I’m a one person business. I do everything, from the invoicing, calling the clients, make the advertising, looking for work, and doing the job as well. What do guys do to reach the point you have to hire a person that gets your calls and scheduling for you, or have someone looking for jobs for you?
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You nailed it, right on the head. We can’t be everywhere, doing every job within our company, all the time.
Sometimes we need a little help. Sales is the most important job you will do, especially this time of year.
If you don’t have time to do it yourself, then outsourcing the work is the way to go.
Alan Karr
Service Kare
Lead Generation
1-855-416-3141
Thank you for your answer Alan, that is the way to go… BUT my question is more: what is the cash income i have to reach to be able to afford those outsource help? I mean, i need money to live,and money to pay them so, what would be the income target to think about asking for help?
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I can’t recommend it enough: get the book “The E-Myth” by Michael Gerber. It’ll inspire you and give you a game plan.
But yeah, it can get overwhelming if you’re doing everything. My wife does the accounting side of things, but that would be something I’d definitely outsource if I didn’t have her.
My first step would be to hire a cleaner. They could be full time or part time. You’d be surprised at how many want to be part time. You can pay them commission or hourly. If you do route work, train them to clean, and have them clean while you go and bid. Then train them to bid. The idea is that you have enough work where they could go out and work by themselves.
But as far as how much you should have in the bank before hiring, it depends on what/how you want to pay someone. You’ll also have to add in workmans comp, additional equipment, additional uniforms, etc. So hiring someone could cost you about $1,000 before they start making you money.
Then hire another cleaner with the goal of you putting down the tools.
If you’re not doing the work, you can now focus on your business. You can go out and do sales, call backs, etc. Once you get a few window cleaners, you can hire an operations manager to manage the cleaners. The ops manager is nice because it’s a layer of insulation between you and the cleaners. Like it or not, there will always be a wall between “the boss” and the cleaners. The ops manager can bridge that gap.
You can also hire a sales person. Or the ops manager can do 40% managing and 60% selling and it’s a good half way solution.
But once you get all the right people in place, then you’re job became a LOT easier. Instead of 60-80 hour weeks, you do 20. 
Na man, you’re looking at it wrong…
You don’t want to hire someone to get work [B]for you to do[/B].
You want to get someone to do the work that [B]you are getting.[/B]
Give yourself some leeway to spend the time working your customers.
When in “growth mode” you, unfortunately, need to take on that role.
Later on, once you have a logistics system to get the new work [B]done[/B],
you can pass along the sales/getting new work role.
Everybody responding is right. Spend the time and do the research. Go knock on doors every day. Walk into every business and sell yourself.
Never give up…
Alan Karr
Service Kare
Lead Generation
1-855-416-3141
Yeah, you want to get work for your guys to do. Cuz that house with a bajillion cut ups is easier to bid if I don’t have to do it.
I had a LOL this week. I hired an exfranchisee friend of mine and he’s like “Yeah, if you paid me as a sales person according to the system we learned, you’d go broke in a month. Cuz I’m not going to go after little $20 stuff, I’m going to go after the universities, the big car dealerships and I’m going to get PAID.”
Im just saying this has become a pretty good thread…
[MENTION=1736]JfromtheD[/MENTION] and [MENTION=12729]JaredAI[/MENTION] are correct you need to do the selling for yourself (at first) and have your employees doing the work.
Like Jared said “Cuz that house with a bajillion cut ups is easier to bid if I don’t have to do it.”
I had a local guy here selling for me for a bit, gave him all the information to sell my services. But the clients just where not the right clients
for my business.
Im back to the sales to build a strong client base that fills my business plan and keeps my new guys work schedule full.
Good thread!
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You first have to figure out how big YOUR paycheck needs to be to pay your personal bills. Whatever you have left on average will tell you if you are in a position to move forward and hire help. If you can’t afford help and you can’t take on any more work, then you need to raise your prices.
Really interesting answers so far… I must admit some of my accounts are priced very low, mainly due to lack of experience in the early years. Does that mean i cant adjust to the price i would charge now?
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Sebastien it is your business you can increase or lower your price at anytime. If you feel that you have created enough value in your service that you and your customers notice then by all means adjust your price accordingly.
Cleaning Services and combat various insects only through pest control and cleaning
When I first started cleaning, My next door neighbor was a stay at home mom. I bought her some basic equipment, forwarded the phones and she became my “office manager.” It worked out well and after her daughter started school, she became a full timer
