Diary of a serial entrepreneur

CKhalvashi

Hey guys,

Several people have pm'd me now about various aspects of business, to include the hours that go into it and how much you can earn.

The bottom line, as Sue will tell you, is that there is no hard and fast answer to this one, but I thought I'd start a thread of my own for you to as questions related to business and I will hopefully be able to answer them.

This is no longer a lifestyle business by any means, even though it started as such, do that I could earn some money about 8 years ago when I was teaching, before moving on to full-time business.

I've owned at some point in the last 10 years (years/employees in brackets) Start-ups ar indicated by a *

A music publishing company (12 employees) (2012-)*
A cafe/youth cafe in the town I live, run commercially, but provides free food to homeless and discounted food to youths in the evenings (2011-)*
A PR company for large businesses, broadcast and music industry, run as a joint venture with a Dutch company (43 employees and several international broadcast contracts) (2006-)*
Recording studios (now at 28), 44 employees)* (2005-)
An event management division (56 vehicles +8 orders, 61 employees rising to 70)* (2003-)
A taxi company (currently at 6 controllers and 53 self-employed drivers) (2003-9, 2011- administration buyout). Currently for sale)
A restaurant in London (2010-)

So as you can appreciate, whilst being heavily involved in local politics and having my own family, this work takes a large amount of my time.

This thread is jot about showing off by any means of the imagination, it's about potentially helping small businesses that wish to grow, grow to the size that they want to be, and to put their talent in the right area to do so.

It's also worth pointing out that there has been a lot of regeneration of company money into the company to enable it to grow to this size. I actually started the company with a Ford Mondeo on lease (that i would have had anyway) and about £3000 of equipment back in 2003.

This thread is to keep me motivated to help businesses in my local community succeed, so fire away with the questions guys!

CK

cobbingstones

Ok i'll start...

I have started by own cleaning company. I now have four clients and earn the huge sum of £103 per week. I charge £10 per hour (which I feel is unjust to the standard that I bring) and although I charge one client £11, that was tough work!

I have my own website from 1&1 and its costing me £30 a month. This is suppose to include a top rating on google, but so far I haven't seen it. Do I ditch the site and concentrate on local rags instead? I just want to work around the children, so about 30 per week. But there is a part of me that wants growth but is it worth it in this industry?

I feel that I ought to charge in the region of £15 per hour which is around the same as molly maid etc...but would I be able to pull that off? Its annoying that I would give better service and work my butt off but would they pay?

Also does anyone know how I would get office cleaning, new homes cleaning jobs or end of lets? Do I just write a letter to the companies?

Any help from you or others would be appreciated. I feel quite demotivated at the moment.

CKhalvashi

cobbingstones wrote: »

Ok i'll start...

I have started by own cleaning company. I now have four clients and earn the huge sum of £103 per week. I charge £10 per hour (which I feel is unjust to the standard that I bring) and although I charge one client £11, that was tough work!

I have my own website from 1&1 and its costing me £30 a month. This is suppose to include a top rating on google, but so far I haven't seen it. Do I ditch the site and concentrate on local rags instead? I just want to work around the children, so about 30 per week. But there is a part of me that wants growth but is it worth it in this industry?

I feel that I ought to charge in the region of £15 per hour which is around the same as molly maid etc...but would I be able to pull that off? Its annoying that I would give better service and work my butt off but would they pay?

Also does anyone know how I would get office cleaning, new homes cleaning jobs or end of lets? Do I just write a letter to the companies?

Any help from you or others would be appreciated. I feel quite demotivated at the moment.

There is a company in the area that I live, made up of Romanian nationals, that has grown to quite a size, including letting agency contracts, brand new vans, specialist divisions (carpets, cars) etc.

I've no idea what their turnover is, but to all be living in reasonably sized accomodation can't be too bad, however I'd suggest they're charging a little more than £10/hr.

It obviously takes time to build a company like this (CH shows they've been Ltd since 2005), however there's plenty of work there is you look for it.

CK

PasturesNew

CKhalvashi wrote: »

This thread is not about showing off

... fab start though innit

Luffs U reely.

cavework

cobbingstones wrote: »

Ok i'll start...

I have started by own cleaning company. I now have four clients and earn the huge sum of £103 per week. I charge £10 per hour (which I feel is unjust to the standard that I bring) and although I charge one client £11, that was tough work!

I have my own website from 1&1 and its costing me £30 a month. This is suppose to include a top rating on google, but so far I haven't seen it. Do I ditch the site and concentrate on local rags instead? I just want to work around the children, so about 30 per week. But there is a part of me that wants growth but is it worth it in this industry?

I feel that I ought to charge in the region of £15 per hour which is around the same as molly maid etc...but would I be able to pull that off? Its annoying that I would give better service and work my butt off but would they pay?

Also does anyone know how I would get office cleaning, new homes cleaning jobs or end of lets? Do I just write a letter to the companies?

Any help from you or others would be appreciated. I feel quite demotivated at the moment.

Molly Maids usually have 2 people working together.It is a franchise operation and they use their own vehicle and are paid mileage allowance one month later.
Get out there and sell your business .make calls , get contacts , do flyers and hand deliver them , find out who your competetors are and how much they charge. yes you will work your butt off . I spent the first 12 months working 7 days a week , over 12 hours a day.
Build up your reputation. 4 clients with a return of £103 a week is obviously not working out .
Do you travel between jobs?
How much time do you spend travelling? How much does this cost you , not just fuel .. are these jobs on the same day in the same area?
You cannot expect your business to support you if you are not willing to give it the support and nurturing it needs when it starts out . Your business is like a Baby , take responsibility , give it 24/7 attention in the early days and it will grow and prosper. But you have to be 100% confident that it is the BEST business out there and will be a success

Horace

I would be inclined to ditch the 1&1 website and hosting and get yourself a wordpress website and get hosting elsewhere. I know that I pay £14.99 a month for my hosting for my website which is on the first page of Google (due to having internal links and being fully Search Engine Optimised - work done by me not by others as I discovered it was quite easy to do after being given some guidance).

Start going to a few business networking events - find relatively low cost ones (ones that don't charge mega bucks for an annual membership and then weekly fees on top of that). You need to start talking to people, have flyers, have business cards and keep your business cards on you at all times because you never know who you will meet and you may be asked for a business card. Always offer your business card if you are not asked for one too.

Be a bit more realistic with your pricing - charging £11 for a hard job is nonsense you should be charging a lot more than that. Don't be afraid to go and price a job and offer a written quotation that way either party knows what is expected of them. Do more research what are your competitors charging (pretend to be a client and ring them up don't whatever you do say that you're a cleaning company as they won't tell you).

Why not visit a few letting agencies and leave your details with them - start building relationships with people via networking as mentioned earlier in my post. People buy from people. What do you do that is different to your competitors?

As for working a 30hr week, when you work for yourself you will work longer hours and work 7 days a week.

paddyrg

Horace wrote: »

...which is on the first page of Google ...

Just be aware Google isn't like a book with a cover, then fixed pages - EVERY person gets different results to reflect their previous browsing history, Google knows which sites you visit and assumes you must want those results more than some other guy with all the same keywords, SEo stuff, etc! In fact I only have to 'google' for any words I know I have written (eg 'accreditation station') and I am there, frontpage having done zero SEO tweakage. But I probably don't appear on everyone's first page of results because they don't visit my site as often as I do...

paulwf

cobbingstones wrote: »

I have my own website from 1&1 and its costing me £30 a month. This is suppose to include a top rating on google, but so far I haven't seen it. Do I ditch the site and concentrate on local rags instead?

There are far cheaper small business websites than £30 a month. I'd also suggest concentrating on facebook and twitter instead of looking at spending more money on print advertising. Firstly they are free and getting a larger audience all the time. Secondly they are great to increase your reputation and the awareness of your business in the local community and that is exactly what you are after. Being able to trust a cleaner in your own home is of huge importance, if you can get that trust and those people start recommending you the price you charge is almost irrelevant.

greenbee

One cleaner I know has used recent increases in fuel prices a a reason to put her prices up, which I think made it easier for her. However, although she is by far the best cleaner locally she is also one of the cheapest at (now) £13 ph. Others charge upwards of £15.

At some point you are going to have to make the decision as to whether you want to earn X amount of money in 30 hours a week (easy to work out your hourly rate then, but do allow for admin time) or set up a business that takes a lot more time while you are setting it up, but might earn you more in fewer hours in the long term.

cobbingstones

cavework wrote: »

Molly Maids usually have 2 people working together.It is a franchise operation and they use their own vehicle and are paid mileage allowance one month later.
Get out there and sell your business .make calls , get contacts , do flyers and hand deliver them , find out who your competetors are and how much they charge. yes you will work your butt off . I spent the first 12 months working 7 days a week , over 12 hours a day.
Build up your reputation. 4 clients with a return of £103 a week is obviously not working out .
Do you travel between jobs?
How much time do you spend travelling? How much does this cost you , not just fuel .. are these jobs on the same day in the same area?
You cannot expect your business to support you if you are not
willing to give it the support and nurturing it needs when it starts out . Your business is like a Baby , take responsibility , give it 24/7 attention in the early days and it will grow and prosper. But you have to be 100% confident that it is the BEST business out there
eand will be a success

Hello

Thank you for taking the time to respond, I appreciate it.

I would love to give it 24/7 but with two children to care for that's hard for me to do. But I think about it non stop travel time there and back per week works out approx 90 mins.



The jobs that I have are thankfully local( furest one is a 8 mile round trip which I have to do twice a week, due them not wanting the same day)

Thanks

cobbingstones

Thanks Horace. I guess I need to explain that my son is autistic and due to this childcare is difficult. I am trying to run a business, yet here I am thinking about childcare issues in the summer holidays. I am very lucky that I have a Guildepost centre near me, but they charge £28 per day.

Juggling childcare and business is going to be a challenge!