Clean It Up
UK Window Cleaning Forum => Window Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: wcs. on October 12, 2008, 09:19:38 pm
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Any body had ideas?
We cover quite a few areas and growing ;)
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Any body had ideas?
We cover quite a few areas and growing ;)
How many counties?
about 15/16 maybe more and growing with the right people ;)
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Any body had ideas?
Do you mean something like taking on indepth etc by joining together to bid for national contracts as we probably collectivley cover the country ? with our lower overheads we would be cheaper, i'm in
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very good idea
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im in too ;D
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Me too.
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I cant see how it would work?
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I cant see how it would work?
me too! :-\ i know of another company that does it similar. the keep the cream then off load the crap. if someone was controlling it centrally thats what they'd do!
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I cant see how it would work?
me too! :-\ i know of another company that does it similar. the keep the cream then off load the crap. if someone was controlling it centrally thats what they'd do!
Exactly! Nobody is going to run it for nothing, it would be like sub contracting to someone, so i cant see any point, unless someone can explain different?
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Ive thought about something like this, this is why i bought the name www.trusted-window-cleaners.co.uk and national-window-cleaners.co.uk so i could put links to other cleaners in each town, this isnt compotition for window washers as i dont intend on doing it full time just to get me more coverege.
Chris
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Ive thought about something like this, this is why i bought the name www.trusted-window-cleaners.co.uk and national-window-cleaners.co.uk so i could put links to other cleaners in each town, this isnt compotition for window washers as i dont intend on doing it full time just to get me more coverege.
Chris
So you would put links to other window cleaners, and if you got a job in another area you would pass it on free of charge? To me all this sounds like is a directory of cleaners across the country.
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Ive thought about something like this, this is why i bought the name www.trusted-window-cleaners.co.uk and national-window-cleaners.co.uk so i could put links to other cleaners in each town, this isnt compotition for window washers as i dont intend on doing it full time just to get me more coverege.
Chris
So you would put links to other window cleaners, and if you got a job in another area you would pass it on free of charge? To me all this sounds like is a directory of cleaners across the country.
...and has been done numerous times
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This is how i would see it.
1/ We look at what areas we can cover, most if not all wfp users have vans so could cover a county ie i could do anywhere in Cheshire, and register centrally
2/ We ensure all "members" are a/ proficient b/ insured c/ comply with H&S requirments.
3/ We set a price structure [ probably based on man hours ] varients can be settled via pictures on this forum.
4/ We appoint a represntative [ commission based ] to approach national companies and tender for contracts. [ someone who's really good at it ]
5/ If contract won work, divided by area. paid centrally then commision deducted and spread to contractors .
The hard part would be to set all this in motion, the best bet would be to arrange a meeting around the Birmingham area all those interested attend [ dont attend dont take part ! ] then we could thrash out all the niggles.
I know i haven't covered everything and i'm sure "NEGATIVITY" will come into this , but i remember that song about the ants and the rubber tree plant [ yes i'm that old ] the basic premise is TOGETHER we can do anything. On our own we couldn't hope to compete with the nationals but collectively they couldn't hope to compete with us !
Let this run for a bit, and see where it goes if it looks like it's going pear shaped anyone seriously interested e-mail me .
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I like the idea ;D
Need to be financial viable for the end contractor and the guy thats getting the commision dealing with the contracts.
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I like the idea ;D
Need to be financial viable for the end contractor and the guy thats getting the commision dealing with the contracts.
Thats in the pricing structure ie £50 an hour, [ still prob cheaper than the nationals ] the guy getting commision if any good could make "serious" money.
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I like the idea ;D
Need to be financial viable for the end contractor and the guy thats getting the commision dealing with the contracts.
Thats in the pricing structure ie £50 an hour, [ still prob cheaper than the nationals ] the guy getting commision if any good could make "serious" money.
Sorry forgot to mention our overheads dont contain a/ much travel as is local ,and b / no middle management
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I'm definately up for giving it a go.
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Surely you would have to go under one name? Use all the companies idents and paperwork ect?
It would take a lot of work and time for someone to look after it and get the work. In theory its a good idea, but you would have to have the right person running it all! The problem also would be trust, trusting the other cleaners in the different counties as not to loose the contract and the guy chairing it!
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cant see it working all that well. all it would take would be for one lazy ass individual to make a balls of a job and everyone else would suffer the consequeces. national contracts can be very lucrative if the right approach is made and the service and quality is top notch. but with many different people trading as one there will be different standards of service and quality provided. people could at one point could rely on this work to put bread on their table and some joker who is part of the agreement decides to damn it up for everyone else and EVERYONE suffers the consequences.
sorry for the negatives guys but is a realistic picture of what will happen at some point
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I know mainland company comes over here to clean travel lodge(isle of wight) beats me ,must cost them a lot of money for the ferry alone!
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guys , look at the positives not the negatives , yes logisticaly could be a nightmare , or with a bit of common sense easy peasy , yes someone could mess up ! but look at the nationals i'm positive they mess up i've seen it time and time again i'll see a building /hotel etc that obviously hasn't being cleaned for years or had a crap job done and i'm told sorry it's a national contract, and i'm damm sure we could do a better job than someone who frankly works for someone else and doesn't give a f**k .
If it's a good earner it gets a good job. we care because it's OUR business not some national who treats the staff as numbers not people.
I get told "you dont half work for your money " WHY because it's MY money.
The plum jobs go to the nationals we can do a better job cheaper IF we get together . THINK about it.
Sorry down off my soap box now. :-[
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love windows has a great point...........
lets call him national windows ltd blah blah
im dave in kent
he gets a call for a job that im near to., gives me details,
i do the job, pay him agreed percentage cost. thats it, i put my money through my books like like im doing now, he put his through his books, no extra paperwork, insurance ect remain my problem.
those who cock up and dont do the job proper is removed from national window cleaners list.
if national windows ltd doesnt get paid by me for a set period of time he will ring client to check if i did the job, if i had he would remove me from the list. simple eventually he will build a list of solid reliable workers, bit like us with our honest paying custies.
theres a lot of firms out there who are getting very big, soon they are the peoples choice so its in our interest to join something like this and be genuine about it
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love windows has a great point...........
lets call him national windows ltd blah blah
im dave in kent
he gets a call for a job that im near to., gives me details,
i do the job, pay him agreed percentage cost. thats it, i put my money through my books like like im doing now, he put his through his books, no extra paperwork, insurance ect remain my problem.
those who cock up and dont do the job proper is removed from national window cleaners list.
if national windows ltd doesnt get paid by me for a set period of time he will ring client to check if i did the job, if i had he would remove me from the list. simple eventually he will build a list of solid reliable workers, bit like us with our honest paying custies.
theres a lot of firms out there who are getting very big, soon they are the peoples choice so its in our interest to join something like this and be genuine about it
Thats right B D , although i was thinking more along the lines of "lets say ASDA for example we say we'll do them all for £X then Joe Bloggs in Lancashire does all the ones in Lancs , Jack Jones in Cumbria does all the ones in Cumbria etc ,ASDA have 1 quarterly bill and no messing about with H&S or anything,and cheaper than a national . centrally commision taken out then paid out to Joe and Jack depending on number of cleans. We could even join together for really BIG jobs.
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i really do see what you are saying...really i do.
Hell i would even be willing to give it a bash, but u must look at the negatives as well as the positives to address the problems and deal with/discuss them.
Dont let haste take over. something of this magnitude will take lots and lots of planning BEFORE it gets put into action.
I would be willing to take care of the scotland side of the business and give it my all if requested.
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I don't think it would be a runner quite simply because of price. The current national companies charge a lot less than you might imagine. This is because they often do the general cleaning contract as well and make their money by adding a fairly small percentage onto the wage bill. I've even known it where the window cleaning gets thrown in free of charge to secure a contract. I saw £50 an hour mentioned on an earlier post. Dream on.
I'm not saying that this idea couldn't happen but the rate would be so low that you might not want it to happen.
Sorry to sound negative. Positive thinking is an excellent business tool but it has to be peppered with realism too.
I hope I'm wrong though.
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I don't think it would be a runner quite simply because of price. The current national companies charge a lot less than you might imagine. This is because they often do the general cleaning contract as well and make their money by adding a fairly small percentage onto the wage bill. I've even known it where the window cleaning gets thrown in free of charge to secure a contract. I saw £50 an hour mentioned on an earlier post. Dream on.
I'm not saying that this idea couldn't happen but the rate would be so low that you might not want it to happen.
Sorry to sound negative. Positive thinking is an excellent business tool but it has to be peppered with realism too.
I hope I'm wrong though.
I thought as you did , about a national doing internal cleans should be doing windows as well , but that is often not the case, a local company has internals and security by the same company who also do windows but the windows aren't done , i asked and was told they where too expensive. the normal cleaners wont / cant do the windows, my sil works for Indepth and told me the site she works in where binning Indepth for the windows because they had increased the price due to using WFP !
As for £50 per hour, that would be hard doing 5 £10 semis unless next to each other or same street, but generally doing commercials thats about right. ie office block taking about 6hrs to do =£300 quote or these new office buildings with 2 runs of glass up / down 1 hr =£50. Or am i DREAMING ON. ;D
My other point is WE quote what it's worth to us and if we dont get the job , ok fair enough, but if you quoted for a job out of the county where you are based you would include 1/ travel time 2/ travel cost 3/ pos accommadation, if it's on the doorstep you wouldn't.
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This is an idea that I considered and in fact have found a way of doing it but it's not as easy as some of you have made out. I was considering tendering for national work on this basis and have been working on putting control methods in place to ensure the scheme works. Rather than making rash desisions/comments on here I am getting the plan together and will post on the subject when I have crossed the t's and dotted the eyes so to speak. The other thing to consider is that no one yet has mentioned is that this idea is already being carried out by someone - laddersfree.
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what happened to the window cleaning mag
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I don't think it would be a runner quite simply because of price. The current national companies charge a lot less than you might imagine. This is because they often do the general cleaning contract as well and make their money by adding a fairly small percentage onto the wage bill. I've even known it where the window cleaning gets thrown in free of charge to secure a contract. I saw £50 an hour mentioned on an earlier post. Dream on.
I'm not saying that this idea couldn't happen but the rate would be so low that you might not want it to happen.
Sorry to sound negative. Positive thinking is an excellent business tool but it has to be peppered with realism too.
I hope I'm wrong though.
I thought as you did , about a national doing internal cleans should be doing windows as well , but that is often not the case, a local company has internals and security by the same company who also do windows but the windows aren't done , i asked and was told they where too expensive. the normal cleaners wont / cant do the windows, my sil works for Indepth and told me the site she works in where binning Indepth for the windows because they had increased the price due to using WFP !
As for £50 per hour, that would be hard doing 5 £10 semis unless next to each other or same street, but generally doing commercials thats about right. ie office block taking about 6hrs to do =£300 quote or these new office buildings with 2 runs of glass up / down 1 hr =£50. Or am i DREAMING ON. ;D
My other point is WE quote what it's worth to us and if we dont get the job , ok fair enough, but if you quoted for a job out of the county where you are based you would include 1/ travel time 2/ travel cost 3/ pos accommadation, if it's on the doorstep you wouldn't.
Don't get mr wrong. I'm not saying that you couldn't get that sort of rate on commercials. I achieve that (and a bit more) on some of my own commercial work. It was not achieved when the jobs were out for general tender though.
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Isn't all this what Aim High is trying to achieve as well?
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Are we going for it? ??? ??? ???
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I went in a Tescos and a branch of Barclays today and the windows were an absolute joke. There were runs everywhere and they were still dirty/partially done.
Someone is having a laugh here and I cant believe that these big firms put up with it.
If the Nationals are responsible for these cleans, if you can call them that, then I really think we should try and get these contracts ourselves nationally, and put them to shame.
Individually I dont think we would stand a chance but collectively we could become a force, and police quality ourselves.
Logistically yeah it would be a nightmare, but do-able.
I would be interested if this can take off, and can cover Norfolk, Suffolk, with others in this neck of the woods if they are interested.
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im sure we would all be intrested and i posted about this about 9 months ago but who has the conbtacts??? im sure if there is anyone with these contacts they would do it there self and sub it out??