Clean It Up
UK General Cleaning Forum => General Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: Moderator David@stives on March 01, 2008, 11:28:44 am
-
Hi
I am looking at buying a local office contract cleaning bussiness on Monday.
I think they are looking for about £20k
What questions should I be asking and what level of turnover should a business of that value be producing.
This will be a new venture to compliment my window business.
All comments gratefully recieved
Thanks
Dave
-
Take the books to your accountant and ask them, they will be able to tell you and if they won't show the books they have something to hide and walk away
-
BDCS
It is a client of my accountant who is selling up.
maybe i will take them to another accountant
-
yes,
I would be suprised if your accountant could look at them anyway, conflict of interest/professional ethics?
best to get an independant.
-
i am selling my business if your interested but i am based in plymouth
-
i am selling my business if your interested but i am based in plymouth
Thought you were based in Exeter.....?
-
i am selling my business if your interested but i am based in plymouth
Thought you were based in Exeter.....?
there are quite a few variations of supreme cleans around this area we arent affiliated to the supreme clean in exeter
i think they are SUPREME CLEAN LTD where as we are Supreme Clean South West Ltd ;D
-
I bought £15k's worth of cleaning contracts 3 yrs ago and it gave me £52k's worth of revenue to my business.
-
£60K a year turnover with a decent profit.
How long have each of the contracts been held? Is there a standard written contract? For how long? Does it renew automatically? What are the 'get-outs' for the customer at any given stage? Are the customers happy?- talk to them all. Why is it for sale anyway?
Plus ask yourself - if you put half of that figure, i.e. 10K into marketing, could you build a better business yourself?
-
Dave,
You're asking the question the wrong way round, you should find out the turnover, operating profit, stability of contracts, TUPE issues, capital assets, goodwill, liabilities, etc, then ask what it should be valued at.
There are too many variables to say, he wants £20K, what should I be getting.
-
Hi Guys
Well had the meeting.
Turnover for the last 3 years were £45k £50k and £42k last year.
Gross profit last year was £13'600, biggest costs being staff.
Now heres the bit i am a bit concerned about , the hourly rates are £9.95 for some £8.95 for most and one customer at £7.50 an hour.
All staff are part time and on minimum wage.
All the customers are head offices etc, for small to medium size business.
All equipment is included which i reckon is worthless anyway.
The person is selling as she is over retirement age and wants more time for the family.
So all she is really selling is goodwill.
What do you think ?
DVE
-
Supreme
Email me with details.
Can you also give me a clue what the average hourly rates are here in the Southwest
Dave
-
best thing to do is give me a ring on 07989973776 for a chat cheers Phil
-
Supreme
Email me with details.
Can you also give me a clue what the average hourly rates are here in the Southwest
Dave
depends on the job or contract but i definately wouldnt be charging anything less than £9.50 an hour
-
18 months to get your money back seems to long to me.
I would of thought 6-12 months should be more realistic, so too expensive at 20k in my mind.
Only a thought and not a guide as i dont know the office cleaning game.
seem expensive based on profits to anyone else?
-
Dave,
Find out what the local competition are charging
-
Hi dave if you want give me a ring sometime got an idea you might be interested in rather than buy. Why not set something up on your own as we get a lot of enquirys down your way and i don't have the staff etc to go that far www.pjcleaning.biz
-
David, no way does office cleaning pull in the same hourly rate as window cleaning
You have to take on a lot more staff to get a good profit as the margins are a lot closer, my ex office manager (John) use to run a office cleaning business, and he said it was a night mare, staff being, sick, late, not doing the job right, the list was endless, he said the best day was when he sold it and all the invoices that are always a month behind, paid up!
Saying that; some office cleaning contracts have the window cleaning bolted on ;)
Andy
-
Thanks guys
Paul and Supreme i will give you both a ring sometime this week.
Dave
-
Just sold the customer base of my domestic cleaning business (which, I know is different to commercial contracts).
The goodwill of the company is only worth what someone is willing to pay as there is obviously no guarantee that customers will stay (unless contracts are in place?)
In order to get cutomers to stay you need to be offering as good a service if not better.
I would look at it from an advertising viewpoint. How much would I need to spend, over what period of time, and with what effort, to build that particular income.
You can also assume what percentage of customers would stay with you and work back from that so see if it looks worthwhile.
You may also find that the price is just a starting point for negotiation.
-
Dave, you mentioned on another thread that you don't have much luck with wc staff.........believe me office cleaners are worse (or can be).
We have a contract which is not straight forward office cleaning, it changes all the time as the site is expanding and the guy who runs it all is eccentric to say the least and as soon as any of his staff gets settled in an office he moves it all round!!!!!! The contract is for 28 hours per week over 4 evenings and we have 2 staff on it.
We charge high to the customer as luckily we were given a heads up on the shanagans on site! Staff we pay over the local going rate and pay half an hour extra per shift each for travelling as site is in the middle of nowhere!.
At the end of the day it is easy work, the hard bit is walking into yet another change and having to adapt your routine, but cleaning is cleaning not rocket science.
Now one we have at the moment beggars belief. His day job is as a Training Officer, so he ain't thick to be able to do that....ask him to pick up polish and a duster and a henry and it's like you have asked him to perfom major brain surgery or something ;D he has 2 weeks left to get over this or he's out. We have shown him ways of getting round the job achieving a good standard well within the time allowed. Leave him to his own devices and he does it his own way, gets it wrong and takes forever.....why? Latest winge.....there was still some people working in there last night and I didn't know what to do, so I went outside for a while.......... what was he going to do? wait all night? This happened when I was training him at first and I showed him how to handle it. I asked him why he hadn't done the same and he stared at the floor and said I don't know......
I can give you all manner of issues we have had, but at the end of the day we don't want to lose the contract as there are big plans for it and we also have window, carpet and hard floor cleaning with them, but at times I could happily just crawl under a stone and forget about it, especailly when you get a call late evening saying I can't get the hoover to work what shall I do........."use the spare one then and bring the duff one back on your way back"....but that means going back to the store room (2 min walk)......"hmmmm" and when the duff one gets to you for repair.........a pipe has been blocked with something that should never have gone up there in the first place.
Think carefully mate ;D