[Rosemary Bolton]

Hi, I started a contract cleaning firm in April and am wondering what sales and profit target I should have for year 1.

Saw a company on Dragons Den who Bannatyne invested on and they had a t/o of 16000 and profit of 1000 in year one.

Any thoughts?

[BDCS]

I've been going 10 years and have not made a profit yet 

[Matt Jenkins]

To be honest you are the best person to come up with these as only you know your business well enough.

I'd suggest to get an idea you go with using something like the below formula:


Est Sales (and break this down by month/week if the full year is too hard) x Average Sale = Projected Turnover

Turnover x Average Profit (%) = Projected Profit


Then review it every 1-3 months to see if you need to adjust.

[uans03]

I've been going 10 years and have not made a profit yet 

I would say there really needs to be a good reason if your not making profit after ten years. e.g massive investment (vans and big equipment purchase) or expansion also I presume you mean your taking a wage and after all expenses no profit is shown. Also depends on your customer base regarding turnover is it mainly commercial or residential

[BDCS]

I've got a good accountant, yes I do take a wage and yes I have invested. What do you think I have done wrong then ? Do you think my accountant does a bad job ? I had one of those  My aim was merely to get out of the factory where I worked but I still do their pressure washing and pat testing.

[Neil Jones]

 

[seamus campbell]

amazing can someone really be so  naive 

[Tony Rowley]

A wise man once told me "your not obligated to make a profit"

Obviously if your looking to have an  asset to sell in the future it may be wise to do so but otherwise the only person that will benefit is the tax man.

Tony

[BDCS]

But I already collect 20% of my turnover for him 

[Rosemary Bolton]

Based on the trade I currently have (and all my customers are very happy with the service and I am not expecting any cancellations) I should turnover 26K in year 1. My year end is 6th April and I am hoping to pick up new trade before year end, my target is to push it to £30K.

I am really proud of this but it is difficult to gauge it as I do not know what other firms turned over in year 1. Could anyone offer advice?

[Kev Martin]

Turnover = Vanity
Profit      = Sanity
Cash       =  King

So not being clever but Turnover means sweet fanny adams!  I sell one product at nearly £100 which nets me £6.21 per unit gross profit.   I sold 487 of them in the last 12 months which was a Turnover of £48,188.65p inc VAT with a gross Profit of £3024.27 inc VAT.  Then on the other end of the scale I sell another product for £22.99 of which I have sold 328 this year so turnover on that was £7540.72 but the profit was about the same as the product at nearly £100.  So, had I done the same turnover on the 2nd product and sold a lot more the profit would have been £19000 + for the same turnover!

Essentially turnover means nothing, HMV & Jessops were turning over £Millions look where they are now!!!

Concentrate on providing a brilliant service, doing a superb job and making sure you are using the best products and best most efficient staff on everything you do.  The turnover and profit will just come naturally!

Kev Martin
Marblelife Ltd
Tiling Logistics

[Darranvps]

As long as each pound you turnover has good profit in it - your doing well.

No point turning over 30k and making 10% profit better off turning over 10k and making 80% profit