Where to start?

[renegade_cowboy]

It took me about 30 minutes to get to my first stop today. It was a empty house. The vaccuming took an hour cause of the remodel, 20 minutes working around other contractors and 1 1/2 for the cleaning. 20-30 minutes for the protector and raking, plus moving the air mover around.

I spent about 4 hours here, total was $498 and about an 45min - 1 hour total driving.

Is a goal of $100 an hour good for a O/O? Other jobs I get more, rarely do I get under $100. Should I add in drive time with the job total time?

Just curious what is your hourly goal?

Thanks

 

[John Alzubi]

$100 -$125 an hour without driving time.

 

[Jim Martin]

We have a huge city map hanging on the wall in the office and it is sectioned off by mileage.....

when Tia takes a call and ask for the cross streets she will adjust the bill accordingly for the time and the mileage......

 

[Cameron1]

Can't argue with your #'s. I think you take the good with the better............. cause it's all good. What other profession can claim those #'s ?

 

[-JB-]

amen bro.

 

[Jack May]

Not to bust your bubble Brent, but what you make is irrelevent compared to what you keep.

Some guys averaging $50/hr might keep more than a VAT guy with big payments making $150/hr

There's no arguing, those are good numbers to aim for but I go a step further. I work out my daily cost of business per tech/truck factoring in ALL cost of business including only 48 weeks a year the office running costs advertising, EVERYTHING. Basic way of calculating is as follows.

Take last years total expenses. Add a modest increase proportionate to the increase in sales this year.

Divide it by 48 (you should be taking 4 weeks leave a year)

Divide it by the number of truck.

Divide that by the number of days you work most weeks.

That bottom number will surprise you!! It did me.

Now that you have that number, look critically at how many production hours you get on average per day.

Divide your previous number the production hours and that tells you your break even point.

If that number is say $90/hr then $100 is too low. But if you own a lot of your equipment, have no HP's, low advertising costs etc, then that number might be $40 and $100/hr is great!!

John

 

[Dolly Llama]

It took me about 30 minutes to get to my first stop today. It was a empty house. The vaccuming took an hour cause of the remodel, 20 minutes working around other contractors and 1 1/2 for the cleaning. 20-30 minutes for the protector and raking, plus moving the air mover around.

I spent about 4 hours here, total was $498 and about an 45min - 1 hour total driving.

Brent, correct me if I'm wrong, but you're a solo owner/op, right?

if so..if you can't make a decent profit at those numbers, you need to get a real job, cause you're doing sump'um way wrong


..L.T.A.

 

[renegade_cowboy]

Thanks for the response. I am a O/O. All my equipment is paid for and have very little overhead. So the profit is good. I was just curious with my situation if the $100 an hour goal was realistic or if I am selling myself short. I am very good at somethings, but have questions about others. I think being a business owner is always a learning process and I still have some room to grow. Thanks for the input. Things are going good here. Not perfect but then who is.

 

[Mike Draper]

I track my hourly cost differently. IMO you are only collecting money when the truck is running. Each time I fill up my the van with gas I record the hours on the machine, my mileage and so on for tax purposes, then I enter this in my computer on Quickbooks. At the end of the year I know the exact amount of hours my machine ran and the exact amount the I bring in Gross and Net. After you figure out all your overhead then you take the overhead number say $40,000.00 and divide it by your TM hours.....say it ran 890 hours last year......That equals $44.94 dollars an hour to run your truck just to cover the overhead.............any money you bring in over that is gravy!

Also, you can go back and see which weeks or months out of the year you put the most hours on the truck and which months brought the best profit, gross, most overhead...etc... and then adjust your business accordingly to make be as profitable as possible.

 

[Jack May]

Good idea Mike IF you're carpet and upholstery cleaning only using HWE.

I run a small restoration company so some days teh TM doesn't start but we still do decent numbers.

I also spend a lot of my days grossing well in excess of $100/hr and can go DAYS without starting a machine.

Horses for courses but the main thing is , JUST DO IT.

Track your numbers however you do it, it'll make you a better business owner and you'll end up running a better business with potentially greater rewards.

John

 

[Dolly Llama]

I was just curious with my situation if the $100 an hour goal was realistic or if I am selling myself short..

Brent, hanging on the boards can give a skewed perception of the real world.
"hi rollers" that talk of $180 to $250 pr hour gross consistently are not the norm, even though it might seem like it

$100 an hour seems like a very realistic goal for a solo owner/op

the beauty of goals are, once you reach them, you set another.


..L.T.A.