Marathon Effort

I just got home after 9 hours of straight wanding thanks to a greedy sub that refused to work.  I was good for the first 6, but it grew old after that and then sore at around hour 8.  I am sure the truck wasn't feeling any better either.  I may not be the most successful cleaner out there these days, but nobody can ever claim that I was lazy.

As for the sub, this guy gets 45% of the building gross and receives more than $10,000 per year working with me about 20 times per year for 4 hours at a shot.  I even paid him the same day of the job despite the fact that I didn't get paid for 2-3 weeks.  I don't know what else to do to keep a sub motivated.  On this job, I notified him of the schedule a week ago and he was happy about it since he was making plans for a vacation.  Eight hours before the job, I called him to remind him of the job and he told me that he changed his mind and didn't want to work.  AFter some discussion, he admitted that his problem was the 45% share of the job and that he would have to get 50% or he was out.

Well, tonight he was out and got zero %.  I am pretty sure he felt that he had the upper hand since this job has always been a 2 truck minimun and that I would have to cave in....I am far more stubborn than people realize.

Good for you Bob. I think 45 percent is more than fair. Probably foe the best anyways you get to take 100 percent home

It was for the best considering things at the moment. I don't think I want to make a habit out of it though. I bounced back ok, but it had to hard on the van pushing non-stop for that long.

I am just a little turned off on using subs going forward as this is the second one to go bad. They always start out so happy to get the work and then a year into it they start becoming unreliable, then they just start demanding more money or they walk. I realize they are not getting rich working with me, but they are making well over $130 hour working a contract that pays up front. I would love to get paid up front on commercial jobs like that.

I am going to strip it all down to the basics again. Roll the clock back about 5 years and start over with it just being me and nobody else. No employees, no subs, no on-calls, nothing. Just me and the TM, no back-up, no duplicate tools, just basics. The market doesn't seem to support anything beyond that.

When you say sub's, are you talking about using their own equipment? Or your 2 vans double teaming it?
Or they are their to spray, pull hoses, and ...

My Sub's supply their own truck and tools...I supply the chemicals. In both cases they lived within 15 minutes of the contract.

I agreed, 45 % is extremely generous, I know it’s hard on your body and truck but if it needs to be done, then it needs to be done. I was going to suggest to clear the schedule the next day but I know that can be difficult in busy season, but what can you do, you’re a carpet cleaner, it comes with the job description, good money but sucks big time since it’s a seasonal job.
After a big commercial job like that, I usually only take same day service if it’s a big enough job that can’t be done any other day, any minimum charge job that can’t wait another day can call another cleaner that I know in town, you can ask for commission to the other cleaners in town that you recommend jobs like that to them ?

"Clear the schedule the next day"....it has been cleared almost every day this year thus far.

Heck, Berkshire is going on right now and I normally get a ton of work getting businesses ready for the arrival of all the big money players, but not this year. I might have to check the obits, I may have died months ago and just hanging around for no good reason. It is just some strange right now, my regulars aren't calling, no new business is rolling in, and there seems to nothing that I can about it.

There should be a spike for Mother's Day and High School Graduation parties, but all I have is a dial tone.

I try to keep up with the news out of wall street...

A article I read this morning was about people and their money in checking. The gist of the article was, that people are holding more money in checking then they have in the past. Basically saying that people have no confidence in the economy, so they aren't spending.

We can probably thank the media for all the negative "news" they puke out. Quite the contradiction from the ACTUAL state of the economy.

I know I can see people holding back this year so far. Some have sold their homes and don't have a summer or vacation home in my area now. Even my BEST resi client is scaling back on cleanings this year, and isn't having me clean their lake rental property.

I think you hit the nail on the head Dp, it is the media coverage that is killing things. If you listened to them, the entire world is about to blow up and people should be in their bunkers by now. It really is killing the market as people don't spend when they are worried.

I only picked up 2 small jobs for this week thus far, nothing to get excited about nor keep a business afloat.