Thanks for sharing your journey!Ime quite happy to answer your questions on hear just don’t want to be accused of boasting or self promotion , I’ll try and keep it as short as possible.
I started window cleaning with a renault Clio the family car , and trad set up , didn’t have a clue about pricing there was only one other cleaner who was unreliable and did a bad job ,he charged £3:50 per house regardless of size !!! worked in the morning and pub all afternoon every day including Saturdays , so I charged £4:50 per house and found I could do 4 per hour , I quickly realised being self employed this was not enough so gradually put my prices up , but again still didn’t have a clue what I should be charging ,and to be honest still haven’t theses days , Ime not the cheapest but not the dearest either we get around 90% of all jobs we quote . After going wfp I grew rapidly as I was the only cleaner in my area with it and word got around I could do jobs others could not , we are still the go to firm by most in the area there are now loads with wfp some larger firms with multiple vans but most dint have a good reputation, unreliable,poor quality of work , etc , we are regular do a good job and go the extra mile for the customer and this has paid dividends .
Taking on staff is a hard one finding the right people is difficult, I have had to get rid of a couple over the years due to being constantly late or doing a poor job , or lazy attitude , the ones I have now are all ex emergency services workers who I have known for a long time through the Fireservice, they all are self disciplined people used to dealing with people in a friendly manner this goes a long way .
Deciding when to take on staff is difficult as most will want full time work not a few days hear and there , I initially had a youngster in 3 days a week guaranteed and if we had extra jobs 5 days , he didn’t cut the mustard so sacked him , then took on one of the guys from my fire station he was brilliant hard worker , trustworthy and got on with the job , I expanded rapidly from there I went from one van to 3 vans with in 8 months and I could easily have 6 -8 vans on the road now , if not more but I want to start slowing down and not working 5 days a week there are more imp things in life than work . I cannot decide wether to sell the vans to the guys along with the rounds they do or to look at franchising , all my staff want to buy there vans and rounds and lay me fir new leads I have turned down over 275 leads since March last year as we just cannot take on any more work , I don’t want to sell them on to other cleaners as if the turn out to be unreliable it will reflect badly on me , it’s taken me 22 years to get ware I am and build the reputation we have and don’t want anyone to damage that .
A lot of our customers are wealthy or famous people , or run large hotels , Manor houses , or estates , they want a company that they can trust to have keys and access codes to the properties do work to a high standard And time scale , For all types all cleaning , softwashing, pressure washing, plastic cleaning , gutter vaccing , etc they already know and trust us and have BACS set up so it’s just one call or email to get us do another job for them , this works well for us and them and us very lucrative fir us as we pick ul loads of extra work from these customers .
We work 2 guys per van this isn’t always the most cost effective way of working but a lot of the stuff we do it would involve loan working in an area with poor or no phone signal so feel that’s the only safe option , plus I have found the guys are more motivated when there is two of them especially on the bigger jobs , we could earn more money with one per van but it’s not just about that for me . We have several jobs that we have 3 vans and six staff on for a couple of days , one of the vans generally does London stuff every six weeks although I do alternate the staff now and again so that they are all treated the same and all do all work this is beneficial if ones are of sick or holiday as everyone knows all the work we do .
This isn’t meant to be boastful but this is my personal experience and what I have done , I do appreciate Ime in a privileged position with minimal competition, and a lot of very well of customers . But feel it can be achieved by anyone I dont consider myself anything special and I hate paperwork , if I can do this anyone with a bit of get up and go can achieve the same , or build much bigger I made a decision I don’t want to grow the business any larger but could have easily done so , I think anyone can do it it just might take longer in certain areas , any questions just ask ,
I feel real posts like this helps new people and industry veterans get a true feel what a successful business can be with hard work and dedication to quality.
Wait...when did you get hot water you left that out...??
Thanks again for sharing your experience.
