Robin Ray
This is a fav subject of mine on here as it covers many areas of debate. how much you charge, what machine you use, and what type of business you have.
AS an example you can have very low overheads and be cheap or choose to charge more. Or you can have high overheads and go for working hard all day with low margins but that turnover is the same as someone thats working a lot less with lower overheads.
So the choices you make with the equipment you buy will have a direct affect on how much you work and make in profit.
Life style is really important. I have been a manager working 16 hours a day and had my own business with 20 people working for me, but now choose to work by myself. I think its great that someone with little education can have all these choices. what a great country and time we live in, -)
Regarding profit from my experience its down to education. is your education being added to to? are you learning? you have to become a new person to get the success you want. An example of this was my maid service I got to a point where I did not have to really work apart from interviewing new customers and staff and some paperwork. I had a great lifestyle in as much as I did not have to work as I had always seen it. but I just did not have the education or knowledge to take my business forwards to the next level. I was rich in time and had some money to spend to enjoy but not really money rich. Down side to this was devil makes work for idle hands -) enter divorce
So you have to become a new person because if we was that person we would have all the knowledge we needed. this is why we need people that have already done it. this is what JP did so well holding up example of people that had trod the path. We really dont have this in carpet cleaning at the moment. BICSc have annual dinners where they give out awards. this serves this purpose and shows members the value of membership. So BICSc is a great model on how to educate people and show them a path to the top of cleaning. And with this rise comes money. now if only we had that model in place in carpet cleaning.
NCCA teaches people but fails to show people by example how to build a business. Franchises do this much better as you have people that will have more than one area and can be modelled by others on how to reach the next level. Only problem is its not really your business your building its really only a job with profit share. -)
Alltech and FT did a good job only problem was there was not transparency in the numbers. when people stood up and said they had done something and is was not backed up with numbers and proof its BS. When you are telling people to do something you need to tell them everything or they dont get the full picture. this is why it failed in the end.
I find that we get so much BS about numbers. So you might ask this question to any cleaner but when pushed for proof all you get is evasion.
You have to ask the question in a way that will tell you the type of business. being self employed and having a wage of £25k is not profit. profit comes after this and is the building blocks of a business.
I would have asked how much are you investing into new customers each year? as if you sell any business its this that has the real value not turnover.
Lets also not forget about good accounting I just give the example of google tax paid in UK this does not mean no profit just numbers being moved around. profit is taxable investment and in google case where the business is registered. investment builds your business and if you pay your self a wage you can give yourself big pay rises this is why bosses earn so much and get big pay rises each year and again with good accounting live a better life . good accounting is key to your wealth dont give it to the government. they make the rules just keep inside them like google does.
More profit means more tax -(
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