I think you can look at it either way… I think a one man crew / owner in most cases will have a better attention to detail. Im not sure that was true in my case, I soon found I could train workers to clean better than I cared to.
I am the employee and here is my take. One man crews are far more efficient and will make the most money per hour even with the added cost of having a second vehicle.
Regarding good employee vs. boss…I am a more detailed window cleaner than my boss. He is faster but I am more detailed. He has treated me well but I do feel I may be better off on my own. My frustration is not in the work but in the day to day ops. We all recognize as we get older we need people to do the “hard work” This is no different for an employee. If you have an employee who doesnt have ambition you dont have a good employee, you have a finite supply of labor. Even if the employee stays with you eventually his/her body will prevent them from performing at the same level. I started with my boss when I was 27. He saw early that I could make him money and I didnt require a babysitter and rewarded me for that. 12 years later at 39 I am making good money doing this but my body is showing signs of not being able to do this forever. There is nowhere else to go in the company so…the option for me is to stay and take the great pay while I can or move on and hopefully hire someone like me to do the day to day work in 5 years (or whatever) He trained me right, that is why I am ready to go out on my own.
Just a thought from the other side…
My fake html tags didn’t show up in my post.
“Llarry”
Sounds like somebody doesn’t have employees.
“/Llarry”
I agree wholeheartedly. I personally am a much better manager and salesman than window cleaner, probably because I did that for twenty years before starting this business. My goal is to find people who are better window cleaners than I will ever be.
My point exactly. I have ran crews. The last time I had 30 painters and about 25 carpenters under me and when the job was over I couldn’t wait to get back on my own without the headaches of running crews. I commend you because most employees work fine with the supervisor there but when the supervisor leaves the slack off, especially if there is more than one and they have someone to talk to. I like it by myself or with my son but have no desire to have employees. With that being said, having employees can also be a good thing because if you are an owner operator and get sick or something the work stops but with employees you can delegate the work load out and keep going. It comes down to what someone is happy with. There is no wrong or right.
Are one-man window cleaners better than those on a crew?
As a general rule isn’t the best guy on your crew who usually goes out on their own? The worst guy almost never goes out on his own.
I’ll wait for Chris to comment. Ha Ha
And this is great hearing from those of you who will continue to work alone, how old are you though because it gets impossible as you get older. Also safety wise when using ladders for 3 story homes or windows or anything else which is a little difficult and you need an extra person around. What about in the heat of summer and your trying to do a $750,000 house by yourself, customers don’t want you in their home for 8-10 hours cleaning their windows!
So what is the answer here, find some guys to help your business grow etc train them up and in most cases see them move on? I have built my business up a fair bit and at almost 50 beginning to find I can’t do it much longer especially the better paying jobs (larger homes) so have no choice this year but to hire 2 full time workers and step back after training but I get the feeling there is no real easy answer to this as obviously we will all face this problem sooner or later.
Even though there have been times where I feel like I’m being dragged behind a little…
It’s always nice to have someone to say “psst, can you grab this for me” or “hey, foot my ladder real quick.”
I guess it’s kind of a ‘safety in numbers’ thing.
I enjoy doing storefronts and small residential that is mostly requested by my storefront customers. My best helper with what I do is named Ettore Back Flip. He’s always on time and never talks back.
I see you mentioned “foot the ladder” and safety. To share a story with you all, I worked by myself for the first few years we were in business like a lot of you did or still do. It was in October of 2007 when I arrived on a job to do a fairly large residential window cleaning. As always I started and finished all the high glass on the second story and then got started on the first floor windows. In the front of the house there was a porch roof to walk on to access the palatial window. I set up my Alaco on the concrete sidewalk to climb up and as I got to the top close to stepping up on the roof is when the ladder kicked out on me. I fell roughly 11 or 12 feet face first down to the sidewalk landing on the Alaco as it hit the sidewalk. I chipped a bone in my left elbow, bruised my right knee pretty good and slammed the bridge of my nose off the rung of the ladder and was concussed as well. I swear I had two black eyes for over a month. When my wife got to the hospital and took a look at me and found out how I fell she said “never again will you work alone”. All in all I was lucky that the injuries were not worse than what they were. It pains me to tell you all that I was at the same property a week earlier to power wash and seal the concrete. The concrete pavers were slick and I should have been a little more aware of the conditions. We hired our first employee shortly after that and now have four full time people.
For those of you who work alone. Please be careful out there.
Ive done a few jobs myself, ones that didnt require ladder work, commercial walk around jobs, but i definitley prefer to work with at least 1 other person, because of time & safety as youve said above. And i need someone to talk to during the day or Id think id go crazy.
I’d have to say that working solo isn’t for everybody. I think it takes a certain kind of individual. Some people like it and a lot of people don’t. JMO
+1
Thank you all for the varied responses. It really helps to put things in perspective for us WC starting out and how to plan for growth.
hmm… we of course had a few guys go out on there own… Im not sure its always the best cleaner…
Best cleaner doesn’t equal best at running a business. Usually the guys that go out on there own (from my experience at least) are the ones who aren’t really happy working for someone else, and sorta dont fit the little robot mold I try to create.
Good point Chris. Perhaps this is why so many guys are running solo. I had 15 people working for me back in th 80’s and it isn’t easy. At least for me it wasn’t. Washing the windows is the easy part.
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I believe it was Andrew Carnegie who said he would pay a man more for his ability to motivate others than any other skill needed to run his vast steel works empire. Is it safe to assume that that’s because motivating others to be their best at work is a rare skill?
