How to clean up in business ... with blue-chip clients

The prospect of being able to get a bit more tax relief for spending on things such as plant and machinery in the current tax year will please only those firms that are making taxable profits and have money to spend.

These may be few and far between. As this week's SME Focus shows, the ripples of the credit crunch and the downturn in the housing market are continuing to flow through the SME sector.

However, following his controversial decision to hike public borrowing into the stratosphere in the expectation that the economy will be growing strongly again pretty quickly, the chancellor may take comfort from Donald Carslaw's insistence on the importance of backing one's judgment.

Name: Donald Carslaw

Age: 52.

What is your business called? Complete Cleaning Services (Scotland)

Where is it based? Our HQ is in Barrhead, with operations in Edinburgh, Dundee, Aberdeen, Inverness and Carlisle.

What service does it offer? Commercial cleaning specialising in contracts, servicing all sectors from retail outlets to professional offices, factories to construction sites, call centres to concert halls.

We provide a wide range of specialist cleaning services, including computer and other clean' rooms, flood-damage recovery and graffiti removal. We have special equipment for cleaning escalators.

To whom does it sell? Our customer base includes high-street chains such as Next and Superdrug, lawyers, architects and accountants, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall and Scottish Ballet.

What is its turnover? Around £4m.

How many employees? Around 400.

When was it formed? February 13, 1984. We're celebrating our silver anniversary this year.

What were you doing before you took the plunge? I was a bit of a rover for 10 years after leaving school: in and out of various jobs from retail management trainee to chocolate sales rep.

However, I spent a couple of years with a national cleaning contractor and it became apparent to me that the service industry suited me and I suited it.

Why did you take the plunge? I had just become unemployed and wanted to start my own business, especially since I couldn't survive on £26 per week which was what you got from the buroo at that time.

But I also thought I could see a gap in the contract cleaning market for someone who based their business on building long-term relationships with their customers, and that's what I set out to do. I have always tried to be proactive in meeting customers' needs. I started off by cleaning carpets in pubs and clubs to give me an immediate income stream, but always intended to develop into industrial cleaning. When I won my first office-cleaning contract I was able to start taking on staff and really develop the business.

How did you raise the start-up funding? I had a Vauxhall Cavalier car that I sold to buy my first van, an ex Electricity Board Morris Marina, and £40 per week from the Enterprise Allowance Scheme which covered the fuel costs for it.

I used what was left of the cash from the Cavalier to buy a carpet-cleaning machine and spent the first six months driving all over the west of Scotland, making sales calls during the day and cleaning carpets in pubs, clubs, hotels and restaurants at night.

That often meant grabbing a few hours sleep in the back of the van, but it paid off.

What was your biggest break? There were a few key milestones along the way. I secured a contract with the insurance company Sun Alliance early on and that gave me the credibility and confidence to talk to other blue-chip clients.

In 2001 I took over the cleaning division of the electrical contractor, Semple Cochrane, which increased our capacity and brought us a number of prestigious clients, most of whom are still with us.

What was your worst moment? Discovering that the contract for a gentlemen's club we had taken on in Glasgow was in fact a house of ill repute and the realisation that I may have been spotted innocently entering and leaving the building.

What do you most enjoy about running the business? Meeting people from all walks of life. In my job I deal with everyone from the cleaner to the main board chairman and it's certainly given me a much broader outlook on life.

What do you least enjoy? Paperwork - and with expansion I can now delegate a lot of it to someone else.

What is your biggest bugbear? People who say "It can't be done". In my book, there's usually a way to do anything if you put your mind to it.

What are your ambitions for the firm? It has taken us 25 years to achieve a turnover of £4m per year.

We want to do the same again in the next three years, to double our turnover to £8m, without losing focus on the fact that we are a service business.

We currently operate from Wick to Workington, but we see huge opportunities to expand further into English markets.

Over the next three years we expect to generate around 40% of additional revenue south of the border and the rest here in Scotland.

What are your top priorities? We need to increase our visibility in the marketplace.

We are currently one of the largest independently owned cleaning companies in Scotland, but have a relatively low profile outwith our established customer base. We have to consolidate business levels in some locations so that we can justify a local management structure which will in turn create even more business in that particular area.

What was the most important lesson you have learned?

Trust your own judgement. You won't always be right, but at least you'll know it was your call that went wrong, and how to do it better next time.

I think this is one of the reasons why small and individually run companies often outperform the big boys. The bigger the organisation, the more complex the decision-making process, and the more places people have to hide when it comes to making the tough choices.

What single thing would most help? More daylight in winter. Because of the enormous geographical area our business covers, I use a helicopter to visit clients.

In summer it's OK, and Glasgow to Inverness to Wick and back again in one day is no problem.

In winter the shorter daylight curtails my working day and therefore things take longer as I'm only licensed to fly VFR (daylight hours in good weather).

What could the Scottish or Westminster governments do that would most help? In 2008 we provided more than 2000 cleans to new houses for several of the main building contractors in Scotland including Wimpey, Bellway and Robertson.

A lot of this evaporated due to the credit crunch, and we would like to get it back. The construction industry and house-builders in particular were among the first to be hit by the downturn. Unfortunately they won't pick up again until the government gets money flowing from the banks to businesses, and the public feel confident enough that they are not going to lose their jobs to spend money and invest in new houses.

We need that to happen fast. I would also like to see Westminster getting tougher with the banks that got us into this mess.

How do you relax? Fresh air and playing clarinet in a trad jazz band started at school (and we don't get any better.)