Round prices going through the roof

[doug atkinson]

Wow seeing rounds being sold for x 10 times value here in Scotland. £200 worth of work went for £2k.

If that is the case there is money to be made if you can build a 1k round within 2 months then sell it.

 

[David K]

Wow! 

 

[spruce]

Wow seeing rounds being sold for x 10 times value here in Scotland. £200 worth of work went for £2k.

If that is the case there is money to be made if you can build a 1k round within 2 months then sell it.

If that's what someone is prepared to pay for work then work must be hard to find up there.

But the question is whether he actually sold the round for that price. A round or anything else for that matter is only worth what someone is prepared to pay for it, rather than what someone puts the price up for after he/she has smoked wacky weed and in the land of the fairies.

 

[RWCleaning]

I know a guy who made good money out of building up trad rounds (cleaning them himself) and then selling them on a few months later. He had his own part time round anyway. But that was 15+yrs ago. Be hard to build a GOOD condensed round quickly these days. 

But yes 10x is too much. I’ve paid 4.5x times (a couple of them were well priced and a most get gutters & fascias cleaned every 18monts) but I wouldn’t pay anymore personally 

 

[Tuffers]

You clean for nearly a year before you make a profit (after tax). Just get out there and canvass! Profit from day one  

 

[adamangler]

Its going to get worse, what with the amount of new starters, canvassing and marketing companys springing up everywhere etc.

Work is going to get harder to come by, become more spread out and the days of old of doing every house in a street will eventually die off.

Not that it will hit saturation point anytime soon but it will happen eventually.

 

[Green Pro Clean Ltd]

Fresh work, one month old work will never realize 10x cleans.  ON the other hand as people are willing to pay 3x for canvassers then that asking 3x or 4 x for new work already cleaned  can't be considered as un-reasonable. 

10x is quite achievable for a round well established with 2 - 3 years history, all online payers and all premium priced easy work. 

You can ask what you like for a round. What you get is another matter.    

 

[RyeCleanLiam]

Got to be honest with all the new GDPR laws now it’s not as straight forward now to sell a round so I think if I were to sell now I would want at least 5x the value at minimum. I used to always let the customers know before anyway but now really you need explicit permission from each one to pass on their details to the new cleaner. And if they say no there is nothing you can do.

 

[Master Jedi Alejandro]

Got to be honest with all the new GDPR laws now it’s not as straight forward now to sell a round so I think if I were to sell now I would want at least 5x the value at minimum. I used to always let the customers know before anyway but now really you need explicit permission from each one to pass on their details to the new cleaner. And if they say no there is nothing you can do.

Do you? Companies get brought out all the time and no one bats a eyelid. So instead of 'selling a round' can you not just say you are selling your company in a particular area, then the takeover company changes the name? I'm purely throwing ideas in the air, here. 

 

[Robt100]

As far as I know GDPR is to do with personal data, so if there is no customer name and just and address and phone number you can use a bit of a loophole as there is nothing in the information to identify whose house or phone number it might be, or if they are even related to each other.

 

[Green Pro Clean Ltd]

GDPR is of no relevance to selling a round.  

GDPR is HOW you use the customer information.   

Nothing changes in the use of the information when you sell a round. 

Remove the names?   Lol.... don't see many people offering £5 for a list of address and phone numbers only. 

Our customers provide name, address, phone number and email address for the purpose of getting their windows cleaned.   When I sell the round the use of their information does not change. 

If you're that paranoid send out a letter saying you are selling and anyone NOT wanting their information passed on has 30 days to write to you requesting their information removed.  Wont be able to sell them as a customer though.  

 

[Dave Shaw]

It depends how frequent the work is. Fortnightlys have always gone for ten cleans round here. Monthly’s half that at five cleans and bimonthlys half that again and so on. I’ve even heard of people payin 15x for good highstreet shop rounds. I paid those prices for a 20+ year established round. Like someone else said though I can’t see you being able to canvass a good enough round to sell it at those prices these days. Tbh it would probs be so spread out it would be worth nothing at all as most people could just canvass that sort of stuff their self for free.


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[P4dstar]

GDPR is of no relevance to selling a round.  

GDPR is HOW you use the customer information.   

Nothing changes in the use of the information when you sell a round. 

Remove the names?   Lol.... don't see many people offering £5 for a list of address and phone numbers only. 

Our customers provide name, address, phone number and email address for the purpose of getting their windows cleaned.   When I sell the round the use of their information does not change. 

If you're that paranoid send out a letter saying you are selling and anyone NOT wanting their information passed on has 30 days to write to you requesting their information removed.  Wont be able to sell them as a customer though.  

A massive thing in GDPR is making the customer aware how their information will be used. If you already had a relationship with these customers prior to GDPR coming in then you just need to make them aware of what you plan to do with their information, In this instance sell it. You don't need to do that if you already made them aware when they became a customer. If they signed up since GDPR came into effect then you need their expressed permission to pass details on.

I am talking in terms of selling specific work and not selling a business. If you sell the entire business the rules would be different. A business has the right to continue to trade under new ownership. The franchise offer you have for example wouldn't be affected by GDPR as much as someone selling all of their work in a particular village as they are to be managed under ''new management'' sort of thing. Also they would be under the same company and technically you are not sharing the information externally.

If someone is to sell their entire business and make customers aware they will be under new management then the information isn't really being shared with anyone new, it is all within the same business. The difference is that selling specific work means you are outright sharing the customers information with another company or person, GDPR is really clear that you need to make the customers aware what you plan to do with their information and gain expressed permission unless you made them aware this was a possibility when they signed up. You also need to give them the opportunity to opt out of having their information shared with a 3rd party.

 

[P4dstar]

Just to add, a friend of mine who works as a plumber sent me this;

https://www.estateagenttoday.co.uk/breaking-news/2018/4/gdpr-weekly-passing-data-to-third-parties-explained

The closest thing to Layman's terms I have seen. It isn't for our industry (It's Estate agents) but it talks about passing the information on to 3rd parties with regards to completing their day to day job. I imagine they mean passing to credit reference agencies etc. This is less severe than selling on the data permanently and basically involving a new data controller. Some interesting opinions but practically every one tells the same story, expressed permission and the right to opt our are required.

 

[Dave Shaw]

You clean for nearly a year before you make a profit (after tax). Just get out there and canvass! Profit from day one [emoji121]️ 

You wouldn’t put 100% of your profits into paying back any money used to buy work, take yourself a good cut first then pay the rest back over a reasonable term just like you would a loan.
Your better off using other people’s money to make you self money rather than wasting your own time canvassing. You don’t see all the big wigs wasting their own time. They speculate to accumulate. You hear all the time on here about working cleverer not harder. This is a prime example.


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[Dave Shaw]

I don’t get all this GDPR stuff for window cleaners. Maybe in the commercial realm but not in domestic. Cleaners request far too much information than is needed these days. Alls you really need is a basic, not full adddress, price and frequency. Maybe the odd number or email for access but that’s it. I don’t know most of my custys names and manage just fine.


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[Green Pro Clean Ltd]

We have all our customers email addresses, so we could quite simply do a group email to as many as we like stating the business / work is being taken over, they will be notified as soon as the new operator has taken over. To do this we will be passing their info on to the company taking over. If they are NOT happy for us to do so then they must notify us in writing within 30 days. 

That literally covers it. 

I have gone on for years about the value of collecting as much contact info as possible and now we have all names addresses phones and emails... so easy to communicate intentions with clients.b     

 

[Iron Giant]

I don’t get all this GDPR stuff for window cleaners. Maybe in the commercial realm but not in domestic. Cleaners request far too much information than is needed these days. Alls you really need is a basic, not full adddress, price and frequency. Maybe the odd number or email for access but that’s it. I don’t know most of my custys names and manage just fine.


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I am 99.9% domestic and I have the vast majority of my clients full names emails etc. These details are required as I use GoCardless a modern day running of a window cleaning business these days it's more relevant than years ago as things have changed massively.

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[Dave Shaw]

I am 99.9% domestic and I have the vast majority of my clients full names emails etc. These details are required as I use GoCardless a modern day running of a window cleaning business these days it's more relevant than years ago as things have changed massively.

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I suppose if go cardless needs it in order for you to collect payment then there’s no way around that but apart from that there’s no need for most of the stuff.

 

[RyeCleanLiam]

Have to agree with Green Pro and Iron Giant I too see the value in gaining information like tel no’s and email addresses, it helps massively to communicate things like payments outstanding, and for instance times you maybe late (like a few weeks late, maybe an accident or illness has put you off work for a while). But unfortunately it’s not as simple any more as it used to be if you want to do it right. I’m currently buying some work off a guy, he wants to do everything by the book, fair enough his choice better for me. He contacted the ICO to ask them the right way to do it, unfortunately if you are selling info on, even just an address and a price, if you are selling it you are required to have the customers approval. So that is currently what he is doing.

Now it would be easy to sell the work on and just let each customer know a new guy is taking over and no one would probably bat an eye lid. If thats the way you want to go then your choice. But to do it legally really you need permission.

From my point of view as a buyer, I’m paying 6x the value for the round so I want every bit of info I can get, names, addresses, tel no’s, emails etc etc. And if that means the last guy getting permission then so be it!

 

[Iron Giant]

I suppose if go cardless needs it in order for you to collect payment then there’s no way around that but apart from that there’s no need for most of the stuff.

I beg to differ ultimately the more info you have is a good thing, just having street names and house numbers in a old notebook for example isn't good for selling on work or accounting imho as I use cleaner planner I have a detailed  transaction history of each client which can either viewed by a prospective buyer or the taxman should the need ever arise.