[Crystal-clear]

Even if they are self-employed £150 is a low return for 2 people. If you're working occasionally too you will top VAT £350 net of VAT is £291 take away £200 wages potentially this could leave you with only £91 ok say £100 with claim backs.

You'll have your van insurance you're running costs van repairs liability and employers insurance..and alot more.
I don't think given the responsibility and commitment required from yourself makes this financially viable. Not much profit will be left over You would be far better off doing 250-£300 per day by yourself if this is possible in your area?.  And if you can do that figure that should really be the minimum amount per man so you should change to one man per van ideally.

Then you will be left with 150-200 per man with less turnover keeping you under VAT eventually getting the second van then bringing in £500-£600 gross of vat leaving you between £417-£500 net so between £217-£317 profit bit more after claim backs.

It's all about profit in the long term and consistency and although you may not be paying any VAT now you could soon and when that happens you really do need to be making more profit . Try single-user targets good Financial Planning now will make your life a lot easier in the future.

[jay moley]

Thanks for all the replies.

Bit depressed really.

Be good to start again with new employees on different wage structures and targets. Not really feasible though. Will look to increase the daily target and perhaps incentivise them.

[Oliver James]

I had the same issue about 4 years ago.

Me and an employee doing about £350-£400 a day from one van.

Here is what I did:

1. One man per van, with a 650L tank.
2. Converted all six weekly to twelve weekly at 50% more for 12 weekly, while at the same time canvassing regularly. Can now get a new customer signed up DD for every 150mins of canvassing, but it took a while to get there.
3.  Got all new customers to pay by DD
4. Converted all old customers to DD
5. Used Go Cardless Pro for the above
6. Focused on doing quality work, with regular checks on work quality and logged complaints, and how many recleans we needed to do.
7. Timed all work, and dropped / gave price rises to all unprofitable work.

Now we are doing around £350 to £400 per day, each van.

With the team, they should be on minimum wage, and get 30% of the takings. They should get 'strikes' for stuff you don't want to see, like calling in sick. or leaving the yard late.   The 'strikes' come off the bonus.

Explain to them that they can't come back before 5 unless the sheet is completed.

They get a further bonus for meeting monthly targets.

Yes, it is gonna rock the boat, Yes, they may / may not like it, but you need to get them onside and see the bigger rewards as being a part of it.  Hire slowly, fire quickly.

The path ahead is not easy, and it takes time.  However, if you've got this far, you WILL be able to take it to the next level.

Good luck, where are you based?

[jay moley]

I had the same issue about 4 years ago.

Me and an employee doing about £350-£400 a day from one van.

Here is what I did:

1. One man per van, with a 650L tank.
2. Converted all six weekly to twelve weekly at 50% more for 12 weekly, while at the same time canvassing regularly. Can now get a new customer signed up DD for every 150mins of canvassing, but it took a while to get there.
3.  Got all new customers to pay by DD
4. Converted all old customers to DD
5. Used Go Cardless Pro for the above
6. Focused on doing quality work, with regular checks on work quality and logged complaints, and how many recleans we needed to do.
7. Timed all work, and dropped / gave price rises to all unprofitable work.

Now we are doing around £350 to £400 per day, each van.

With the team, they should be on minimum wage, and get 30% of the takings. They should get 'strikes' for stuff you don't want to see, like calling in sick. or leaving the yard late.   The 'strikes' come off the bonus.

Explain to them that they can't come back before 5 unless the sheet is completed.

They get a further bonus for meeting monthly targets.

Yes, it is gonna rock the boat, Yes, they may / may not like it, but you need to get them onside and see the bigger rewards as being a part of it.  Hire slowly, fire quickly.

The path ahead is not easy, and it takes time.  However, if you've got this far, you WILL be able to take it to the next level.

Good luck, where are you based?

Some good stuff there, thanks.

Went out yesterday, as I'm just getting back to work with 2 of us and we did £437. This included working in the rain for 1 hour. I know they are not working in the rain, so that explains a bit of the low takings. Will tackle this as no excuse to not work in the rain.

Based in Surrey. I think my pricing is ok. Average job £23.

[Smudger]

I don't think its wise to specify 5pm after all it will be dark at 3.30 soon........

your average means nothing @ £23  without an average time to go with it

for example you average £23 per ouse but only clean 1.5 hours an hour = £34.50 turnover = poor

where as some one might only average £15 per house but they on average do 4 p/h = £60 = good

hope this helps,  some good bits from Mr James as well

Darran

[jay moley]

I had the same issue about 4 years ago.

Me and an employee doing about £350-£400 a day from one van.

Here is what I did:

1. One man per van, with a 650L tank.
2. Converted all six weekly to twelve weekly at 50% more for 12 weekly, while at the same time canvassing regularly. Can now get a new customer signed up DD for every 150mins of canvassing, but it took a while to get there.
3.  Got all new customers to pay by DD
4. Converted all old customers to DD
5. Used Go Cardless Pro for the above
6. Focused on doing quality work, with regular checks on work quality and logged complaints, and how many recleans we needed to do.
7. Timed all work, and dropped / gave price rises to all unprofitable work.

Now we are doing around £350 to £400 per day, each van.

With the team, they should be on minimum wage, and get 30% of the takings. They should get 'strikes' for stuff you don't want to see, like calling in sick. or leaving the yard late.   The 'strikes' come off the bonus.

Explain to them that they can't come back before 5 unless the sheet is completed.

They get a further bonus for meeting monthly targets.

Yes, it is gonna rock the boat, Yes, they may / may not like it, but you need to get them onside and see the bigger rewards as being a part of it.  Hire slowly, fire quickly.

The path ahead is not easy, and it takes time.  However, if you've got this far, you WILL be able to take it to the next level.

Good luck, where are you based?

Couple of questions:

1) Why did you convert to 12 weekly cleaning?

2) How many underpriced jobs did you drop?

3) How many customers cancelled when you asked them to switch to DD?

4) How many vans and employees do you have?

[Stoots]

I had the same issue about 4 years ago.

Me and an employee doing about £350-£400 a day from one van.

Here is what I did:

1. One man per van, with a 650L tank.
2. Converted all six weekly to twelve weekly at 50% more for 12 weekly, while at the same time canvassing regularly. Can now get a new customer signed up DD for every 150mins of canvassing, but it took a while to get there.
3.  Got all new customers to pay by DD
4. Converted all old customers to DD
5. Used Go Cardless Pro for the above
6. Focused on doing quality work, with regular checks on work quality and logged complaints, and how many recleans we needed to do.
7. Timed all work, and dropped / gave price rises to all unprofitable work.

Now we are doing around £350 to £400 per day, each van.

With the team, they should be on minimum wage, and get 30% of the takings. They should get 'strikes' for stuff you don't want to see, like calling in sick. or leaving the yard late.   The 'strikes' come off the bonus.

Explain to them that they can't come back before 5 unless the sheet is completed.

They get a further bonus for meeting monthly targets.

Yes, it is gonna rock the boat, Yes, they may / may not like it, but you need to get them onside and see the bigger rewards as being a part of it.  Hire slowly, fire quickly.

The path ahead is not easy, and it takes time.  However, if you've got this far, you WILL be able to take it to the next level.

Good luck, where are you based?

Some good stuff there, thanks.

Went out yesterday, as I'm just getting back to work with 2 of us and we did £437. This included working in the rain for 1 hour. I know they are not working in the rain, so that explains a bit of the low takings. Will tackle this as no excuse to not work in the rain.

Based in Surrey. I think my pricing is ok. Average job £23.

How are you only doing £400 2 man in Surrey with an average price of £23

Are they massive houses or really spread out?

When I was working 2 man we was doing 35 -40 houses a day.

Bearing in mind I'm up north with an average price of £10 or so a job with a similar turnover of 400 a day

Surely you can do 400 solo at £23 a job, that's less than 20 jobs a day. 

[STEVE-UK]

when employing , do you supply footwear as part of the uniform?

[Lee Pryor]

I had the same issue about 4 years ago.

Me and an employee doing about £350-£400 a day from one van.

Here is what I did:

1. One man per van, with a 650L tank.
2. Converted all six weekly to twelve weekly at 50% more for 12 weekly, while at the same time canvassing regularly. Can now get a new customer signed up DD for every 150mins of canvassing, but it took a while to get there.
3.  Got all new customers to pay by DD
4. Converted all old customers to DD
5. Used Go Cardless Pro for the above
6. Focused on doing quality work, with regular checks on work quality and logged complaints, and how many recleans we needed to do.
7. Timed all work, and dropped / gave price rises to all unprofitable work.

Now we are doing around £350 to £400 per day, each van.

With the team, they should be on minimum wage, and get 30% of the takings. They should get 'strikes' for stuff you don't want to see, like calling in sick. or leaving the yard late.   The 'strikes' come off the bonus.

Explain to them that they can't come back before 5 unless the sheet is completed.

They get a further bonus for meeting monthly targets.

Yes, it is gonna rock the boat, Yes, they may / may not like it, but you need to get them onside and see the bigger rewards as being a part of it.  Hire slowly, fire quickly.

The path ahead is not easy, and it takes time.  However, if you've got this far, you WILL be able to take it to the next level.

Good luck, where are you based?

Oliver would you mind pointing out to everyone here that everything you have written in this post came directly from me. Thanks.

[Pete Thompson]

Oliver would you mind pointing out to everyone here that everything you have written in this post came directly from me. Thanks.

I knew it sounded familiar!

Lee, May I ask a question; most of my work (about 90%) is monthly. 8% 2 monthly, and the rest 6- weekly. All well priced to the point that I don’t think a price increase would be plausible.

What was the reason you decided on a 6weekly / 12 weekly schedule, and would you recommend switching to it?

Also, does your 5 pm rule apply even in winter when it’s dark at 4pm?

[Scrimble]

Lee's advise is good however I would advise against Olivers forcing customers to go to the longer frequency,

4 cleans per year is not enough, you will need a high amount of customers if you did that and they would all be like first cleans every time they are cleaned,

If you jack a £12 house up to £18 and then say we are only coming 4 times a year now instead of 8 and the customers wants a regular window clean they will more than likely cancel.

[Oliver James]

Yes, fair enough, not my ideas, sorry, should have mentioned your name.

What you have come up with Lee,  is a genius way of getting window cleaners 'on task'.

I went to a talk on what motivates staff, and this is what the research shows

Money has an effect, but it is limited.

They are motivated by:

Autonomy
Mastery
Purpose

What motivates people is being able to do the work how they want (autonomy). The opportunity to get mastery at a skill, and purpose ie. doing something that is part of  a greater whole (a bit like how a lot of millenials want to work for social enterprises.

More here, This video / Ted Talk has had over 8.5 million views;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrkrvAUbU9Y

[NWH]

Alright lads,

I currently pay my two employees £100 a day. I'm wondering whether it would be better to incentivise them. Anyone do it? If so how does it work? What percentage etc.

Also my current target turnover a day from one van is £350. This is domestic work with 2 workers on the van. Be interested to see people's views on whether this is about right or too little.

Cheers

Depends where you are in the country down here parts of the south coast you expect more for 2 men from 1 van,if you had the right work and they did on average 7-8 hours most days it would be more like 550-650 but like I say job type dependant.
This is not on normal domestic houses though it would be all detached 4 bed upwards with no customers looking at there watches on how long you are there,silly quick with the pole with 2 people 1 doing the back and a side and the other 1 doing a front and a side. I would say in a lot of cases that above figure is conservative too if they got a shift on,you’ll get people posting now saying impossible never happen can’t be done,but it’s done by many.

[Smudger]

and there you have it Nigel,

we have no set formula on how to clean windows, nor do we know how compact a round is - we all work independently  - what I consider to be fast maybe slow to others and vice versa. this will also translate into turnover p/h

Darran

[Oliver James]

Yes, agree, it is flawed logic to compare rounds, because you are not comparing like with like, they are all completely different.

I referred to Daniel Pink's video in my previous post,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrkrvAUbU9Y

which claims that to solve the puzzle of how to motivate team members, it is not JUST about what you pay them.

Other factors are at play, according to him,

Specifically, they want: autonomy (to a certain extent, to be able to do the work with a degree of autonomy), Mastery, (to be able to get really good at a specific skill), and purpose, to have a wider purpose than just earning cash

Any thoughts on what he's claiming in his video?

[Dry Clean]

Yes, agree, it is flawed logic to compare rounds, because you are not comparing like with like, they are all completely different.

I referred to Daniel Pink's video in my previous post,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrkrvAUbU9Y

which claims that to solve the puzzle of how to motivate team members, it is not JUST about what you pay them.

Other factors are at play, according to him,

Specifically, they want: autonomy (to a certain extent, to be able to do the work with a degree of autonomy), Mastery, (to be able to get really good at a specific skill), and purpose, to have a wider purpose than just earning cash

Any thoughts on what he's claiming in his video?

Cant watch those babble videos, but as to your point, if a person has always wanted to do a certain type of work then being able to do, learn and master it will be a great motivator, but if its just a case of having to learn it to keep the job then the motivation goes back to being all about the cash.

[SB Cleaning]

Lee's advise is good however I would advise against Olivers forcing customers to go to the longer frequency,

4 cleans per year is not enough, you will need a high amount of customers if you did that and they would all be like first cleans every time they are cleaned,

If you jack a £12 house up to £18 and then say we are only coming 4 times a year now instead of 8 and the customers wants a regular window clean they will more than likely cancel.

I find 12wk cleans  not much worse than 6wk

[Dry Clean]

Lee's advise is good however I would advise against Olivers forcing customers to go to the longer frequency,

4 cleans per year is not enough, you will need a high amount of customers if you did that and they would all be like first cleans every time they are cleaned,

If you jack a £12 house up to £18 and then say we are only coming 4 times a year now instead of 8 and the customers wants a regular window clean they will more than likely cancel.

I find 12wk cleans  not much worse than 6wk

Same here, I also find that people looking for longer frequencies tend to do it to save money and then jump ship as soon as somebody cheaper comes along.

[Oliver James]

The above are fair points.

On reflection I over-reacted to my situation in  2016 (van doing low daily billing) by moving ALL the work to 12 weekly.

A combination of six and12 weekly means good daily billing amounts if the work is priced well, and you don’t need so many jobs to build a round.

However, if you are a one man band who wants to stay that way and not increase the size of the business, then moving your work slowly to 12 weekly over time is one way of increasing profit margin with no increase in expenses.

[NWH]

As far as employees is concerned more often than not it’s about the money and it’s got to be about the money if you want to keep them for any length of time,I would say pay them more than they will get doing other unskilled jobs or labouring or shop work etc they are more likely to stick at it if they think they’ll get similar work in the warm especially this time of the year.
It’s not all about the money but in a lot of cases it is people need a certain amount to get by,I would rather pay a bit more so they were happier than run em into the ground for peanuts these days it’s only a case of doing a few more jobs a week and they can be done while you’re sitting in the van anyway.