[Cleaning Services]

Hi everyone,

Is it just me or does anyone out there always seem to be skint.

I have been up and running now for nearly a year now and never seem to get in front. I have a few office contracts and quite a few domestic jobs but once I have paid staff wages upfront for the offices, paid insurances and for cleaning materials I never seem to have nothing left.

Anyway not all doom and gloom, got a massive ad campaign coming up soon which I cant afford!!!!!

Will let you know in 12 month whether im in Jamaica or jail.

MARK

[declanb]

Review your costs, include everything (including your own salary) and add your proposed profit margin.

What will your ad campaign consist of?

Best of Luck with it

Dec

[Cleaning Services]

Thanks Dec,

Find it hard to put up prices for fear of losing existing clients!
Ads are local papers but mainly Yellow Pages.

MARK

[Len Gribble]

Mark

Paying staff up front? I take it that you mean you have to pay them before you are paid, sadly that the way of the world.

Questions

How long does it take, your commercial customer to pay you.

Are you doing any of the work.

What are your cleaning agents budget per site. (Sadly most I have come across are glug-glug that costs and are not measured that saves you money.)

Advertising domestic know nothing, commercial foot stomping time, are you happy with?

Len

[MR WHEELIE CLEAN]

Mark,

Can I suggest you set up a cashflow forecast, say going either 6 months or a year ahead.  Without this and some sort of understanding of your cost base and income flows you will always have problems with or should I say without cash!

I look at my cashflow forecast virtually everyday and it helps me to make decisions on every aspect of my business.  Its easy to set up and you need to keep it up todate but you will start to see benfits over time and will find it as crucial as your tin of polish!

Just list all your income and the realistic dates you will receive them, and then do the same with your costs.  Try to include everything but dont worry if you miss things to start with, as a cashflow should be a tool that gradually evolves as you look at it over time and you will get better at it.  I use excel spreadsheets to do this as it automatically adds up any changes I make. However, you could do this on a few sheets of paper with the months along the top and the incomes and costs down the side.

Hope this helps,
Nev.

[heritagecleaning]

Three quaters of my customers pay me by standing order. I always try to convince any new customer to pay this way. You never have to hassle them for invoice payment and it always turns up on time.

[Mike_Boxall]

I have been up and running now for nearly a year now and never seem to get in front. I have a few office contracts and quite a few domestic jobs but once I have paid staff wages upfront for the offices, paid insurances and for cleaning materials I never seem to have nothing left.

Mark

When you look at pricing jobs focus on the profit rather than the overall turnover. In reality, a £2000 a month office cleaning contract may only be worth £200.

Once you get in the habit of thinking about the profit in each job it makes you stop and think - maybe it's better to let someone else run around for nothing.

If you doubled the profit on each job but lost half of your customers you'd earn the same amount for half the work - worth considering?

In my experience, no matter how busy you are, your costs go up at the same rate as your sales. If you haven't got the margin right in the first place it'll never get better.

Regards

Mike

[Cleaning Services]

Thank you to Len, Nev and Mike.
Iwill be trying your ideas and hopefully will get in front.
Thanks to you guys we maybe going to Jamaica after-all.
MARK

[John_McGavin]

Mark you may have missed the obvious here mate. Are you married?

The more I make the more my wife spends it, so take her out the equation.

In all seriousness though, hang in there & dont give up. Keep on top of your existing clients for repeat work rather than spending too much on advertising for new customers.

John

[pristineclean]

Hi
At a particularly low tide in my cash flow, I flirted with the idea of factoring my invoices. The best quote I got was for a service charge of £1000, with 2% above base rate which all told would have cost me less than 3% of turnover and would have ensured that 80% of my invoice value was available to me at the bank. Although the profit margin of my work is reasonable, an over-running job (I do a lot of builders cleans) can easily bleed the money out of the account and I know exactly what you mean when you talk about being always skint :-).

I decided against it eventually, since I believe there's a perception among customers that if a factored invoice arrives from a supplier, there's an indication that the company is struggling. (That might be horse eggs, of course, and if anyone out there disagrees I'd be more than willing to reconsider my position)

That may not be the case, of course, but it might be worth considering if you're really starting to sweat a bit . Anyway, hope it all continues to go well.

Callum

[Cleaning Services]

Thank you Callum and Nev for your much needed support.
Things took a turn for the worse today.
Had a couple of phone calls from customers wishing to cancel, which in itself is no big deal but also found the girls I employ to do the customers have left, obviously they have knicked them.
Anyone out there with any advise on what to do or any ccontracts I could have printed up to stop these weasel cleaners knicking all my customers?

ANY HELP ON THIS MATTER WOULD BE GRATEFULLY APPRECIATED!!!

MARK

[Musicman]

Mark, it sounds like you're having a rough time of things at the moment, lets hope things pick up for you and soon.

I suggest you get some legal advice with regards to the cleaners pinching your business while still working for you. You need to discuss 'Duty of Fidelity', a clause inherent in employment contract law (in other words it doesn't need to be specified in their Contract of Employment).

I believe that you can sue them for loss of profits.

Also I would recommend in your Terms and Conditions (between you and your domestic clients) that they are not to employ any of your staff that have worked on their premises. It may or may not stand up in court but it could raise enough doubts to prevent it happening again.

With regards to your other business difficulties I suggest you review all outgoing costs and raise the margins on your contracts.

I know it sounds simple but the way to make money is to reduce your overheads and increase your margins!

Without knowing your business it is difficult, but an across-the-board profit of around 30% should be your aim.

Try selling add-ons such as toilet rolls, hand towels, bin liners, refuse sacks etc - all things that will make extra profit.

Provide additional services such as deep-cleans, carpet cleaning etc. This is all high margin work and goes a long way to improving the balance sheet.

I hope this helps.

[pjulk]

I know of a cleaning company that states in the contract that the employee cannot work for anyone or on any premises that that have worked whilst employed by the said firm for 3 years after leaving there employment and they do enforce this and take people to court if they break these rules.

So you need to contact a soliciter to draw something up

[The Great One]

I know of a cleaning company that states in the contract that the employee cannot work for anyone or on any premises that that have worked whilst employed by the said firm for 3 years after leaving there employment and they do enforce this and take people to court if they break these rules.

To my knowledge this is unenforceable in law, I could be wrong? Human rights and all that cr*p. Franchises try the same thing, could you possibly enforce such a rule? I doubt I could or afford lawyers bills pursuing it/them.

Good luck though

Regards

Martin

[Fox]

Hmm - yes very dodgey area!  I believe you can enforce a contract like this but only if the occupation of the person is specific - basically saying an employee can not be directly employed by the client within a certain time frame (normally 6 to 12 months) in a position that would cause harm or be detremental to the current contractors livelyhood within that industry.

This should be stated in the right context in both your employment contracts and your client contracts.  

You seem to lack loyalty from staff if this type of thing is happening - I suggest you concentrate on working relationships, it seems to me that with it happening with two staff something within your employment procedures is not as it should be.  Look at the situation, learn and put into practice these things for prevention in the future.

Sorry to hear about this type of thing happening and hope things pick up for you.  

Fox  

[Cleaning Services]

Hi,

Again I thank you for all your replies and will ring my solicitor with a view to drawing up some type of contracts, even if not totally legally binding at least they MAY deter future thieves.

MARK

[david_h]

Look at it from this point of view...presumably the employees that have left you have undercut your prices in order to steal the business?If you are finding it difficult to make a reasonable profit then they will find it even harder!

I recon in 6 months time the customers will come back to you after being let down by your ex-employees.

[Cleaning Services]

Yes, they let me down enough it wont be long before they let the ex-customers down and by the time the customers ring back our prices will have increased !!!!!

MARK