[D.Salkeld_Ltd]

Hi All,

I have been W/C now for 20 years and have come to the point, as I have many times before : : Where I am finding it difficult to do any more but ther is loads of work out there.
"Take on staff " I hear you call.
But HOW do you make it pay

How do you handle the old Vodka And Tonic I've never had to worry about VAT but if I had a van and 2 staff then me doing a bit of my own I would be over the Vat limit and have to add 17.5% to my prices

Then theres the tax liability on a van

How DO you go about expanding and taking on Staff

Any Advice appreciated

David Salked

[NWH]

If you can trust the guy or girl rent them part of your round that way you know the exact work they will be doing and how long it should take to complete,doing it that way it`s easier to get round the old VAT as they will pay you a percentage or vice versa.

[Mhall]

Surely you could charge your employees a flat fee per week to rent the equipment, then have them work on a self employed basis. This way you know what money you are getting every week and less chance them skimming work and not cutting you in.

Other than that, why not set up - D.salkeld Ltd North & D.salkeld Ltd South..... Two seperate companies with two VAT thresholds??

[matt]

Other than that, why not set up - D.salkeld Ltd North & D.salkeld Ltd South..... Two seperate companies with two VAT thresholds??

isnt that practise now highly frowned upon by the IR

[trevor perry]

i think if you set up two different companies trading from same address using same equipment it is illegal , you will just have to bite the bullet explain to your customers you are now going to become v.a.t registered and there will be a price increase tell them you understand 17 1/2  % is a big increase and you would be willing to absorb half of it on the domestic work , any commercial work shouldnt make a difference as they will claim the v.a.t back.
   it can be a real pain trying to grow a business the bigger it gets the more costs or incurred so weigh up if it is worth it or not as you may end up working more for the same money for a while.

[Mhall]

There is always a way round these obsticles, get your missus to set a company up.

The Inland Revenue don't think twice about having the public collect money for them, and screwing the backside out of anyone they can, so i think its only right we do our best to avoid it!! Legally of course

[j.v. price ltd]

find a good accountant and take his advice in going forward

[Trevor Knight]

Hi All,

I have been W/C now for 20 years and have come to the point, as I have many times before : : Where I am finding it difficult to do any more but ther is loads of work out there.
"Take on staff " I hear you call.
But HOW do you make it pay

How do you handle the old Vodka And Tonic I've never had to worry about VAT but if I had a van and 2 staff then me doing a bit of my own I would be over the Vat limit and have to add 17.5% to my prices

Then theres the tax liability on a van

How DO you go about expanding and taking on Staff

Any Advice appreciated

David Salked

Hi David,

There is no easy solution to employing staff, yes it has a lot of pitfalls but equally it has many benefits.

The one thing I can remember when I first made that step was that all of a sudden I had this complex, desire, understanding that I HAD to make it work and that I had responsibilities and believe it or not, I actually enjoyed the pressure. Since then I have grown and grown and without my guy's I would be nothing to what I am now!

Think of it this way, if it doesn't work out the worst that will happen is laying your staff off and going back to operating as a 1 man band. There is now shame in failure but more dissapointment in wishing you have given it a go!

Go for it, you just don't know what will happen!

Best of luck,

Trev

[NWH]

You could always say to yourself that i`ll give 6mnts or a year and see how i get on,one things for sure theres plenty of work out there.Theres actually not that much paper work involved,use a decent accountant he`ll probobly charge you about another 250-300 quid a year but it`s well worth it as it`ll take the pressure off you a bit.And if you get any slackers get rid of em straight away don`t keep giving second chances,they`ll milk you till your dry.Cheers.

[Ian Lancaster]

David you have e-mail

[Moderator David@stives]

David

If you are  nowhere near the vat threshold now , then i doubt you are charging enough to be able to sustain employing staff to make a profit. At best you might just break even.

The first rule is either to increase your bad work considerably or get rid of it altogether and chase some better work.

Ask yourself how much would you like to make off each employee per week and work backwards from there ie , van costs, national insurance, holiday pay,vat, employers liability, sickness , uniforms etc. It all adds up to big bucks.

Dave

[williamx]

Dave

Have you thought about changing the times that you clean your customers.

For example you clean your customers on a four weekly basis and charge £10.00, under your new working practices you now clean your customers property's every 6 weeks and charge them £13.00.

Most of your customers should except this as they are saving money, those that don't then you can either charge them more, dump them or carrying on as normal.  All new customers should be signed up on a 6 weekly rota.

So if you were cleaning 20 houses a day at £10.00 you earned £200, now you still clean 20 houses a day but you now earn £260, which can make you £300 extra per week.

You could also offer a different service where by you don't add new customers onto your round but instead you will clean their windows when they want you too, but you have a minimum charge of £25.00 per clean, they will then call you out every few months or so.

As for the dreaded VAT, you can start on the 10% Vat threshold, which makes it easier to absorb.

[Clive McDonald]

Is 10% the flat rate figure for window cleaning?

[macmac]

If you are  nowhere near the vat threshold now , then i doubt you are charging enough to be able to sustain employing staff to make a profit. At best you might just break even.

how do you work that one out

tony

[Moderator David@stives]

What i am trying to say is if you are taking less than £50k per man then you will struggle to make profit out of them.

therefor if one member say takes £40k a year about £7k will be vat £25k will be there wage , take into all the other costs and there wont be much left.

If you cant do £50k yourself how can you expect your staff to do it ?.

[supernova77]

£25k will be there wage

 

What??   25k?   You pay your guys £25k per year???

Andy

[macmac]

25K

do you have any vacancies dave

tony

[Moderator David@stives]

well even at £20k you will struggle with profit, If you want to keep a goood worker then you have to pay them well or they will leave and set up on there own.

Most self employed tradesmen i know are now earning at least £200 a day, so £100 a day for a window cleaner is not unreasonable.

Remember the old saying pay peanuts and you will get monkeys.

Dave

[Trevor Knight]

well even at £20k you will struggle with profit, If you want to keep a goood worker then you have to pay them well or they will leave and set up on there own.

Most self employed tradesmen i know are now earning at least £200 a day, so £100 a day for a window cleaner is not unreasonable.

Remember the old saying pay peanuts and you will get monkeys.

Dave

This is so true!!!

I pay my guys a good salary and for exactly the reason Dave has stated above. If you pay them the going rate or less then it doesn't take a scientist to sit in a van and think "hang on, I am being paid £8, £9, £10 (whatever your paying) an hour and yet if I clean 1 £10 house an hour myself I would be better off going it alone!

I went through employees like a kid goes through sweets in my early days, paying as little as I could and expecting as much as I could in return, weird thing is they kept quitting?? In the end I employed a guy (who is still with me now, 6 years later) who I knew as a friend, he had no w/c experience, had a good job and a lovely family. I sat down with him and told him my previous disasters and how hard it was finding good reliable staff.

He told me that if I matched his current salary, almost double what I had ever paid out in the past! that he would join me and I knew he was a hard worker!! I contempleted how in the world I could afford this as this would leave me with very little of my own but after weeks of deliberating I took the plunge and employed him.

It was without doubt the best investment I have ever made, not only does he work very hard, he now controls the lads and the monthly work schedules, he is a great manager and he himself is now earning a lot more than when he first joined me!

The moral of my case study is that yes I couldn't afford him when he started, but now, I couldn't afford NOT to have him. I go out gainning new work, running the business and he takes control of getting the work done. Ask him or my guy's if they would leave or go it alone, well I already know the answer and it don't beging with a Y.

I know its a big step when you do it for the first time but it really is worth doing if you sit down and plan it out.

If anyone wants any one on one help please feel free to email me. If you want to meet up and have a chat I am open to that to as long as we are not miles and mile apart.

I am no expert and never profess to be either, but I have gone through the barrier and lived to tell the tale?

Best wishes and good luck to everyone.

Trev

[Londoner]

My advice is DON'T do it. Far too many people see this as the natural direction to take and its not. Its the road to perditition.

I don't know you but I have been reading your posts for a long time and I have a fair idea of how you think. In many ways you think like me, you work hard but you value your independance.
One of the great advantages of this business is its simplicity. Once you start going down the staff and VAT route you lose that simplicity and you lose your independance.

And staff are a headache, they don't have your commitment, ( why should they ? ) and they will let you down.

Think long and hard about other options. Can you refine your existing round? put up prices? drop the rubbish?

One approach that might work is what I call the Superman / Clark Kent approach.

You have built up a good round with lots of nice customers at "reasonable" prices and you are Mr Nice Guy = Clark Kent. Its all very comfortable.

So start a separate round somewhere else charging top prices where you are Mr Hard Faced Business Man. = Superman, your alta ego.

Its strange but you can lead this double life even though you couldn't bring yourself to apply the same practices on your  existing round. Then when your start to build up your new round you can give away or drop your old customers. If you don't want to drop them tell them their windows are still pretty good after however many weeks it has been and suggest you extend the time between visits.
Most customers jump at this and it frees up time for your Superman round.

[Dean Aspects]

have to agree with vince green
i have just paid off my employee after 6 months of stress
this week just gone has been such a relief not having to think about if the other guy is doing the work etc..

the stress is something i could not handle it was debilatating at times
if you want to get staff in then go for it but be aware of the downsides and that only you work as hard as you do

my own experience of emloying has put me off completely and now i am in the process of creaming of the best work and replacing the crap with better work in a different town

keep it simple

[Paul Coleman]

My advice is DON'T do it. Far too many people see this as the natural direction to take and its not. Its the road to perditition.

I don't know you but I have been reading your posts for a long time and I have a fair idea of how you think. In many ways you think like me, you work hard but you value your independance.
One of the great advantages of this business is its simplicity. Once you start going down the staff and VAT route you lose that simplicity and you lose your independance.

And staff are a headache, they don't have your commitment, ( why should they ? ) and they will let you down.

Think long and hard about other options. Can you refine your existing round? put up prices? drop the rubbish?

One approach that might work is what I call the Superman / Clark Kent approach.

You have built up a good round with lots of nice customers at "reasonable" prices and you are Mr Nice Guy = Clark Kent. Its all very comfortable.

So start a separate round somewhere else charging top prices where you are Mr Hard Faced Business Man. = Superman, your alta ego.

Its strange but you can lead this double life even though you couldn't bring yourself to apply the same practices on your  existing round. Then when your start to build up your new round you can give away or drop your old customers. If you don't want to drop them tell them their windows are still pretty good after however many weeks it has been and suggest you extend the time between visits.
Most customers jump at this and it frees up time for your Superman round.

A lot of truth in what you say.  I came to this realisation a while back too.  Since I started morphing into the "businessman" I've realised that customers who have been with me for quite a while cannot think of me that way because that is not the image I've tried to project in the past.  However, with newer customers, it works a lot better.  Higher prices and more businesslike.  I've learned over the years NOT to get too friendly with the customers.  I find it better that way.

[D.Salkeld_Ltd]

Thanks guys for your replies.

I Have decided it's down to understanding what type of person I am and what I want out of life!

 First of all thanks to the guys who E-Mailed me with alternative methods of using workers - sel-employed.  To be honest, if I were to expand I would like anyone working for me to be Employed and under my control.

In these replies ther have been 2 sides to the opinoins.

1. Trevor and David Morris - who are defenately for employing

2. Vince, Aspects and Shiner - who are not for employing.

I noticed 2 different attitudes

The one thing I can remember when I first made that step was that all of a sudden I had this complex, desire, understanding that I HAD to make it work and that I had responsibilities and believe it or not, I actually enjoyed the pressure.

the stress is something i could not handle it was debilatating at times

When I pin point WHY I go out to work every week, it's simple; to pay the bills AND get shot of my mortgage!!

Now up to 2 - 3 years ago I wasn't doing that - The mortgage was GROWING BIGGER

Now I am breaking even - everything is being paid - but there is no spare to knock of the mortgage
That's where I want to be ; paying the bills AND a lump sum of profit in the business to draw out at the end of the year to pay of the mortgage

In order to acheave this, David has to go that extra mile, move out of his comfort zone :

Now there are 2 sides to me:
(Vince got it right!!)

1 The business man who has many times made plans for his business.

2. The worker who, like all workers, wants to do as little as possible for as much as possible.

What I need to do is put the "Business man" in charge and find a way of encourageing the "Worker" to work that extra mile.

So.........How do I do this?

I would appreciate any ideas you may have and indeed use yourselves to self motivate your daily working.

Thanks

David

[Clive McDonald]

A very interesting thread with inteligent well thought out replies from all perspectives. Your summary and evaluation was also very good.

About the employee side, I think you need some luck and someone you can trust.

What did wonder thought is how much of a businessman are you really? Have you got the very best eqiupment to do the job?

I have never regreted investing in new or nearly new vans, and obtaining the best equipment.(I mean within reason).(my wc exper is limited but I have been successfull at other things)

Is their room for investment and working smarter?

[Londoner]

There is another side to it, you can employ people and end up working longer hours but still making LESS money for yourself at the end of the day. Its not a guaranteed thing that you will make more money.

A friend of mine is a plumber / heating engineer and he had four blokes working for him. It the end he got rid of them and just works on his own. He couldn't get anything done before, he spent all his time sorting out their problems.

[Dean Aspects]

well thought out mr salkeld all good reasonings
my experience started out well but ended up too stressful for me
you might be lucky and get someone who is a great worker 
last week and so far this week i am only 25% down on what two of us were earning
having said that i had just bought another van and kitted it out wfp only got 2 working days with the other guy using it  but it did feel good sending him out and getting the extra work done who knows if it had worked out better i would have probably employed another person and gone on from there
dont let a couple of people put you off from employing try it or yourself
and good luck

[Paul Coleman]

Thanks guys for your replies.

I Have decided it's down to understanding what type of person I am and what I want out of life!

 First of all thanks to the guys who E-Mailed me with alternative methods of using workers - sel-employed.  To be honest, if I were to expand I would like anyone working for me to be Employed and under my control.

In these replies ther have been 2 sides to the opinoins.

1. Trevor and David Morris - who are defenately for employing

2. Vince, Aspects and Shiner - who are not for employing.

I noticed 2 different attitudes

The one thing I can remember when I first made that step was that all of a sudden I had this complex, desire, understanding that I HAD to make it work and that I had responsibilities and believe it or not, I actually enjoyed the pressure.

the stress is something i could not handle it was debilatating at times

When I pin point WHY I go out to work every week, it's simple; to pay the bills AND get shot of my mortgage!!

Now up to 2 - 3 years ago I wasn't doing that - The mortgage was GROWING BIGGER

Now I am breaking even - everything is being paid - but there is no spare to knock of the mortgage
That's where I want to be ; paying the bills AND a lump sum of profit in the business to draw out at the end of the year to pay of the mortgage

In order to acheave this, David has to go that extra mile, move out of his comfort zone :

Now there are 2 sides to me:
(Vince got it right!!)

1 The business man who has many times made plans for his business.

2. The worker who, like all workers, wants to do as little as possible for as much as possible.

What I need to do is put the "Business man" in charge and find a way of encourageing the "Worker" to work that extra mile.

So.........How do I do this?

I would appreciate any ideas you may have and indeed use yourselves to self motivate your daily working.

Thanks

David

It's not that I'm against employing.  I don't rule it out for the future .  It's just that I don't feel that I would be ready for that for some time.  I feel that it would be stressful for me.  I already have a number of stress factors in my life and don't want to add to that burden.  However, I do see a time (several years from now) when I will have resolved many of my current stress factors and there will be room for other things that may be a bit stressful.  Employing a person or people may be one of those things.
Until then, my first business goal is to maximise my financial potential as a sole trader.

[poleman]

Hi All,

I have been W/C now for 20 years and have come to the point, as I have many times before : : Where I am finding it difficult to do any more but ther is loads of work out there.
"Take on staff " I hear you call.
But HOW do you make it pay

How do you handle the old Vodka And Tonic I've never had to worry about VAT but if I had a van and 2 staff then me doing a bit of my own I would be over the Vat limit and have to add 17.5% to my prices

Then theres the tax liability on a van

How DO you go about expanding and taking on Staff

Any Advice appreciated

David Salked

SUBY out the work

Andy

[choice.clean]

i have the answers you need if you wish to contact me i will let you know some tips.

[premier window cleaners]

id be interested in those tips choice.clean

[williamx]

i have the answers you need if you wish to contact me i will let you know some tips.

Don't be shy, let everyone know, that the point of the forum.

[choice.clean]

i was reluctant to put on forum having been ripped apart before by others but here is how i do it
1. collect all customers by standing order in advance 3 months at a time = cashflow problems solved i.e. no panic over the wages
we phone most of our customers the night before and offer a free reclean if not staisfied with clean. result is no collecting by men just get on with the job
2. set up 2 companies one ltd one sole trader (this will get the critics going but you'd be surprised how many do it) even the representative fom the federation of small business said that was how i worked too! it is legite ask a good accountant and if he don't say its ok ask another.
3. result is you can up turnover without vat problem.
4. use iris payroll to do paye its simple and work is minimal
we only use wfp and carry 1000 ltr in a swb transit.
men get holiday pay company uniforms and we can employ with confidence if they leave they couldn't take the customers as they are tied in to us.
SOME WILL CRITICISE SOME OF MY ADVICE BUT I NOW WORK 2 DAYS PER WEEK ON THE TOOLS AND WORK ON MY BUSINESS NOT IN IT
its not always easy but i do get to take my 4 year old to school and pick him up every day and can take more time off.

[NWH]

How many blokes do you have working for you.

[paulstevens]

hi Choice. Clean the words "HE WHO DARES WINS" springs to mind good luck to you if it works for you

[choice.clean]

i employ 2 men on 4 day week each

[shammy davis jnr]

i employ five and its like anything else you  cant suffer fools gladly have a defined roll as the gaffer and if they dont come up to scratch in a month punt them ,
its like an empty bus you cant carry any passengers ,pay them well increase it over a period of time respect your guys that have stuck by you over the hard times and they will bring on the young guns and mold them you know what i mean listen son you cant do that our the gaffer will sack you he did it to the last guy stay on the ball and ill have a word in six moths in the gaffers ear and say your doing brill
when he does shell the guy a £25 pay rise this inturn keeps his head up and knows that if he works well he will be up with the big boys in no time   
dont get me wrong i went through 12 staff in a year in the early days
keep the bar high and reward good work
and learn to see through the lazy arses within about 2 weeks
and dont be frightened to discard the lazy
remember its your name on every window they clean if there not going to do it to your standard  p45 them
and remember sky walker your incharge of your own destiny lol all the best mate and good luck
davis

[Alex Wingrove]

Once you start going down the staff and VAT route you lose that simplicity and you lose your independance.

i think that what we should all keep in mind, this job is simple, go upto clean it, move on,

i think we forget that something