Very interesting agleam- about the audio business- and aj's comments.I'm glad you answered in a straight forward fashion and didn't think i was knocking you.A lot on this forum can't take any form of criticism.
As i've said i like books very much and am a huge reader.I was quite impressed with your business book titles but thought that audio books are expensive.If they were cheap i would get loads, but i would prefer to down load.
Are you saying that apples itunes platform and amazon are making this hard?
Some business models don't work so well when a couple of things change.It's gone the other way for us.Legislation, new technology, social changes have led to our job being very different from your dads.The main differences are:
* WFP- we can work quicker and one man bands can do huge buildings or factories on there own
*computers and the internet. Round scheduling software that runs your complete business means the houses needn't be compact and the frequencies can vary.Internet banking means no collecting which is a huge time saver.
*dual income syndrome, means many couples have a huge income but not much time, so takeaway pizzas, ironing services, and people like us thrive.
*lots of old people with big houses and good pensions
*more plastic windows and conservatories- more glass to clean than ever before.
Of course not everything is in our favour.There is lots of competition, and due to forums like this the comp is getting better informed.
I always wanted a degree, the best thing it gives you is the ability to think.The more 'thinking' you put into your window cleaning the better you'll do.As a general rule forget add ons such as proof reading, your hourly rate as a wc'er
should be matchless.If you ever end up in nick, writing letters for some of the lags can be quite a good game- but you'd have to introduce a few errors or the recipient would know it wasn't genuine.