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Nationwide Window Cleaning. How???

dmw

Well-known member
Messages
864
Location
North Manchester
Looking a the general consensus on here about NWC and how they've got the blue chip sector sewn up in little over 11 years. Haven't crossed paths with this company, but I've been looking at their website, and it's very professional (the bosses are even sleeping under the stars in November to help homeless people).

Anyway, they've got a large business with many employees doing these jobs for a small return that most of us wouldn't entertain, I struggle to grasp how it's profitable, or do they just fly through the work without caring for quality and get away with it?

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Here's an example.   I used to work for a commercial firm that had the contracts for Greg's the Bakers, Premier Inn Hotels, Nationwide Building Society, Toby Carvery etc etc.......  

All contracts are negotiated through some bod at head office. This person never leaves head office is simply there to negotiate the lowest possible price for highest possible return for shareholders.   

At local level branch managers don't care as they have an order to follow from HQ which is pretty much 'do as we tell you to do' 

So the nationwide firms send somevpoorly trained min wage bods out to clean..... branch manager signs to say they been and HQ pays out the least amount of money possible. 

Vince and I used to drive 2.5 hours to Skegness. 30 mins for an ice cream. 5 mins to do 2 front doors on nNationwide building society and 2.5 hours drive back.  

6 man hours at £8 per hour. £48 for a job that our firm got paid £9 for.  

Worth it? Not to you and I but when you have EVERY nationwide high street business on your book sooner or later it becomes worth while.  

We used to do every Greg's in Leicester town centre. 5 branches in and out 40 mins.   That's where the money starts to add up. 

For self employed small lads like us I still believe the profit lies in residential and not commercial so I stay away from commercial. 

 
I decided early on I would stick to residential in the main. The only commercial I do is stuff owned by excisting residential customers for a example one owns a social club/ sports centre one on committee of church halls. I'm happy to do them if it suits me. But I'm not getting up silly early to go into the pedestrianised  high street for a 5 quid window no point for me as there are nationial companies doing most so couldn't even build up a good run of 5 quid windows. Also heard of others doing commercial and waiting 30 days plus to be paid so doesn't appeal. I had a hair dresser recently call me happy to pay a good price for in and out and flat above once a fortnight but told me I could only come between 8.30 when staff arrive and 9 before customers!no thanks. I would rather bang out houses all day and any free time to squeeze the add ons in

 
Never came across NWC but damn even my local windies are doing our local high street for rock bottom prices ..... I was recently asked to take over a barbers shop 3 large windows in and out every Monday morning before 9am it is minutes from my house and I clean the owners house windows but when he told me he gets them done now at £4 !!! I couldn't believe it

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Just checked their website, they are paying £8.94 an hour. They hang on the benefit that they include a company van etc and fair play to them. The thing is they're offering a different service to what we do. If this was the furniture industry they would be the IKEA. Some of us would be comparable to small independent furniture makers, others to Oak Furniture land or something... Basically we are offering quality.

I look at it like this, if someone starts window cleaning with them and gets £8.94 an hour, after 6 weeks he/she is fully trained and out doing the job. As soon as he/she realises that the customer that just took half an hour pays £20 the cogs will start turning. They will go home and do a bit of research and realise that they could do this on their own. Unlike any other job I have done you can start up with relatively little capital.... almost every other industry keeps you grounded by the amount of money required to start on your own. Employees are focused on the goal of gaining a promotion to work for slightly more of the companies profits than they do now, or they are lazy unfocused people who ain't gonna progress.

There was a chap in Gloucester who had one of their vans on his drive every morning for around 6 months when I worked at my last job. At first I worried they would come in and take over the town, I was only a part time windy then so it concerned me that my investment would have been in vain. I drove past the other day and he has his own van on the drive, some magnetic stickers on the side with a mobile number on. Anyone with any drive working for them will do the same and the ones that don't have the drive won't provide the quality we do because its just a job to them!

 
What really annoys me, and I mean really, is we have to compete against people that don't have to pay their employees enough money to live on. I bet 90% of their employees are getting benefits. So basically we have to work harder and do better jobs to compete against companies that the UK tax payers are subsidising. Rant over 

 
What really annoys me, and I mean really, is we have to compete against people that don't have to pay their employees enough money to live on. I bet 90% of their employees are getting benefits. So basically we have to work harder and do better jobs to compete against companies that the UK tax payers are subsidising. Rant over 
Agreed mate. They have pictures of the directors on the website. All in suits looking like they belong on the board at a major high street chain! If I turned up like that my customers would laugh me out of the place.

I never realised they did Tesco. I used to do a Tesco express in central Gloucester. At my last job I went there every day for lunch and badgered them for months to hire me. They told me they had a windy and eventually they made a call to the area manager who told them to go ahead and hire me. After 3 months of being paid in store they said I needed to send invoices on to head office. I sent them with a 30day payment term and they got back to me and told me it was 6 months, after the invoice was due!!!

The problem is all of the unreliable windys out there. We do have a right to be annoyed at how they are taking the large retailers but unfortunately there are too many unreliable window cleaners who let those firms down in the past.


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What really annoys me, and I mean really, is we have to compete against people that don't have to pay their employees enough money to live on. I bet 90% of their employees are getting benefits. So basically we have to work harder and do better jobs to compete against companies that the UK tax payers are subsidising. Rant over 


But I dont.....  unless you model your business on commercial contracts alone PT then there is no competition at all.  

I only target and only accept residential work now, dont even look at commercial if it walks in the proverbial door so to speak.  

Thing i've heard mostly of late is UK window cleaning trying to target the area, been told about it by three new customers, two of which had the 'free clean' and were not at all impressed and the other booked the free clean and they never showed.  

In my area I have no competition, I mean really not a single one I would consider any threat to me or my business.  Sure there are plenty of window cleaners and there are plenty more that will come and go but they all seem of the mentality of getting enough for them and  avoiding each other.  Great by me.  

Me, I want to grow, shopping for another van this week so gonna trawl the classifieds for something already built by someone else throwing in the towel and hopefully I will find a winner but if not another Trafic and on with the build.  It took 10 years and a lot of trial and error but these days we can't stop growing, its gone bonkers on the growth spurt.  Here's to the future! 

 
But I dont.....  unless you model your business on commercial contracts alone PT then there is no competition at all.  

I only target and only accept residential work now, dont even look at commercial if it walks in the proverbial door so to speak.  

Thing i've heard mostly of late is UK window cleaning trying to target the area, been told about it by three new customers, two of which had the 'free clean' and were not at all impressed and the other booked the free clean and they never showed.  

In my area I have no competition, I mean really not a single one I would consider any threat to me or my business.  Sure there are plenty of window cleaners and there are plenty more that will come and go but they all seem of the mentality of getting enough for them and  avoiding each other.  Great by me.  

Me, I want to grow, shopping for another van this week so gonna trawl the classifieds for something already built by someone else throwing in the towel and hopefully I will find a winner but if not another Trafic and on with the build.  It took 10 years and a lot of trial and error but these days we can't stop growing, its gone bonkers on the growth spurt.  Here's to the future! 
I do target commercial but I don't target shops or anything city centre. My area is very well supplied by cheap and cheerful trad guys, even the new breed of WFP will do 4 bed semi's for £8. My grief is these national companies, not just in our industry, can employ people on **** wages and prevent others earn a wage by being subsidised by the UK tax payers. 

 
But I dont.....  unless you model your business on commercial contracts alone PT then there is no competition at all.  

I only target and only accept residential work now, dont even look at commercial if it walks in the proverbial door so to speak.  

Thing i've heard mostly of late is UK window cleaning trying to target the area, been told about it by three new customers, two of which had the 'free clean' and were not at all impressed and the other booked the free clean and they never showed.  

In my area I have no competition, I mean really not a single one I would consider any threat to me or my business.  Sure there are plenty of window cleaners and there are plenty more that will come and go but they all seem of the mentality of getting enough for them and  avoiding each other.  Great by me.  

Me, I want to grow, shopping for another van this week so gonna trawl the classifieds for something already built by someone else throwing in the towel and hopefully I will find a winner but if not another Trafic and on with the build.  It took 10 years and a lot of trial and error but these days we can't stop growing, its gone bonkers on the growth spurt.  Here's to the future! 
You're mixing two companies up Darren. Nationwide Window Cleaning don't offer a free clean, they target commercial cleaning, mainly large companies like Tesco and they do high rise stuff. UK Window Clean are the muppets going round offering a free clean.

Although I agree they are not any competition for most of us if any of my customers cancel because of them I will send them this link and wish them well haha;

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=4094511

 
You're mixing two companies up Darren. Nationwide Window Cleaning don't offer a free clean, they target commercial cleaning, mainly large companies like Tesco and they do high rise stuff. UK Window Clean are the muppets going round offering a free clean.

Although I agree they are not any competition for most of us if any of my customers cancel because of them I will send them this link and wish them well haha;

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=4094511
Try spec savers @P4dstar. Then see where I'm mixed up. 

 
The retail side of nationwide is built on cheap prices but high volume.But they have some very profitable high price work as well not all there work is shops.

To be honest I hate them but I also admire what Thornton has done with Nationwide and how big he has taken the business.

There staff are on fairly low money but no different to any other minimum wage job and most of the lads I have seen or know that work for them hardly break in to a sweat they spend more time driving and sitting  in the van than cleaning windows.

 
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In the US they they try and make a months money out of a days work and if possible one job, lazy bu&&ers.

The main target seem's to be either high end commercial, or domestic.....preferably the well heeled type.  It is not unheard for people to pay $400 to have their house windows cleaned but, with that thought in mind, they only have them done once a year.  Yes, they are gopping for 11 months of the year.

On the commercial end it is mainly the high end corporates getting office buildings done.  This is at two extreme's:  1.  The pro's who have some experience and maybe some training, may use baskets and quality rope gear and are doing office blocks like you see in New York City,  and 2.  The army of Mexicans who descend upon a 3, 4, or 5 storey building get dangled off the roof by their mates, put up ladders for the 1st floor and stand on terra firma for the ground floor - much of their technique involves dirty rags and 5 gallon buckets tied to their waist's.

I am trying to find area managers for the large chains around Dallas/Fort Worth as they are the one's who will control the cleaning budgets and the spending.

 
My grief is these national companies, not just in our industry, can employ people on **** wages and prevent others earn a wage by being subsidised by the UK tax payers
But you go on as if these company directors are some great evil doers.... they're not.  They're just people building a company.   The flaw lies in the government not realising that by continuing to have poor minimum wage standards the welfare system will need to continue to support people one way or another. 

Sure they pay barely above the legal minimum but why does that make them the villain? You don't pay more than you need to for payroll mate. Not ever. It's bad business. 

 
But you go on as if these company directors are some great evil doers.... they're not.  They're just people building a company.   The flaw lies in the government not realising that by continuing to have poor minimum wage standards the welfare system will need to continue to support people one way or another. 
 
Sure they pay barely above the legal minimum but why does that make them the villain? You don't pay more than you need to for payroll mate. Not ever. It's bad business. 
I’ll be honest we have lots of staff and it’s impossible to pay a decent salary on domestic work if you do it properly, we are lucky that our commercial side picks up the slack.

But you won’t become an overnight millionaire on domestic work the numbers simply don’t work

If you can do £250 the staff member would do £200 take out vat, overheads (which are 10x what most of you think, then all the extra admin costs)

Domestic is slow and steady growth and lots and lots of hassle which is why hardly anyone focuses on it.

The market dictates salary not the employers so don’t go blaming us all, I would genuinely love to pay my lads more but the business doesn’t allow it certainly not once you get to a decent size


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But you go on as if these company directors are some great evil doers.... they're not.  They're just people building a company.   The flaw lies in the government not realising that by continuing to have poor minimum wage standards the welfare system will need to continue to support people one way or another. 

Sure they pay barely above the legal minimum but why does that make them the villain? You don't pay more than you need to for payroll mate. Not ever. It's bad business. 
Well these very same Company Directors did nothing but moan in the press when the minimum wage went up last time about how they couldn't afford it and it was making them uncompetitive. If I employed, not that I ever will, I would pay the right person £15 an hour. Never been someone to live well at the expense of others. We always seem to have the excuse that it is someone else's, or the Government's, fault. About time people admitted that it's actually their greed preventing them paying a living wage. It seems very strange that you are the biggest advocate on here about minimum prices, and not under pricing jobs and then wonder why someone who was working for a large company on barely above minimum wage starts on his own and is happy doing houses for between £5 - £8. 

 
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