[Clive McDonald]

I'm doing some work on this in the next week or so and wondered if anyone wanted to share info?

More by email than on here as i'm a bit shy about some things.This is more about branding than anything, things are getting tough out there and i am going to expand in a big way.

I was hoping that WW and dave st ives might be game.I look at how they do things and tell them what i think (obviously with the aid of a textbook).

It's a bit cheeky because they are both lots bigger than me.

[Andy@w.c.s]

Allways good to bounce things around

if you like i would be more than happy to chat and share ideas

Andy

[darren clarke]

what r u regarding as marketing,  getting more work or geting your name out there

[Clive McDonald]

I've always read and implemented business books.The one i'm using for this is called the referal engine.


Just tried to find you andy.Your competiition is red hot.


As you say bouncing is good even if you don't agree.

[Andy@w.c.s]

find me ?  did you do a google search
As regards the competition there is a lot of us down here but still enough to go round

[Clive McDonald]

yes, think i found you in something called mole but no email.Prism etc are all pretty(scarily) good from an ideas perpective.

[Clive McDonald]

you can take it down i've subbed an enquiry with my email.

[mikecam]

I'm doing some work on this in the next week or so and wondered if anyone wanted to share info?

More by email than on here as i'm a bit shy about some things.This is more about branding than anything, things are getting tough out there and i am going to expand in a big way.

I was hoping that WW and dave st ives might be game.I look at how they do things and tell them what i think (obviously with the aid of a textbook).

It's a bit cheeky because they are both lots bigger than me.

Branding or Marketing you want to discuss? They're both very different things, i'm sure you're aware of this (or possible disagree) but you have lumped them together. Its interesting that you have plans to expand in a big way when you acknowlege things are tough so you must have some sort of plan prior to discussing it here? But to keep it brief and to the point i believe for this job many traditional buisness ideas do not work.
 There's a reason that Greg Avinou is a nationwide commercial cleaning brand that most won't of heard of and its the same reason that people in Liverpool hav'nt heard of Dave and his cornish window cleaning buisness. Can you guess what it is, and its not down to advertising?
 And i hav'nt read any buisness or self help books !!!

[Moderator David@stives]

Hi Clive

I am still learning myself, but would love a chat sometime, I know you are phone shy but if you want to progress you have to overcome that.

Mike

I cant guess what it is, I would love to know though.

[mikecam]

Mike

I cant guess what it is, I would love to know though.

Dead easy that mate, its called 'Networking'. And thats the crux of it, it works on all levels.
Commercial work which entails usually one contact point for multiple works across the country only needs the service provider to liase with the person responsible for the cleaning of the 'groups' facilities and the result is an expasion by the service provider .Mostly picked for 'value' and not brand name recognition. One contact has been responsible for generating a large amount of work.
 Now, when nationals can unpick how to give value and brand name recognition and the added bonus that local familiarity brings to residential work we'll all be working for nationals doing residential.
 To give a crude example, you could sub me a commercial job local to me and try as i might i would never get it myself as the contacts are not in my network, and the local contacts do not pull the strings. Now apply that to residential work, try sub me a local residential job and see how long you would keep it? Thats if you got it in the first place being so far away. OK, exaggerated example i know but you get the gist.

[Clive McDonald]

I agree with all that.Dave already does lots that i do not do in terms of accreditation and yes, networking.I sm only concerned at the moment with certain aspects,taken as a whole subject i am not even on the radar.

The reason i have the cheek to mention this is that i have record of being good at things particularly when it involves figuring things out from first principles. I don't mind that you find this 'textbook knowledge' inferior to 'real life', and i do agree what window cleaning is different in some ways.

Things are tough out there, and never more so for entry level businesses that have lots of hopefull new starters, that's why i'm reluctant to share some of the advanced stuff.(yes i know i still expect to be filled in on how bigger ops go about things).

If i can just give you one 'textbook' example.The book says that not all customers are good ones, a retailer has no use for shoplifters just because they've come throught the door and have money in their pocket.We have to target what are 'our' best customers.One way of doing this is with a compelling brand story- most usually ben and jerry, starbucks, or southwest airlines are given as examples.

Translate this to window cleaning and it gets harder.It's not a subject that customers expect to find either interesting or
compelling or engaging.Dave has a very good story about a sponge a bucket and a holiday park that i think he could make better use of, the only other example i can think of is the two lads off dragons den, thier story is they are determined to be the biggest in the UK.That's more about them becoming rich, and i can't see too many empathsising but obviously they are makling a brilliant impact.

In your own life you've probably found certain businesses that you just 'have' to do business with.When you become one of these yourself it's a great feeling because customers are no longer picking you on price alone.

Okay, that's probably where a few of us are at, but if you can turn this into a science there are opportunities for rapid growth with hardly any effort aside from an intellectual one.

I can see there is not much real interest in this.I just thought i'd mention it.

[Window Washers]

Clive this is an interesting topic, one I love  feel free to email me anytime. on design@

[mikecam]

I don't mind that you find this 'textbook knowledge' inferior to 'real life', and i do agree what window cleaning is different in some ways.

I don't mean it to come across that, most sales/marketing or whatever is as you say a science. I'm not so sure its been worked out for our service yet.

[Clive McDonald]

I'm saying you can come up with your own story.To use Dave as an example his empasise on training,crb, safe contractor accreditation, networking, having both well known iconic buildings and iconic customers that he cleans for all adds a buzz to his business that sparks across to commercial customers because everyone wants a part of a winner and thats the way his pro,fessionalism comes across.

However, it is possible that his domestic customers would respond better to his story about a sponge and a bucket.After all Marks and spencer still bang on about their market stall in leeds indoor market.

So the story is part one, and then a clever way of  leverageing this is part two, and the great thing is that you only get the customers that you want.

Anyway i'm on this for the next two weeks- with my text book-

Cheers Clive