Need Advice on Subbing or Employing

[Jooles76]

Hi All,

I'm new to this forum and hoping to get some advice from people that have been through a similar thing.

My partner and I run a small heating company, he does all the technical side and I do all the office side, he mainly concentrates on servicing, breakdowns and Landlords GSC's as he doesn't really like getting in to installs or plumbing work, just his preference.

We have been operating since 2007 and now things have got very busy, we seem to have too much work for one engineer but not quite enough for two!

So it would not be cost effective to employ someone as half the time they will be twiddling their thumbs and getting paid for it, an apprentice is not really ideal as we need someone to take some of the work load and not add to it, so it looks like subbing is the way forward. Having never needed to do this before I don't really have a clue of what is involved from the advertising, rate of pay, paper work, legal side etc, also is there anything to stop them from taking our customers for themselves ?

Any help or advice will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Julie

 

[dontknowitall]

I run my own business and I know of another plumber who owns his own business.

Not rare, obviously!!

When we get larger jobs or too busy we phone each other and help each other out. Occasionally I'll ask him to go to one of my customers (and he gets paid by them) and occasionally he asks me to go to one of his customers (who pay me). More rarely, that customer might ask him to do something else and he will and he'll get paid for that. It happens but what we're trying to do is capture the local market between us as together we're a stronger force than fighting separately.

Now the catch! It's a gentleman's agreement and is purely on trust. For example, if we find we're quoting for the same job (only happened once) we will both give the same price but also tell the customer that it's quite possible that we'll be working together on the job. The most important part of our arrangement is to have total trust in each other that we're not trying to pinch each other's business and customers (and we don't!)

Another advantage of our arrangement is that when times are quiet we just go our own way and pottle around. Neither of us is indebted to the other and generally we sort out the financials at the end of each job. We don't pay each other retainers, national insurance, wages or anything. It's all done (and recorded for Mr. Taxman) as two companies doing business with each other.

I'm not saying this is what you should do, but it might be worth considering.

 

[dontknowitall]

And we don't have to tell each other how to solder, to wipe our feet before leaving a customer's house (I mean entering) or stuff like that. We try and plan our day so only one of us is at the airing cupboard and the other's elsewhere as both of us like to stay busy and the job's done quicker that way. Interestingly (we find!) is when we're filling a system up again we don't talk at all (unless there's a leak) but just listen and both feed and bleed at the same time.

 

[REDSAW]

where are you based?.
i am sure you will find someone on here to suit your needs and sub for you.

 

[Jooles76]

Thanks for that dontknowitall, we do have a couple of local businesses that we pass some jobs on to, especially the plumbing side and just let them invoice for themselves. We cover a very large area and I guess I am trying to look at it from a trying to expand the business point of view where we can build on our own customer database. A lot of our work is repeat business which we are now just too busy with!

 

[Jooles76]

We are based in Surrey REDSAW, Godalming to be precise, but cover from Reading down to Southampton, Bognor and Chichester.

 

[nysk2008]

Hiya Jooles, I am based nr Sutton, may be worth a chat? Let me know if your still looking and I will PM my details. Cheers