Two man crews

[dan mabes]

I have operated with one technician on a truck for years and I am considering going to 2 man crews. Can those of you with 2 man crews outline the sequence of who does what in what order. How do both stay busy at the same time?
I pay a flat 25% commission. If you pay commission can you explain the breakdown?

 

[Desk Jockey]

I can tell you what we do but you'd have to ask Ken Snow how he does his splits.

Lead tech pretty much picks and choses what he wants to do, he has total responsibility for his assistant and the job. The lead tech knocks on the door and greets homeowner, assistant has vacuum & spotting tray in hand. Lead tech does walk through while assistant vacuums. Lead tech sets up unit as assistant sets out blocks and sticky tabs. Lead presprays carpet, assistant moves furniture to middle of the room, the lead cleans behind and the assistant moves back and places blocks and tabs. Lead cleans open and assistant rakes or applys protectant and rakes. Lead meanwhile makes out invoice and collects.

The idea is for the lead tech to clean and when winded trade positions with his assistant BUT Lead tech's have trouble doing so. KMA! It's the ole carpet cleaning curse, "no one can clean better than I". eat shit!

 

[Steve Toburen]

How do both stay busy at the same time?

With four trucks we usually ran 2 people on three of them and kept one truck with a lone tech on it for spotting and small jobs. We honestly found both people stayed very busy. Having an assistant gave the Crew Chief more time to win over the home owner without letting production suffer.

Plus repeated studies show wimmens feel MUCH safer alone with 2 sociopaths in their home instead of just one sociopath! And in the event of a false accusation it made me feel safer having a second tech to serve as a witness on-site.

Steve Toburen
www.SFS.JonDon.com

PS I would add to Richard's list one of the two would run door hangars to all the neighbors.

 

[Ken Snow]

Pretty much as richard said and our commission is also 25% for the crew for carpet cleaning (15 & 10). We do pay overtime commission as well for after hours, 6th day and also super overtime comm for after 9pm or Sunday's as long as Sunday is at least tue 6th day worked.

 

[davegillfishing]

Your crew leader should deal with the customer throughout the job. Do the specialty work spotting etc etc and the helper should be pushing the wand with the crew leader inspecting his work. Our guys are very well trained and our helpers are as good as most peoples crew leader. The guys should mesh and work well together as a team. They will get 2-3 times the volume of work done with appear customers because they will be more efficient.

Our crew leader makes 25% and the helpers make 10% or 12$ a hr depending on what is more.

The helpers get cash bonuses 3-4 times a week. Every time a truck cracks 1100$ they get a 50$ bill out of my pocket so it's not taxed just a thank you from me personally. They also get to use the truck whenever they want for their house or friends/family. I encourage them to charge a little to make some money. Just a perk.

My guys are very important to me!! Treat them well and the will treat you just as well. Treat them like " chimps" and watch them do all the stuff that makes you cringe

 

[Steve Toburen]

Dave,
You forgot the part about supporting the owner's fishing habit!

Steve

PS BTW, that is a very generous compensation plan. Don't worry, I won't rat you out to Violand!

 

[Mikey P]

Currently my son is earning 20% and the assistant gets $15 an hour.
When Jr is on his own he gets 30% or $20 an hour which ever is greater.

And all the power bars, fruit and drinks they can put away.

 

[bensurdi]

Pretty much as richard said and our commission is also 25% for the crew for carpet cleaning (15 & 10). We do pay overtime commission as well for after hours, 6th day and also super overtime comm for after 9pm or Sunday's as long as Sunday is at least tue 6th day worked.

Hey ken, do you mind sharing your overtime, 6th day pay? Do you pay a higher percentage on the 6th day? What is considered after hours? What is the super overtime rate?

 

[Ken Snow]

Sure Ben, 37.5% after 4 and Saturday if 6th day and 45% after 9pm and sundays.

 

[mirf]

Ken,
Do you have any work scheduled on Sunday at a normal rate. How about commercial?

 

[Ken Snow]

We will have anywhere from 2-4 crews out doing residential work on most Sundays, more in peak times, and do not charge a premium to the customer. Some comm work also but most of that is evenings and Saturdays.

 

[davegillfishing]

Dave,
You forgot the part about supporting the owner's fishing habit!

Steve

PS BTW, that is a very generous compensation plan. Don't worry, I won't rat you out to Violand!

That's why they are so valued to me. I can fish, make a bunch of money and not worry!! I love those guys.

Remember the first thing I did when I got home from Sfs was to let a guy go and rebuild my crews and retrain them.

Those moments of impact are a big topic around here. They are used as a funny example daily.

Someone parks crooked and it becomes a negative moment of impact and the shit talking starts lol

 

[Steve Toburen]

Remember the first thing I did when I got home from Sfs was to let a guy go and rebuild my crews and retrain them.

I just told the Seattle SFS class that the most valuable thing they will take away from SFS is the written systems to fire, hire and easily train new people. Once you are out from under this 600# gorilla people your employees will no longer be able to hold you hostage which is a very liberating feeling.

Glad to see you put it to use, Dave!

Steve

PS Papa Nick always says Jon-Don is very, very slow to hire but once we discover a new employee just isn't going to fit into our culture we let them go quickly. (I'm still not sure how Yeadon and I have pulled the wool over everyone's eyes for so long.)

 

[tmdry]

What about 3 men crews? Maybe Harper can chime in

 

[Lee Stockwell]

One of our vans "actually" dual wands. We ran a 3 man crew on it all this week during turns. Money well spent.

 

[Ron Lippold]

For me I could not imagine running by myself. Lance can do it all he can answer phones, enter jobs wand, groon carpets, hell he even talks to the customer. It's so much faster with the two of us.

 

[tmdry]

What would you guys pay for 3 men crews? Either a truck w/ 3 techs in it or 2 men crews in a truck while a 2nd truck w/ 1 tech would be sent out for a large job.

 

[BLewis]

We run a 2 man crew the majority of the time. It is amazing once the team works together for awhile the speed in which they can clean. We average about 1.5 - 1.75 hours on a whole house (7rooms) cleaning when moving furniture. We did a 9 room vacant last week in 1.5 hours (pretty clean carpet). Richard I took serious note of your comments about our commercial bidding in that other post. We could have easily knocked out that 3k commercial carpet in 2 -2.5 hrs. I think I'll switch my train of thought when bidding commercial to look at how lOng it will take vs Psf. This is mainly how I bid restaurants, I start out at .12 psf to get an idea then adjust the bid accordingly to how long it will take so we can gross about 150 per hour, never less than 100 ph.

 

[Desk Jockey]

You would have been close to your target at $144.00. Pricing is something we struggle with also, we want to price it low to be competitive and get the job. Yet we don't want to under cut ourselves and leave money on the table. You'll do fine sticking with your hourly target and letting the sq/ft fall where it does.

 

[tmdry]

What would you guys pay for 3 men crews? Either a truck w/ 3 techs in it or 2 men crews in a truck while a 2nd truck w/ 1 tech would be sent out for a large job.

Does anyone know?

 

[Hoody]

2 man crew is going to(should) be more efficient/productive. Lead would make 15% assistant 10. Alone tech would make 25%. These are percentages of only what each crew is responsible for on that job

Sent from my LGL86C using Tapatalk 2

 

[hogjowl]

After working all by my lonesome for the majority of the past 25 years, I am amazed at the increase in production I have experienced since bringing on the fruit of my loins to work with me. I could, if I wanted to, actually DECREASE my prices and still maintain a decent standard of living. It has allowed me to go BACK to using 2 inch wands and hoses, and I no longer feel like killing everybody I meet at days end.

We has no problem figuring out how each man should proceed and "staying busy" is not even a thought to us. We just naturally started to flow around each other once I got him trained.

 

[Desk Jockey]

I'm impressed Porchop! Couldn't find anyone willing to spend all day with you, so you grew your own help.

I have pity for your son!

 

[WillS]

We also run a two man crew. The assistant is on-call and paid hourly / $13hr. We only use an assistant on bigger jobs or commercial carpet cleaning jobs.

 

[tmdry]

So a 3 men crew would be 15%/10%/$12-$13/hour (3rd assistant)?