[williamx]

William if you work on the figures you have posted you will be skint.

With these figures I show an operating gross profit of 25% for doing very little work, most businesses work love these figures.

[Moderator David@stives]

William

if you had D Woods business you would be very happy indeed.

Listen to that man, and check out his website

http://www.allcleanservices.co.uk/All_Clean/Window_Cleaning_Clients.html

[williamx]

A working day of 6 hours is on;y a token figure, the same applies to 4 days a week when they work.

In reality, when they see that they can earn £350 a week for 24 hours work, they will think, why not work a little harder say 6 days a week or 10 hours a day 4 days a week, this now brings their earnings up-to £590 or more per week.

As for those who say they cannot turnover £100 per day, then you are doing something very wrong.

I would first look at your pricing, your should have a minimum charge of £5.00 front and £10.00 front and back, with a double charge on 1st cleans or those who want them cleaned every 3 months or longer.

The bigger the property and up goes the price, the houses that take longer to do then their price goes up accordingly.

Remember you are running a business, it might not be as big as Microsoft or Ionics, but its still a business, and therefore it needs to charge whats its worth for the service that you offer.

If you want to do a slap-dash clean, then charge peanuts, but if you offer a 100% clean then your customers will be willing to pay for it.

I understand that there are many cleaners who don't charge these type of figures, they all say that they would never get this amount from their customers, have they tried, I don't think so.

If you all increased your prices to a £10.00 minimum charge, then yes, you will lose some customers, but you won't lose everyone, the ones who stay will more than make up for the ones' that you have lost.

I cover various areas of Birmingham and when I first started I charged £5.00, the next week this had increased to £6.00 and 3 months later it went to £10.00. the reason for the price rises, was that I looked at what I do and what other trades-men do and charge.

For example a customer will call out a plumber or sparkie and expect to pay him a call out charge with him actually doing any work. (how many of you charge just to turn up, let alone do any cleaning)

If they call a cab they pay a minimum charge of £2.50 to £3.00. (if they change their minds they still have to pay this fare) how many of you charge your customers, when they don't want it done.

The general public are used to paying minimum charges, its just that window cleaners have never operated them much.

Its about time they started too.

Theory is a wonderful thing, mainley for the dreamers among us!
If, indeed this was correct, you would be doing just this right now wouldn't you Mr.X?

Tony

I have since January started to increase my customer base drastically, I intend to have 3 to 5 cleaners on the books within 18 months, and 10 cleaners within 3 years, with a turnover of  £500000 per year.

And with any venture you need to work out some sort of operating costs with a business plan, this has been done.

And I already have over 5 years experence of running a million pound business, that employed people who were paid in the same fashion.

[Village Gleam]

Thanks for that William, I think I am the dreamer tony mentions. To clarify I mean't if I was the worker I would be on £90 a day.

[macmac]

Also, my intensions are to have 1000 employees with 500 vans on the road.
Would it be possible? maybe, but the chances are it won't so i'll stay in reality for now.

Tony

[trevor perry]

D woods you obviously run a very succesful business and yet you say williamx figures dont add up , we run a small business employing 19 staff a few only being part time and williamx figures seemed reasonable to me, could it be that due to the investment you have made in cherrypickers and training etc that your prices have to have a larger profit ratio to cover you costs, what sort of wages do you pay your men and how much are they expected to earn you, i understand if you dont want to put this information on here but i am curious how large firms like yourselves can gain really good prices when competing with the likes of OCS etc.
  your website also shows the measures and costs you go to when training your staff do you find that you retain the staff ok or do they just recieve all this training for free then go elsewhere or start on their own.

[geefree]

Hi,

so do you find it easy to keep staff or hard .

[trevor perry]

we find that we have a good base of staff that have been with us for between 6 and 10 years but over the last 3 years have found it really difficult when recruiting any new staff , i would say the staff we have employed over the last 3 years have caused us 90% of any problems.

[Moderator David@stives]

Trevor

How many are window cleaners out of the people that employ ?

[trevor perry]

six are window cleaner but they dont only do window cleaning they also do pressure washing and other industrial cleaning tasks.

[D woods]

Hi Guys
I am not having a dig at William, or any one else but the figures posted would not leave a big enough margin if you are using P.A.Y.E. staff in  company vans.

Their are so many overheads that have to come out of the profit. And that is not including anything for advertising.

[williamx]

A working day of 6 hours is on;y a token figure, the same applies to 4 days a week when they work.

In reality, when they see that they can earn £350 a week for 24 hours work, they will think, why not work a little harder say 6 days a week or 10 hours a day 4 days a week, this now brings their earnings up-to £590 or more per week.

As for those who say they cannot turnover £100 per day, then you are doing something very wrong.

I would first look at your pricing, your should have a minimum charge of £5.00 front and £10.00 front and back, with a double charge on 1st cleans or those who want them cleaned every 3 months or longer.

The bigger the property and up goes the price, the houses that take longer to do then their price goes up accordingly.

Remember you are running a business, it might not be as big as Microsoft or Ionics, but its still a business, and therefore it needs to charge whats its worth for the service that you offer.

If you want to do a slap-dash clean, then charge peanuts, but if you offer a 100% clean then your customers will be willing to pay for it.

I understand that there are many cleaners who don't charge these type of figures, they all say that they would never get this amount from their customers, have they tried, I don't think so.

If you all increased your prices to a £10.00 minimum charge, then yes, you will lose some customers, but you won't lose everyone, the ones who stay will more than make up for the ones' that you have lost.

I cover various areas of Birmingham and when I first started I charged £5.00, the next week this had increased to £6.00 and 3 months later it went to £10.00. the reason for the price rises, was that I looked at what I do and what other trades-men do and charge.

For example a customer will call out a plumber or sparkie and expect to pay him a call out charge with him actually doing any work. (how many of you charge just to turn up, let alone do any cleaning)

If they call a cab they pay a minimum charge of £2.50 to £3.00. (if they change their minds they still have to pay this fare) how many of you charge your customers, when they don't want it done.

The general public are used to paying minimum charges, its just that window cleaners have never operated them much.

Its about time they started too.

Theory is a wonderful thing, mainley for the dreamers among us!
If, indeed this was correct, you would be doing just this right now wouldn't you Mr.X?

Tony

I have since January started to increase my customer base drastically, I intend to have 3 to 5 cleaners on the books within 18 months, and 10 cleaners within 3 years, with a turnover of  £500000 per year.

And with any venture you need to work out some sort of operating costs with a business plan, this has been done.

And I already have over 5 years experence of running a million pound business, that employed people who were paid in the same fashion.

Rock a bye baby on a tree top, when the wind blows the cradle will rock, or something along those lines, yaaawwwn. :

I used to work for corus, their turnover was 1.2 billion, so, in theory, i too could turn over 1.2 billion, right?

Tony

I have just checked the companies figures that I use to work forand they are only turning over £800.3 million with a profit of £103 million, peanuts really.

As for you earning £1 billion, if you really really wanted too,why not, what don't you have that the bosses at corus have? if the answer is nothing then why not, other people seen to suceed in business why not a window cleaner.

[Moderator David@stives]

Dave Woods

Are you going to Windex ?

Dave

[D woods]

Hi Dave
Yes I am going to Windex, it would be nice to meet up and have a chat.

[Moderator David@stives]

I will drop you a mail close to the time so we can meet up.

Dave

[D woods]

OK

[trevor perry]

dave woods
        i understand exactly what you are saying about hidden expenses such as office staff , company premises ,PAYE  vehicles etc but companies like OCS etc run on much smaller profit margins and these are the companies that some middle sized firms are trying to compete with, and although i know the quality of work would be much better using a smaller firm these contracts seem to be more price orientated than quality orientated.

[williamx]

Hi Guys
I am not having a dig at William, or any one else but the figures posted would not leave a big enough margin if you are using P.A.Y.E. staff in  company vans.

Their are so many overheads that have to come out of the profit. And that is not including anything for advertising.

Dave

No problem, all I was trying to show was what could be earned by employing staff who worked the bear minimum.

The profit margin would increase the more they did work though and I have found that the more incentives that you give the more you get from your staff.

I have found that in previous employments that good staff are like gold to get and kept, and paying poor wages or conditions is the fastest way to lose them.

[D woods]

Hi William
Yes you are right good staff are like Gold, And I have to say over the the last 12-18 months it seems for our business even harder than normal to find the right people.

And on top of this our overheads are continuing to rise.

[Moderator David@stives]

Is Polish the answer?