When should you add a second van??

[hanks75]

When you're consistently one week out, two weeks out, or three weeks out? And do you have one man vans or two man crews? Why?

 

[davegillfishing]

when you dont have so many peaks and valleys..we were booked solid for 3 weeks then it would go down to 1 week
then be back to 3 weeks and we found ourselves working too many hrs taking care of the ones that didnt want to wait
so we put on another truck..
it has been awesome and we are hoping to add a 3rd by spring.
we ALWAYS run 2 man crews and only sometimes send out a tech solo.
you can do a lot more work with 2 people on the truck and it is safer for the tech and the homeowner.
trust me when i say no woman wants one single guy in her home alone.. it is just better customer perception
to have 2 man crews in my opinion.
dave

 

[Out of Character - 0]

When you have the money? A 2nd van gives you options. I see no reason to be booked for weeks, your missing work. We complete every job as soon as possible. If a job is completed they can't cancel, you got paid, and you wont lose another job because your busy.

 

[Ryan]

I've always heard 5 days booked solid was time to add another truck.

I only run one truck for carpet though so I have no first hand experince with that.

 

[daniel@procarpet]

It has nothing to do with how booked you are. Cleaners that average over 300 per job do less jobs. Guys that average 80-120 need to do a ton of volume to make up the difference and being booked is neccessary. For me I could never show up to clean a 3k sq ft home with a portable.

You buy a second truck as a BACKUP, to use on big jobs, and to handle overflow business.

What are you going to do if you have a big job and you need to put your truck in the shop? Do you reschedule the job?

My transmisson went out this week. I didn't skip a beat and knocked out close to 1500 in two days while the truck was in the shop.

Even worse what if your van is vandalized or wrecked?

I am very busy right now. I can't afford to miss an entire day of work.

That is my reasoning.

 

[joeynbgky]

Daniel, Thats that way im am thinking exzactly!

 

[daniel@procarpet]

I will add there is nothing wrong with using a portable for small jobs or when it makes sense. I would have killed for a fivestar (fook using a 160 lb portable when a 45 lb machine will do a better job) the other day on a 14k sq ft home to clean one closet and two chairs for 175. I had to move the truck and set the hose up two times. I will never go back to that house without a portable.

 

[davegillfishing]

i guess it also depends on what you are going to buy..
i was referring to buying another butler..you better be booked
steady before you spend 55k on a 2nd truck. i dont and wont buy junk
my plan is a fleet of butlers and we are on our way..i wont add any other
cleaning rig to the fleet just to get by. we are a 100% or nothing company
i like my customers to see and get the exact same thing every time on every job
same truck, same chems on all trucks and same way of doing things on every truck.

 

[joeynbgky]

i guess it also depends on what you are going to buy..
i was referring to buying another butler..you better be booked
steady before you spend 55k on a 2nd truck. i dont and wont buy junk
my plan is a fleet of butlers and we are on our way..i wont add any other
cleaning rig to the fleet just to get by. we are a 100% or nothing company
i like my customers to see and get the exact same thing every time on every job
same truck, same chems on all trucks and same way of doing things on every truck.

They say the new butlers are hot and have lots of suck... But......... Have you used anything besides butler? I think people like wha they like. Everyone says their machines the best. lol

 

[davegillfishing]

yep i have used many many units from the origional steam geni piece of shit to
boxxer slide in's to a vortex..
i have said it before and i will say it again, if i were given any other machine
i would sell it and buy another butler..i have no desire to screw around with
a machine, i have carpet to clean and money to make..if i wanted to be a
service tech i would be one..i love my butler's!!

 

[BLewis]

I have to totally agree with Daniel. Especially since I have just experienced this situation with my V being out for 15 days! Usually my wife and I just absolutely love it each and every time that the phone rings because we book better than 95% of our calls. However, when the V was down, dealerships were changing, bad diagnosis of what was wrong, possibly looking at 7k in new parts, we cringed each time the phone would ring because we didn't know exactly when we would have our truck back. So we got behind on 8 commercial jobs, had to reschedule residentials (some of them more than once) and probably lost 4-5 jobs between 150-225 because they wanted in cleaned that week. I just finished a 9 day streak that we put 3 weeks worth of work into, and actually I didn't mind doing that much work but, I would sure rather it be planned by me and not my equipment.

So what had been my biggest fear when we got busier was certainly realized without a doubt when our truck was down and we didn't have a backup. So getting the second unit is at the very top of my Get Done list. I am looking for a another truck and am leaning heavily on the Judson C-4 for my next unit (Maybe I can get Marty's if everything can happen quick enough)

 

[PTMatt]

Recently we were losing about 5 to 6 jobs a week due to 1 van being fully booked. We than purchased a used second van with all new equipment and it was a great decision. Most weeks we now have 2 vans booked and the comfort of knowing if one van goes down for repairs we still have another to keep us going.

 

[Brian R]

The hardest thing to do in any business is to take that first step. Once you do that, the rest is a peice of cake.

If you wait until you are ready to do anything, you will never do it.

Jump in with both feet and get the van...you will work your ass off to make sure it wasn't a bad decision.

 

[tracywalker]

what about hiring? What do you do when it slows back to where only 1 van is needed? Do you let the employees run it? Do you run one and let them run the other? I keep thinking with programs like full circle I could add a second van and let them worry with keeping it booked, and let them only fill my schedule for a select few clients and all my commerical? I can't afford to go broke while trying to get bigger, but I can't afford to go crazy trying to keep up. :?

 

[davegillfishing]

that is why i say to wait till you are booked out..5 days is shit..i was booked out a week in my first months of business..
to protect yourself and your future you need to be booked out a bit longer steady to prove the work load can
keep the 2nd truck running..
to each his own but the companies that grow too fast and jump in to fast are the ones that when the slow times hit
are screwed..slow steady growth is the way to go..to fast and you lose control and quality.
in my opinion at least..and it is working fine for me.

 

[Brian R]

what about hiring? What do you do when it slows back to where only 1 van is needed? Do you let the employees run it? Do you run one and let them run the other? I keep thinking with programs like full circle I could add a second van and let them worry with keeping it booked, and let them only fill my schedule for a select few clients and all my commerical? I can't afford to go broke while trying to get bigger, but I can't afford to go crazy trying to keep up. :?

The new slogan for Full Circle. :wink:

When you get the second van just let the employees run the main one and you take up the slack. You can pick and chose your jobs while they take what you give them.
Depending on if you are paying commission or hourly too.

Dave is right about growing too fast...but you don't want to wait too long either. You may be missing opportunities.

 

[Jim Williams]

Do you guys that have added more trucks finance your next truck or pay cash?

It seems like it would add quite a bit of risk when you finance. Those payments keep coming in all year.

 

[Brian R]

Make sure you have the money in the bank to pay cash and then finance it. Keep the cash as back up.
If you have enough money to pay cash for two vans, then pay cash for the 1.

If you "have" to finance, it's probably not a good time to do it.

With that said, if you are a risk taker (I am) then just do it and make it work.

 

[Jay D]

And when will you actually get your first van? :mrgreen:

 

[Brian R]

I've had plenty of first vans. :mrgreen:

 

[Steve Toburen]

... the comfort of knowing if one van goes down for repairs we still have another to keep us going.

I tended to replace my truck mounts at 5,000- 6,000 hours. Machines obviously will keep running beyond this especially if it is an owner-operator who knows their quirks and keeps up on the maintenance. But with multiple crews and sometimes running machines 24 hours straight between residential/ commercial/ water losses the "sweet spot" for us was 5,000 hours. After that the inevitable small repairs started hurting production too much. (Plus, I mean come on- at 5,000 running hours how many times has a TM paid for itself?)

However, when I replaced trucks I would always keep the best of the bunch as a back-up. The relatively small amount a TM would sell for was far outweighed by the comfort of knowing it was parked at the shop waiting to go to work when one of our other three (newer) TM's units went down.

Steve
SFS.JonDon.com

PS Another advantage of a second van: I think Ken Snow has commented on how profitable offering "same day service" can be. A sense of urgency kept people from nickel and dimeing me to death. They were just pathetically grateful that we could "fit them in" and I was even more grateful to get out from behind a desk, slip on a uniform shirt and go suck a little rug with my back-up van!