how much should you be grossing?

[juniorc82]

I am thinking of leaving my full time job for a job with less hours so I can have more time to work my cleaning business. My question is just as a rough estimate what do you guys honostly gross on a slow month and a busy month. I am aware that differant areas could bring in more or less . I am just curios what my gross monthly revenue goal should be as an owner operator. I have pretty low overhead so thats a plus but I am just a bit lost as to what I can realisticly expect to bring in.

 

[Ken Snow]

In our carpet cleaning division only, 200k in a bad month, 550k or so in a good one :-)

 

[juniorc82]

well I would gladly settle for your bad month! I was looking for what I should expect as an owner operator

In our carpet cleaning division only, 200k in a bad month, 550k or so in a good one :-)

 

[Jeremy]

How long have you been at it?
What kind of budget do you have for marketing?
Do you do commercial?

I'd say you average will fall between $0 & $15k per month. But that's just a guess.

 

[Hoody]

I agree with Jeremy. But remember; its not how much you make. Its how much you can keep. Take a good look at your costs of business(TM payments, insurance, taxes, chems, gas usage ect). What you SHOULD be grossing is enough to pay your operation costs, pay yourself, and profit to build capital to help your business grow. At some point you may be able to kick that job away, and settle for doing this full-time. Its up to you!

 

[Brian R]

In MO.?
I would say about $5000.00 would be in the middle...but I don't know too much about the cost of living there.

Can you give us an average ticket price?

 

[bob vawter]

I agree with Jeremy. But remember; its not how much you make. Its how much you can keep. Take a good look at your costs of business(TM payments, insurance, taxes, chems, gas usage ect). What you SHOULD be grossing is enough to pay your operation costs, pay yourself, and profit to build capital to help your business grow. At some point you may be able to kick that job away, and settle for doing this full-time. Its up to you!

WHO.......tol that Hoodlie....huh?

 

[Hoody]

Yes Bob we discussed that on the way home from Winterfest.

 

[Greenie]

Annual sales divided by 2000 hrs gives you an hourly figure, either that figue is attractive or it is not, hint Anything under a $100/hr may not take you where you had hoped to go, where $200/hr. surely will.

Even part time, you could use 1000 annual hours to get a feel for a 19 hr. work week.

Long story short, STAY at your job until you can't AFFORD to stay there anymore.

 

[Brian R]

Annual sales divided by 2000 hrs gives you an hourly figure, either that figue is attractive or it is not, hint Anything under a $100/hr may not take you where you had hoped to go, where $200/hr. surely will.

Even part time, you could use 1000 annual hours to get a feel for a 19 hr. work week.

Long story short, STAY at your job until you can't AFFORD to stay there anymore.

Werd

 

[Guest]

You only get what you put in it!

Advertising is a investment, now I have cut back 65% on marketing
because I have (last year rate was 62%) repeat business!

To get repeat business you need to get new clients aswell.

 

[XTREME1]

Slow week should be around $1200 busy would be around $2900 top out at around $3500 as a single truck. That includes marketing time and PAPERWORK. If you want to leave your job find a janitorial account that needs doing 3 times a week or 3 one day a week jobs(early morning) and that will suplement your income.

If you do make the jump be smart about your marketing. Don't just throw a bunch of crap against the wall and make sure you keep up with even when your busy

 

[juniorc82]

In MO.?
I would say about $5000.00 would be in the middle...but I don't know too much about the cost of living there.

Can you give us an average ticket price?

cost of living is low here. My personal bills before gas and food are just under a grand. As for the average ticket on residential maybe between 150-200

 

[Cameron1]

let's talk about net...... How much gross does it take to net 160,000.00

 

[XTREME1]

alot of factors in that steve.

 

[Cameron1]

let's talk about net...... How much gross does it take to net 160,000.00

for me ~190K

Fred...........let's get real.

 

[Cameron1]

alot of factors in that steve.

Hey ugly,

you gonna be in Atlanta next week ?

 

[XTREME1]

190 to net160 someone should teach you about paying taxes, chems, advertising and insurance plus many more. Your a BB idiot.

(monkey 25k are you living in reality. Do you know what benefits andinsurance cost about 23% with me so your 25000 ends up being a tad above minimum wage. Mikey should remove your moderator status for lying about your business)

Steve I wish. I would have loved to hang with you. I used to not be able to stand you but you wear on a person The Atlanta class sold out, roselle ill for me

 

[XTREME1]

The only real bills I have is phone, gen liability, auto ins, state/gov fees, jan bond, and
Taxes are pass through so I'm not counting them as business net

learn what net vs gross is

this proves what a moron you are. if your billing 190 and netting 160 your are cheating and not paying. please explain how you can bill 190 and walk with 160

I did $190+ last year and walked with -$11,563

I expanded but none the less previous year was plus in about 146 but not nearly your numbers because of taxes

there is a term for where people like you go JAIL

 

[XTREME1]

your number dude. You said 190 to do 160

 

[Ron Werner]

I was shown numbers to net 100K, gross about 135K

$600 days, 5 days/wk, 45 wks/yr

 

[XTREME1]

so Ron does FCC numbers even come close to making sense $190 to net 160

 

[handdi]

125000 should be a good livin for ya jon
i bet 50 % will be profit after 2 or 3 yrs
first 2 or 3 spend 20 to 25% of your gross on advertising and do a outstanding job.
Thats what i'm a bankin on hope it works i'm sure it will.
A lot of these guys will tell ya advertising is a waste but tell me how do ya get new customers fast.Advertising is repetitive so stay with it .
Works better the more people see it.
But the research i have done seems the big companys doin alot of business are runnin
15 to 20% for advertising all the time.
SNow has brand reconition 2nd to none
Of course thats my opinion take it or leave it
RD

 

[Ken Snow]

2 points

1. To really come up with a pretax net it is best to include a reasonable salary for labor, even if only the owner is working. A 50-75k salary for doing the techniciann part of the job would seem reasonable depending on the area of the country. Next are the salary considerations for the order taking time, marketing time, accounting and processing time etc.... At least another 20-40k for a full time ongoing business. Add those costs together and the business is now down from 160k to somewhere between 55-90k, closer to the 55k in my opin ion which is still and ecellent pre tax profit ( and a more realistic business persons way to look at it)

2. I don't know about other larger cleaning companies, but for us the larger we have gotten the smaller as a % of sales the ad budget has need to be. The dollars themselves are larger. I believe this is true for businesses in most any industry and is part of the economies of scale.

Ken

 

[XTREME1]

I guy I know who has atleast as many trucks as Ken was telling me his advertising has gone down significantly year after year. He started out with 50+% and is now down to 3.5% this year.

 

[Ken Snow]

That is really low Greg, my on location cleaning ad budget is over 7% or 425k

 

[XTREME1]

he told me last year he was at 7-8% but this year advertising is much cheaper and he has been contiunally cutting.

 

[Ron Werner]

if you figured a $1500/mth tm payment, that's 18K
some advertising/marketing to your database, doesn't cost as much as YP's, say $6k/yr
chemicals, repairs, maintenance, fuel,
about 25% of gross for busn expenses as an O/O

does that sound workable?