Clean It Up
UK Window Cleaning Forum => Window Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: andrew tapsell on December 19, 2011, 07:31:51 pm
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anybody got any jobs off nationwide window cleaning . is it worth investing
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that'll be a no then!!!!!!
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Read previous posts, A few will want to say I told you so!!
I still hope it works for anyone who did invest though just not for us
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It's all very early days - so you have to give it a chance
personally i'd invest me dosh in other ways & in this area people want to know your local
not national - this may be different in the city areas
Darran
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Its not for us for the same reason as Darran, had a few breakins around here and people tend to trust recommendations rather than the internet
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^^^^^ this
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weve had a couple, one small and one quite large,
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Its not for us for the same reason as Darran, had a few breakins around here and people tend to trust recommendations rather than the internet
there is many factors that gain trust online, I get a lot of work from the internet, and the reason they can look at you first before they employ.
I do agree that people tend not to like national companies as they have a very bad names as slap and dash merchants I could name a few already, I hope thier site goes well then I can make money from thier adwords campains ;D
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Hi,
Enquiries are coming through the site every day but our biggest problem is that we still do not have enough contractors spread across the UK to service all the enquiries.
It is going to take us us probably 12 months before we get enough guys on board to really offer a truely national service. To try and speed up the take up of areas, and on feedback from some of the guys on here I have spoken to, we have reduced the costs and you can now cover both residential and commercial for a town for £25 a month.
I think most people realise that although local recommendations etc is a fantastic way to gain more work, a lot of people also search the internet when looking for a window cleaner.
At the very least the new website is simply a window cleaning directory but within 12 months we hope to develop the site into a whole lot more for all our contractors....
Cheers,
Huw
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Can I ask what is to stop JV Price or Seerclean skimming all the large commercial enquiries from the sites? Or have I misunderstood and leads go direct to the mini site without any possibility of "cherry picking"?
Call me sceptical, but I don't see why a national/large window cleaning company would want to worry about getting Mrs Smith from Church Street in touch with a window cleaner. The subscription isn't THAT much that would make it worth the effort surely?
Good luck to those involved, both ides of the fence, my opinion doesn't matter, but thought I would ask.
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I know of one or two national companies that advertise they use all their own workers but in reality they sub everything out - with practices like that the nationals will always have a bad rep IMO.
I've had cancellation letters in the past from chain stores saying things like " ...... so we can standardize quality across all our sites...." but in reality its all about price and if you pay peanuts... well you know the rest. If the subbies are not getting paid enough corners will be missed cut. Store managers are not working nationally and only care about their own store so when standards slip complaints roll in.
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Hi,
Which is exactly why we are trying to get enough local contractors together under one umbrella to bid for national work as one collective.
There will be no massive companies involved who's staff don't give a crap about standards and our contractors won't be travelling 50 or 100 miles to service a £6 shop front. Each guy looks after there own local area and will hopefully improve standards to clients.
We are currently in talks with one very large national at the moment who is very interested in our concept, once we pick up one chain it will be easier to sell to more nationals.
We are not expecting to turn this project into an overnight success and are looking at it as a long term project...it's been great talking on the phone to everyone over the last couple of weeks.
On the flip side most of the enquiries coming through the mini-sites are tending to be for residential work at the moment.
Cheers,
Huw
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This wasn't aimed at Nationwide. but those bad nationals are out there and the rep of other nationals will rub off on you I think.
I've not looked at your concept and was commenting on observations of the companies who are out there now.
sample scenario -
Harrys furniture (fictional company) have 100 stores around the country and want them cleaning for £10 per store
store in Bradford has 5 windows and a door = £10 for Bradford contractor
store in London has 15 windows 3 doors and a nice shiny neon sign that they want cleaned = £10 for London contractor
store in Liverpool has 1 window and a door (which are usually boarded up ;)) = £10 for liverpool contractor
other 97 store with similar variations
or you get each contractor to send you a price they need for the store which opens it up to regional variations and will encourage contractors to come in with a high initial price.
I'm not being funny at all but can see the logistics being a bit of a nightmare. Having said that - I'll have a look and may sign up :)
good luck
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I wasn't aware you got domestic and commercial for 25 a month
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Hi,
Which is exactly why we are trying to get enough local contractors together under one umbrella to bid for national work as one collective.
There will be no massive companies involved who's staff don't give a crap about standards and our contractors won't be travelling 50 or 100 miles to service a £6 shop front. Each guy looks after there own local area and will hopefully improve standards to clients.
We are currently in talks with one very large national at the moment who is very interested in our concept, once we pick up one chain it will be easier to sell to more nationals.
We are not expecting to turn this project into an overnight success and are looking at it as a long term project...it's been great talking on the phone to everyone over the last couple of weeks.
On the flip side most of the enquiries coming through the mini-sites are tending to be for residential work at the moment.
Cheers,
Huw
Didn't answer my question though, can the cream work be siphoned off? Do you "vet" all enquiries before passing them on?
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Hi,
Enquiries are coming through the site every day but our biggest problem is that we still do not have enough contractors spread across the UK to service all the enquiries.
It is going to take us us probably 12 months before we get enough guys on board to really offer a truely national service. To try and speed up the take up of areas, and on feedback from some of the guys on here I have spoken to, we have reduced the costs and you can now cover both residential and commercial for a town for £25 a month.
I think most people realise that although local recommendations etc is a fantastic way to gain more work, a lot of people also search the internet when looking fo a window cleaner.
At the very least the new website is simply a window cleaning directory but within 12 months we hope to develop the site into a whole lot more for all our contractors....
Cheers,
Huw
so just to get this right for £25 a month you get the leads for both domestic and commercial for 1 town..
thanks
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'There will be no massive companies involved who's staff don't give a crap about standards and our contractors won't be travelling 50 or 100 miles to service a £6 shop front. Each guy looks after there own local area and will hopefully improve standards to clients.
We are currently in talks with one very large national at the moment who is very interested in our concept, once we pick up one chain it will be easier to sell to more nationals.'
sounds to me like you're looking at making a megalomaniac subcontracting system but without the biggest draw for the client, which is one, or at least limited invoicing, compared to paying each individual window cleaner for each store
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Can I ask what is to stop JV Price or Seerclean skimming all the large commercial enquiries from the sites? Or have I misunderstood and leads go direct to the mini site without any possibility of "cherry picking"?
Call me sceptical, but I don't see why a national/large window cleaning company would want to worry about getting Mrs Smith from Church Street in touch with a window cleaner. The subscription isn't THAT much that would make it worth the effort surely?
Good luck to those involved, both ides of the fence, my opinion doesn't matter, but thought I would ask.
i asked thsi question when it first started and got told, if they get work it is up to them how they pass the work on, but how do you know the work wasnt cherry picked before and given to dean to cover and dave morris
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If Nationwide did that they'd probably be guilty of fraud.
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but how would we know that matt, as they aint going to tell people are they
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So ... £25 a month.
How else might you spend that? Get someone to canvass for you 4 hours a month plus a bonus for every converted lead.
Put ads in shop windows or local rag.
My concern about this kind of scheme is that human nature tells me that a cream enquiry will never get passed on. I remember selling health insurance on a self employed basis and the line manager was self employed too. He set up an office covering the south west for leads leads were passed on and paid for by the salesman for the area. I believe the cream enquiries were handled and sold by the line manager.
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Hello,
Sorry...to clear things up all enquiries through the website go straight to the guys covering that area.
Most of the guys who have a mini-site up and running test this as soon as their site goes live. I think we'd be shooting ourselves in the foot it we "vetted" each enquiry and defeats the point of the automated system.
I know it's not for everyone and if we could have made it free to start with we would have had a contractor in each area straight away, but we would then have had to make over a thousand websites free of charge and to be honest its been more time consuming then I had though building the mini-sites.
Cheers,
Huw
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What other advertising are Nationwide Window Cleaners doing apart from google adwords and SEO?
Surely it needs more advertising promotion than what is currently being done.
When i've used the search terms "window cleaner in ........" or "window cleaning in......" using several town places around the country including London, Nationwide Window Cleaners is not showing up? ???
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Hi,
Yes, prices have been reduced to £25 a month for commercial and domestic for each area or £15 a month for either type. This is explained in the downloadable information pack on the site.
So far I have received one enquiry from my Cardiff mini-site, the website is not the holy grail, it's just another form of marketing for anyone who's interested, I still have adverts in all forms of media and a canvasser out trying to drum up work and have been using Kate for tele sales.
Cheers,
Huw
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we have reduced the costs and you can now cover both residential and commercial for a town for £25 a month.
Well, you may say so but just checked in my area and your website domestic and commercial are £15+VAT each per month (£36), so definitely not £25 the pair.
And it'll take two areas to cover the town, so in fact £72 per month. Very definitely not £25 by any stretch of the imagination.
Oh, plus £120 deposit.
Vin
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we have reduced the costs and you can now cover both residential and commercial for a town for £25 a month.
Well, you may say so but just checked in my area and your website domestic and commercial are £15+VAT each per month (£36), so definitely not £25 the pair.
And it'll take two areas to cover the town, so in fact £72 per month. Very definitely not £25 by any stretch of the imagination.
Oh, plus £120 deposit.
Vin
These guys are genuine people,
There's nobody more familiar with your own town than yourself, so if it is the case that your town is covered by 2 postcodes and it is a small area, then I'm sure that they will be able to help you out,
A town local to me, market drayton is only very small, approx 4 miles max from one end to the next and is covered by both TF (telford) and SY (shrewsbury) post codes, so it is obviously possible.
I'm sure for example that if your town is similar to market drayton and you provide proof to huw or charlie that they will sort something out for you.
Cheers,
Dean.
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Hi Vin,
There's not a lot we can do about VAT I'm afraid.
But if anyone is interested in an area but thinks we have split it up incorrectly drop me an email and I will see what we can do.
We are not yell.com This is a site built for window cleaners by window cleaners, and we are here to help.
Cheers,
Huw
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Hi Vin,
There's not a lot we can do about VAT I'm afraid.
But if anyone is interested in an area but thinks we have split it up incorrectly drop me an email and I will see what we can do.
We are not yell.com This is a site built for window cleaners by window cleaners, and we are here to help.
Cheers,
Huw
Huw,
welcome to the headaches I started to have a couple of years ago ;)
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Hi Iam,
I know....but to be honest I'm really enjoying it.
We are miles away from even breaking even at the moment but both Charlie and I are adamant we can make a success of the site.
I know you mentioned you had some ideas about driving traffic to the site and by all means drop me an email huw@nationwidewindowcleaners.co.uk I would be interested to hear more.
Just an example, I had an email enquiry come in on our gritting website on Thursday afternoon, quoted £375 + VAT and started the job the same night. We have done that site four times now resulting in £1,500 revenue for us. Internet advertising works.
Cheers,
Huw
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Hi Vin,
There's not a lot we can do about VAT I'm afraid.
But if anyone is interested in an area but thinks we have split it up incorrectly drop me an email and I will see what we can do.
We are not yell.com This is a site built for window cleaners by window cleaners, and we are here to help.
Cheers,
Huw
You haven't dealt with saying that both commercial and domestic cost £25 when they actually cost £30 (+ VAT) + "deposit".
Vin
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Hi,
My apologies, £25 + VAT.
Hope this helps.
Cheers,
Huw
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Not really very helpful.
When I put in an area, the amount it asked for was £15 + VAT for the commercial and £15 + VAT for the domestic. How does that equate to £25 + VAT the pair?
Vin
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Hi Vin,
We apply the discount to the monthly payment after sign up if you buy both commercial and domestic.
You only pay the deposit to begin with.
You are welcome to email me huw@nationwidewindowcleaners.co.uk to discuss.
Cheers,
Huw
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Ok so will you give me the commercial postcode areas for my region as i paid £25 just for domestics........
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Ok so will you give me the commercial postcode areas for my region as i paid £25 just for domestics........
i paid £30 for the commercial of my town which is a small town and is broke into 3 postcodes in all fairness is all small areas!