Our Business has been around for 10 years, and the most painful area has been when we hire contractors and begging poaching customers.
We always have to have a plan in place, but when they start acting and we have to run and put fires down some areas in the operation are affected greatly.
]Any Input? Advise or similar experiences?
Stop hiring contractors. They are independent businesses who see your customers as their own leads.
Switch to Employees (W-2): You gain full control over their schedule, uniform, and customer interaction. They want a steady paycheck, not your clients.
Enforce Non-Solicitation Contracts: Have a lawyer draft a sharp agreement with a heavy dollar penalty per poached client if they service your accounts after leaving.
Own the Client Relationship: Route all scheduling, billing, and updates through your software. Keep the client loyal to your brand, never to the individual cleaner.
Thanks Travis this is great advice!
We just hired our first employee and I have to say that its been very easy to calculate costs and expenses because we can forecast the jobs well. We had the choice to start out with hiring contractors, but ultimately decided to go with a w2 hourly employee instead. We control the interview, skills, workmanship, supplies, training, job timing and scheduling. Along with that insurances, payroll, taxes, and time off. These are definitely Pros.
I guess the only Cons would be financial items like taxes and expenses. But aside from that, job profitability is very high, around %65 to %70 average. So if we can iron out training and onboarding, as leads come in, it makes it much easier to grow and scale.
Hope this helps.
The constant onboarding and training eats at profit! This is such a high turnover business like restaurant/fast food. No one wants to make a career of it! But sub contracting absolutely does not work for me as if I have not trained u there’s no way u will meet my standards or my clients
