Running A Team

[Craig McAlister]

Hello,

I run an oven cleaning company and an appliance repair company, our customers always ask about window cleaning so i'm looking to take the plunge. Having looked at the numbers I just cant see how it can be profitable to run vans on the road if i'm to pay the people I take on the money they deserve.

Can anyone that runs or have ran a team of vans let me in on their secret?

Thanks

 

[Steve Porter]

Hi Craig
How busy is your oven cleaning & repair side? I guess that if it's proper old school appliance repairs then that side would be busy 5 days a week? Here it seems that one chap (old school real honest guy) gets all the Facebook recommendations, we use him & he's ALWAYS flat out.
I don't do windows (I.m not an architect, builder or flooring fitter even though they're the most common recommendations for me) but one of my clients is, all he does is window cleaning & he passes me any carpet enquiries, he's got no time for it or any inclination as he has 4 vans on the road, 2 vans are double crewed & knock out about 70 jobs a day, the 2 single crew guys do 30-40 calls a day (they have very specific geographical areas per day)& each operator (all employed) has a salary of around £27K + overtime & upsell potential
It's taken him some years to get there & many millions of leaflets

Not sure if that helps but judging by his lifestyle the numbers certainly stack up!

 

[Craig McAlister]

Thats music to my ears as I had calculated my figures on the vans completing way less jobs per day, 30-40 jobs per day makes my figures seem much more appealing. Your friend is very generous with his salary! Next week I have a sit down with a former window cleaner that i'm looking to get the business off the ground with.

I've got 11 vans on the road on my oven cleaning business so thats doing okay, my appliance business has 8 vans out and about. Windows appeals to me with the frequent repeating customers.

I appreciate your information Steve, thanks

 

[Steve Porter]

So I guess you're not some one man band then eh?! LOL That's impressive running all them vans & crews!

He's generous for many reasons
He rewards loyalty, trains well & pays them more than many owner operators can earn, expects perfection & impresses on them how important it is to bung a few leaflets around the houses at every job

 

[Craig McAlister]

Lots of hard work, i've got a fantastic team and infrastructure in place that i've built over the last 3 years, fully capable of managing that and more. I will definitely use the information you've given me. Next step the fun bit, shopping for the equipment!

 

[Dan Paton]

Craig the biggest problem your going to face domestically is work spread here there and everywhere. Unless you've been in the business years your work will be spread out. There are guys who have like 20 houses all in the same road but for any new starter that's not going to happen unless your very lucky. Forget leaflets for the moment. Canvassing is the way forward to build a round quick. Leaflets are ok after that to build your presence in areas you already work and tighten the round up. If it's an employee on the van and their spending half their time driving between jobs then it probably won't be that profitable because there's no way on earth their going to get between 30 and 40 jobs a day done. That can only really be done on a very tight round. Given the size of your business already I would look into buying already established tight rounds especially if it's employees working it. Or look at the commercial market instead. Both trad and WFP is not difficult but it's also not as easy as it looks. There is a learning curve Good luck anyway

 

[Craig McAlister]

Thanks for your advice daniel, I shouldn't have an issue building a reasonably tight domestic round pretty quick. I can see the margins being tight to start off with but the more work and the closer the jobs in a day the better it should be

 

[daniel crouch]

Hammer your existing client base should be enough to keep a van busy with 8 oven vans upselling for the window van . Then scale from there as above the more compact the more the staff can churn out . But takes time after 1st cleans . Done right domestic can be a very good business . A pet hate of mine though so we stick to commercial .
If you've managed to scale the oven side to where you are you clearly have the structure to copy on to the window side . All the best !

 

[Mike Jones]

Funnily enough, I was just searching for a thread on expanding out. I am a one man band (oven cleaning) and have an interest in a family food business. I'm mulling over going the whole hog and setting up a team for domestic cleaning services, as there is a large demand in my area.......with a potential future expansion to services for the many, many small and medium hotels in the area.
The family food business is just that - family run, so no staff. My question is: what would be a check list anyone could recommend for the process of taking on staff i.e. new pension stuff, are zero hour contracts fine or not, insurance etc. There are a lot of semi retired people in the area looking for casual work (the taxi drivers seem to all be 55+ year old women) and they seem to want part -time hours, presumably until the state pension kicks in.
I know this is a big question, but I'd really appreciate any nuggets (no mater how tiny) that would put me on the right path.
Cheers!