[L.J.Thorpe]

Started on wfp in april thanks to marcus had big doubts to start with (and i mean BIG) but 5 or so cleans in and it seems to be going ok. I have sorted most problems or just dropped prblem customers (2 so far) but now i have a new problem ie a big hole in my round!!!! . All the worry about will it work etc and a late october holiday distracted me from realising that my work rate had increased by about 25%. So now i need to do old fascia jobs or watch trisha for a few days while round catches up.Any advice on next step appreciated. Tender for commercial or slowly build resi not urgent because bills still get paid but nice to progress. Any advice welcome

[Londoner]

Get your boots on, walk the streets, leaflet, knock on doors, get more customers. Use it as an opportunity to get better customers.

There is no point in having a 25% increase in work rate if you don't comvert that into an increase in income.

[tonylee]

hi
 if your as happy with it as you say, your customers will be as well, mine were. i then got them to recommend me to their nieghbours (the ones who are normally at work). this helped me pick up a fair few in streets that i was already in.
as we know the results from one house water fed to next door with no service are staggering.
good luck
tony

[Sanity]

I offered every one who reccomended me a customer a quid off their next clean.  cheap but effective and have 5 extra customers...so far.

Also an advert in local community papers seems to work well...

[Paul Coleman]

Started on wfp in april thanks to marcus had big doubts to start with (and i mean BIG) but 5 or so cleans in and it seems to be going ok. I have sorted most problems or just dropped prblem customers (2 so far) but now i have a new problem ie a big hole in my round!!!! . All the worry about will it work etc and a late october holiday distracted me from realising that my work rate had increased by about 25%. So now i need to do old fascia jobs or watch trisha for a few days while round catches up.Any advice on next step appreciated. Tender for commercial or slowly build resi not urgent because bills still get paid but nice to progress. Any advice welcome

Tell me about it  
Before WFP I had a 6 weekly round (mostly) that I got through OK.  I didn't need to bust a gut but it wasn't exactly a skive either.  After maybe 4 times around with WFP, and after replacing the early dropout customers, I found that I had 2 weeks off in every 6.  In fact, if I compressed all my work together and worked extremely hard all the time, maybe it would STILL be 2 weeks off in 6.  If I had pushed myself a bit, I could have compressed the 5 days I worked last week into three.  However, even working at a reasonable pace, it is still one week and a bit off in 6.  This is with a lot more work than I had before too.  I did enjoy the rest for a while but decided I wanted to earn more money.  As I have acquired more work, I just find that I work harder and faster to keep a bit of time off.  Although there are some jobs where the time saving is minimal, there are others where I have quite literally halved the time taken.

[LWC]

i used to work with someone when i first got wfp, we had a tight mon to thur round that used to take us around 5 weeks trad

got the pole system and then it got done in like 3 weeks...we like...hmmm lol

anyway, im on my own now what i earn now in 1 day is like 3 times what i used to when i was trad. its no wonder yo get your work done quicker 

[Nathanael Jones]

Now's the time to go after those nice commercial jobs. I've been sending letters out to local companies, and the results so far have been great. The letters only went out last week (17 letters to start with) and I've been called in to quote 2 large jobs already.

[DASERVICES]

My advise do the odd jobs at high price like fascia cleaning, that is going to be the next big service around. If you look around at all the 1000's of new builds all with gleaming fascias that will need cleaning.

I do grasscutting in the summer and thought I would have a nice quiet winter, my order book is full till dec with fascia cleans. If Vikan could do an inverted oval shape brush I would be happy as it would make my job easier.

[L.J.Thorpe]

cheers for that all good input have considered several ways of approach on this and any comments welcome                                                                                                                                                         1.Advertise in services section of local paper lots of builders gardeners handymen but never a window cleaner however problem is people from 20 miles away in 2 bed terrace houses phoning up which then means you go and do them hoping to pick up more in that area and never do or you turn them down on phone and they think your a  and then tell their friends and neighbours                     

[Dean Aspects]

cheers for that all good input have considered several ways of approach on this and any comments welcome                                                                                                                                                         1.Advertise in services section of local paper lots of builders gardeners handymen but never a window cleaner however problem is people from 20 miles away in 2 bed terrace houses phoning up which then means you go and do them hoping to pick up more in that area and never do or you turn them down on phone and they think your a w***** and then tell their friends and neighbours                     

To stop the odd small job you could advertise that you have a minimum charge i.e £10.00 or whatever you feel comfortable with setting

Dean

[L.J.Thorpe]

sorry still getting used to this typing thing anyway option 2 is yellow pages same drawbacks as local paper. I have picked up some work from leafleting but never very good return for the effort involved one leaflet in alocal shopis easier and v effective . As for doorknocking i really have not considered it and dont think i would people knocking on my door trying tosell products or services get my back up but maybe iam just a miserable .Also anyone know where i can get a template letter for tendering for commercial work or a few pointers on how to word it layout etc cheers

[L.J.Thorpe]

Dean ta mate common sense i suppose do many people do the minimum charge thing and how does it go down with the punters

[Dean Aspects]

I now have a minimum charge of £10 but i am in the position that i really dont need any more work so if i am wanted then my price has to be paid or find someone else having said that i do still have jobs under this price but as my round is fluid when the opportunity arises then i will replace these jobs with more profitable work
This helps a bit with motivation also as doing the same houses month after month year after year is monotonous so a change of work is good keeps thing fresh just my opinion

Dean

[windowwashers]

Dean ta mate common sense i suppose do many people do the minimum charge thing and how does it go down with the punters

I have a min charge, started that a few years ago, punters dont like it sometimes, but then if they dont they dont have to use you.
My min charge was £6, but is changing again  in the new year.

[Paul Coleman]

Dean ta mate common sense i suppose do many people do the minimum charge thing and how does it go down with the punters

I've not found the customers to be a problem about minimum charge.  However, I did not impose it on existing customers.  Instead, with them, I have just put in larger increases than with my better priced work.