Posted / 17th June 2019
You’ve been working hard, building your business and supporting your team. You know you want to keep scaling and growing your team – but when?
Employing new members of staff is not cheap, so how do you know when it’s the right time to bite the bullet and expand your cleaning team?
- You’re not getting back to clients, or staff.
There are hundreds of unanswered emails in your inbox, there are red circles of notifications all over your phone and you jump every time the phone rings. You’re so overwhelmed that you’re starting to get concerned that clients and staff are getting fed up with your lack of response.
Not responding to new clients, prospective clients and team members means you’re overstretched. Providing quality is more important than being busy. If you’re finding yourself getting really behind on correspondence, it will eventually catch up on you in a negative way. It’s better to take on a new member of staff than lose your custom entirely – pick up the phone and get hiring!
See also how to manage shortages in the holiday season.
- You’re struggling to fit everything in.
“Sorry Mr So-and-So, I can’t get round to you until next week”. “An oven clean? I won’t have time to fit that in until after Christmas”.
Sound familiar? If you’re telling your seasoned clients that you can’t provide for them, guess what? They’ll go elsewhere. You need to ensure that you have a 15% overflow – i.e leave 15% of your bookable time, unfilled. If you can’t schedule in that 15% overflow time, then you need more help. Even if it’s just a part time operative to give you Friday’s off, cut yourself some slack.
Here are tips for interviewing for your cleaning team
- You can’t take on anymore clients.
Being booked is great! But you also need to ensure that there is a steady stream of clients coming in – because you will always lose some to house moves, financial difficulty etc.
If you’ve got a crazy waiting list, you’ll find that many of them will drop off and find someone else. You need to be able to say yes within a reasonable amount of time. Look for staff who are willing to gradually up their hours – or swap with each other to make their timetables work.
- You’re not spending time with your family.
Is your own home in disarray because you’re spending so much time cleaning other people’s? The likelihood is that you got into this business for the freedom, the flexibility and the ability to make money whilst getting to spend time with your loved ones. If you’re finding yourself away from home all the time, missing bedtimes and struggling to get through your own maintenance regime – it’s time to get hiring.
If the boss is turning up looking frazzled, dishevelled and scatty – what kind of impression does that set to the client? As the face of the business, you need to be in tip-top-shape too!
Learn how to use technology to free up your precious time.
- You’re still getting requests for your services.
Every week you’re getting new enquiries, tags on Facebook and DM’s. You can barely keep up with the messages. Great news!! Your reputation is putting in the groundwork and bringing you lots of custom. Lucky you – it’s time to upscale! See the influx of messages as a great opportunity to grow, rather than a daily panic. Remember, many businesses would kill to be in your position.
If you need some support or want to ensure that you’re running your cleaning business as efficiently as possible, why not check out Bright Academy’s training packages. There are tonnes of great resources to peruse, including this guide to hiring the perfect cleaning team.
Still stuck? Give us a call and one of our friendly team will be able to point you in the right direction.