Helen, you went from employing , what seems like a fair few staff, ... to none?
Yip......built up where we wanted to be with it, got class work, got class areas and got class prices. As staff left, we didn't replace them and did the work ourselves. Once all the staff had gone we sold it as a business rather than just a "round".
We made what we wanted to make on it, otherwise we wouldn't have sold it.
Window cleaning was only part of our cleaning services and we realised that the ever increasing time spent with the hassle of staff on windows could be spent more profitably on the other areas of the business.
We employ for evening cleaning and that's it now.
The rest we do ourselves, carpet & upholstery cleaning, leather restoration and flood restoration work.
Now we have happy easy days and evenings, no sleepless nights, no endless battles with awkward staff, no mad rush on a Monday morning when someone does not turn in, no custies phoning saying "it wasn't very good this time",no damage to equipment or vans, no employers national insurance to pay on top of wages etc etc etc.............
Would I go back to employing on window cleaning.......never
The best thing of how we do it.......
we can sack each other or ourselves if we want and know that the next day we will still be there to complete the work