[kelly acs]

I run my business on the Isle of Wight with a limited area and a lot of competition I am finding it hard to get enough work to keep my team of 15 staff in part time employment. I am currently making up their hours by giving them areas to distribute flyers. This is helping by getting in one off jobs but we need more regular cleans. We are in the yellow pages and i advertise on out local version of ebay. Any more ideas would be appriciatted.

[craig b]

offer more services to your current clients ...ask what they want.. also offer insentives to them if they recommend you to someone else

[Andy Foster]

I might be time to let some of the staff go until you have gained enough work to keep them going... just a thought.

[kelly acs]

Problem is I do need them all but only one day a week now as  the contract i have has changed from three days down to just one so i'm a bit stuffed!

[Robert Parry]

Kelly,

Some more details would be useful!

If you do not wish to post further details on the forum, you could always e-mail me, might be able to help you with a few idea's, but it rather depends on your exact problems.

Regards,

Rob

[kelly acs]

Yeah sorry i'll be a bit more specific...

Our main contract is at a holiday park run by Park Resorts. Their change over days were monday, friday and saturday. Throughout the summer holidays it is just Saturdays. Then it goes back over to the three change over days again. Therefore I cannot lay off the staff as they will be needed for 16 hours again by september. Therefore i need to drum in more work.

We offer domestic and commercial customers all aspects of cleaning, including carpets, windows, one off and regular cleans.

I had 500 leaflets sent out to local business's to get some work last week. Just wondered if anyone had any more ideas how I can market the business better or other services i could provide tide us over the next few weeks.

[Andy Foster]

Ah, I see.

You could get it written into their contracts that the hours are 16 per week from such and such a date until whenever and then however many hours for the summer period.  If you are worried about losing them because of the drop in hours then more contract work would definately be the way to go, however you need to figure out how to keep these new contracts happy once the 3 days a week thing starts again with the holiday park.

You will be lucky to drop on a contract that only needs you for the summer peiod but I am sure they are out there.

Good luck

Andy

[kelly acs]

Oh no I would be happy for more regular work, not just over the next few weeks  I was considering sub contracting and getting my current cleaners to go from being employed by us to self employed and sub contracted although not 100% how this would work  I have two guys on full time and the rest just do the caravan contract as it is seasonal anyway this may be a solution what do you think?

[Robert Parry]

Kelly,

Did you know that the hours would change during the holiday period?

If you did, you could have just taken on the staff as seasonal employee's, that way everyone would have understood, and of course had contracts to match this scenerio.

Having said that if its a year round contract, you just change the hours worked during the season to reflect the number of hours that are required, that way your staff know that their hours will drop during high season.

Regards,

Rob

[hotsteam]

Hi how about car valeting on caravan parks as you already work on one already and you have the equipment.
 best of luck Hotsteam 

 P.S Its only limited in your mind

[kelly acs]

yeah good idea hotsteam defo possible next year once we have a truck mounted carpet cleaner. Guess we could leave a flier in every van as we clean them    thanks for that!

[Ian Gourlay]

I think you are reliant on one contract. If you loose it your company goes down.

If you obtain other regular work for your staff what happens when you have to go back to the camp three days a week?

If you are paying all 15 staff for 16hrs you must be loosing money or is it a fix fee contract from the holiday camp no matter how often you service it.

Although the camp has more change over days in Sept I would imagine there would be less units to clean on each day.
#
I think if there was a magic fomula for obtaining work for 15 staff or 30 staff at a drop of a hat we would be living in the cleanest country in the World.

My suggestion leaflet every privatley owned home in your catchment area once a month. Write to every office etc
Do a PR piece for your local newspaper etc.

[kelly acs]

Hi yes I am thinking along the same lines of getting 100,000 fliers done up and send the staff to different areas to distribute them to make their hours up. Fingers crossed this will do the trick. I am also looking into training my full time staff so as we can specialise in carpet cleaning and restoration in the future 

As for the caravan park we are pretty reliant on this at the moment but they close in October so I need to act now to ensure we have enough work to see us through. Unfortunately it doesn't always come to you does it!

Anyway thanks for all the advice guys its always helpful to have opinions of people who have been doing this for a long time! Cheers 

[Paul Heath]

Have you got a web site? As you are on the IOW there must lots of holiday homes that let as well as caravans. You need to tap into that market as well. Advertise in parish mags. Find out when the contract is up for the Ferry firms, as i know they use contractors. Thought about pressure washing yachts? They come out of the water October time? Tap up the boat yards, might want the upholstery cleaned on boats etc. It would be a shame to lay off good staff as they are hard to find. Just diverse a bit.

[kelly acs]

I do need to sort out a website had a few problems there! Really good ideas there Paul I will take your advice on board thank you 

[BDCS]

Contact cinemas and bingo halls - carpets and upholstery evrywhere plus the general day to day cleaning

[kelly acs]

Yeah funny you should say that as I realised a few days back that I had not yet contacted the local cinema and I hadn't even thought of bingo halls!

I've just made a wad of carpet cleaning fluiers and had a load of commercial booklets made last week. Will get them all out this week