[birdymiller]

I used to strongly believe that i dictated when my custies got cleaned, when i got the old not today it looks like rain i used to drop them no problem. But in this climate and with the amount of new shiners about i am aware that if i let someone go they are going to get another cleaner on my rounds. So i am now big enough to accept that if they want to dictate when they want them doing that is fine. On one round in particular i let someone in on a street and over the past few years he has picked up alot of the houses where my custies have moved out and he has been the first shiner the new owner has seen. Every few years i am able to sell work because of the amount of work i pick up during this time. I think this is down to me being more flexible to my custies demands. in the past i would have lost their custom and needed to replace them.

[birdymiller]

I couldnt justify keeping all the commitments maintaing my wfp equipment just for the odd window. I dont have a house where i cant use trad, sure leadeds are more hastle trad style but i managed before. Wfp has a place i am sure but not for me even just for the odd awkward window.

[Joe Lauzon]

I used to strongly believe that i dictated when my custies got cleaned, when i got the old not today it looks like rain i used to drop them no problem. But in this climate and with the amount of new shiners about i am aware that if i let someone go they are going to get another cleaner on my rounds. So i am now big enough to accept that if they want to dictate when they want them doing that is fine.

+1  It has been a bitter pill to swallow.  I agree its the right way to play it right now, up to a certain point. 

[cat9921]

I used to strongly believe that i dictated when my custies got cleaned, when i got the old not today it looks like rain i used to drop them no problem. But in this climate and with the amount of new shiners about i am aware that if i let someone go they are going to get another cleaner on my rounds. So i am now big enough to accept that if they want to dictate when they want them doing that is fine. On one round in particular i let someone in on a street and over the past few years he has picked up alot of the houses where my custies have moved out and he has been the first shiner the new owner has seen. Every few years i am able to sell work because of the amount of work i pick up during this time. I think this is down to me being more flexible to my custies demands. in the past i would have lost their custom and needed to replace them.

birdymiller I used to think like that, If the custies is happy than I am happy  But I had a friend that fell off his ladder after 20 years of window cleaning and when he went to see his customers with a broken leg still in plaster to explain that he will not be able to go up a ladder and to give this WFP a go  : There was so many that said not to bother as they would get another window cleaner 

The problem with WFP as you said is it gives a mix of results it can take away your dignity if the windows do not come up clean then how can you feel that you are a window cleaner  is this how you felt  : I know I did and I used to hate collecting as I would see windows with spots 

But I remember reading a post about a window cleaner that said it was the best thing ever  : I thought how can it be that good when I am getting all these bad results 

Well 5 years on and thanks to this wonderful forum I can say now the same thing  .. There is definitely a skill to this WFP and if anybody says there is not then these are the people that say WFP is not as good as TRAD

you said it yourself that some windows come up brill, this just proves it and as for the windows that do not come up well these are the ones that you need to find out why and changing how you clean them

anyway all the best m8

Adders

[Paul Coleman]

Some great posts there.

Your right about finding the right customers Paul, but thats not easy to do in this climate.  At least thats my experience.  I found a number of people seemed resentful of what appeared on face value, quick and easy money.  Didn't help we just moved to a bigger house shortly after my change I don't think.

Regarding moving to customers who are happy with wfp.  Thats the one point I would question.  Some work I just don't want to lose, can't afford to lose.  Some jobs I can make great money using trad.  In those circumstances I don't want to push wfp, and I am more than happy to let the customer dictate the method.  Thin line though, I found you need to be aware who they know, and any nearby jobs.  Otherwise those less lucrative customers will also think they can dictate the method.  

What was great about pole for me, is it transformed so many of those less lucrative jobs.  The ones you put off till Friday, they became "cream".  I will never be one to use wfp 100% like so many here, but maybe thats because I'm a convertor rather than starting out with the pole.  So much of my business is tailor made for trad.

Points taken Joe.  I'm a "converter" too and ended up losing or dropping about 5% of the work over the first few months of WFP - particularly those link detached places where you need to go up and over the garage.
In one sense I was probably in a more fortunate position than you when I started WFPing as I had very few jobs that that I regarded as "must keep at all costs".  I had already lost a fair few of those in the preceding year when I needed a lot of time off sick.  So I was rebuilding at the time and any losses were just viewed by me as a job that could be replaced by something better.
I appreciate what you say about new, quality work being harder to come by these days.  Things do seem a little tougher out there - but then it suddenly goes manic and I pick up a few decent jobs in a couple of weeks without even looking for them.  I'm sure that if I looked harder I would get an influx of reasonable work.  I don't know if it makes a difference but I am in  southeast England so maybe it's still a bit more affluent than many areas.

[Paul Coleman]

move on to customers who are  happy with the method and results.

This is all very well paul! but what happens is the compact round you built up over the years starts to fall apart!

That is a potential siude effect I suppose James.  I had lost most of the compactness by the time I switched to WFP anyway.  This was due to needing a lot of time off sick c. 2003/2004.
In fact, my situation was so bad at the time that I seemed to be heading for financial oblivion.  Then I saw WFP in a new light.  I increased my indebtedness to tool up even though I was already heavily indebted.  It felt a bit like Custer's last stand.  It is paying off for me though.  I believe that if I had remained trad cleaning, I could have gone under financially.  Things still aren't brilliant but the dangerous period has passed and month on month my debt levels are reducing.
WFP saved my bacon.  It was desperation that forced me into standing my ground with certain customers.  I wish I had found assertiveness without the desperation though.  It may be that Joe, Birdy, and yourself haven't been in a situation where your financial survival depends on ensuring that there are no customers who are unprofitable.  Trust me on this.  When faced with such a situation, it really does focus the mind 

[darren clarke]

at the end of the day, this is business is YOUR business adn you run it how you want  if you want to go WFP then do it, so what if you lose a few custys  they where probably going to leave any way,  do the like of asda/mcdonalds worry about a few custys not coming in if they change something, ie what meat they sell, or weather they charge for parking at asda,  they aint bothered as there is enough custy out there

a lot of it is in the window cleaners mind, they have spent that long telling people that trad is best and they might look stupid if they suddendly turn up saying its great, 

[darren clarke]

when i first started and was trad, i ahd a custy who hated wfp as she had seen the bloke struggling with one high up in the air and wasnt impressed so didnt want it done on her house, when i changed over i didnt tell her and she seen me a few months ago doing it and didnt say any thing as she couldnt complain that her windows where clean,  majority of custy will trust you to do a job they just want clean windows and aint bothered how they are done

[geoffreyspecht]

About 2 and a half years ago i came on here looking to find a way of not having to rely on anyone with regards to having the ladder footed. 90% of my windows are run of the mill windows with no safety issues, they are this way because over the years i have built my round around safe low work. Had chances to build round in awkward areas but chose not to. For this 10% of work i thought wfp would solve the safety issue.

6 months later after alot of research i bought a pure freedom trolley. Just like you dazmond wfp the lot, i wasnt happy neither were custies. Came on here to get advice, decided to bring it in gradual on different rounds like you have been advised. I have around 900 customers and didnt want to lose many. So for the past 2 years i have been using wfp, found out on some work that it was easier to wfp and on some rounds trad was king. For me the flaw with wfp is that on some windows you can scrub and rinse and you will never get decent results. With trad i know that the windows are left without spots and runs. So for me the finished result with wfp is unpredictable.

I have a very busy round and have to work fast.The majority of my houses are priced at £3-£5 very compact every day i could park up in the morning and just return at dinner or at end of day. I dont have time to scrub and rinse. My customers dont pay for frame cleaning. Wfp will be advantageous to a one man band who has time to scrub and rinse and charge customers accordingly. I now dont have to load and reload van every day, worry about parts braking or batterey charging, hose splitting, poles being repaired, purifying water, wasting water. All this hastle that wfp brings is not worth it for the 10% of work that i need the ladder footing. My son is workiing with me now so dont get let down by anyone now.

Looking back i would have preferred to keep my grand that i lost and just told my custies "sorry im on my own today cant get that window as i need the ladder footing so i will knock 50p off your bill". Im 36 play sunday league football in an open age league and i am one of, if not the fittest players in my team. This is due to running up and down ladders all day. Sure i have aches and pains from the ladders and might have to slow down as i get older. By then i hope to have a round of bungalows or staff to use the ladder.

This type of thread doesnt go down to well with the 99.9% wfp guys but this isnt a dig at you. Wfp does work on alot of windows, but for me i want a system that works on all windows.

Dazmond you are just beginning mate, my advice to you would be seen as you have spent abit on your kit. Give it a go on a part of your round, chose a part where you have saftey issues. Do the tops only and trad bottoms. Turn your flow up and rinse really well. If you are happy with the results and the way you have to work with wfp keep it. If you are still not happy flog it and put it down to experience. Then you will be able to get of this website and relax and chill with your woman and forget about wfp!

how do u make a living charging £3to£5 a house

[karygate]

I used to strongly believe that i dictated when my custies got cleaned, when i got the old not today it looks like rain i used to drop them no problem. But in this climate and with the amount of new shiners about i am aware that if i let someone go they are going to get another cleaner on my rounds. So i am now big enough to accept that if they want to dictate when they want them doing that is fine. On one round in particular i let someone in on a street and over the past few years he has picked up alot of the houses where my custies have moved out and he has been the first shiner the new owner has seen. Every few years i am able to sell work because of the amount of work i pick up during this time. I think this is down to me being more flexible to my custies demands. in the past i would have lost their custom and needed to replace them.

birdymiller I used to think like that, If the custies is happy than I am happy  But I had a friend that fell off his ladder after 20 years of window cleaning and when he went to see his customers with a broken leg still in plaster to explain that he will not be able to go up a ladder and to give this WFP a go  : There was so many that said not to bother as they would get another window cleaner 

The problem with WFP as you said is it gives a mix of results it can take away your dignity if the windows do not come up clean then how can you feel that you are a window cleaner  is this how you felt  : I know I did and I used to hate collecting as I would see windows with spots 

But I remember reading a post about a window cleaner that said it was the best thing ever  : I thought how can it be that good when I am getting all these bad results 

Well 5 years on and thanks to this wonderful forum I can say now the same thing  .. There is definitely a skill to this WFP and if anybody says there is not then these are the people that say WFP is not as good as TRAD

you said it yourself that some windows come up brill, this just proves it and as for the windows that do not come up well these are the ones that you need to find out why and changing how you clean them

anyway all the best m8

Adders

finally seeing our point of view.now leave them ladders at home this week

the only people who moan about the quality are the same ones who moan about speed and pay.

[bobby p]

if i was going wfp,id buy a 30-60foot pole then search high and low for the very tall buildings only and go and target them. i reckon you could build a very good round easily  just by doing that .

[LQQK]

Is that a 30' pole or a 60' pole, there's a big difference

 

[bobby p]

way i see it is once over 30foot up thats the time the pole is essential and to me it seems a diffrent business once over 30 foot high .  personally i love trad work with ladders ,but each to their own  .

  but if i got it in my mind to buy a wfp id buy a minimum height of 30 footer pole  so i was forced to go for the high work only and im sure theres plenty of that around

[paul saunders]

There is lots of work that is over 30ft high, but that doesn't mean that it's available and that you will get it.  :

[Sseddon]

All this trad v wfp is strange. To me trad is chamois & scrim. To people here it's squegee & washing up liquid. If I had a customer that told me how I should work - as people are suggesting on this forum, I'd just drop them. If you were a taxi driver would you let the customer tell you how to drive?

[david watts]

if i was going wfp,id buy a 30-60foot pole then search high and low for the very tall buildings only and go and target them. i reckon you could build a very good round easily  just by doing that .
[
they will be just as bad if not worse all windows will have alloy frames te]

[formb]

All this trad v wfp is strange. To me trad is chamois & scrim. To people here it's squegee & washing up liquid. If I had a customer that told me how I should work - as people are suggesting on this forum, I'd just drop them. If you were a taxi driver would you let the customer tell you how to drive?

[Paul Coleman]

All this trad v wfp is strange. To me trad is chamois & scrim. To people here it's squegee & washing up liquid. If I had a customer that told me how I should work - as people are suggesting on this forum, I'd just drop them. If you were a taxi driver would you let the customer tell you how to drive?

Pretty much how I see it Steve.
Mind you, I could have done with being told how to drive the other day because I reversed into a skip.  One back door with more dents in - oops !!  Glad it's a 7 year old van that already had a few lumps out of it.  Must take more care when I eventually replace it 

[martinsadie]

All this trad v wfp is strange. To me trad is chamois & scrim. To people here it's squegee & washing up liquid. If I had a customer that told me how I should work - as people are suggesting on this forum, I'd just drop them. If you were a taxi driver would you let the customer tell you how to drive?

if a taxi driver was using his mobile with me in,i would tell him

[james44]

If I had a customer that told me how I should work - as people are suggesting on this forum, I'd just drop them

the goverment tell us everyday what we will be doing yet we still vote them in!