Ok so today I picked up a new customer by way of recommendation by a friend of hers, who has been a customer for a few years.
Got paid in advance, cleaned away, new customer delighted. This afternoon I noticed another window cleaning van, 11 plate, signwritten, looked the biz. I tried to get eye contact and gave a friendly wave. No response. Never mind.
As I was about to drive away having finished for the day, one of the 2 guys in the van came over and warned me to keep off the estate as he had been working there for 25 years and that I had canvassed his work. (The new customer apparently had been one of his).
I told him that I am going to work wherever I please, and no, I didn't canvass his customer, she came to me via recommendation, and that, to me is fair game.
Cutting a long story short, he went round to the customer to have it out with her. I went home, then later decided to pay her a visit myself, as I was a little concerned he would use bully boy tactics on her. As it turned out, he had, although she was equal to it, and told him where to go, and she also told me that as she was still so angry with him, she's going to phone him tomorrow and have another go at him!
John