Tom how many 'non direct' employees do you have? Are he/she/they self-employed?
Your obviously doing very well for yourself especially with just one van on the road. Just curious on what terms you employ your staff. Iv considered employing someone a few times but in the end always decide against it.
I can decide whether to stick or twist....
Hi Chris
I have one guy who is the most regular and he is self employed. I have a few people who I can get in as and when I need to for larger jobs.
I'm not a fan of having to employ.. I may need to one day, but I'm hoping I won't have to.
I bought some work last year which has helped and also managed to put off buying a second van, I knew the costs would add up and wanted to save money and get ahead of myself to be able to invest in getting more work this year, but quicker than the time its taken to build what I have now - I didn't have any money 4 years ago so it was canvass canvass canvass, and a shed load of phone calls.
One little way I am going to try and put the prices up without actually 'putting them up' is sell garage door cleaning. Say what, £3.50 for a single garage door every 8 weeks? Most garage doors are minging. After the first clean with virosol they'll be dead easy, less than a minute. 'Mrs customer you pay £4 every 2 weeks to get your bins cleaned, to have a large part of the front of your house cleaned works out at an investment of just £1.75 a month'.
Even do the first clean for free (I know you love doing things for free Chris!)
you can show them how good it looks so they should go for it every time.
Also push for a lot more GFS cleans and pressure washing. If you're brave enough you can really charge good money for that work.
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Be better off doing half the door while they're watching. (after asking, obviously)
Or show before/after pics on your phone. (this is what i do now)
Once its had its first clean in 4 decades, it won't actually need doing for ages.