Clean It Up
UK Window Cleaning Forum => Frequently Asked Questions & Useful Resources => Topic started by: Customers4u on September 09, 2004, 01:29:56 pm
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Hi All
We are Grantchester cleaning services,
We specialize in building and operating window cleaning rounds and can construct an entire round to your own area and requirements.
We can also beef up existing rounds
Call Paul Bass on 07862 271852
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can you build rounds in surrey , if so i might be interested
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Hello Advanced
Yes we can put one together for you in surrey,
we cover the whole country
Paul Bass
07862 271852
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Domestic or Commercial?
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Domestic and commercial ;)
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Hi Paul and welcome to Cleanitup - please fill in your profile, signature etc.
I'm intrigued - why would a window cleaning company build up a round and sell it to a competitor?
Any clues on the price of these rounds? Monthly turnover x ?%
Any guarantees or refunds available if it's not up to the buyer's expectations or the customers decide to go elsewhere within a certain period? Will there be a contract between buyer and seller?
Please tell us a bit more / sell us the idea of buying a ready-made round.
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Hi Davie
Paul Bass did pm me about the window cleaning rounds he would build up and i replied asking how much.
He said he charges double the monthly rate so if he was to get you £3000 worth of work he would charge £6000.
He also said he can get both commercial and domestic in an area you require.
He also said he guarentees the work for two months and would replace any customers lost in that time
I don't know how much his mininmum amount is i did not ask that
Paul
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Thanks Paul,
Any idea on the hourly rate you'd get for the work, what happens if it's below what you'd normally work for yourself?
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Sorry Davie can't help you with that although i would like to know myself.
I'm always a bit warey of buying work as especially round my way there is a lot of people charging less that me some even charging half of what i charge.
and i don't even charge as much as justin charges although i would like to but i will not get it with so many doing it so cheap.
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Hopefully Paul Bass will come back and tell us all
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Once I was asked by another window cleaner exactly what was I doing? This is when I'm in the process of cleaning a 1st floor window. He'd just bought a round and thought that the house I was at was one of his! I explained to him that I'd known the person from way before I ever started on the windows, I'd cleaned her previous house before she'd moved to the current one, and I'm sure she would have told me if she was even thinking of getting a new cleaner.
Turns out the poor guy bought a whole load of house numbers in addition to some real jobs. We still chat when we bump into each other, but he's a big lad and I shudder to think what happened when he caught up with the guy who sold him the round ;D
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That the sort of thing you have to be careful about.
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Hello all
Was away on a long weekend,
Hope the following answers your questions
Paul
We leave the charging down to the individual window cleaner, but within reason!! ie not so overpriced that very few want the service.
A £3,000 turnover per month round, could be put together for £6,000 inc VAT, or if you are looking to beef up your round a £10 per month customer would be £20 inclusive of VAT.
Any customers that did,nt stay on board within the first 2 months would be replaced with new customers.
We can build your round exactly where you want it,
Paul Basspaulbass63@aol.com
IP Logged
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sounds a bit "iffy" to me! :-\
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hmm? what with payment then? when would you want a money for that, straight away or lets say weekly instalments over 2 months ? if the round is ok, customers are happy, that would make sense and i d b interested
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So much better starting your own round.
We can also beef up existing rounds
Wouldn't have though people with even a small round would need as once you start cleaning its so easy to pick up new customers as you get quite a few ask you each week.
Paul
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Rule 1 Canvass up your own round for best customer loyalty and house pricing
Rule 2 If you must buy work, buy from someone you trust and who has a genuine reason for selling - and who preferably has had a long relationship with his customers - and who will personally introduce you to them.
Rule 3 Beware of buying from someone who has "built" a round simply to sell as the loyalty/pricing/state of windows may be suspect.
Rule 4 Pay as you clean and retain the customers (eg monthly instalments) - a genuine seller won't mind.
Rule 5 Caveat Emptor
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Simply because, i tried to get back on this site countless times and it kept rejecting my password.
However am back for good now,
Can understand your sceptisicsm malcg but we are happy with what we are doing and have never been accused of this in the real world, we also operate window cleaning rounds ourselves so we know all the pitfalls and assurances that people would require from the round building side.
Paul Bass
Gcs cambridge
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Hi Paul
Can you put me in touch the a customer/s who you have built a round for in the northeast.
Cheers Mal
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We have built no rounds in the North East as yet
Malcal but will travel to wherever there is a need, the only rounds we have built so far have been around cambridge, cambs, St Albans and Chigwell in London
Have had interest from Clacton, Colchester, Bristol, Tamworth, Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Dundee, and Swindon.
Paul Bass
GCS Cambridge
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paul
can you answer my questions as well
cheers ;)
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Hi Marcinos
Once customers are being served, we would expect payment.
Ie we work in week one for example with no payment, the following week we would expect to be paid on the previous weeks work.
The customers would be able to be served as quickly as the next day but obviously up to the individual concerned when they are started but obviously not weeks away as people would give up and maybe sign with other window cleaners!!
But of course any customers who for whatever reason do not stay on board, would be replaced by others, any customers that fall out in the first two months would be made good.
An example of costs would be this, say 50 customers are signed up in week 1, at an average of £10 per month, week 1,s work would cost £20 x 50 =£1,000, Which would be payable in week 2, however you would by then have served the customers in week 1 and collected in all thats owed except for a few that werent in when u called!
Customers generally pay their window cleaning bills so there are not 2 many problems there, u will of course get the odd bad debter, and if that was 2 happen, we would again make that customer good by dropping the bad debter and signing up a new one to replace it
Paul Bass :)
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There used to be a guy round here called Martin who would build up rounds just to sell them.
Its not necessarily a dodgy thing to do but none of the guys who bought off him seemed to last long.
I can't see the point in paying someone to do what you can do yourself. When you canvass you need to look at more than just the windows. You have to suss out access etc and even (dare I say) the householder !
A lot of houses are complex because of extensions and overhangs etc. A good 20- 25% of houses i would walk past and not even knock. Certainly none with leaded glass, lifes too short for that.
I do the houses I want not vice versa.
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Hi vince,
yes we also look at the safety aspect as well, like we never clean above the 1st floor ie 3 levels.
We could sign up so many dodgy jobs, that no window cleaner would want, but its not how we work, we are quite picky in the houses that we go for, we try and sign up the biggest houses going, therefore the round becomes easier to service, i think most window cleaners on this forum would like the idea of 5 jobs a day paying £30, we are able 2 do this, if that is your requirement!
Everyone is different, some people are prepared to sign up their own customers, others just hate anything to do with sales which is why we do what we do.
However any customers, who do,nt become live, we will sign up other customers to cover for any drop outs.
paul :)
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Further 2 the above, have so far built 3 rounds in Cambridge which are still running, one for steve wagstaff which is basically a starter round of about 50 customers and another for Scott Rae, have put together 140 customers in St Albans for Andy he requires about 300, and have now started a round in Chigwell London for David, with another waiting to be built after that (Commercial) in Chingford.
Cant cope with all of this on my own so am now in the process of recruiting and training up to the same standard another 4 canvassers to cope with demand as there are also quite a few rounds bubbling under as well!
Paul Bass :) :)
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hi Paul
do you charge the same for commercial work as domestic?
and say you price a job at £10.00, how many would an average wc be able to do in a day?
Tim
TLC
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On commercial pricing, usually think what you,d charge if it was domestic then double it, but the rate can vary quite a bit, if u want a fairly closed up commercial round then the price needs to come down a bit so that you,re competitive with other window cleaners doing the same kind of work.
As to the second question, how many jobs you would get through would depend on how quick you are and if you are on your own or as a pair, i,ve got through 20 jobs on my own before but thats quite rare an average of 15 a day is normal on your own and 15-25 as a pair.
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HANG ON A MO: You stated Paul that you built rounds up all over the country, when asked by Malcal to show him one you had built up up north you were unable to do so
NOT KNOCKING WHAT YOU DO PAUL but lets be right ;D
Iver you do nationwide or not,or isit the fact that if you were to be asked to go national you would?
GAZA
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He does build rounds up all over the country...but he obviously needs to be asked to do so first...!! Wherever you want him to work for you, he will go.
I`ve spoke to the guy about doing some work for me in Liverpool...seems reasonable to employ a salesman with expertise and experience to get me a compact round of well paying customers...while I am out working on my existing customers or at home with the kids.
I`ve just spent a few grand on a WFP system to improve upon my present customer base and income levels...£500 extra monthly income in a desired area for £1000 without having to do any legwork...I`m sure some people will find this a reasonable stake.
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Thanx for, responding for me there steve, but yes thats basically it, no one has asked me to go any further than st albans or chigwell in london at the moment, but i am able to go anywhere in the country if u needed me there, just a case of putting me up in a spare room or laying on a b&b.
However there are 2 of us and we are capable of signing up 100 quality customers per week, so a 300 customer round can be put together in 3 weeks.
The biggest thing, i,ve found with this is trust, but that soon evaporates, when the work starts flowing to the window cleaner concerned, and he/she sees the quality of the work, which andy of st albans, steve of cambridge, scott of cambridge and david of chigwell will testify to.
Yes a lot of window cleaners can canvass themselves, but we fill the gap where the above mentioned people cant be doing with the extra work at the end of a hard days window cleaning shift.
Paul :)
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Paul fair comment,but would you put up a stranger in your house,50 squid a night for two people is alot to pay for someone elses buiss venture. the plot thickens ;D
GAZA
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Hiya gaza, well my rates are much lower than other canvassing companies, who charge up to twice as much!!, who also expect to be put up or travel no more than 50 miles from their base.
B&B,s can be found cheaper than £50 per night anyway, the plot is no more thicker than that, i,m an ethical type of chap, as others can testify, and if i had done anything untoward, it would have been posted under this heading much before now!
Paul ;)
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Think pauls business is ethical and usefull in alot of ways.
i prefer to do my own canvassing, but i would consider using him in the future for extra work if need be.
question for paul: so a £1000.00 of commercial work would cost me £2000.00? am i right?
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Paul
Do you have a website? or some literature, as would like full details of your service.
John
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Hiya jw2,
Yes , bang on right for comercial, just the same as for domestic,
Paul
:) :)
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Hi john, no i dont have a website at present as most of my work has come from this site alone, but have just grown with several other salespeople having been trained up to the same standard as myself, so i will now need to look at all areas to keep these staff employed, will post here as soon as the website becomes 'live'
:) :)
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Paul,
Please can you contact me info@firstcleanservices.co.uk as i am seriously interesed in using your services for developing our business in an area we have not got time to do ourselves. If you prefer to call me you can reach me on my mobile 07786921202,
Regards,
Trevor
For and on behalf of First Clean Services
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gcs, have read some of your posts with intrest,
was wondering why you only supply a mobile phone number and not a busuness landline number, seems iffy to me.
lee.
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gcs, have read some of your posts with intrest,
was wondering why you only supply a mobile phone number and not a busuness landline number, seems iffy to me.
lee.
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gcs, have read some of your posts with intrest,
was wondering why you only supply a mobile phone number and not a busuness landline number, seems iffy to me.
lee.
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Hi lee,
As i keep saying to people who have read under this heading, if i was so dodgy as u think, why has,nt any of the other window cleaners who have used me said anything untoward about me after a year of this heading being on cleanitup.co.uk!
Some of you guys are paranoid to the extreme and to be honest could shaft me far more than i could shaft anyone, if i wanted to that is AND I DONT as i have more to lose than gain by doing that!
My mobile is used purely because i am so mobile and out on the road all the time.
paul :)
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Hi Paul
Would you travel to Wrexham im interested in your service.
Daniel
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Hi Daniel,
I would be able to go to wrexham, only problem is i have so much work on at the present that i could,nt do it, in the next month at least, or until i found somebody to take over my role.
If you can wait a bit then no probs, i am recruiting staff all the time and if i can get away earlier then all well and good!
paul :)