This is my first year in business, I have been giving allot of thought lately to how much a WC company can make. I would like to be able to make over a million dollars a year. Is this possible?
I would say yes it is possible.
I would say possible yes but…likelihood of actually doing it solely depends on how big your company is! There’s the tricky part because…your surely not going to do it without ALOT or employees and some damn good accts.
Oh yeah… completely impossible by yourself… (except for the DOMINATOR)
I would say you would need at least 20 guys for this.
Yes…forgive my ignorance! I forgot about the “DOMINATOR” All kidding aside you would have to have a good size crew some really decent & frequent accts to do that kind of volume!
And the term [I]“make”[/I] a million is also relative.
I think it would be fairly easy to obtain a million dollars in poorly priced work, farm it out to low-paid workers, and squeeze some money out of the whole deal.
Of course, you would have horrible workmanship, your reputation would be dragged through the gutter, and you would have a very poor business model, and only clear about a hundred thousand dollars along the way.
To build a lean, mean, profit-churning, high-quality, window cleaning business machine will take longer than one year, and even then if you gross a million, you’ll take home WAY less.
[B]WAY less.[/B]
At the same time, though, I think that with some discipline, you can achieve some substantial results. A million dollars is only $83,000/mth.
An average month has 4.3 weeks, and thus 189 working hours (45 hrs/wk, with 5 9-hr days, and no weekends spent working).
That means that all of your crews together, will have to be generating a total hourly revenue of around $440/hr, 9 hours a day, 5 days a week, all year long.
A very skilled 4-man employee crew, with very well priced work, could pull this off, but to find this caliber of high-priced client won’t be quick.
On the other hand, 9 employees generating $50/hr can also do it, but you’ll need to keep them busy the whole time too.
Another way of looking at it is that you’d have to generate about $4,000/day of revenue.
[I]Possible, but not easy.[/I]
And if your business is lop-sided with busy/slow seasons, then you’ll have to jack up your busy months to $120,000+ each to compensate for the slower ones.
This isn’t pie in the sky, and you can do it with the right team, tools, and commitment. [I]Eventually…[/I]
And if you are considering whether you can do this all on your own, I believe it is 99.99% impossible.
Unless you are in a silly market where they pay astronomical prices, and you have some insider tracks on the best work available, and have a mountain of it.
Even then, pulling down $20,000/wk, 50 weeks a year would be almost impossible.
99.99% impossible.
I have personally never heard of professional window cleaners having a week of revenue over $10,000, as solo acts. And this ‘solo’ scenario would require double that.
Has anyone on this forum had a week over $10,000, as a one-man show?
I made 8000.00 in 7 days…[B]long days[/B] might i add…on a big gig i did on my own. but that is a one time a year thing. Was lucky to have got that one …hopefully will get it again next year. It would be nice to make that every week…lol
Yeah - thats the problem, good example, Crazy.
I’ve had some high-paying days too, but they are NEVER for weeks on end, and usually only several times a year.
Not [I]often [/I]by any stretch of the imagination.
Some good responses so far! One thing to consider as well is…do you realize the $money$ you would have to spend on advertising,supplies & gas alone to achieve that mark??
Thats not even including employee costs,even with a FAT well paying client base to maintain the volume. Im sure there are a few big companies that can produce those numbers,i know for a fact Valcourt Building services does some serious revenue but…i’ve heard they have like 500 employees too!
Going by the logic in the other thread you would need to spend $100,000 to make that?
I think Valcourt has about 75+ cleaners and Dan Fields has about 60. I would guess they are in the 3- 5 million dollar range.
Not sure where i got the 500 from? I thought i heard that at 1 of the conventions? Nevertheless…my bad if im wrong:D
That is some SIC money! Of course thats not free & clear either
I could be wrong as well… i just thought I heard that somewhere…
Thanks to everyone that responded, you have given me allot to think about. I hope to one day hit that sales goal.
Yeah, but remember that NET is way more important.
A million in revenue is worthless if it costs you $950,000 to earn.
I think it is possible to generate a million dollars in [U]gross[/U] revenue. It is dependent on the market and the company’s ability to gain a lions share of it.
I never think in terms of what my company can make, I think about what my personal profit is from that. You can have a company grossing $1,000,000 a year and bringing home $50,000 in personal net (as Paneless said)… which would be horsechips.
Wealth has nothing to do with the company gross, only the profit. Billion dollar companies go belly up.
This is also the time to contemplate whether to be a volume or margin based company. Do we want a large number of customers at a bargain, or do we want to profit more off of less customers. I know of very successful people in both areas.
Both can work, but there will be a price with volume. We will not be able to offer or maintain anything special. We would only separate ourselves by cheapest price.
