How do you pay employees?

R

RAG

New member
I'd be interested in hearing how those of you pay employees (particularly those whom have a fixed location/shop). I'm looking into opening a shop...



When I worked at a car wash (yes, I worked at your typical hack-job, "hand-wash" car wash for about 6 months as a "service advisor"), they paid the detailers a 30% commission minus "expenses;" at first it was 35%, but they reduced it. Detailers had to split up product expenses and "pay" $10 for each car to be washed (the cars went through hand-wash line first). The detailers actually made "decent" money, since they did such a high volume of low quality work...you guys know the drill - 1-step buff job entailed about 15 minutes of actual buffing, 2-step...about 30 minutes...interior detail (less than an hour), wax job (20 minutes).



I was thinking more along the lines of 50% commission, yet ensure they are properly trained and spend sufficient time to perform 1st-class detailing.



Thanks yall.
 
I have a buddy who works with me once in a while, and we do mobile work. Whenever he helps me I pay him at least 10/hour but I usually end up giving him the 10/hour and a large tip. I figure if I am making 250-300 bucks on a car I can afford to give him more than 40 bucks for his hard work considering it would take us about 4 hours. I would in that case end up giving him about 60-75 bucks for his hard work.



Greg
 
My partner workered at anther detailing shop for a little bit tis summer (before we started ours) and he was making $13/hr (this is calary). He worked on w.e cars they had and at the end of the day would recored it in the book then the owner would sing off. I think an hourly wage is better, although it sucks in busy times, come the slower days they will be happpy they have it, and these days whith labour how it is you need hapy empoyees. Also i know lots of places you dont have to pay for training so if you do an hourly wage thing you get "train them" ad see how it goes



Well just my opion

-mike
 
calgarydetail said:
My partner workered at anther detailing shop for a little bit tis summer (before we started ours) and he was making $13/hr (this is calary). He worked on w.e cars they had and at the end of the day would recored it in the book then the owner would sing off. I think an hourly wage is better, although it sucks in busy times, come the slower days they will be happpy they have it, and these days whith labour how it is you need hapy empoyees. Also i know lots of places you dont have to pay for training so if you do an hourly wage thing you get "train them" ad see how it goes



Well just my opion

-mike
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I have to say it; I hope you detail better than you can spell.
 
I think it comes down to the kind of work you want to come out of your shop. Paying per car would motivate someone more to put out volume rather then quality while paying per hour would lean to a better situation for putting out quality work rather then volume.
 
MichaelM said:
I think it comes down to the kind of work you want to come out of your shop. Paying per car would motivate someone more to put out volume rather then quality while paying per hour would lean to a better situation for putting out quality work rather then volume.
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Yeah, I'd certainly want to reward quality. But it sure would be nice to find a way reward hard work (I'm not sure being paid by the hour really does this).
 
^^^per hour plus tip and lunch...



seriously though, how many places by their employees lunch every day....its little things like that which kept me at my old job....new management came around and didnt do that, and I ended up leaving...it was a restaurant too, not like it was costing them more than $2....
 
Good point bud, the little things do make the difference - I managed an educational consulting firm for a while and we provided benefits up the ying yang; but now that I think about it, these benefits became more of an expectation than a "benefit." Anyways, back on point, a nice hourly wage, plus letting them keep the tips, ought to be incentive enough. If in fact hour wages engourages quality and comissions encourage quantity, maybe a combination of the two would be the ticket for a good balance of the two - like minimum wage plus 10% (or whatever)?
 
SamIam said:
WOW, that was HIGHLY uncalled for. :nixweiss
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thnkx samIam.



Sorry i cant spell, i appologize. its the reason im an accountant and not an english teacher (that and the pay will be better) but i have some issues and im working on them. :woot:



but back to the thread, I would find out what other shops are paying and try to (if the fund are avalable) give an advatage. some things could be lunch, a paid break, a10% rasie over the competators. Or the one i love (i got this working this sumer) a bonus for everyhour worked ath the end of a time period. For example I made 50cents and hours for the whole summer. It ended up being over 400 bucks which was a nice little bonus. (payed for some wax)
 
Hey guys, I'm not in the detailing business, but I thought I'd chime in. Have you ever thought about how to build more value in your businesses? In other words, how to move beyond just making an income to building a business that you can sell for a lot of money someday? The way to do that is through recurring ("annuity") revenue. You're in a unique position to do that, given that cars get dirty and need work over and over again.



I bet most of you have regular customers that call on you every two or three weeks for service. Some customers probably even ask you to come out on certain days each month. That's great and it's a terrific start, but what if you could turn that into some kind of written agreement? Offer, say, a "SuperDuraShine" service for xx dollars per month, and cover a certain number of washes or a maintain a certain level of detail for that fixed monthly price. Now you've got a documented revenue stream that you can literally take to the bank to help pay for tools, supplies, employees, expansion, whatever. And if you ever get tired of being in the detail business, you can sell your business for some multiple of your "contract" revenues. That annuity revenue stream is worth a TON more than a customer list when it comes time to sell.



Anyway, just a thought. I'm in the services business, and this is what I'm always working towards in my own company. My goal is to have all my monthly expenses covered by contracts / agreements each month, so anything extra (special projects, product sales, etc.) is just icing on the cake. And if I get tired of it and want out, I've got something tangible that I can sell.
 
My detailers were sub-contractors and mostly got paid 40% commision of what came through the door. If they came in on Saturdays and Sundays they got 50%. They paid their own taxes and purchased their own products. Everyone was happy.
 
I pay my son around $10-12 an hour (depending on the job) but I also pay his meals and he lives at home rent free. Pretty good money for someone with just a cell phone bill to pay. ;)



For someone off the street, I'd start them out at around $8 an hour plus meals on work days and go up from there, depending on how they do. I'd be willing to pay someone $15+ an hour for quality work that enables me to do a lot more jobs during the day.
 
Scottwax said:
I pay my son around $10-12 an hour (depending on the job) but I also pay his meals and he lives at home rent free. Pretty good money for someone with just a cell phone bill to pay. ;)



For someone off the street, I'd start them out at around $8 an hour plus meals on work days and go up from there, depending on how they do. I'd be willing to pay someone $15+ an hour for quality work that enables me to do a lot more jobs during the day.
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When I worked at the car wash as a service advisor/ticket writer, the top detailer was a migrant worker - he generally took home $150 - $200 if you can believe it. Effecient worker though...of course he doesn't really know how to detail to Autopian standards (polish job at the car wash isn't a "real" polish if you know what I mean).



Thanks.
 
David Fermani said:
My detailers were sub-contractors and mostly got paid 40% commision of what came through the door. If they came in on Saturdays and Sundays they got 50%. They paid their own taxes and purchased their own products. Everyone was happy.
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You probably avoided a lot of issues doing it that way. I'll have to look into that.
 
RAG said:
You probably avoided a lot of issues doing it that way. I'll have to look into that.
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The most important thing I avoided was paying payroll taxes and workers comp. insurance because each worker was a sub-contractor. They loved it because their checks didn't have any deductions and they could claim tax deductions/write offs during tax time. I made each worker get DBA's and wrote checks out directly to their companies each week. Each one kind of ran their little detail businesses and gave them a more professional approach to detailing.
 
I worked at a local car wash that paid me $7/hr and 7% comission on all of my details. They did charge around $150 for a "full detail" which included pretty much a true full interior (shampoo/extract carpets, clean/dress seats, and clean/dress everything else) plues a wax applied with an air powered orbital buffer. I would usually take home about $100 in tips per day and $40 or so in comission.
 
Scottwax said:
I pay my son around $10-12 an hour (depending on the job) but I also pay his meals and he lives at home rent free. Pretty good money for someone with just a cell phone bill to pay. ;)



For someone off the street, I'd start them out at around $8 an hour plus meals on work days and go up from there, depending on how they do. I'd be willing to pay someone $15+ an hour for quality work that enables me to do a lot more jobs during the day.
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I do the same as you, but I pay my friends about $10-12 dollars an hour. I would usually buy them lunch and treat them out to something, but we're all college kids. It does help a lot, and having somoene to help allows you to do more job. + + to both. He gets paid and fed, while I am able to work on more cars. Awesome deal.
 
Exactly what I was thinking - payroll taxes, workes comp, and liability insruance hardly allow for a decent profit margin in this business, especially if you're providing first-class work. Of course, if your a car wash and have 200-300 "suckers" coming through your door a day and can nab 10 of them a day for a 2hour, $200 detail, then profit margins are going to be good. But when you're providing 4 or 5 hours of work for $200 ("true" complete detail), profit margins are just not the same. If I go big (looking at option that would force the hiring of 6-12 employees)...the most important thing for me would be to ensure we continue to perform the best work around.



David Fermani said:
The most important thing I avoided was paying payroll taxes and workers comp. insurance because each worker was a sub-contractor. They loved it because their checks didn't have any deductions and they could claim tax deductions/write offs during tax time. I made each worker get DBA's and wrote checks out directly to their companies each week. Each one kind of ran their little detail businesses and gave them a more professional approach to detailing.
Click to expand...
 
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