Help needed with expanding business and taking on 1st employee!

cavework

If all your domestic cleaning jobs are approx 2 hours work you will end up running yourself ragged for a pittance of profit at what you are charging.
To employ someone you would need to cover the cost of travel between jobs , cover sudden sickness and make sure you had enough work to keep them employed. You would also have to possibly cover 3 different clients a day if they let you down
People hate cleaning jobs where they travel to between 2 and 3 properties a day for domestic cleaning , they soon get demoralised and standards fall . The clients are not willing to pay much more than they would for a local one man band.
How about employing someone to cover some of the communal cleans and making this your target market? Sell your companies strengths in this area
The new build cleans would probably come on board as would end of lets as your business evolved

**dancingbutterfly**

Thanks cavework

my domestic cleaning jobs are 2 x 2 hours 1 x 3 hours and 1 x 4 hours per week. so not much and they're all 8-10 miles away which brings my profit down further...Im going to have to increase the price on 2 of them to £10ph from £8ph. Ive never increased prices and if I word it correctly hopefully they'll keep me on.

Does anyone have an idea of how to write a price increase letter?

I quite agree, the communal cleaning is so much more lucrative and if I were to employ someone id have them clean developments, not low paid domestic jobs.

thanks again

cavework

Dancingbutterfly .. if you are providing your own cleaning materials and travelling this type of distance for such short hours I would just inform them that due to increased costs your price has to increase to at least £20 an hour.
That is still being generous .. if they don't like it then it's not worth continuing , don't become a busy fool , that is why a lot of new businesses fail

cobbingstones

I wish cleaners could charge £20 per hour! We work our socks off and have pride in our work yet are seen by society as the bottom of the ladder so to speak!

cavework

cobbingstones wrote: »

I wish cleaners could charge £20 per hour! We work our socks off and have pride in our work yet are seen by society as the bottom of the ladder so to speak!

We don't generally touch Domestic but do get the one off job and if we wanted to our one off clients have said they would be happy to pay £20 hr plus for regular cleans
We don't see ourselves as bottom of the ladder (whatever that might mean) and also take a huge pride in what we do .. hence 12 years still trading.
Our staff do a fantastic job using chemicals and supplies manufactured for an outstanding result that is not obtainable with off the shelf cleaning materials .. they are NOT bottom of the ladder they are fully trained , very experienced experts in the job they have chosen to do and get a lot of respect.

simplydevine05

I have a cleaner for my home and I pay her £11 an hour. She travels around three miles to my house. I think she feels guilty charging what she does but she's really good at what she does. As it happens we have become good friends too and so there's flexibility. I don't mind her making herself a cuppa or finishing early because there are many times she stays longer. I'm always in when she comes so it's company for me too and how or business/friend relationships are managed is perfect. I just wish all contractors were the same! It sounds to me that you really love what you do and it's not purely about money. I do think you should charge more though. Perhaps get some "quotes" from other companies for the office work so you can still make sure you're cheaper. Don't worry about telling clients that the price has gone up. If you tell them that you've had an increase in costs such as petrol they will understand.