[Neil Grainger]

Phone was so quiet today i thought it was broken.

Then at around 6 O'clock phone rings wanting their 4 bedroom house cleaning next friday before they put it out for rent.

All this came from a business card i gave to someone over a year ago in a chance meeting after finnishing a job that he was driving passed.

It just shows that you never no when people are going to call you.

A crap day turns into a ok day after just one call.

Sorry for this post, theirs not much on TV tonight.

[Spot On cleaning]

Had a job the other Sunday from a card i delivered to houses nearly two years ago. Customer said she would eventually need work done so put it to one side.

We made all these ourselves and after printing ten to a page, we laminated them. The cost was £2.49 for 25 Tesco laminating pouches and some white thickish card. For approx £3 we made 250 cards and they were not half bad being designed on a card making programme and being thnner than a normal card as well as laminated, they are quite robust.

This was something that we tried at the time.

Dave

[mark_roberts]

Did a job last month from a flyer delivered in 2002 and they asked for the offer on it which was expired, of course .

Was sitting outside a large house last week eating my lunch.  Woman of the house rings me and asks for a quote while I was eating!.  Gave a quote for £750 including protector and doing it next week (my biggest residential job ever).

Sometimes its amazing where the work comes from.

Mark

[Neil Grainger]

Lunch Mark, where do you get time to sit down.

[therapist]

Ironic !

I've been forced to virtually quit all cleaning, for serious health reasons and suddenly
I'm in heavy demand within my local area !

My local area is populated by, mainly professional people, a fair number of well known footballers, including three well known, TV and Radio pundits, but, when I started in c/c I targeted the high population areas, ignoring the local area, where C/ D was the usual choice.

This resulted in a high volume of work, at lower end prices which meant I probably earned more than the 'franchisees', but I WORKED EXTREMELY HARD.

What I failed to do.............was INVEST IN MYSELF by upgrading to better machines and take a little more confidence building training.

It's easy 'looking back' and correcting the faults, but we can't re claim 'time' and if we got it wrong/failed to change/were not ambitious enough, the clock catches up and our habits can rule the way we operate ..............but, habits can be changed.

Because c/c was always just a part of my activities, I made a decent living, but, if someone has GOT WHAT IT TAKES in business sense and attitude I would HIGHLY recommend this industry, as its one of the few that can be srarted with a very low outlay, has loads of training available and you can progress, quickly, by immersing yourself and focusing on the c/c exclusively

Waffling again !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

go to it people

rob m

[Ian Rochester]

I still get calls from people who have my original flyers from more than 3 years ago.

Because we are quite rurally based, rather than concentrating on carpet cleaning, we have diversified into other areas, primarily window cleaning but also leather cleaning, office cleaning, builders cleans, factory deep cleaning, hard floor cleaning, pressure washing and are now looking into fire restoration.

The phone is always ringing with someone wanting one or other of these services.  However, as some might think, we have not become jack of all trades master of none, each new area has been researched before being tackled, with serious investment in the right equipment and training.

I've got 2 lads going to do their Safety Passport in a couple of weeks for a major new cleaning contract.

You've got to keep your name out there in the public eye telling them what you can do for them....whether they need it or not!!

[Ian Gourlay]

Ian,

How do you cope wearing so many hats.


What proportion of the hands on do you do?

[John Kelly]

Although as Ian states he tackles a wide range of skills, basically it is all still under the umbrella of cleaning. The basic priciples are the same and the marketing to a degree can all be aimed at similar customers.
What you find when you do this is that when customers know you offer these other services they tend to make use of it.

[Ian Gourlay]

No Dispute as far as that goes.

I was told when i first started that we should look for anything that needs cleaning.

Ie Patio Chairs   Cars,Car interiors etc,
ETC

[Ian Rochester]

Ian

I still do a lot of hands on, mainly on the carpet cleaning and leather cleaning side.  As John says it is only one hat "Cleaning Services".  I tend to do all the estimates and meetings for commercial work but the lads who work for me have a lot of autonomy in pricing domestic jobs and scheduling work.  They know our pricing tables, they are paid piece rate and therefore only get paid a percentage of what they actually turnover.

In the majority of cases they are given a weekly workload (with a few fastballs thrown in throughout the week!) and they sort out the best way of getting through it.

The only exception to this is with our commercial contract cleaning which is obviously based on an hourly rate.

It works well