New to the forum, need business advise

[Green Pro Clean Ltd]

I had my worker (its my mates son) come round to my house. I spent a couple of hours with him teaching him how to use the pole and a squeegee.He wasn't paid for this, but I sent him off home with an applicator and squeegee and told him as soon as he can squeegee a window with both hands, he could come out with me and start earning.

Now, I hardly ever do any trad, but I wanted to test his attitude and see how quick he'd pick it up and know his heart was in it. Fair play to him, because he's worked with me ever since, but will be leaving soon to do an electrical apprenticeship.

The point in making here, is I wouldn't take a risk of taking someone out who could be useless and having to pay them. There are other ways of shelling peas :thumbsup:

Thats sound. Was his choice to practice and did so on his time. Good idea. Did you make him leave a deposit on the squeegee? /emoticons/tongue.png

Its only how you label itEmployment rights and pay for interns - GOV.UK

On there if they agree to the first week being voluntary, they're not classed as a worker, so no obligation to pay. bobs your uncle.

I'm pretty dam sure if I approached a window Cleaning company and said I want a job, I'll do a week for free, if you like me take me on, if not I'll be on my way; no court in the land would find an issue there.

Mate keep flogging a dead horse. You know full well the voluntary work refers to charities and such like and not to paying industry.

If you phoned me up and said you'd do a week for free on assessment that is a HUGE difference between someone applying for am advertised roll and being told that they will do the first week free!

I also get calls a couple of times each month from window cleaners looking for work and I am straight up with them. 'Sorry I'm not hiring' but knowing a load of other windies here I know if someone is and pass that number along.

You can argue the toss till you are blue in the face mate and even if you term ot so it becomes a legal loophole in my opinion your practice is still immoral.

 

[Leeds]

Mate keep flogging a dead horse. You know full well the voluntary work refers to charities and such like and not to paying industry.

If you phoned me up and said you'd do a week for free on assessment that is a HUGE difference between someone applying for am advertised roll and being told that they will do the first week free!

I also get calls a couple of times each month from window cleaners looking for work and I am straight up with them. 'Sorry I'm not hiring' but knowing a load of other windies here I know if someone is and pass that number along.

You can argue the toss till you are blue in the face mate and even if you term ot so it becomes a legal loophole in my opinion your practice is still immoral.

I agree with you Green, 100% and it's not something I have had to do myself.

However, there are legal ways to do so if one wishes to. I'm not wrong in saying that, regardless of moral opinion.

 

[water boy jim]

I wouldn't expect someone to do a week unpaid. All the help I've had from nippers before just get bored and cant be bothered. I spent a lot of time looking over my shoulder making sure they are doing it right. In most cases ive experienced they just poddle around not doing a good job. At the end of the day its just window cleaning and its not their business so i cant expect them to get passionate about it.

I like the idea of selling work off and working on my own stress free!

Say I had a £15 6 weekly clean how much would that be worth?

James

 

[Leeds]

Depends how much you want for it, £45?

 

[steve garwood]

I wouldn't expect someone to do a week unpaid. All the help I've had from nippers before just get bored and cant be bothered. I spent a lot of time looking over my shoulder making sure they are doing it right. In most cases ive experienced they just poddle around not doing a good job. At the end of the day its just window cleaning and its not their business so i cant expect them to get passionate about it.
I like the idea of selling work off and working on my own stress free!

Say I had a £15 6 weekly clean how much would that be worth?

James

Between 4 and 6 times the value of what your selling is the norm

 

[Green Pro Clean Ltd]

Between 4 and 6 times the value of what your selling is the norm

That's for established work and usually rounds. I would expect less for just an odd one here or there.

I have an areangement with anorher local windy and any new work I get thats not going to fit in for me I give him the customers for £10 each.

 

[steve garwood]

That's for established work and usually rounds. I would expect less for just an odd one here or there.
I have an areangement with anorher local windy and any new work I get thats not going to fit in for me I give him the customers for £10 each.

As I've mentioned on here a few times, I've been doing that for a while /emoticons/smile.png

 

[Chris33]

Depends how valuable the houses are to buyer surely,IE if its gona fit nicely into his current work load and if the jobs level of difficulty as per price?

I'd pay more for work that was next to my houses,but not so for remote work. Maybe get an idea on buyers current areas?

 

[Goodkingnige]

To answer the original question – what to do with an expanding workload.

I’d suggest expanding it further but quickly, then selling off bits of it as a self-contained round. To be fair, open and honest – I have a vested interest in suggesting this because I make a good part of my living by building up window-clean rounds as a canvasser.

Here’s how I’d approach the problem:

Your round is full, you’ve got a well-deserved reputation for being reliable and thorough. You start to get additional inquiries which you’re having difficulty meeting. I would say the sensible thing to do would be to a) find some temporary help to cover your existing customers b) go all out to build up a new list of customers as quickly as possible.

Any decent canvassing organisation (not just me – any of my competitors too) should have no difficulty in building you a new round from scratch to £1-2000 within a week.

You yourself should concentrate on servicing the new customers – the existing customers SHOULD get a decent service from your locums, but even if they don’t they’re mostly retrievable with some apologies for poor service and a return to normal programming on the next run-through.

That should leave you with two rounds – your original run, and the newly built run. It’ll be a headache to manage in the early days but you should be able to sell one of the runs quite quickly for the standard 4-6 times. (I say quite quickly – I’d be interested to get a clearer picture of how long it takes to sell a round on average; I’m being told 2-4 months – is that about right?).

And much as I agree with Meridion on what the law says regarding 1 week employees – I don’t think it’s necessary to resort to those tactics to keep in the black. I agree with Chris33 “they should still have been paid for their time”. (I pay my canvassers even if they get no leads at all – which I think is unique for a canvassing company).

And just for the record – Green Pro Clean Ltd is wrong to say “the law is black and white on it” (if the law was black and white on anything we’d have no need for lawyers). I’ve been supplied with staff by JobCentrePlus (ie the Government) on a “work trial” basis – for a week at a time. I was INSTRUCTED not to pay them – they would receive their normal “JobSeekers” allowance. I did pay them (of course) – but just for a giggle (and with the agreement of the person concerned) I rejected them as an employee and asked for another one to try out. A second potential employee was duly dispatched with the INSTRUCTION for me not to pay them without a second's reflection.