[Clive McDonald]

As you may know from some of my stumbling posts i'm thinking about expanding.
This may be employing and putting another van out. I've been playing about with the math of how this would work and the key indicators I need to look at.
These might be jobs per day one man can do (me) and the average price of these and daily value. And then the same figures but with two men (me plus helper).

The weekly and yearly figures.The costs( (£8ph) as a basic).

What costs/indicators (business intelligence) do you think are key to planning a successful growth strategy in our business?

My conclusions so far that two men with a target of 72k would be profitable and still under the Vat limit. (I said target, not achieved turnover because losses are inevitable).

[NWH]

With just 2 you should be easily doing enough to be over the VAT limit unless your working part time almost.

[Clive McDonald]

Is that two men on one van?

[NWH]

Regardless you will be over the VAT limit,you need a lot of work if they will be WFP you know how much you can do on your own.Unless your keeping under the limit on purpose my view is you will easily go over it as you will be turning over the work.

[ronnie paton]

am not right in believing the vat threshold is 67k???

I think the best thing iv found about employing is that it takes such a strain of you, it can also free days up if you need to do some estimates or meetings.

[peter holley]

i am at the crossroads of where next to expand ???what i want in either way i go is no stress...

 i work on a 4 weekly round, and so i will continue to build untill it takes me 5 weeks, im nearly there , but i only now take on very well priced work...(not greedy, but well priced)

my biggest overhead is my van, and the biggest problem i can see is finding a good employee!..

so i want  to be there to use the 1 van and oversee the work...i would like someone part time and arrange the work for those days... where i can send them off in the same street to get on with it with a trolley or backpack.......its not always about turnover, im more interested in profit, and lower stress levels....i like to expand slow but steady...well priced good quality work...and i believe this is best in the long run

[NWH]

If you only have 4 weeks worth of work i would say your quiet a way off of taking someone on unless your thinking of taking a back seat,i`ve said before you will need way way more work WFP than you would working trad only.I would have someone work with you for 3 months until they know where there going and then after that period leave them to work alone while you give your time to getting more work,at least a third more to start off with i would say just for starters.

[peter holley]

yes i understand , but after looking at some posts of those of those with employees , i am at the top end acheiving those figures on my own and im home for 2.30...

like i said ...slow steady good quality...i cant put figures on a public forum , but  i totally understand your thoughts,,,, my week extra (5th week ) would pay a months salary for an employee....and im nearly there...

[gerard mcmanus]

I as well as many on here have looked at this also, I believe. My outcome was that it is more profitable to have someone working alone, as my business model is not based on exreamly tightly nit rounds so each hour I might spend ten minutes moving to the next job.

Never explained that there very well, what I mean is that if you have two people working together they will be capable of doing double the work, but you cant cut your traveling time in half, that will only increase. But then there is the cost of two vans which is also paramount, I do think that a WFP business structure is much more suited to have two men working together, infact one could do the outside WFP, and the other could do the insides trad which could add a good few hundred onto the round you already have, if you are only doing outsides.

The main outcome of my research into this, was that the majority of my investement would have to be on advertising, marketing, canvasers or round biulders. This would insure that I wouldn't take a cut in pay as my work is spread over two people, and instead would see imeadiate improvement in monthly income by having a round ready and capible or providing the employee with a substancial wage imeadiately.

Hope that inputs helpful

gerard  

[peter holley]

these topics are difficult because we would like to talk figures, but cant talk freely on apublic forum, as this is where we can all learn from eachother....this is where personal messaging would help :

[peter holley]

I as well as many on here have looked at this also, I believe. My outcome was that it is more profitable to have someone working alone, as my business model is not based on exreamly tightly nit rounds so each hour I might spend ten minutes moving to the next job.

Never explained that there very well, what I mean is that if you have two people working together they will be capable of doing double the work, but you cant cut your traveling time in half, that will only increase. But then there is the cost of two vans which is also paramount, I do think that a WFP business structure is much more suited to have two men working together, infact one could do the outside WFP, and the other could do the insides trad which could add a good few hundred onto the round you already have, if you are only doing outsides.

The main outcome of my research into this, was that the majority of my investement would have to be on advertising, marketing, canvasers or round biulders. This would insure that I wouldn't take a cut in pay as my work is spread over two people, and instead would see imeadiate improvement in monthly income by having a round ready and capible or providing the employee with a substancial wage imeadiately.

Hope that inputs helpful

gerard  

i undrestand the comment about your buisness model, aout your round not being compact... im lucky , in that i have been able to build a compact round , but its taken 16yrs ....also my pricing structure takes into account travelling etc.... so the spread out work...(rural areas)   pay a little more...but then they have more money,and dont mind paying a fair price 

[gerard mcmanus]

I as well as many on here have looked at this also, I believe. My outcome was that it is more profitable to have someone working alone, as my business model is not based on exreamly tightly nit rounds so each hour I might spend ten minutes moving to the next job.

Never explained that there very well, what I mean is that if you have two people working together they will be capable of doing double the work, but you cant cut your traveling time in half, that will only increase. But then there is the cost of two vans which is also paramount, I do think that a WFP business structure is much more suited to have two men working together, infact one could do the outside WFP, and the other could do the insides trad which could add a good few hundred onto the round you already have, if you are only doing outsides.

The main outcome of my research into this, was that the majority of my investement would have to be on advertising, marketing, canvasers or round biulders. This would insure that I wouldn't take a cut in pay as my work is spread over two people, and instead would see imeadiate improvement in monthly income by having a round ready and capible or providing the employee with a substancial wage imeadiately.

Hope that inputs helpful

gerard  

i undrestand the comment about your buisness model, aout your round not being compact... im lucky , in that i have been able to build a compact round , but its taken 16yrs ....also my pricing structure takes into account travelling etc.... so the spread out work...(rural areas)   pay a little more...but then they have more money,and dont mind paying a fair price 

My pricing structure also accounts for this, I know many windows cleaners that do no more than half a dozen street, but I prefered to cover a larger round and take advantage of more of the missed opertunites of other window cleaners, but both models have there advantages and disadvantes. For instance many seem to just work a list, doing them when they can, but I believe will spend more time, traveling back and forward trying to collect payment than me as I give them a booking that suits them, but my disadvantage is that I do more driving due to this, but this might not really be much more than someone working a list if they have to travel back and forth for collections, but I beleive allot in my area allow the outstanding amount to biuld up until they catch them in rather than trying to collect it before, the end of the month.

To stay on point allittle here, I have heard of someone who just had his employees do the work and he went by in the even and collected the money. This is ok if you dont have much faith in your employees honesty, but this in turn doesn't say much to the customer about who you are having working on there premises. Then there is the issue with the quality of work. Due to the window cleaners not having to face the customer when they were finnished they were trying alsorts, like missing windows etc which of course cost him allot of business and most of all his reputation through no fault of his own.

gerard 

[NWH]

yes i understand , but after looking at some posts of those of those with employees , i am at the top end acheiving those figures on my own and im home for 2.30...

like i said ...slow steady good quality...i cant put figures on a public forum , but  i totally understand your thoughts,,,, my week extra (5th week ) would pay a months salary for an employee....and im nearly there...

IMO that`s exactly where it has to be if your thinking of employing,you want to be earning over and above his months money in the first working week from then on your getting into profit.

[peter holley]

at last! someone whos on my level its sao hard on this forum to give figures and reasonings before being shot down and told your overexagerating....i often wonder  what some do with their time

[peter holley]

and when you get there this is when it frees up time to knock  knock...canvass etc

[bluez]

The challenge in expanding any business is that there is a period where investment  must come before each stage of the expansion is complete.

When we as window cleaners started out as 1 man operations we made an investment, our time and effort, but now we want to expand we are no longer capable of putting in time as it is already being spent on our existing customers.

We have to make some difficult choices, spend some money on marketing to increase the size of the business or spend some money on staff that allow us to go out and expand the business by marketing.

A reasonable compromise is to find a part timer that can do the work a couple of days whiele you build your round to 7 / 8 man days a week and then take the jump and employ someone fulltime.

[matt]

interesting thread

ive been offered a fair bit of comercail work ( its from a mate of a mate who is a mason ) but its work that would be fairly secure etc etc and i was looking at what amount of work ( in money terms ) i would need to get a 2nd guy on full time ( part time is a option i guess )


i came up with a wide range of figures to be honest, as the variable ( the van ) could be a major expense of a really small expense

[Londoner]

You are all underestimating the difficulty in finding and keeping someone who is reliable, thats the hardest part. Not just window cleaning, all businesses have this problem.

It works fine on paper but when you try and put it into practice thats when the trouble starts. What happens when you have a full days commercial work booked and they phone in sick with a feeble excuse? Or they spend the whole day talking on their phone and not working?

No employee is going to be as committed as you are

[Clive McDonald]

I'd be happy about paying for the van. A big expense to me would be time and effort to train the guy for two months and then him leaving.

The second man helping does not have to match my earning figures, my calculations are that he must contribute about £15ph over and above what I achieve, and doing this make my daily life easier, and be able to catch up after holidays.

A second van would have to be £30ph target, but there would be a figure for labour and the van that was a fixed weekly cost say £300-£400 labour, and £100 for the van. On that basis anything over £500 would be profit

Spotted vw camper in new tv kipling cake ad by the way.

[Alex Gardiner]

Another way would be to find a reliable window cleaner locally that needs more work and sub-contract out section of work to him. This way you can pay him/her a higher rate and have none of the overheads of employing. If needed you can split this up between 3 or 4 'subbies' and maintain maximum flexibility and coverage.

This tends to work best on commercial work as there is no need for money to be collected etc. If doing this on domestic work it is better to have switched them all to paying by Standing Order. This means that all the 'subbie' has to do is to leave a windows cleaned slip through the door.

I use the above methods and have done so for years. I personally would not want to employ someone and have found this alternative to be stress free and profitable. Probably not quite as profitable as employing someone in the short term, but in the long term I wonder.