Im not knackered at the end of the week esp this time of year.

Mark

[Luc]

Thanks mike

I have started to employ my sister for that last 6months and found that customers love it. The housewives seem to feel more at ease with another female and we seem to get a lot more recommendations. I was a bit hesitant at first but my sister is very sporty and fit and can keep up with most men I've worked with. We are very efficient but feel I can improve on our techniques and speed on upholstery. 

[Doctor Carpet (Ret'd)]

We are a two man team and so would fully endorse all the reasons given so far as being positives.

I would also add the following:

Picking up/dropping off keys from property management companies is so much easier if one is driving and the other going into the company. there is little/no having to park up and lock up van possibly some distance away from the Management company Offices.

At the end of a long hard week there can often be nothing more dispiriting than arriving at an EOT which is filthy. Having a second person to firstly help with the job, but possibly more important to keep your mutual motivation up and get the job done thoroughly and quickly is to me a huge benefit.

Finally, this job can be quite lonely and so having company in the van just to talk to/talk through the work, difficult jobs, moan about difficult clients all go towards keeping oneself on a more even keel.

Rog

[JandS]

Negatives.

Having to share the money.....

[des]

Maxcampbell Can you tell me how you clean ie Do you pre vac /agitate carpet /steam clean /bonnet dry  after as the time to do the l/d stairs landing seem,s very little  Des

[maxcampbell]

We only pre-vac if there's a lot of loose dry crap about, though sometimes we just pre-vacc the edges with a crevice tool. We pre-spray with an in-line sprayer (run from a Y piece with 50' of solution hose), most jobs we agitate with a TM4, then we extract with the TM, and then put down snail driers, unless it's just one room. If we're doing upholstery we nearly always twin-tool.

My son mans the office, so I don't get calls coming in, and he makes the bookings, so we had rather more travelling than I'd realised today.

Arrived first job 10 to 9, did 4 bedrooms landing & stairs, driving off about 11.15. Got to second job about 12.00 ( ), did lounge & stairs, driving off about 12.45. Got to third job after pulling over for a sandwich about 1.15, did 4 beds, lounge, stairs & landing, drove off on the dot of 5.00.

My helper & I work well together, swapping between roles as the job goes. Generally one goes ahead, moves furniture from around the edge, pre-vaccs edges and pre-sprays. Second guy comes & extracts, while first guy replaces the furniture in the bit (or room) just extracted and coasters up, then prepares the next bit (or room) for extraction. We try to keep the wand working and fill in doing whatever's necessary - making up solutions, spotting, etc. We don't F about, or stop for breaks, and both of us are active all the time - there's always something to do to move things on, maybe finding a manhole ready to dump waste, or putting the next address in the satnav.