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Nationwide Window Cleaning. How???

ECLM
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P4dstar said:
I’m only so confident because I’ve seen it in practice. The key was we weren’t allowed to be seen withholding work because someone wasn’t available. You were ok to stop giving work if someone let you down after booking it in and if they did a bad job. You weren’t however allowed to discipline someone, suspend someone etc etc. There are companies out there doing this, Deliveroo & Uber being ones we have mentioned. The Cobra group who employ teams of door to door sales people are another prolific offender (or were). There are loads of other things it entails, you can’t provide work references as such. This biggest issue is you can’t make them work overtime, so if I give a lad £200 worth of work and someone else calls in sick I can’t make him do that work even if he’s finished all of his work because he isn’t my employee he is someone I have contracted to do a pre determined amount of work, with an employee if he finished early you can send him somewhere else. Another issue we used to face was cancellations, if a customer cancelled you need to be in a position to offer a reasonable alternative or pay them the rate you’ve agreed. It works well if done correctly and I’m lucky I have close family members who use this type of subcontracting to help me if I ever choose this route


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And the bill Pimlico Plumbers are picking up isn't applicable in your situation? 

 
Teaboy said:
That’s not how we got on this conversation and I’m not that type of person. 


It’s Friday there’s no need to be a clown about it.

 
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And neither am I but your post, this type of thing cuts you up, implied I don't know what I'm talking about. I do and a sole trader could easily keep his cost base below £100 a week. 

My post was in reply to Pro Green stating it cost £3.20 per 3 bed semi for anyone to clean it. 

My whole stance on this subject is 'if"  I ever employed someone I would pay them £15 an hour. If î couldn't afford to then I wouldn't do it. I personally couldn't make money out of someone that I'd expect to work very hard and then expect the very same person to have to then apply to the Government to get a contribution to live on as my wages didn't cover it. You might say I'm naive or idealistic, but that is the way I am.

I use a lad when I'm down in Cambridge doing gutters. I give him £200 a day, he has his own Gardening Business and invoices me, because the jobs I do are well paid and he works hard. I could pay him £120 a day, apparently the going rate in the area but I wouldn't do it for that and have always worked on the basis of not asking someone to do something I wouldn't. 

 
Part Timer said:
A newbie isn't going to be driving around in a new van etc 
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Why not?  I know at least 3 lads that came from other industries and all 3 bought brand new vans. 2 of them sent straight to grippa and the other to ionics before they even had 1 client.

I dont roll in a new van.... mines used.... my system is DIY and I go for the best value I can.  

I can guarantee you my costimgs are far from flawed.  

You compared your business of 20 factory workers to this business earlier....... quick question... how many vans and wfp systems do factory workers require?  Cause 20 lads woriing 1 man vans need 20 vans for a start. 

You cant compare apples and oranges mate. 

I will post a costings sheet when I have time this weekend.  I know you been in business a long time and not trying to show you how to suck eggs but rest assured I am not wrong on this. 

I will even write up a budget version for you doing it as cheaply as possible and you'll see that the figures dont lie mate. 

 
Green Pro Clean Ltd said:
Why not?  I know at least 3 lads that came from other industries and all 3 bought brand new vans. 2 of them sent straight to grippa and the other to ionics before they even had 1 client
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I did that because I could afford to, someone leaving a low paid job couldn't. Basic costings, for a newbie on a tight budget are approx £20 diesel, £20 insurances, £30 repairs and renewals, telephone etc. If, as a newbie you are spending more than that then they will need to shop around. 

I agree with a new van top of the range van systems and employees then the above figures would be blown out of the water. 

 
In regards to costings every ones will be different.If your legit then of course your costs will be high and I believe we should all be.

The one thing Pro Green doesn't seem to see and it may be different where he is  but the amount of Cowboys and fidlers in domestic window cleaning is massive.I know loads with very, very small over heads.

When looking at forums we are quite passionate and want the best for ourselves and business but I know plenty of domestic shiners that would never frequent forums going under the radar cleaning out off an old van of car not paying tax or having the right insurance £10 in the van or family car and £10 worth of water from spotless and away they go building up work and doing £120-£180 cash there over heads and running cost are minimal and there not gonna change. These lads are over the moon coming out of a factory to flexible job earning over £100 a day cash in their pocket.

In my opinion these are the one killing this industry and prices not nationwide.

Granted nationwide are killing the retail sector but in 15 -20 years there won't be much of high street to clean anyway.Retail is only a small bit of what Nationwide do the are massive and with out a doubt the largest window cleaning company in the Uk right now and they just keep getting bigger and bigger.

 
Cghwindowcleaning said:
In regards to costings every ones will be different.If your legit then of course your costs will be high and I believe we should all be.
The one thing Pro Green doesn't seem to see and it may be different where he is  but the amount of Cowboys and fidlers in domestic window cleaning is massive.I know loads with very, very small over heads.
When looking at forums we are quite passionate and want the best for ourselves and business but I know plenty of domestic shiners that would never frequent forums going under the radar cleaning out off an old van of car not paying tax or having the right insurance £10 in the van or family car and £10 worth of water from spotless and away they go building up work and doing £120-£180 cash there over heads and running cost are minimal and there not gonna change. These lads are over the moon coming out of a factory to flexible job earning over £100 a day cash in their pocket.
 
In my opinion these are the one killing this industry and prices not nationwide.
Granted nationwide are killing the retail sector but in 15 -20 years there won't be much of high street to clean anyway.Retail is only a small bit of what Nationwide do the are massive and with out a doubt the largest window cleaning company in the Uk right now and they just keep getting bigger and bigger.
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I had this argument with a few business advisors telling me to go down the commercial market.

People truly don’t realise how big the domestic market is.

If you could replicate what nationwide do commercially to a domestic business and have the same market share you wouldn’t be a millionaire you would be a billionaire lol


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Part Timer said:
And the bill Pimlico Plumbers are picking up isn't applicable in your situation? 
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Never heard of the Pimlico story, just googled it. I don’t think it is applicable in the scenario I’m talking about. That chap worked solely for Pimlico and as soon as he had health issues and wished to make changes he was asked for proof. If someone is a genuine subbie they don’t need to provide you anything, they can make changes as and when they like and you can’t penalise them for it. You can stop giving them work if they become unreliable etc but you can’t question a reason they give for not being able to take on as much work. He also rented a van from them... similar to a mate of mine who was a bailiff until recently.... self employed but could be basically disciplined by the company, that’s a joke.

I Agree with Teaboy, once you get past a couple of vans this wouldn’t work, you would have to have PAYE employees, mainly because of the risk of them not taking on the work you ask them to!

Personally I have plans for van number 2 next year, I have a friend who I want to let join me and I want to make sure he earns a good wage but had the opportunity to earn enough to buy himself in as a shareholder too. After that I think one more van would be good but I wouldn’t waste my time if I was gonna end up paying someone a poor wage! I’ve been the guy slogging his guts out for less than I’m worth and I couldn’t put anyone else through that!


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Teaboy said:
I had this argument with a few business advisors telling me to go down the commercial market.

People truly don’t realise how big the domestic market is.

If you could replicate what nationwide do commercially to a domestic business and have the same market share you wouldn’t be a millionaire you would be a billionaire lol


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The only thing is if you had the turnover of nationwide with domestic the admin and office side of the business would be horrific.That's why most large 1.5mill plus turnover window cleaning firms only do commercial.

There's plenty of work and the potential to grow a massive domestic round is there it's just hard to do when you see the figures that can be earned with good commercial.

The only problem is keeping hold of it as every one wants in on it now.

 
Cghwindowcleaning said:
 
The only thing is if you had the turnover of nationwide with domestic the admin and office side of the business would be horrific.That's why most large 1.5mill plus turnover window cleaning firms only do commercial.
 
There's plenty of work and the potential to grow a massive domestic round is there it's just hard to do when you see the figures that can be earned with good commercial.
The only problem is keeping hold of it as every one wants in on it now.
Click to expand...

Somebody will pull it off and they will be huge!!!


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