[scrimit2]

I have considered myself as a part time window cleaner, 3 days a week spread over 5 because of weather, up until last month I cleaned 175 ish houses a month but now after lots of phone calls for no apparent reason I have 225 jobs, my round is mainly rural but the houses are close together in places so some days I do 25 ish some days 10 because of sizes of the houses and locations, if things continue like this I will have to decide whether to stop taking on new work (unless extremley good ones) or employ someone, I have had people help me in the past and have been grateful for there help so I can catch up, but I tend to earn much less, for example, on a day where I can earn say £140 on my own from 10 to 4 I would maybe only save 1 or 2 hours if someone helped me and then I would have to pay them (but it was a easier days work), I have talked to local window cleaners who work in twos and they say they earn much less when working together, does anyone else find this? or is just a case of working at it?
maybe if you work well as a team over time you could save time, but it doesnt seem when working that anytime is being wasted, except when travelling two of you are not earning.

[danny mckim]

first of all i think the aim of most windowcleaners is to improve their buisness each year. When someone is helping you, if they are can do the job as good as you then both of you should do double what you do on your own. You only make less because you both are doing one mans work. Make sure you have enough work b4 you employ someone otherwise it will cost you money instead of u makin it.

[williamx]

Scrimit 2

I have found that working with someone at the same time on the same jobs does not increase the amount of money you earn, but if you split up and both clean different houses at the same time and you give your cleaner a percentage of what he does then your money will increase.

The other way to increase the money you earn is to replace your exsisting customers with higher earners, but be careful of this route, if you replace all of your loyal customers with higher earners and another cleaner moves on to your patch you could end up losing more than you have gained.

[stephen d]

its not always about the money,for example to keep a good name you have to be reliable and regular .so if from time to time you have to use help when your behind to keep your customers happy, just accept it. also ifrom a safety point of view 2 always better and working by yourself can be pretty boring at times.

[steve k]

I have just started someone to assist me and the understanding from the start is that initially we will clean houses together with him getting 25% of fee per house. This is very fair as in the early days it seems I am doing 75% of the work anyway...but I am doing more houses and earning more and my mate seems happy to be discovering a possible new way of earning a living. I expect him to be doing his own share of the round in a months time and he will receive 50% of the fee from each house he cleans. The other 50% will be split between business development/ongoing costs and increased profit for me.
As he increases in speed and ability, I will increase his share up to a maximum of 70%.
I have spent a lot of time and energy building a round which I wish to build into a career and a profitable business whereas my mate wants a route off the taxis and £50 a day.
This may not work for everyone but it`s working out at the moment.
Just keep in mind the work you have done to get to the point of paying someone a wage...it should never be a 50/50 split unless he has been out there with you pounding the pavements, researching, advertising and purchasing all the equipment.
It`s your business and you are the boss.
Good luck
Steve

[clearview window c]

any new work should be deliberately overpriced in my oppinion. if you dont need it u cant loose. if a customer doesnt shout HOW MUCH?? youve done something wrong. a customer should be noticably paler 30 to 60 seconds after quote. dont drop customers put them up and win win win. hope this helps.

[Ian_Giles]

Clearview, your opinion on pricing made me smile

I am being kinda nagged, the computer has this strange effect on my wife, the more wine she drinks, the stronger the effect
I have had a couple of decades of employing people, and I am well aware of time and motion studies, done many of them.
2 people will NEVER work twice as fast as one person. You will NOT do twice as much work.
Your effeciency will drop.
I'll reply at greater length when I'm not getting my ear chewed off, my wife has jaws like a rottweiler

Regards,


Ian

[texas girl]

Hey Ian;

Maybe your wife wants to chew your ears and nibble on the rest of you!

More wine please!

Texas Girl

[Ian_Giles]

Hi Debbie,
Nice to see you back on the forum And nibble on the rest of me? I keep the salt and sharp knives away from her when she is in that mood Nibbling sounds good but she likes her food cut up into small chunks

back to the issue!

Window cleaning is very labour intensive and organising it so that you can get the most out of someone working alongside is no easy matter.
There are benefits of course, you have companionship, someone to chat to, you've aways got someone on hand to foot the ladder and so on.

But if you want to make money out of someone you have to forego that and get them working by themself. If they are using their own vehicle, supply them with a ladder rack and point them in the direction of a days work. They have a list they have to get done.
If you pay them more than 50% of what they turn over you will struggle to make it worth it, you also have to pay them milage for using their vehicle don't forget.
If the tax man gets to hear that you have someone working for you he will insist you put him on the books, and that means Employers Liability, and the employers part of NI contributions, and all the other associated costs that come with it!

If you are turning over £150 or so a day by yourself, providing you have someone on a self employed basis, if you have them with you all day long you are going to need to knock out at least another £120 in any one day to enable you to pay whoever works for you a reasonable income.

You also have to train them, for some months you will be by far the faster window cleaner, this usually means you are doing all the upstairs work, plus you also need to continually check the work of your colleague.

If you can clean 4 standard houses an hour by yourself there is no way on earth you will clean 8 an hour if you have someone working alongside you, you will pause as you talk to one another, you will finish at the same time, collect at the same time, walk or drive to the next account at the same time.
Now and again you may find yourself in the position where you have 10 houses in a street, you start the first house together, you fly around the tops, your mate starts the downstairs, as soon as you finish upstairs your mate takes the ladder and goes along to the next house and starts the upstairs on that one while you finish off the downstairs and either collect or invoice the first house.
You then join him on the next house and start straight in on the downstairs, your mate is ahead of you, when he finishes the tops, you take the ladder and move on to the next house while he does as you did with the first one.

This way you can work efficiently, or you simply pull up in the street and do separate houses. By  the end of the day you will still not have done the same as would be done if you had both done different areas. That I'm afraid is the price you pay for having companionship through the day.

Having someone along for the odd day now and then is different of course, you can legitimately pay them cash and it can mean you get that work done that you couldn't have done were you by yourself.
As a domestic window cleaner it is kind of self limiting, you can make good money by yourself, but if you build up to the point where you need another pair of hands it gets very difficult!

Regards,

Ian

[Sir Squeaky]

Hi I'm new here,  Ian will remember me, I worked for him for 4 years,(good old days!)

I agree that working in pairs is not a winner.

Yes, there's times when I miss a bit of banter, and it's a much more interesting day having a mate around, but if I'd only ever done that I doubt I would have thought about setting up on my own, as the money wouldn't have seemed worth it.

Now I've been on my own for 4 years I'd love to have a change of routine and someone work with, but it just isn't financially viable and I like an easy life.

It's more bother than it's worth and you'd be hard pushed to find many people to tell you otherwise.

Cheers, Roger.

[scrimit2]

Thanks for the advice all,
I do find myself doing the upstairs and some of the bottom windows while they work only on the floor (so they dont fall) (on me) and I collect the money, a lot of my new work is building up in areas where I all ready work so I hope I will do them without taking much more time than usual because I will be more efficient, but the weather becomes more of a factor.

back to topic, there is some window cleaners who work in 3's and 4's round my way the other day I pulled up to do a house the other window cleaners in who were working in 3's they do most of the street, the house they was on was slightly bigger than the house I was on it had a bay window where mine had a normal window, in short I got mine done in the almost the same time, they was chatting to each other as they worked at a leisurely pace, but in there favour they only work 2 days a week, mostly because they charge about 50% more than me, so that might be why they make working together work.

[ken dickinson]

I find working in pairs does help because I wfp the upstairs then the brother in law follows me doing the downstairs im normally a couple of houses in front so by the time the drips have found their way down to the ground floor windows he is there to clean the downstairs
HARMONY I THINK

[scrimit2]

sound like that works well

[thewindowcleaner1]

I find working in pairs does help because I wfp the upstairs

Thats the way I work most of the time but as ian say's no matter how many diffrent ways I try I've only achieved twice my normal turnover on a couple of days in the last 10 months, plus the other disavantage is they get paid daily or end of week and some weeks I've very little in my pockets because of hollidays,customers out or waiting for cheques to clear.

Alan

[rosskesava]

There's 3 of us working together (each as self employed and each with an equal interest) and for a smallish house all on it's own, it does not pay.

If we have a large number of houses together, like last Saturday where there were 8 largish 4 bedroomed detatched houses next to each other, then it is quicker (I think). We done all 8 in 1hr 40 mins minutes at £25 each.

Also, for the bigger resindentual work, the huge jobs at £70 - £100, thens it is also quicker and more priftable because often, 2 people are needed at a time especially if it requires a 3 extension ladder.

Who ever finishes first collects the money. That also saves time because then if any chit chat is required, the other 2 are still working.

For commercial work, that is where I think we really score because with organisation and treating each job individually and sometimes working together or individually, we  get through 46 jobs every Friday which in the main are shops, but some are bigger some smaller and that includes 4 pubs and 3 stores.

For odd places here and there, 3 people does not work and most probably it'd be the same with two. It's swings and round a bouts.

Cheers

Ross

[dai]

I Never made more than 50% more than when I worked on my own. The other downside was I lost the freedom to choose when I finished for the day. If I  have 3 or 4 houses to finnish an estate I can work later to get it done. If I was employing someone that wanted to finnish at 5 We would have to come back next day. My misses works with me 3 days a week and I'm lucky if I add £30 a day to the take.
Dai

[rosskesava]

Hi Dai

I often in that position about finishing for the day but at the opposite veiw point so to speak.

I often want to get in 'a few more' but the other 2 don't.

Also, I want to get going in the mornings but the other 2 like to smoke THAT stuff and so are slow starters.

How I curse THAT stuff. It turns brains to mush and mornings to afternoons and motivation to 'who cares anyway'.

Once we are up and going we work well but the start and the end.............

Cheers

[Sir Squeaky]

Ha Ha!

I used to work with someone who was on "that stuff"

Sometimes after we'd got our lists from the boss he'd get me to call by his house so he could have a quick "hit".

This was 8.30am and the day was bound to be doomed!

When I picked him up later I'd usually done about 30 or 40 quid more than him.

Still, it kept him in "stuff" 

 Roger.

[Ian_Giles]

Hi Roger, and welcome to the forum at last! Good to see you have started posting

My long-winded reply earlier in the thread really only applied to traditional window cleaners doing residential stuff. Throw in WFP and it becomes a different animal, and if you are doing a lot of commercial stuff it changes still further.

Ken; You say you do the upstairs and the other guy follows along doing the bottoms, I know one guy who will take some of his family members out with him, now from what you have said, am I wrong to think you are using trolley's with your WFP?
Well this guy doesn't have the trolley's, he is kitted up as a full on van mount that he can run two poles off.
His method is one does the front of the building, the other does the rear, and he seems to work very effectively.
Of course he would probably be even more effective if he bought, say, his son a van and then fully kitted it out so he could toddle off by himself.
OK I suppose if you have a spare 10k I suppose

Prior to Roger working for me I had another guy by the name of Lance, he liked the wacky baccy too, I don't think Roger was talking about Lance, I'm sure they never worked together, but half the beggers seemed to be smoking the stuff! They were always useless in the mornings.
Lance in particular would leave you in despair If we were having a lunchbreak in the pub near his flat, he would make an excuse to 'pop' home to get something.
He always came back with his bloodshot eyes shining. For him it was the 'bong' god only knows what he put in it.
He would also put an acid tab right onto his eyeball Bright he wasn't!
To straighten him out me & the missus let him live with us for 6 months, well I say with us, it was more a case of letting him live in the shed at the end of the garden. At least I knew he'd be at work on time in the mornings!!

Regards,


Ian

[The Bear]

There seems to be a connection with the type of person you have working for you and what you pay them.

If you were to find a really good working partner as I have, you may pay more.

I hate working on my own, so i've made sure I always have had a partner. For the last 15 years there have been 3 excellent blokes.

The guy who works for me now is the best, 10 years experience and insists on doing all upstairs. We set a time to start and finish, and keep finding ways to earn more.

If either of us are away, the other can tick over work so we dont get too far behind.

I would never go back to working on my own full time, simply from a health and saftey point of view.

Its true, you can't do double the amount, but we earn more than double the one man bands due to our pricing structure. it can be done