Clean It Up
UK Floor Cleaning Forum => Carpet Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: Simon Wilbraham on June 13, 2015, 09:32:26 am
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Good morning,
I have been trading for the last 6 months.
I have a full time job and have been carpet cleaning in the evenings and weekends.
I have reached a point now where I am starting to have to turn customers away as there are only so many hours you can clean on top of a full time job!
I am busy now but the risk is always what if business goes quiet.
I was hoping to gain 12 months accounts to have a good idea of an average yearly income. (as obviously some months are busier than others).
Has anyone ever used someone who is fully trained (on a self employed basis) to carry out the cleaning on my behalf. They would be using my equipment. Would this be classed as employing someone? I would invoice the customer and have the other person invoice me for there rate?
Any help would be gratefully received!
Simon
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Don't do it...
Your customers become his customers. His mistakes become your mistakes.
I sub out work but it is my nephew and I trust him. I have had employees and subbies which work along side me but from experience they need constant attention if they don't wreck all your hard work. At this stage you need to be doing the work.
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Simon what do you do as a day job?
There are different ways of looking at this but you need to take time off to see if it works for you, there's a month off work to see how things go or try to see if you can go onto a 4 day week.
Shaun
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When you have one years take home pay in the bank , then you can start to think about going full time .
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When you have one years take home pay in the bank , then you can start to think about going full time .
So how many people have 20k in the bank? Very few I would imagine.
I went full time in 2010 after a year of part time.Granted the job I had at the time wasn't on very good money so I didn't have much to lose.I started CC in my 50's and doing 2 jobs wasn't easy.
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Well I wouldn't dream of operating my business with as little as that in reserve.
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Its all relative to expenditure.... just as profit is.
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Glynn, you clearly don`t have a wife and two girls with the same spending habits as mine!! :D
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You will clearly need working capital, I think that is what's being said and that could be your own money but preferably the banks in the form of an 'agreed' over draft, your own personal circumstances will dictate how much working capital you need.
A company credit card would be useful if you can get one but set it up to be cleared at the end of each month
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It depends on your circumstances
If you live at home with Mum and Dad Yes
If you have Mortgage or Rent to pay its stressful
If you have a load in the bank or other income you may not be motivated.
When i was in sales they liked people who had a decent car but were broke they were more motovated to push ther boundrys and go the extra mile
If you have a Partner Earning a Foutune Yes
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When I started out 35 years ago, I didn't have any capital at all and had to borrow off my mum to get my first proper machine. Mind you I didn't have much choice to go it alone and didn't need to make a decision about going full time, as my 9 years in the army was up, and I was out! It all depends on the mindset and how you can cope with bad times as well as good. Somehow I got to be still in this business and now run one of the bigger Truck Mounts, with an excellent repeat business. Still skint, with nowt in the bank, but hey, business is just work and I like my leisure activities better. One life- live it, no pockets in shrouds!
Dave.
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I would say if you had 20k in the bank why bother starting out at all.
Im starting up without a pot to p in on minimum wage, crappy old van dropping to bits and just grinding it out, theres never aperfect time, take a calculated risk and run your arse off
I would suggest starting a window cleaning round first for regular work
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I think that trying to drop to part time first was a good suggestion.
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I would say if you had 20k in the bank why bother starting out at all.
the secret is to make more of it, become your own boss and earn more then 1k a week with not much hassle. Better, earn a week what others do per month. Secure your own life and your child to.
If your gool is to make what average mr. johnson do then yes, no point to become self employed.
All needs a time.
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Ditch the job. Let hunger and the fear of paying your bills be your motivation. Its how I started when I was 17.
20k isn't that much. If I've not hit at least 20k in 3 months it would be seen as a fail.
If your motivated enough to gain the work and then work your arse off working 16 hour days and on the weekends, fitting in with when your customers want it done (for at least the first three years). Then yes, you can achieve success. Are you up for that? working your fingers to the bone? on your own? are you a self driven enough?
Don't worry if your having doubts, its not for everyone. Some people want an easy sheep lifestyle.
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don't believe Dave Lee when he says he is skint...tight is NOT the same as skint
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No, Colin, Ive never been 'tight', never had such a grip on money to be that. Remember some people are skint when down to their last couple of quid, other their last grand. Me, well that would be telling. As the saying goes 'so long as you can afford tomorrow'.
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When I started out 35 years ago, I didn't have any capital at all and had to borrow off my mum to get my first proper machine. Mind you I didn't have much choice to go it alone and didn't need to make a decision about going full time, as my 9 years in the army was up, and I was out! It all depends on the mindset and how you can cope with bad times as well as good. Somehow I got to be still in this business and now run one of the bigger Truck Mounts, with an excellent repeat business. Still skint, with nowt in the bank, but hey, business is just work and I like my leisure activities better. One life- live it, no pockets in shrouds!
Dave.
Dave I thought you started on your hands and knees cleaning a Carpet The SafeClean way using Natural Sponges so you must have borrrowed a fiver of your Mum
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your loaded Dave and you know it
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Now 'I' can tell you about being poor!
Shaun
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Poor!! You don't know what poor is!
4 holidays this year..... ONLY 4 .........and last week my wife told me not to have the truffle juś on my steak as it was an extra £14
Times are getting hard :'( :'(
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i feel a four yorkshiremen moment coming on....................
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Dave I thought you started on your hands and knees cleaning a Carpet The SafeClean way using Natural Sponges so you must have borrrowed a fiver of your Mum
You are quite right Ian, I did start out that way, but that was part time whilst I was still in the army, I didn't get a proper machine until I went full time.
Dave.
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your loaded Dave and you know it
Ha, ha, one day Colin, I'll tell you!
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Shaun is right...he is skint...in fact it was only last week I had to drop in a food parcel from my private helicopter...poor lamb, in fact It was a lamb I dropped
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All I need now are some matches to start the fire guv'nor.
Shaun
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At the end what are your real thoughts people?
Until he won't be busy enough there is no point leaving his employer to undertake his business into higher level?
Or all decisions in such a situation depends from your bank account only.
I believe if you won't try you'll never know.
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I think our business pays a full time wage for part time hours
if he is consistanlyly working part time then he is earning enough to pack in his other job........unless he is charging cheap prices or his other job is paying a fortune (and if so why does he want to be a carpet cleaner?)
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Hi all,
I work for local governmet (so job as secure as working for the local government can be!).
I earn a decent salary. Nothing amazing but enough to live on and save a bit.
My wife works part time and we have a 21 month old toddler.
I have managed to purchase some additional leave so I can use these days to solely clean carpets.
This will allow me to not turn down business.
On average I earn the same weekly income working partime cleaning (in the evenings and the odd weekend) that I do working full time.
I have taken leave tomorrow so I will be working full day tomorrow. Wednesday evening, Thursday evening and Saturday morning.
The risk I guess would always be there of leaving a full time job to go alone!
After 12 months trading I am considering reducing my hours in work just enought to cover bills (mortgage etc).
This will remove a majority of the risk.
Fingers crossed anyway!
Simon
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Hi Simon
If you have a job where you can reduce your hours and stay employed then this is a great way to get established.
Carpet cleaning is a difficult business to get established and I would estimate 1 in a 100 are actually cleaning 10 years after starting.
This doesn't mean the others have 'crashed and burned' but most usually just could not get enough work all year round. Some would have decided that they actually liked the stability of a 9-5 job.
Some would have found it too physical or have back problems and some would have used as a stepping stone to launch other more lucrative businesses.
Working part time is a bit like a virtual share portfolio, it doesn't really matter if things go wrong.
Full time there is no safety net but on the plus side I wouldn't work for someone else now,
Cheers
Doug
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AND,
I hope you are declaring all this extra income to the tax man.. ;D
Seriously if you are happy splitting your time then keep going as you are, plenty of people have second jobs such as behind a bar or in a restaurant or such like to supplement their full time income, so it seems you are you have the best of both worlds at the moment.
However if you are serious about running your own business at some point you will have to make that leap of faith.
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Coming at this from a slightly different angle....
When I bought my business from another carpet cleaner I spent quite a lot of time looking at his accounts.
It seemedto me that if the business continued in the same manner that it had done under the founder then I would earn the same as I was doing as a bank manager but for considerable less hours work and definitely less stress.
I was also aware that the accounts didn't perhaps fully reflect the actual income of the business. I also knew the previous owner did not work full time but had a very nice life style. So my thinking was that with my " selling skills" I could probably increase the number of jobs.
12 years on I had manged to triple the income by a combination of doing more jobs and increasing prices. With fairly low fixed overheads this translated into a huge increase in net profits and an income vastly in excess of what I could have expected to be paid in the bank.
Rog
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I know sod all about CC but what I do know and believe is that if you are determined and happy you will succeed as self employed and the more time and effort you throw at it the more you succeed whatever business it is your in. There is in my opinion no advantage being unhappy doing a job of work you dislike whatever amount you earn. In short if you like it and you are reasonably successful at this stage get stuck in and stuff the other job
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Looking back on how I started and the difficulties in becoming established and the time it took, I think the best advice I could give, would be to save up enough to cover your outgoings for at least 3 months, plus enough to support a good marketing campaign, before you even think of giving up your existing full time job.
Dave.