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Anyone selling in Norfolk?

J

Jon Grainger

Hi guys

I've grown a pretty good round in the year I've been cleaning, mainly down to being in the right place at the right time to buy work, and lots of canvassing.

I've got a friend who is coming to do a day a week, so need a little more work, and wondered if anyone had anything for sale round Norfolk way? Saves me door knocking of so!

 
@Jon Grainger Hi mate, this could be perfect timing - I've recently done my back in, again, after having problems with it for the last 3 years. I'm only 33, but it's an old injury that's going to get worse, not better, as I get older, so i've decided to knock the window cleaning on the head and find something a bit easier on my back.

To that end, i'm now looking to either sell or lease my round.

There's about £500 a month of work, (which could be done in a week or just over if you 9 to 5'd it, I only did half days a few days a week) and it's all fairly close together, based in King's Lynn, Terrington St Clement and Pentney. Yearly it works out to much more than that though because i'm always being asked to do conny roof cleans, gutter cleans, insides as a one off, etc - all the usual extras.

I've targeted nice, affluent areas so there's no **** estates where your car will get robbed, and they're all good payers, either cash or online - once in a blue moon I get a cheque but not often. All the work is very well priced, the lowest paying job is £10 for a small house, the highest is £65 a month for a large house, but my minimum price has been £12 for quite a while now so there are very few lower than that, just the odd one here or there i've been doing for ages that I hadn't put up yet.

I also have a trolley system, a backpack, 1 phoenix pole, 1 harris/converted wfp pole (both with brushes), an RO system and many many barrels for use with the trolley system. Basically it's a bolt on expansion to an existing business or a ready made startup for someone looking to get into the trade.

I've been told I should sell it for 10x what it's worth so that would be 5k, I'm open to offers around that mark or leasing offers.

 
@Kips Thanks for your offer buddy, but it's way to much for me I'm afraid.

I know of people selling at ten times, not sure how easy it will be shift in this part of the world. A friend of mine was trying to sell some work at 5x for a year, had it on Gumtree, eBay and social media, and in the end let it go for 2 times.

Good luck!

Regards

J

 
I have sold parts of my rounds before for 10 times but without being egotistical that's due to the quality of what I sell.

A lot of rounds sold are a bit hit and miss and most of it is done on faith so you win some you lose some is normally the attitude.

I have always had bang on records, full name, fill address, mobile number, email address and payment methods as well as payment history.

You get a personal introduction to every customer and you get me working beside you for the first clean then to top it off any further calls I get in that street / area get passed along to you directly. Both lads I have sold to in the past have become close friends and are happy to testify as to the quality of sales service you get from us so there is no doubt when you buy a round from us.

Loads just want to sell you a list of names and addresses (not always complete information) and walk away, well in that case I would only be willing to pay one or two cleans tops.

Have you thought of perhaps hiring a canvasser to hit the areas you want? I think Adamangler on here has got a canvasser going to work for him soon, perhaps he can fill you in some more. Could be worth while?

 
Well @Green, you are right it is down to the quality of the work, but this guy was selling well established work, worked for ten years, with complete records and email addresses. Maybe in deepest darkest Norfolk it's a bit different? /emoticons/biggrin.png. Out of interest, how did you advertise?

I'm trying a FB campaign, and got my canvasser back off a three month holiday. Got blinkin' lucky with him, he charges cost price of the customer, and goes where I want him too! He's hitting my town which I've moved into three months back, next week. Looking forward to that /emoticons/wink.png

 
I really hope 10X becomes the norm one day when I'm selling up, but I couldnt ever imagine paying that myself.

Breaking it down, why would anyone pay a grand for 100quids worth of work? £1000 could pay for a **** load of flyers, adverts in multiple papers for 3 months, branded polo shirts, and still leave you with enough money to take 2 days off (£150 a day) to spend canvassing/dropping leaflets. I reckon you could pick up more than 100quids worth of work with that, not to mention what you could do with 5 grand.

 
@Jon Grainger That's fair enough mate, but if you're interested the price is negotiable - I was just going by what i'd been told to advertise it for.

I have full records, all on george, with names, addresses, emails, mobile number, landline number, etc etc, all the client info one could possibly want even including whether they have dogs to watch out for of if they like to be called first. Each one has a full payment history, with payment history dates vs clean dates so there is a trackable performance of how quickly each customer usually pays, and how they pay. I was always assuming that a face to face introduction with a follow up after the first clean was going to be part of the deal - i've worked with these customers for years, I want to make sure they are happy and will stay happy - I'm not just going to print a worklist off, fax it over, think **** it and take the money down the pub!

Further, the business has website which is no.1, page 1 on google which generates new business without me doing anything, that and the facebook page mean that potential new customers phone every week, I have been cherry picking the best and highest priced ones in the nicest areas and sending the rest away. I was slowly building it into the mother of all high paying, compact rounds.

I'm actually really sad to be having to sell the round. If I had not injured my back so severely I would be out cleaning windows in the sun with a smile on my face this afternoon. Instead i'm dosed up on tramadol waiting to be seen tomorrow morning by the spinal injury clinic.

Gutted isn't even close.

Flyers don't work. They just don't, not round here. You can put out several thousand and only get a few calls. The accepted and expected return rate for any mail shot advertising is under 1%, so if you put out 5000 flyers you can expect at best 50 customers, but we all know it never works out that way anyhow.

10x is a lot, I suppose, so fire offers at me people, i'm a friendly guy /emoticons/smile.png The round will obviously pay itself back over time and then some, and it's an instant guaranteed income rather than a subjective investment in flyers which may not yield results.

Besides, we all know flyers are **** unless you follow up with a knock on the door. At least, I hope we do.. (Free tip there /emoticons/wink.png )

 
@Jon Grainger Hi mate, this could be perfect timing - I've recently done my back in, again, after having problems with it for the last 3 years. I'm only 33, but it's an old injury that's going to get worse, not better, as I get older, so i've decided to knock the window cleaning on the head and find something a bit easier on my back.
To that end, i'm now looking to either sell or lease my round.

There's about £500 a month of work, (which could be done in a week or just over if you 9 to 5'd it, I only did half days a few days a week) and it's all fairly close together, based in King's Lynn, Terrington St Clement and Pentney. Yearly it works out to much more than that though because i'm always being asked to do conny roof cleans, gutter cleans, insides as a one off, etc - all the usual extras.

I've targeted nice, affluent areas so there's no **** estates where your car will get robbed, and they're all good payers, either cash or online - once in a blue moon I get a cheque but not often. All the work is very well priced, the lowest paying job is £10 for a small house, the highest is £65 a month for a large house, but my minimum price has been £12 for quite a while now so there are very few lower than that, just the odd one here or there i've been doing for ages that I hadn't put up yet.

I also have a trolley system, a backpack, 1 phoenix pole, 1 harris/converted wfp pole (both with brushes), an RO system and many many barrels for use with the trolley system. Basically it's a bolt on expansion to an existing business or a ready made startup for someone looking to get into the trade.

I've been told I should sell it for 10x what it's worth so that would be 5k, I'm open to offers around that mark or leasing offers.
 
Hi buddy, Your work appears to be about £10.00 an hour which would not even return the minimum wage after xs. What do you charge per window on an average new build semi. Cheers P

 
I really hope 10X becomes the norm one day when I'm selling up, but I couldnt ever imagine paying that myself.
Breaking it down, why would anyone pay a grand for 100quids worth of work? £1000 could pay for a **** load of flyers, adverts in multiple papers for 3 months, branded polo shirts, and still leave you with enough money to take 2 days off (£150 a day) to spend canvassing/dropping leaflets. I reckon you could pick up more than 100quids worth of work with that, not to mention what you could do with 5 grand.
 
I really hope 10X becomes the norm one day when I'm selling up, but I couldnt ever imagine paying that myself.
Breaking it down, why would anyone pay a grand for 100quids worth of work? £1000 could pay for a **** load of flyers, adverts in multiple papers for 3 months, branded polo shirts, and still leave you with enough money to take 2 days off (£150 a day) to spend canvassing/dropping leaflets. I reckon you could pick up more than 100quids worth of work with that, not to mention what you could do with 5 grand.
Good work is well worth 10 x if not 20 x its value. Lets say the profit margin (profit after all expenses inc wage) for this work is £15.00 an hour that is £600.00 a week. You cannot canvass this quality of work as it takes years to develop .

So off you go with your flyers and after one months hard graft you have a start of scattered work but its a start , It will take a month to do 6 days work and then I would say your on minimum wage. Your now under preasure because the work is so scattered but on we plod. Over the next 3 to 7 years your round will fill out slowly but surly as you have knocked every door already so the growth in your area must be volunteered from the customer . So one year down the line were now making £10.00 an hour clear and growing slowly but surly. But wait the guy who paid £40,000 for his grand a week has now made £12.00 an hour with no stress no first cleans and has £30,000.00 profit. Add to this the extra work he has picked up from this established round and sold and he has his money back plus still has the round worth £40k. Year 2 your on £12.00 an hour still doing all those first cleans on the new jobs but your earning the same as the buyer of a round ??? Minus £30,000.00 profit yet again. On and on this goes and when you have finally canvassed or aquired the same as what was for sale 5 6 7 years ago your a cool £100,000.00 out of pocket . So yes why buy ??

 

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