Some questions about expanding and other things...

Thank you all for your replies. While not as helpful as I had hoped I did find a few solutions on my own!

Whoever replied right above this reply... I completely understand ;)

If you are keeping people waiting a month to get service you are not in the service business?

I can only speak for the situation where i live in Australia but after well over a decade of trading i can see things here starting to become tight.
Almost every business i talk to are saying things are slowing.
I have over the past 12 months cut back on running costs and this is now in place. Because i am in a rural area i don't travel long distances for small jobs, i arrange my jobs so its viable for me and everyone understands when they book.
Other areas i have made changes to are;
Taken equipment out of the van that is NOT used regularly (fuel saving)
Started printing my own invoice book (100 duplicate now costs me $6)
All phone calls are done via VOIP (phone bill down over $1,800.00 per annum,every call is long distance)
So as Don has stated above, the environment is not a good one to be looking at expansion, if things keep slowing and you have the financial security maybe there will be a lot of equipment bargains on the market as operators struggling with repayments look to bail out.
Putting more vehicles on the road may make you feel good but you have to staff them, if its with casuals then you have ppl with casual attitudes.
If you employ them on a full time basis when ppl cut back on cleaning you have idle vehicles and you still have to pay the employees.
Even in good times, if you put someone on and train them, they stay with you, learn at YOUR expense and then move on with full knowledge of your customer base. If you trusted these employees to attend a premises to do work in YOUR name the customers trust them. So when they turn up in their OWN vehicle at a price lower than yours why would they not accept his service?
Mick

Instead of hiring people just increase your prices until you get less custys.

Edited by FuzzSucker - 06/January/2009 at 11:21pm

I need some sound advice on a couple of things!

#1 I'm looking to into buying another van or two and getting some crews set up. I'm turning down work because I'm too busy so this is GREAT! How do you find the quality guys? Should you start with family?

I've heard not to use carpet cleaners. Everyone seems to tell me to find guys who don't know anything and train them exactly how I want. This is great but I hate having to babysit people. But I'm really worried about company reputation and my machines (of course). I don't want to have to deal with someone who is going to do a half ass job, steal from the customer or steal from me. This goes for side work aswell as just taking off with one of the vans! So, any advice would be good.

#2 How do you guys suggest to pay employees? Oh first.. 1099 or w2? I'm thinking 1099 (contractors). Now, I was thinking about paying 20% on initial and 30% on add ons. I know Stanley pays like 18% to the lead and 10% to the helper. Those guys don't make very much money and I would imagine they would be more likely to steal so I want to take care of my guys. Problem with commission is what happens during the slow times? There are times I am overwhelmed and times when I have one or two jobs in a day. So offer a bonus or something? Hourly and salary doesn't seem very feasible because I'll wind up getting screwed on the slow times.

#3 How do I get more floods? I have all the equipment, blowers, dehu's, moisture meters, truck mount etc. etc. Have a half page add in the yellowpages. Beautiful add, not cluttered but informative, eye catchy, full color with credentials etc. etc. but it doesn't seem to be working for anything other than a few carpet jobs. It seems like the only floods I get are people who are flooded and think a carpet cleaning is all they need (still make good money.. but it's so far and few).

#4 What do you guys do in an emergency flood situation in the middle of the night? The truck mounts shouldn't exceed the decibel level so you can get out of a ticket that way but still. For instance I was at one a couple of weeks ago in a townhouse complex and the neighbor came complaining.

I explained we were doing emergency work but he called the cops! The cops never showed up though but I got a call saying "one of your guys is here running the machine!" hahaha I told him "Sir, I am very sorry to disturb you but we are an emergency company. I'll have a talk with the technician and see if he can reevaluate what he did in order to disturb the residence less such as park in a different place".

So. then I called the cops myself just to see what they'd say and complained. The cops said "does it say emergency service on the vehicle? Well, then they probably aren't there making noise for no reason" hahaha gotta love the 911 dispatchers who don't give a sh*t about their jobs!

Anyway, any advice would be appreciated!