Clean It Up
UK Floor Cleaning Forum => Carpet Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: Mike Halliday on December 26, 2007, 07:13:19 pm
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my motto for the new year is 'a penny saved is a penny earned' or look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves
now I got a bit of stick from some on the cleantalk board when I suggested making your own pressure gauge and saving £30-40s but the way i see it is; if you went to clean a carpet and the customer asked you to clean a bedroom for free you would say no chance!! because that bedroom would cost £30-40s so you would lose that amount of money, but arn't you losing the same £30-40s when you spend more than you have to?
I've been looking at my business practices and I see allsorts of things that cost me little amounts of money that if I added them all up would make a large amount of money Eg; I have 18,000 leaflets delivered in a certain area but I always drop off 4 full boxes of 5,000 each, so I'm dropping off 2,000 too many leaflets every month so over a year I could have a months free leaflets just by dropping off the correct amount.
so to help me save money in the new year has anyone got any tips ;)
Mike
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Mike I know i said the leather day was free, but guess what, your brain is going to be sucked dry ;)
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it you are planning on sucking out all my knowledge on leather cleaning, then don't bother, all I now about leather cleaning could be written on the back of a stamp :D :D
or do I have knowledge in other areas ;)
Mike
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Its the other areas you donut ;D
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another motto; 'a fool and his money are soon parted' ;)
I agree with you that to cut back in some areas can be foolish but I like to think I have the intelligence to know what is foolish spending, I'm talking about the thing we know we shouldn't do but can't be bothered to correct ::)
Mike
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There are some small things that i know i could be doing eg. Banks fees are £200 should be 0. Delivery of chemicals is expensive across the sea so better bulk buying will save a bit. Getting no interest on the money in my business account and theres a fair bit in it with VAT and tax. Change the TM to gas.
All in all around a grand Im sure.
Mark
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my best saveing buy far is running my transit on cooking oil and the vw caddys on bio fuel , it can be a pain to find out if your vans are ok too run on it in the frist place and finding some where that sells the stuff but when its in place you just get used to filling up there
also theres good gains to be saved buy getting chems in bulk you can save a good few pounds if you buy this month but you need the room to store them
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Funny how this topic is actually one of my business goals for 2008, obviously, I want to increase the amount of sales. However, I am 100% sure that I can save a fortune if my expenses were better managed.
I will be looking at insurances, bank charges, postage, advertising, chemicals, suppliers, admin, accountancy fees the whole kerrbang.
Im confident that I could save a small fortune, for example, I use a company for book keeping and payroll, they charge £35.00 per month. Barclays would give me the software to use for 18 months free, and free training yo use it.
Currently sending all my invoices out firts class, by just sending two days earlier with second class stamps would save me £4 a month.
Best regards
Paul
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Hi Guys
To add a counter argument.
'Penny Wise Pound Foolish'
Is it worth spending 4 hours saving 20 Pounds ?
Cheers
Doug
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As Doug says, time is priceless. Better to pay people to do the menial tasks and spend the time saved developing your business. £35 for book keeping and payroll is for nowt.
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time is priceless when you haven't got any, but if Paul has got the time to save himself £400 a year then why not.
why do people always think that saving money is wrong, it seem half of you aren't happy unless you are paying top price ;)
another thing i do is when I buy chemicals from craftex I always buy a mixed selection of their deodorizer, apple, lavender citrus etc and stick it in the rinse solution WHY!!! when I run out of it I don't buy more I just stick it in because I've got it ::) ::) its just a waste of money.
the example of m leaflets will save me enough money to buy a wide screen TV so its like I've be given a tv for free, would any of turn down a free TV? or a weekend away for you and the wife at a nice hotel, this is what saving pennies can mean.
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Anyone who's been to business school, or worked for a large company ( at GM level ) will appreciate what Mike is saying, COST CONTROL is like a religion, partnered with WEEKLY TARGETS which never went down.
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lifes too short
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it's funny how people start thinking about saving money straight after christmas!
;D
regards
steve
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It's historic, Doc', we were brought up to look forward to the new year, with a Clean Slate, so to speak.
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No more visits to the cafe twice a day Mike? ;)
£30 / £50 per week saved :)
regards
Paul
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absolutely right!!
I've been thinking the exact same thing, if I cut out just the morning visit I could save £100 a month and the time saved could be used to put out leaflets. the hour I spend in the cafe could be more profitably used
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Trouble is, is that visit to the cafe not enjoyable and allows you to unwind. Life is short which you start to realise when you approach 50. I have to work extra hard this year to cover the extra overheads of larger premises but I have also decided I am going to get out on the boat more, twice last year. Ian Rochester once said work to live not live to work, he's so right.
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Have your cake and eat it.
Strike up conversations with other customers, dish out business cards, barter your services with the cafe owner, do cross promotions with the cafe etc, etc etc.
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Save a fortune on laundry bills. Give your dirty shirts to Oxfam. They
will wash and iron them and you can buy them back for fifty pence.
or
Always fart into the rings on top of your gas cooker. This will turn
back the gas meter, and save you pounds over a period of time.
or
Save money on expensive shaving foam by making a dish of blancmange
every night which you can plunge your face in instead of using foam
and using the remains as a nutritional breakfast!
Shaun
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1. Don’t give your cards to wife. ;D
2. Don’t believe the bs supplies have to say. :'(
3. I want a toy I buy it and claim back if I can? 8)
Len
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For the last couple of months I've been experimenting with and using concentrated powdered pre-sprays and rinses instead of 5ltr liquid chems.
I have noticed a big saving on chemical expenses while not compromising on the quality of clean.
Will definately add up into the high hundreds of pounds saved per year.
Enough to pay for the fry-ups at the cafe ;D.
Forget the big screen TV, free cooked breakfasts are the way to my heart (literally) :D :D
All the best,
Jas.