Clean It Up
UK Window Cleaning Forum => Window Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: Lee Burbidge on October 14, 2011, 07:01:06 pm
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Me? it was my mate. He said we would have most of the day to windsurf. It never turned out that way, as I dont have time to think sometimes now. Plus I cant windsurf anyway.
Send me your story of how you got into window cleaning to info@windowcleaningmagazine.co.uk
The story that gets published will get £25.00. Either paid to you or a charity of your choice ;D
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Can i do mine again Lee ? ;D
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Because I love the smell of clean glass.
Dean
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Can i do mine again Lee ? ;D
Yours was proper motivational dude! A good story.
Creating a job from nothing - you cant beat it!
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how long you got lee ;D ;D
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Because I love the smell of clean glass.
Dean
mmmmmmmm....... smmelllyy, as Homer Simpson would say ;)
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how long you got lee ;D ;D
As long as you want. By the way it aint £25 per word you know lol
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The dirty windows in Newbury depressed me. It was obvious that there were no decent wcs in Newbury, so I took it upon myself to smarten the town up. It was purely altruistic.
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I treated window cleaning as a joke, a means to an end until I got into the police full time, which was my short to long term plan.
I slipped from my ladder one day and broke both of my legs which ended my dream of a full time career in the police,
After a year off work I managed to get myself back to full fitness and keep my job as a part time bobby (special constable), and I love that too,
I had to take window cleaning serious after that as it was the only thing I had, I switched to wfp and now 6 years on I have 5 employees inc my self and we are turning over £150,000+ a year.
I love window cleaning and policing, especially the smell of clean glass and locking up scum bags, in no particular order ofcourse.,
Dean.
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Hi Dean
I'm going to drop you an email tomorrow :)
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Hi Dean
I'm going to drop you an email tomorrow :)
Sounds good Lee :-)
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Freedom !!! No plonker of a boss, no difficult meetings, no annual appraisal, customers I can drop at will, No lies, no humiliating enquiries into who said what and when, no office politics, no "in" crowd. Need I go on?
Get up in the morning, do my list, go home. Once a week go to the bank. Heaven
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Freedom !!! No plonker of a boss, no difficult meetings, no annual appraisal, customers I can drop at will, No lies, no humiliating enquiries into who said what and when, no office politics, no "in" crowd. Need I go on?
Get up in the morning, do my list, go home. Once a week go to the bank. Heaven
amen!
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So, how many words (approx) would you want?
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it was a lifestyle change for me i had been in the same
job for 17 yrs working for a lifting gear and strapping
company 80 hrs a week really hard graft good income
but no life.
got talking to a friend who is a windie who suggested i came
out with him for a few days,gave it a try and liked the fresh air
so started part time on top of my job.
took twelve exhausting months but was able to walk away from
my job with a smile,i now work a third of those hours i earn
more and get one day off most working weeks.
happy days ;)
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it was a lifestyle change for me i had been in the same
job for 17 yrs working for a lifting gear and strapping
company 80 hrs a week really hard graft good income
but no life.
got talking to a friend who is a windie who suggested i came
out with him for a few days,gave it a try and liked the fresh air
so started part time on top of my job.
took twelve exhausting months but was able to walk away from
my job with a smile,i now work a third of those hours i earn
more and get one day off most working weeks.
happy days ;)
Simular story here with me, i worked in IT training for a few years, got made redundant and a mate of mine said exactly the same thing, come out with him just to help with money and i can still look for work.
Wasnt long before i realised just how well he was doing, how comfortable his life was, and always seemed to have plenty of money for things, and no real worries about loosing his job or wondering when the next pay cheque is coming.
I got started as a traddie back in 2002, invested in wfp in 2004, built up a big window cleaning business, bought a £200,000 house in 2006, marrige broke up in 2008 sold house for 250k moved to woking, sold the business, bought a 400 bhp supra, had loads of parties, went to raves and just did single lice things, met my new wife, got married, sold the supra, started up the business again from scratch in 2009 by 2010 got the business back to the origional level i sold it at, and now i am buying out the origional business that was sold in 2008 and we are heading rapidly towards a six figure turnover.
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That's a roller coaster, Stockclean - good for you for bouncing back!
Now don't forget - all work and no play means a wrecked home life! ;)
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So, how many words (approx) would you want?
JP from Bromsgrove page 14 of WCM would you give you an idea. Or email me ;D
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it was a lifestyle change for me i had been in the same
job for 17 yrs working for a lifting gear and strapping
company 80 hrs a week really hard graft good income
but no life.
got talking to a friend who is a windie who suggested i came
out with him for a few days,gave it a try and liked the fresh air
so started part time on top of my job.
took twelve exhausting months but was able to walk away from
my job with a smile,i now work a third of those hours i earn
more and get one day off most working weeks.
happy days ;)
Hi gary can you email me?
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it was a lifestyle change for me i had been in the same
job for 17 yrs working for a lifting gear and strapping
company 80 hrs a week really hard graft good income
but no life.
got talking to a friend who is a windie who suggested i came
out with him for a few days,gave it a try and liked the fresh air
so started part time on top of my job.
took twelve exhausting months but was able to walk away from
my job with a smile,i now work a third of those hours i earn
more and get one day off most working weeks.
happy days ;)
Simular story here with me, i worked in IT training for a few years, got made redundant and a mate of mine said exactly the same thing, come out with him just to help with money and i can still look for work.
Wasnt long before i realised just how well he was doing, how comfortable his life was, and always seemed to have plenty of money for things, and no real worries about loosing his job or wondering when the next pay cheque is coming.
I got started as a traddie back in 2002, invested in wfp in 2004, built up a big window cleaning business, bought a £200,000 house in 2006, marrige broke up in 2008 sold house for 250k moved to woking, sold the business, bought a 400 bhp supra, had loads of parties, went to raves and just did single lice things, met my new wife, got married, sold the supra, started up the business again from scratch in 2009 by 2010 got the business back to the origional level i sold it at, and now i am buying out the origional business that was sold in 2008 and we are heading rapidly towards a six figure turnover.
Hey stockclean can you eamil me ;D
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money
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money
And not forgetting more time on your hands if you wanted it ;D
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Because I love the smell of clean glass.
Dean
I like the smell, but the taste on my tongue is so much better. Leaded windows are my favourite.
And the fireman's strike, with the impending possibility of a war in Iraq and Afghanistan got me to switch jobs to being a window cleaner. I didn't fancy not drinking alcohol for six months at a time.
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Stayed at school till I was 18 - took A levels but no idea what I wanted to do except I didn't want to go to university (not "uni" - in those days - horrible Australianism). All my mates were bus conductors so I joined them. B****y good money compared to most other jobs, and good fun too. Like the bloke who jumped on and said to me: "Cases". I ignored him and rang the bell. Got to his stop and he said "Where are my cases?" "On the pavement at the bus stop where you left them, mate" ;D
Went from job to job, easy then. Always arguing with the boss, getting the sack and moving on. I've never been any good at taking orders. A couple of years down the line, same story as many others - I had a mate who was a window cleaner. He worked for a London firm doing all the schools and he took me with him one day.
What a revelation!! Freedom! Constant adrenaline rush from the exercise and the fact that we didn't use ladders, just climbed out onto the sill, even 4 floors up!! Dolly bird teachers covering their eyes in shock at the site of us leaping about on outside window sills 40 feet up in the air ;D
And we raced: Most of the schools had Georgian squares as windows (we called them "stamps"). We ragged our way round each floor in turn, starting at the top - first do all the insides (standing on the desks while the poor kids were trying to work) then pull the upper sash down level with the bottom one, climb up on the sash and hang onto the fanlight glazing bar - polish the inside of the fanlight then duck under the bar and do the outside of the fanlight. Drop down on the sill and do the outside of the upper sash, then pull up the bottom sash enough to do most of the outside of it, push the top sash up again and hang onto the channel that the sash ran in while doing the rest of the lower sash, then climb back inside again. All this with just a scrim, and nothing between us and certain death if we slipped!!
And no cheating - we had to rub like mad to get the glass clean and we would check each others work to make sure there was no 'knocking' (leaving the odd pane if we thought we could get away with it)
I did that for about 3-4 years, working in the winter and having a ball in the summer odd jobbing around the boatyard where I lived.
Then I got married for the first time, shifted to domestic work which was an absolute doddle after the schools.
As the old saying goes.......the rest is history ;D
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Hi,
I got started when a family member was setting up a round I was 17 at the time im now 33, i stuck with it for a few months however i did not enjoy the collecting on a Friday evening as this was party time at my age!!
I decided to quit and for the past 16 years ive worked for a few of the largest nationwide companies in the Uk. At my time in these companies I progressed up to operations manager with over 60 operatives covering the uk, I dealt with a lot of large clients aswell as the day to day running of the business with a 2.5m turnover for my region alone. April this year was bad as I was made redundant after 10 years however im back on the tools for another company and quite enjiying it.
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it was the path that was already chosen for me, same for all of us
I thought it was desperation for a job as I quit sales job Xmas eve and said I was never doing it again, so jobless I saw an ad for a job, I then went out and bought £13k window cleaning round, only to learn I had a fear of heights and ladders which I didn't know till I bought it lol
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it was the path that was already chosen for me, same for all of us
I thought it was desperation for a job as I quit sales job Xmas eve and said I was never doing it again, so jobless I saw an ad for a job, I then went out and bought £13k window cleaning round, only to learn I had a fear of heights and ladders which I didn't know till I bought it lol
Oh dear! that must of been difficult. Did you go to wfp becus of that?
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it was the path that was already chosen for me, same for all of us
I thought it was desperation for a job as I quit sales job Xmas eve and said I was never doing it again, so jobless I saw an ad for a job, I then went out and bought £13k window cleaning round, only to learn I had a fear of heights and ladders which I didn't know till I bought it lol
Oh dear! that must of been difficult. Did you go to wfp becus of that?
nah went wfp because had a car crash that nearly killed me, screwed up my back, so changed to wfp because of this could not hold on to a ladder let alone go up one, best move for business, was the push needed I guess all is good :)
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After watching that window cleaning film from the 70s had visions of goosing bored housewives all day long but the only thing I've got wet was my monsoon
You can give my 25 quid winnings to help for heroes
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After watching that window cleaning film from the 70s had visions of goosing bored housewives all day long but the only thing I've got wet was my monsoon
You can give my 25 quid winnings to help for heroes
lol
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Lord Alan sugar would be proud of all of you 8)
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Simular story here with me, i worked in IT training for a few years, got made redundant and a mate of mine said exactly the same thing, come out with him just to help with money and i can still look for work.
Wasnt long before i realised just how well he was doing, how comfortable his life was, and always seemed to have plenty of money for things, and no real worries about loosing his job or wondering when the next pay cheque is coming.
I got started as a traddie back in 2002, invested in wfp in 2004, built up a big window cleaning business, bought a £200,000 house in 2006, marrige broke up in 2008 sold house for 250k moved to woking, sold the business, bought a 400 bhp supra, had loads of parties, went to raves and just did single lice things, met my new wife, got married, sold the supra, started up the business again from scratch in 2009 by 2010 got the business back to the origional level i sold it at, and now i am buying out the origional business that was sold in 2008 and we are heading rapidly towards a six figure turnover.
really nice story that mate. thanks for sharing
if i can to half as well as you have in twice the time i'll be happy!
whats your secret?
best of luck with everything
george
p.s i'd really like a chat some time actually, you seem like your on my level!