Clean It Up
UK Window Cleaning Forum => Window Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: nathankaye on March 14, 2018, 03:49:16 pm
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So alot of people over time have criticised ones for limiting new customers to paying via direct debit and have often said you could loose work because of being limited. Well so far after several months of stipulating this, ive not once had a knock back due to payment option.
In fact ive jumped on here because of this experience ive just had.
Finished cleaning for the day and so I posted some flyers around where ive been working and just picked up this house:
(http://www.cleanitup.co.uk/smf/1521042347_Screenshot_20180314-153817.png)
£18 every 4 wks. The previous chap was £8 and this is an area where both parties are at work so you wont catch people in normally during the day. So the previous chap would turn up after owing a nice amount ie £40 (so she said) so they didnt like that and some other reasons and fired him. She loves the idea and ease of the direct debit and the text service as she locks her gate. Best part for me she paying me over double what she was paying for
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Customers say a lot of things ;-)
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Customers say a lot of things ;-)
Yes they do ;D ;D
But in this case, i do know how cheap some of the other window cleaners charge in this area
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So alot of people over time have criticised ones for limiting new customers to paying via direct debit and have often said you could loose work because of being limited. Well so far after several months of stimulating this, ive not once had a knock back due to payment option.
In fact ive jumped on here because of this experience ive just had.
Finished cleaning for the day and so I posted some flyers around where ive been working and just picked up this house:
(http://www.cleanitup.co.uk/smf/1521042347_Screenshot_20180314-153817.png)
£18 every 4 wks. The previous chap was £8 and this is an area where both parties are at work so you wont catch people in normally during the day. So the previous chap would turn up after owing a nice amount ie £40 (so she said) so they didnt like that and some other reasons and fired him. She loves the idea and ease of the direct debit and the text service as she locks her gate. Best part for me she paying me over double what she was paying for
No what people criticise are guys who fill their rounds accepting anything and everything and then come on here playing Mr its
my way or the highway when they no longer need the work.
I can understand guys not wanting to collect but other than that theres no reason to limit payment options.
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So alot of people over time have criticised ones for limiting new customers to paying via direct debit and have often said you could loose work because of being limited. Well so far after several months of stimulating this, ive not once had a knock back due to payment option.
In fact ive jumped on here because of this experience ive just had.
Finished cleaning for the day and so I posted some flyers around where ive been working and just picked up this house:
(http://www.cleanitup.co.uk/smf/1521042347_Screenshot_20180314-153817.png)
£18 every 4 wks. The previous chap was £8 and this is an area where both parties are at work so you wont catch people in normally during the day. So the previous chap would turn up after owing a nice amount ie £40 (so she said) so they didnt like that and some other reasons and fired him. She loves the idea and ease of the direct debit and the text service as she locks her gate. Best part for me she paying me over double what she was paying for
No what people criticise are guys who fill their rounds accepting anything and everything and then come on here playing Mr its
my way or the highway when they no longer need the work.
I can understand guys not wanting to collect but other than that theres no reason to limit payment options.
The only reason i can see to accept only GC is if you are a larger company who is reliant on cash flow for overheads and wages, as a sole trader you shouldnt have those issues.
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Nath..... I really do think you need to get a life buddy!! ;D Or actually put the effort into "understanding" exactly what people criticise!
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Ive recently started to introduce my customers to it. Going to take some time to convert everyone over and I might loose a few but I'm with you on this one Nath. Its a great process for both customers and business owner. Just a case of getting them to understand the advantages of it. Window cleaner turns up, cleans windows goes home, logs on, press a couple of buttons, bill gets generated and 5 days later money in account.
No more chasing bills.
No more writing out bills on peoples door steps, which is a pain when its raining.
Massive reduction in printing costs.
Whats not to like about it.
Next phase to set up with cleaner planner, then I will be totally paperless.... ;D
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Nah not really. This is a forum for discussion and part of that is perhaps learning from the journey you have taken and applying new advice along the way. Which would i thought goes to show a learning curve.
But also dont suppose to know all my affairs past or present and try n piece together little tit bits of information ive given in the past.
But since your curious:
From leaving school i did a couple of yrs cleaning windows with various people whilst i went through college. After college did various jobs mostly in sales up untill I fell out with management and had enough of the high pressure selling jobs and left work. So in 2003 and with a wife n 3young kids I needed another job and went back to windows. I was fortunate that a much older friend was cutting down his window cleaning life and wanted to rent out a large round. It was perfect timing.
Less than 6months in however he wanted to sell it and so I took a loan and bought the round or else be unemployed again. Within 2 years I had doubled that round and with good prices through canvassing and word of mouth based on reputation.
Later I got wind that another shiner in an area where some friends lived hadnt been seen for months and so i went and canvassed and eventually made another round, again with good prices.
My problem with prices was that they were good and stood for several years but also collectively from the empire I later trebled in size and rounds in three addition areas all built from scratch were enough for me and my family at the time to run two cars and have 2 - 3 holidays a year (family of five.)
The mistake I made was looking at my income collectively rather than individual jobs and thats when i noticed the price difference between my older work and that of the newer work. Yet i started to do something about that and perhaps lost some work on the way, whilst gaining new work to replace the old. (isnt that what we all do, infact we never stop doing that). So im not blurting any old crap out that ive not apllied myself.
More recently im remarried again with 3 very young kids and my wife has recently become very ill, thats why i work fast n efficiently and finish early so I can get home and look after or school my kids and havent got time to chase up my money by collecting. Hence why all my new work is on GoCardless.
Yes im still building my empire and replacing new work with old...... Who ever stops refining their work??!! Back 15 years ago, the options which we have as sole traders in equipment or payment collections werent there, theres no better time to make great changes in your business and this is what im doing. If I was to start all this again, I would certainly apply all ive learnt and apply this mentality now, ie customers paying online/direct debit or else i wouldnt clean them. Why NOT?? ive not had a single person question it or refuse the idea.
But this is why i get defensive no doubt like others do as well, as i have spent plenty of time, plenty of mistakes as well inorder to perfect either my technique on trad equipment or now with wfp. The amount of money and equipment I went through in the first six months alone was immense, because on trad work i had it down to a fine art and those first six months was trying alot of new ideas, methods and equipment to fine tune this new method to be as good, if not better than how I operated with trad tools.
Then i found this forum and learnt a couple more tricks, one being GoCardless that i would never of heard off without CIU.
So i may be relatively new to wfp compared to many on here, but ive been able to help out quite a number of people get into window cleaning over the many years (some by selling off large chunks of my own work to them) who have never done so before by training them up and getting rounds established for them. Ive also been able to help advice ones to transition from trad to wfp and by the end of this year another friend is upgrading.
The other day I spent a morning with a chap from another forum who due to bad health is thinking of upgrading to wfp and he certainly benefited from my setup, experience and advice.
My vids may be boring but I've learnt and watched many youtube vids before coming onto wfp and its nice to give back and ones subscribing to the channel is slowly increasing
Haha i was gonna put some derogatory comments in, just to see if anybody is still reading but even ive lost interest now ;D ;D
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I skipped to the last paragraph and I'll read the rest another time :)
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:P
Go Cardless is great. But if you have customers that pay on time anyway through BACS its kind of well..pointless.
I use Go Cardless for 1 type of customer, the ones that dont pay on time.
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Nah not really. This is a forum for discussion and part of that is perhaps learning from the journey you have taken and applying new advice along the way. Which would i thought goes to show a learning curve.
But also dont suppose to know all my affairs past or present and try n piece together little tit bits of information ive given in the past.
But since your curious:
From leaving school i did a couple of yrs cleaning windows with various people whilst i went through college. After college did various jobs mostly in sales up untill I fell out with management and had enough of the high pressure selling jobs and left work. So in 2003 and with a wife n 3young kids I needed another job and went back to windows. I was fortunate that a much older friend was cutting down his window cleaning life and wanted to rent out a large round. It was perfect timing.
Less than 6months in however he wanted to sell it and so I took a loan and bought the round or else be unemployed again. Within 2 years I had doubled that round and with good prices through canvassing and word of mouth based on reputation.
Later I got wind that another shiner in an area where some friends lived hadnt been seen for months and so i went and canvassed and eventually made another round, again with good prices.
My problem with prices was that they were good and stood for several years but also collectively from the empire I later trebled in size and rounds in three addition areas all built from scratch were enough for me and my family at the time to run two cars and have 2 - 3 holidays a year (family of five.)
The mistake I made was looking at my income collectively rather than individual jobs and thats when i noticed the price difference between my older work and that of the newer work. Yet i started to do something about that and perhaps lost some work on the way, whilst gaining new work to replace the old. (isnt that what we all do, infact we never stop doing that). So im not blurting any old crap out that ive not apllied myself.
More recently im remarried again with 3 very young kids and my wife has recently become very ill, thats why i work fast n efficiently and finish early so I can get home and look after or school my kids and havent got time to chase up my money by collecting. Hence why all my new work is on GoCardless.
Yes im still building my empire and replacing new work with old...... Who ever stops refining their work??!! Back 15 years ago, the options which we have as sole traders in equipment or payment collections werent there, theres no better time to make great changes in your business and this is what im doing. If I was to start all this again, I would certainly apply all ive learnt and apply this mentality now, ie customers paying online/direct debit or else i wouldnt clean them. Why NOT?? ive not had a single person question it or refuse the idea.
But this is why i get defensive no doubt like others do as well, as i have spent plenty of time, plenty of mistakes as well inorder to perfect either my technique on trad equipment or now with wfp. The amount of money and equipment I went through in the first six months alone was immense, because on trad work i had it down to a fine art and those first six months was trying alot of new ideas, methods and equipment to fine tune this new method to be as good, if not better than how I operated with trad tools.
Then i found this forum and learnt a couple more tricks, one being GoCardless that i would never of heard off without CIU.
So i may be relatively new to wfp compared to many on here, but ive been able to help out quite a number of people get into window cleaning over the many years (some by selling off large chunks of my own work to them) who have never done so before by training them up and getting rounds established for them. Ive also been able to help advice ones to transition from trad to wfp and by the end of this year another friend is upgrading.
The other day I spent a morning with a chap from another forum who due to bad health is thinking of upgrading to wfp and he certainly benefited from my setup, experience and advice.
My vids may be boring but I've learnt and watched many youtube vids before coming onto wfp and its nice to give back and ones subscribing to the channel is slowly increasing
Haha i was gonna put some derogatory comments in, just to see if anybody is still reading but even ive lost interest now ;D ;D
Nathan, you're a little like my wife in that what can be said in 10 words she uses 100 words!
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Haha its to ensure that you understand, rather than thinking you understand and then go and completely miss the point......... I suspect ;D
Ps, that post is way to big to be quoting, just put your comment, or else theres plenty of pages to scroll down if ur using a mobile
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i still dont get how gocardless works.i dont have a website but i have cleaner planner(albeit the £18 a month version).its not a payment method i currently offer to customers at the moment....
so first thing do you sign up via the gocardless website and input your bank details(to get money paid into your account)?
then get your customers email addresses?then they have to sign up to gocardless? ???
it all sounds a bit of a faff to me.also how much does gocardless take for each transaction?
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Haha its to ensure that you understand, rather than thinking you understand and then go and completely miss the point......... I suspect ;D
Ps, that post is way to big to be quoting, just put your comment, or else theres plenty of pages to scroll down if ur using a mobile
Is this the point ? you took a bit of flak on here for your low priced knock them out and keep it simple attitude so now want to give the impression that your the Alan Sugar of window cleaning ?
Except for Marc's example I certainly cant see any other point in telling guys to only offer one type of payment.
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i still dont get how gocardless works.i dont have a website but i have cleaner planner(albeit the £18 a month version).its not a payment method i currently offer to customers at the moment....
so first thing do you sign up via the gocardless website and input your bank details(to get money paid into your account)?
then get your customers email addresses?then they have to sign up to gocardless? ???
it all sounds a bit of a faff to me.also how much does gocardless take for each transaction?
Not 100% sure as I haven't used it but I think unlike a direct debit which means a certain sum will come out of your bank account on the same date monthly or whatever this takes the money as and when you clean the windows, its no real benefit to the customer and the only benefit to the shiner would be less urgency to keep on top of your work.
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It's 1% of each payment.
We went over a while ago now and it transformed the business. Whether you're a sole trader or run a fleet, cash flow is very important.
The benefits to the customer are they only have to input their details online once.
Window cleaner turns up, cleans. Activates payment. Customer gets email saying payment will leave their account in 3 days time. Easy peasy for everyone involved.
We get the odd one who are adamant they won't switch over, but they always BACS straight away. The bad payers who have refused to do it, we no longer clean for and we have replaced them with GC customers, simple.
I was sceptical until I understood how it works.
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I've only got a small amount on GC but the real potential is when I got them linked up to Aworka. Now when I click done on the app and sync it when I get back it'll automatically send them an invoice notifying them that the GC payment will be processed and obviously processes the payment for me. Before I would send it at the end of the next week and they wouldn't get an invoice so probably more professional looking now (but if they are already signed up who cares), just means I get the money in quicker without logging into GC.
GC only charges around 1% so now as I see how easy this could be with Aworka I can email them via Aworka with the GC sign up option (if I have their email) or I can text them a link from the GC account. I'm generally very cautious with links so not everyone will click on it or sign up!
For CP it'll probably be like a sky sports subscription to upgrade to the GC option!
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I have people pay cash on the day or On my slips I have my bank details, cheque payment details and the option of GoCardless along with my website with all information regarding above.
I don’t collect on an evening as there’s a little way for everyone to pay above and it works. Nobody is backed into a corner and they all pay before next clean... I’m considering getting a card payment machine from sumup just for another option.
I also have cleaner planner which I think is a great tool, I know it costs and some people don’t like it but works for me. Life goes on
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i still dont get how gocardless works.i dont have a website but i have cleaner planner(albeit the £18 a month version).its not a payment method i currently offer to customers at the moment....
so first thing do you sign up via the gocardless website and input your bank details(to get money paid into your account)?
then get your customers email addresses?then they have to sign up to gocardless? ???
it all sounds a bit of a faff to me.also how much does gocardless take for each transaction?
Takes less than five minutes and you can do it whilst having a cuppa in the evening daz.
You go on their website to register and then you get a link for your customers to use in order to sign up..... which is basically a direct debit mandate. You can email it to them or I prefer to text it to them as most have a smart phone and when they read the text they can click the link, fill out their details and in about 3mins its all done.
If you had a website you attach the link to it.
I don't use cleaner planner im still book n pen so in the evening I log onto my GoCardless account, click on the customer, fill outthe price etc and process the payment. Or you link it to cleaner planner or set it on a schedule so each month on a set day it takes the payment automatically.
3mins of a customers time and they dont have to rummage for change/notes when your at the door. They dont have to remember to send that paypal payment or log onto online banking to send a payment or to set up a regular standing order.
So basically ones who are moaning at this idea havent even tried it..... A bit like the hot water debate.
2ndly im not telling everyone just to offer one payment option. Im simply saying what I am doing and how well it works dispite all the overthinking of people who have never tried it.
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But i also find that you can give too many options.
Cash on day, send a cheque, paypal, BACS or online payment per individual clean..... Card payment.
Yes its great for the customer but hell of alot of faff for you to keep account off
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I understand what you’re saying, which is why I have cleaner planner where I can simply click which method people have paid...
I get where you’re coming from trying to get everyone onto it, I understand where others are coming from.
Each to their own
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i still dont get how gocardless works.i dont have a website but i have cleaner planner(albeit the £18 a month version).its not a payment method i currently offer to customers at the moment....
so first thing do you sign up via the gocardless website and input your bank details(to get money paid into your account)?
then get your customers email addresses?then they have to sign up to gocardless? ???
it all sounds a bit of a faff to me.also how much does gocardless take for each transaction?
Takes less than five minutes and you can do it whilst having a cuppa in the evening daz.
You go on their website to register and then you get a link for your customers to use in order to sign up..... which is basically a direct debit mandate. You can email it to them or I prefer to text it to them as most have a smart phone and when they read the text they can click the link, fill out their details and in about 3mins its all done.
If you had a website you attach the link to it.
I don't use cleaner planner im still book n pen so in the evening I log onto my GoCardless account, click on the customer, fill outthe price etc and process the payment. Or you link it to cleaner planner or set it on a schedule so each month on a set day it takes the payment automatically.
3mins of a customers time and they dont have to rummage for change/notes when your at the door. They dont have to remember to send that paypal payment or log onto online banking to send a payment or to set up a regular standing order.
So basically ones who are moaning at this idea havent even tried it..... A bit like the hot water debate.
2ndly im not telling everyone just to offer one payment option. Im simply saying what I am doing and how well it works dispite all the overthinking of people who have never tried it.
I think more people are laughing than moaning and overthinking, nothing wrong with GC as a payment option its just one of many.
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It's all very simple. Clean customer's windows and customer pays- (for me) which ever method "they" choose from the Three that I offer- cash, cheque or BACS. I don't have any customers who don't pay and have no cash flow issues either! It's my customers responsibility to make payment for the service provided, not for me to chase, draw down or collect etc. I don't purport to be anything special or that having no payment issues is rocket science- it's very basic stuff and works for me!!👍
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It's all very simple. Clean customer's windows and customer pays- (for me) which ever method "they" choose from the Three that I offer- cash, cheque or BACS. I don't have any customers who don't pay and have no cash flow issues either! It's my customers responsibility to make payment for the service provided, not for me to chase, draw down or collect etc. I don't purport to be anything special or that having no payment issues is rocket science- it's very basic stuff and works for me!!👍
Works for me too!
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I dont see the point of signing up go Cardless to customers just for the sake of it.
If you have a large operation to run with 10 or so vans and staff to pay, then yes if cashflow becomes a problem..do it as it helps.
But for the most part, if your customer always pays you within a week or so anyway, whats the point? It takes nearly a week for the funds to arrive in your account anyway if you take the payment on the cleaning day, and it costs you a bit of money to do it and you have to sit down and take the payments.
I just set my Go Cardless payments to come out of the customers account on around the 26th of the cleaning month automatically, its in my account by the 28th, even then though the whole process starts on the 21st so its not the quickest way of receiving your money.
PayPal Here on the other hand is instant.
As soon as they have paid, that money can go into my bank immediately. No waiting for that.
I have around 50 customers on go cardless, i have no desire to force or push them into direct debit unless they ask for it, or it becomes a problem with payments.
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Whatever works for you all, then great.
Im not and have not forced this idea on anyone, but simply reporting back that all the negative comments on its not worth it, might loose work etc etc hasnt been the case.
On go cardless you pay a small percentage per transition regardless if you clump it all together on a set day or not marc, its still the same amount in fees.
What i dont understand are the comments that they can understand big companies doing this etc etc? Why should that make any difference?
This choice of mine is for all new work! My existing customers pay via BACS or paypal and some at the door with Sumup card reader. I just find that taking my business forwards I prefer one method of payment and so far ive had no complaints other than oness on here.
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Im just starting to use it and agree with many of the comments. Im initially focusing on bad payers, GoCardless or Go find another window cleaner who is happy to be paid late. Good payers have the option, and if they choose to sign up, I get the control of when I ask for their money. Thats got to be good. If they are already good payers, then I'm already happy!
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It's the only option we offer to new customers now. We currently have 76 customers owing us money, 50 of them are GC and the money will be in within the week, all window cleaning jobs. The other 26 are large invoice jobs with a couple of old dears who owe a cheque - I can't bring myself to get rid of them!
Since getting strict on GC cash flow has improved and money 'in the bank' is up, plus you don't need to worry about it - its all automated. The other ones on invoice always pay within a month, and they are the bonus money jobs, GC keeps the wheels moving without worrying.
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Makes it easier for the customer using GC. I've removed PayPal from my site and just have the GC link. Although I've left the address for payment by cheque I have a £1.00 cheque fee on the windows cleaned slip which is enough to deter them.