[Andrew Briscoe]

  hi all,
just wondered how many of you offered services other than
carpet cleaning.
i have been cleaning carpets & upholstery etc since 1988,
2 years ago i was asked to clean a nursery in my town when their cleaner was sick or on holiday. why i took on the job i
do not know. however their cleaner got pregnant and never came back so got job permanently, a friend of mine has done the work for the last 18 months.

    from that job it just seemed to take off, i now have contracts worth 75k per annum and i am getting new contracts
 all the time. looking towards 100k off contract/year have now got eight staff, and a full time  lad ( 62 ) ex chem dry
to look after the carpets.
 with contracts, builders cleans etc and carpet cleaning my
turnover has gone from 45k to 140-165k per annum.
  the last year has been hard work but i am now doing very
little physical work, just managing the business.

i am 43 and by the time iam 50 i hope to have a business
worth more to sell on. i dont persume a carpet cleaning
business  with 45k turn over would be worth very much.

just wanted to let you all know that life does not just revolve around carpet cleaning

       Andrew

[Marly 11]

Hi ya is there anychance you could email me cleenco@london.com re information on getting contracts

[matt jones]

yeah me to if you don't mind mattjones84@hotmail.com.
Thanks
matt

[martin19842]

hi there

andrew diversity and product mix are always a good recipe to aid business expansion, and i personally weould encourage it.

what you have to be wary of is spreading yourself to thin, and sometimes we may even do that, but it always seems to dovetail somehow, so no major concerns.

the key is to control the profit line of the differing services, you can also benefit from that, in the way that some products will deliver a better return percentage wise, than others, therefore giving you that mix of products and then a stabilised profit and loss account.

we move into different areas, based on customer demand, and our skills and experience base, to ensure that the serivce, irrespective of the type of service is always of a high standard.

regards

martin

[ianharper]

guys

if you want more business then its the maid service that you should be in.

so much work you can pick and choose who you work for. last year we where using a call centre to take out calls and we had to stop because we could not take on any more work but the calls kept coming and the bill kept rising as it was on a per call basis. i was paying for them to say sorry we are fully booked.

BTW staff are a pain. but if you don't mind then lots of profit.

here is a great system to use.

http://www.thecleanteam.com/

respect

Ian harper

[bennymon]

hi andrew  could you please email me i would like to know how to price up jobs and what to pay staff cheers mate    abmcleaning@fsmail.net

[Macarthur]

I was once working alongside a contract cleaner who had a £1.5 million a year turnover.  He was stressed out, rushing around like a headless chicken,  always short staffed, never to a day off (not even christmas), and broke up from his wife.
Must admit it put me off of ever taking on staff and becoming too big, there is more to life etc.
Nigel.

[Paul_Ashworth]

Well siad Nigel, there's allways  a fine balance between work and play. I doubt he even made a lot of money from having a t/o that big after paying his over heads and staff.

Turnover is vanity, profit is sanity !!

[mark_roberts]

How do you make money from maid cleaning?

A local company charges £9 an hour.  I reckon the girls get around £6 so £3 left for other costs.  Youd need to have a lot of staff to make it pay.

Just wondering.

Mark

[Liahona]

Mark, I understand what you are saying and accordingly I wouldnt do a maid service.  Having said that if you have a lot of people working for you then a lot of a little will work.  I just chose to do little for a lot.  There is a company (maid services) in California that I did a lot of cleaning for.  They contracted all their cleaners out for a sum.  They paid the cleaners two dollars less that what they were charging.  If I remember correctly they had about 300 cleaners working for them. Thats 600 dollars and hour times by 10 hours equals 6,000 dollars a day.  I am sure you get my point.  On the same principle I have a contract that is worth close to £100,000 a year.  My thoughts are to pay someone else £50,000 a year to do it for me and the rest I get for doing no work.  Best, Dave.

[ianharper]

guys

does not have to be to be profitable.

I had over 20 staff last year. sack most and reduced to five and make more with less. I don't have to work if i dont want to. I not loaded just at a point where i the time but not the money to enjoy it.

in my book i half way. in the process of reducing overheads down and then i can start to save.

like most things its down to good staff and the one that work for me are totally reliable. so i have little to worry about. not so last year it was costing me over a grand every eight weeks to find train and replace staff.

when you have to replace staff at this rate it unnerves clients when they keep seeing new faces. after all your in their home.

the biggest problem is kids. it always fulls to the women to care if any thing happens. i had staff each day coming in just to cover this.

having said that i still think that with regards carpet cleaning I would still use two women over one man. it gives you flexibility. if a man takes a day off you have to rebook all the work but if its job share it a bit different. plus you reduce the chance of training up a man then he goes off with some of your customers and sets up on his own.

I have a clause in my staffs contract that prevent this.

regards costs. average price £35 labour 1/2 that. the big difference is once you have the customer you work for them each week so every one is worth £910 a year profit

you might say but what about overheads? minimal. and marketing your in profit after the first month if you run things by the numbers.

add in a call per week for QC and a money back guarantee and you off.

Respect

Ian harper