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CBL Episode #63-What are Production Rates for your Cleaning Business? · Cleaning Business Life

• 0:01
  Shannon Miller: This show is brought to you by the Maids Network.
• 0:04
  Shannon Miller: Want to get serious in your cleaning game?
• 0:07
  Shannon Miller: Join my group.
• 0:08
  Shannon Miller: It's one of the larger Facebook groups just for cleaning business owners.
• 0:13
  Shannon Miller: I look forward to seeing you there.
• 0:14
  Shannon Miller: Recording in progress.
• 0:16
  Shannon Miller: Welcome everyone to Cleaning Business Life and today we are going to talk about production rates.
• 0:22
  Shannon Miller: Believe it or not, in our industry we have them.
• 0:25
  Shannon Miller: They seem to be some hidden gem that we don't find out about until usually or about, I want to say, a year in and we're like what?
• 0:34
  Shannon Miller: There are production rates for this! And the reason why I'm bringing it up is because production rates play into your pricing and if you don't know what production rates should be for a professional house cleaner here in America, it kind of makes it difficult for you to make a decision over how to price.
• 0:54
  Shannon Miller: So right now, production rates for regular maintenance cleanings is right around 500 to 600 square feet per hour.
• 1:02
  Shannon Miller: When you are brand spanking new, your production rates might be 300 to 400 square feet per hour.
• 1:05
  Shannon Miller: When you are brand spanking new, your production rates might be 300 to 400 square feet in an hour.
• 1:08
  Shannon Miller: So what does the 500 square feet in an hour mean to you?
• 1:12
  Shannon Miller: That means that if you have a 1,500 square foot home, it hypothetically should take you three hours to clean that home.
• 1:22
  Shannon Miller: Now, everybody lives a little different, we all know.
• 1:24
  Shannon Miller: So sometimes you'll be able to get in and out lickety split and it'll be a two hour clean, and other times it'll be two and a half.
• 1:30
  Shannon Miller: But you know that you've priced it for three whole hours.
• 1:34
  Shannon Miller: So if you're pricing for three whole hours, you should be able to come up with whatever the national average is and multiply that by three.
• 1:41
  Shannon Miller: And the great thing about this production rate and this is just without adding in dogs, cats, kids, spouses and anything else that goes along with the house as soon as you learn how to clean the house if it's you still out cleaning or as soon as your cleaning tech learns how to clean the house by default, you will automatically make more money per hour and give yourself a raise by cleaning the house in a short amount of time.
• 2:08
  Shannon Miller: And that always makes it nice to give yourself a raise by default.
• 2:14
  Shannon Miller: You don't have to ask for anything, you just come in and out.
• 2:16
  Shannon Miller: You know it's perfect.
• 2:17
  Shannon Miller: You can adjust it with your cleaning tech depending on how you pay.
• 2:21
  Shannon Miller: It can be a little complicated and we can have a conversation about pay in another episode, but right now we're just going to talk about production rates.
• 2:29
  Shannon Miller: As far as production rates for move-out cleanings and you have to remember that I have done over 8,500 move-out cleanings in the area that I reside and for those of you who don't know, I live in Northern Arizona, right next to Sedona.
• 2:44
  Shannon Miller: Not too many people can say that, so we're neighbors, it's a stone's throw to Sedona and I'm lucky enough to be able to travel into Sedona at least once a week to go get my mail and, you know, visit and all that other stuff.
• 3:02
  Shannon Miller: But the production rates should be known and you should be conscientious so that you can make an educated decision when you're giving out a price.
• 3:07
  Shannon Miller: So, as I just mentioned, we do a lot of move out cleanings.
• 3:12
  Shannon Miller: I think right now we're on number 110 and it's just May.
• 3:17
  Shannon Miller: We haven't even hit June, july or August, which is the really busy season for us, and the move out season usually starts for us in April.
• 3:25
  Shannon Miller: So we do a lot of move-out cleanings every year and the production rates vary.
• 3:31
  Shannon Miller: So the production rate can vary depending on a third person.
• 3:34
  Shannon Miller: For example, a 3,000 square foot home might be done by a third person.
• 3:39
  Shannon Miller: Or a 4,000 square foot home should definitely be done by a third person.
• 3:45
  Shannon Miller: 6,500 square foot home should be a team of four.
• 3:48
  Shannon Miller: So you need to learn all of these dynamics so that you can make an educated decision on when you're giving out a price.
• 3:57
  Shannon Miller: So when you're doing move-out cleanings, production rates are usually and this is just the norm.
• 4:02
  Shannon Miller: It doesn't mean it's exact, it's not gospel, it's just a guide to go by.
• 4:06
  Shannon Miller: So production rates for a move-out cleaning are typically 300 to 400 square feet per hour per person.
• 4:12
  Shannon Miller: So if you were to have a 1,500 square foot home like we're going to use that because it's easy math and we know that when I'm talking, I can't do math by myself.
• 4:23
  Shannon Miller: I just can't easy math and we know that when I'm talking I can't do math by myself, I just can't.
• 4:27
  Shannon Miller: So if we took a 1500 square foot home and we divided that into a 300 square foot per hour production rate, that means that move-out cleaning hypothetically will take about five hours.
• 4:39
  Shannon Miller: Does it mean that it will take five hours?
• 4:41
  Shannon Miller: No, in my experience I find that most move-out cleanings require 15 to 20 hours of labor.
• 4:48
  Shannon Miller: That's why they're priced a little different.
• 4:51
  Shannon Miller: But I wanted to give you the production rate so that you were comfortable and understanding what that is for that particular type of cleaning.
• 5:00
  Shannon Miller: Top to bottom deluxe cleanings the production rate, depending on how much stuff is in the home and what is going on, is right around the 350 mark to 450 mark per person.
• 5:12
  Shannon Miller: So if they have a lot of antiques, obviously that production rate is going to scale down really low.
• 5:18
  Shannon Miller: We had someone who had Tiffany lamps that should have been in a museum.
• 5:22
  Shannon Miller: So because we didn't want to break things, we had to move really slow.
• 5:26
  Shannon Miller: So the production rate for that particular house was 200 square feet per hour and yes, it did take a lot longer to do and yes, the homeowner agreed to it.
• 5:35
  Shannon Miller: But I didn't want to break a piece of antiquity and get a bad name for myself out there with my reputation for my business.
• 5:43
  Shannon Miller: So these are all things to consider.
• 5:45
  Shannon Miller: So there is the regular maintenance cleaning.
• 5:48
  Shannon Miller: The top to bottom deluxe cleaning and move out cleanings are the top three cleanings that you should focus on your very first year when you're out there cleaning as a business professional, that you should focus on your very first year when you're out there cleaning as a business professional, and those are roughly what the production rates should be hypothetically, and there's lots of variations, a lot of variables that play into getting your production rate.
• 6:07
  Shannon Miller: But I just wanted to be able to give you some sort of guide so that you could go oh, I heard that on a podcast somewhere.
• 6:13
  Shannon Miller: Where did I hear that from?
• 6:14
  Shannon Miller: And then you can go.
• 6:15
  Shannon Miller: Oh, yeah, yeah, I remember.
• 6:17
  Shannon Miller: So a lot of this is described in detail.
• 6:20
  Shannon Miller: For my course that has been seen thousands of times.
• 6:24
  Shannon Miller: It's called the Pricing Blueprint Masterclass.
• 6:26
  Shannon Miller: It is not an app.
• 6:27
  Shannon Miller: It is an actual class that you have to use your noggin for.
• 6:30
  Shannon Miller: It requires basic math and subtraction and maybe a little bit of multiplication.
• 6:35
  Shannon Miller: But I always give the example of every time we go out and the computers go down and then no one knows how to count cash.
• 6:43
  Shannon Miller: You should know the background behind why you're pricing, what you're pricing.
• 6:46
  Shannon Miller: It's worrisome that everyone is depending on an app to give them a price.
• 6:51
  Shannon Miller: Well, what if the app is wrong?
• 6:52
  Shannon Miller: What if someone else's opinion of what that should be?
• 6:55
  Shannon Miller: You should understand the background behind why you're pricing and what you're pricing, so that you can give a better price and a better understanding of where your margins are for your labor costs.
• 7:06
  Shannon Miller: You know labor costs workman's comp, payroll taxes, general liability, internet, computer gas, company cars, insurance for company cars, uniforms, supplies, vacuums I mean you name it.
• 7:19
  Shannon Miller: There's a lot of expenses when you run a legitimate business.
• 7:22
  Shannon Miller: So keep that in mind next time you're going.
• 7:25
  Shannon Miller: Hmm, how much should I price this?
• 7:27
  Shannon Miller: And you have to be careful too, because if you're not familiar with what your production rates are, you're probably not going to price high enough and you ultimately could bankrupt yourself inadvertently, and that is never a fun realization to come to terms with.
• 7:41
  Shannon Miller: You've been operating, you've been working it and grinding it and you're just not making ends meet, and then you suddenly realize that you have to take out a loan, or you've sold a car, or you're bankrolling your cleaning business with another job.
• 7:55
  Shannon Miller: I see these things happen all the time.
• 7:58
  Shannon Miller: So make sure that you are pricing high enough that you are making money.
• 8:02
  Shannon Miller: The whole point of teaching all of you thousands, hundreds of thousands of you is so that you can build a business that you can sell or you can gift to your family, and then someone else can take the torch and run with it, right?
• 8:16
  Shannon Miller: So that's the whole point of doing all the craziness is not to run yourself and bankrupt yourself out.
• 8:21
  Shannon Miller: You have to be able to charge enough money to make it here in our industry, as our industry grows and grows and grows.
• 8:31
  Shannon Miller: So keep that in mind next time you're giving a price.
• 8:34
  Shannon Miller: Make sure you understand what production rates are for our industry.
• 8:38
  Shannon Miller: And, as always, if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out.
• 8:42
  Shannon Miller: I look forward to hearing from you.
• 8:44
  Shannon Miller: Take care, cleaning Business Life is sponsored by Pure Evergreen Cleaning Products.
• 8:50
  Shannon Miller: That's P-U-R-E-V-E-R-G-R-E-E-Ncom.
• 8:54
  Shannon Miller: Pure Evergreen Cleaning Products.