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We looked into the insurance from NASE, but they wouldn’t cover my wife’s pre-existing condition.
So, we started our own group plan with BCBS. We aren’t registered as husband and wife, but rather as two individuals – this is why we qualify as a group.
We pay about $700/month for the two of us. This is about what I paid for COBRA after I left my last job.
We also offer insurance to our employees. Our philosophy is that health insurance should be part of every job.
I hope this helps.
Tim,
We stopped doing water damage work. We took the IICRC course in water damage, and realized that we were exposing ourselves to significant liability by not doing it right.
When we looked at what it would cost do do it right, we found that we’d need to invest several thousand dollars to buy meters, dehumidifiers, and additional blowers. We decided that we really weren’t ready to make the investment.
We find that each person can clean about 1,000 square feet per hour. As Dave said, if you don’t have to vacuum, that will come down.
The questions as to time of day and day of week are important considerations. As would the frequency of cleanings.
I’m going to assume that this is NOT going to be done all at one time
So, let’s figure that we’ll need about 98 man-hours to do the work. Further let’s assume that this will need to be done after business hours (say, starting at 6pm).
In that case, I would charge as little as $0.12 per square foot. This would total $11,760, or $120 per man-hour.
Of course, I wouldn’t start at $0.12 – I would start about 25% higher and negotiate down.
We did these in 2003, and they were an unmitigated disaster! $2,845 in costs, and we only received $1,065 in revenue. A total of seven customers. The only positive that I can say is that four of them have been repeat customers, but still…
We have a 6 week training program. Each day is mapped out in advance, so that the trainee knows what is expected of him. We evaluate the progress each week to ensure that the program is being followed.
We don’t have much problem with quality, or with keeping people. It is all a question of how you compensate people – if you pay them to act/think the way you want them to, people generally will respond.
Brett,
We use a software package called Service CEO from Insight Direct for all of our scheduling (as well as customer management and accounts receivables). This is designed for running multiple vans.
Hope this helps.
Barry
We currently run three vans – three models (Ford E150, AstroVan, and Sprinter).
We’re standardizing on the Sprinter – will be adding a 2nd one in 2006. Why?
1. Gas mileage – our Sprinter gets over 22MPG. Our Ford gets about 14MPG. In this day and age, a huge difference. Not only great for our bottom line, but also a great PR move (we discussed this in a newsletter to our customers).
2. Side panels of the van – huge advertising space.
3. Realiability – the deisel engine is much more reliable.
4. Thus, length of service. Our Ford is about dead at 160k miles (we’re hoping to get 30-40k more out of it). With the deisel, we expect to get a minimum of 500k miles.
5. Size – At 6’2″ I can comfortably walk through the Sprinter. We can get more gear in it as well.
Ron,
When we clean “cheap walmart” or similar rugs, we simply clean these on the customer’s site and charge like wall-to-wall caperting.
The cleaning that I was describing is for cleaning woven Oriental rugs. Generally wool, but some silk.
Hope this helps.
Ed,
Mike is right – the Devlin’s took the IICRC class in rug cleaning (called RCT). We took this class earlier this year, and it has been invaluable.
The challenge is having the right setup. We had to reconfigure our office space to make it work – but it has really paid off.
We increased our prices from an average of $1.50/sf to over $3.00/sf. I’ve lost almost no business as a result of this increase, and I am 100% certain that we’re doing a better job.
We run our vans from 8:30am until 6:30pm, Monday – Saturday. We run three vans most days, two on Saturdays. We have one day per week where we take evening jobs (residential after work, commercial after offices close).
We do contracted commercial work on Sundays (some high-end restaurants are closed Sunday in DC).
My guys work five days, 10 – 12 hours per day. Jim and I work six days, though I see this dropping to five next year.
We used to take just about any job, just about any time. We’ve been setting boundaries over the last two years, and find that we seldom lose jobs because of it.
We have had our website (http://www.heavensbest.biz) up since we started. We drive the majority of our business through our site.
This form is much better than the last, but still harder to work with than it should be.
In placing an order, we should be able to do an “add to cart” once per order, or, at most, once per page.
Now, for each item, we have to enter the quantity, press “add to cart” and then continue shopping.
We raised our prices in March, after holding them steady for 1 1/2 years. We send a newsletter regularly, and we warned our customers that the price increase was coming. We offered a special “10% off old prices” in that newsletter.
We’ve had some pushback, but not much.
We raised our prices earlier in the year – one of the reasons we gave was higher gas prices.
We’re thinking about a “surplus” charge – maybe $5 per job. This would only be in effect when the gas prices are above a certain point (say $2.50/gallon). We’d drop it when the prices drop.
This is similar to how airlines do it – the customer has direct visibility, and it seems temporary (and don’t we all hope it is!).
We use different pads for different situations.
The “regular” green pad is most used. This is kind of an all-purpose pad. We use it on lightly and heavily soiled carpets, on cut-pile and on berber.
The interwoven pad is the least used. It is good on lightly soiled cut pile carpets.
The BBC pad is used on heavily soiled carpets, and on berber.
The white pad is used on any type of carpet, though not while the carpet is heavily soiled.
I train my guys to use either the BBC or the regular green pad first. Once these are coming up somewhat clean, use a white pad to both prove that the area is clean, and to dry (they are 100% wool).
We generally use 2-3 pads per room (standard sized).
I hope this helps.
Barry
