[John F]

yeah. you could offer dog walking and room decoration  too. after school english lessons and hair colour classes as well. come on lads. lets concentrate on doing what we are good at and put some customers into our areas that we work in.

branching out into other things is great when you have too much of your main business full. try to be everything to everyone and you end up running around in circles and achieving nothing. its about doing what you are good at. not about being a jack of all trades and master of none.

Every post ive read from you Sir John F has been negative, and have yet seen you agree with anyone else.

Top bloke

i am gutted you feel that way.

[VSP Home Care]

Guys I understand your comments about Jack's of all trades etc, but we are not window cleaners, that just happens to be one of the many services we offer.  Between myself and my partner we cover a fair few trades, we refer to ourselves as property maintenance and improvements.

Almost anyone can cut a lawn, but knowing how to do it properly is a little different as I pointed out earlier to someone.  It's certainly not something that you can't learn yourself 

Personally I'd rather spend one whole day at an amazing property cutting a gorgeous lawn, cleaning the window's and jet washing their drive etc, the feeling we get when we look at our work is worth the effort.

We intend to spend this year building a round up to no more than 2-3 flat out days a week, we are leaving the rest of the week for other work.  Like I say, I'm sure there is more money in compact windows only work, but Money is not my primary objective.  I recently left a 40k office job in IT that made me very ill, money does not make you happy 

When I'm on a nice lawn sweating away in the sun I think about nothing at all, apart from doing a nice job and that makes me a very happy chap 

[VSP Home Care]

Vsp i have loads in chislehurst. what area are you from??

Hi Mick, I was following your post the other day about new ash green with interest, I'm based in Greenhithe (Bluewater)  And my colleague is based very close to where we were yesterday, we should chat Mick, if you're the man that's covering that area you're doing very well old chap.  I had no complaints from any of the large properties, we even tried the few little estates and they said it was very well covered.

I have friends in Southborough road that live in a nice little place, they said it would be tough as they are always being canvassed.

We did have quite a few interested people regarding our lawn care work though, mainly the bigger houses off Southborough road turnings, and a few up those un tarmacked roads.  Stunning properties, I've not been there in over 20 years, used to work in some huge nursing homes back then covering plumbing and electrics before the day's of the 17th edition qualification.

[VSP Home Care]

VSP -good to hear youre out there mate. your mix of jobs will stand u in good stead and you wont get bored neither. you could also offer lawn feeding as an add on

We do Bobby, Scarifying at the start and end of the year, preceded by treatment to kill off the moss etc, then top dressing and re seeding  

Us English love a nice garden mate  

I like to see a nice clean house with sparkling windows, but a well kept garden does it for me.  And there's no use in having a beautiful garden if your windows are so filthy you can't see it either  

[andyatkinson]

richy wilts... no ideas, i saw you asking a question... dont even think about lawns!!!! 

[roundbuilder]

Vsp i have loads in chislehurst. what area are you from??

Hi Mick, I was following your post the other day about new ash green with interest, I'm based in Greenhithe (Bluewater)  And my colleague is based very close to where we were yesterday, we should chat Mick, if you're the man that's covering that area you're doing very well old chap.  I had no complaints from any of the large properties, we even tried the few little estates and they said it was very well covered.

I have friends in Southborough road that live in a nice little place, they said it would be tough as they are always being canvassed.

We did have quite a few interested people regarding our lawn care work though, mainly the bigger houses off Southborough road turnings, and a few up those un tarmacked roads.  Stunning properties, I've not been there in over 20 years, used to work in some huge nursing homes back then covering plumbing and electrics before the day's of the 17th edition qualification.

I do loads on that estate by Bluewater too, all off Sanderling way if thats where you are on about, a nice little area that, just a lot of rear access issues there. yea be good to have a chat i go to the asda cafe about 3 times a week up your way if you fancy breaky 1 morning.

[VSP Home Care]

Drop me an e-mail Mick and I'll try and pop in one day for a cuppa, I'm not in my area all next week though 

[CLEANCARE WC]

VSP -good to hear youre out there mate. your mix of jobs will stand u in good stead and you wont get bored neither. you could also offer lawn feeding as an add on

We do Bobby, Scarifying at the start and end of the year, preceded by treatment to kill off the moss etc, then top dressing and re seeding  

Us English love a nice garden mate  

I like to see a nice clean house with sparkling windows, but a well kept garden does it for me.  And there's no use in having a beautiful garden if your windows are so filthy you can't see it either  

    

[VSP Home Care]

Well it looks like it might have been a good idea after all    Got one and that's a start I suppose, has to be a £30 job so it's worth having.

Never give up 

[AC Window Cleaning]

Another dog muck dangerzone is a lawn,you wait til you put your strimmer through a big steamer,not good lol

[richard jagger]

I think you have got your foot in the door. I would just keep leafleting all the time offering all my services and give them some detail of what the service can achieve.If its a good area do a glossy leaflet.and drop it every month I have this this with good results.Keep bombing the same area they will give in. Area like this are worry about trust so use your one customer as a example to others but don't use names only address in passing not on leaflet. 

[VSP Home Care]

Cheers Wiz    We will have to get back out there and hit the streets we missed now, see if a couple more will come our way. 

How you getting on with project x?

[H2GoKent]

A lot of those people in houses have got those houses because they know the value of money.
I have large houses and small ones and frankly the small ones are more profitable per hour.
I know where you mean I used to have work on the Farnborough Park estate, beautiful place but tight so and sos most of them, and they have people knocking every week.
That of course is for window cleaning, the other services I don't know about.

But a big house is an obvious draw for people canvassing

[VSP Home Care]

That's very true Sparklebright, like moths to a lamp I'd think.  Hopefully we will pick up some Lawn work as well and that should make it worth our while 

[GDwindowcleaning]

From a canvassing point of view I would much rather hit an estate with average houses, you can get round more. Its all about speaking to as many people as possible in the time available. And as someone else said good dense work can achieve much higher hourly rates than the so called big jobs....

[VSP Home Care]

Yes I agree with you on that, although we are going in a slightly different direction hopefully.  We are aiming for 4-5 customers a day including lawn and garden work.  £50 minimum is our target per customer.  In that area 50 for your windows and lawn can be good value for the customer and ok for us as well.  I know people that live there and they have a tiny garden really and a small 4 bed detached and they pay 50 for the two and consider it cheep 

[GDwindowcleaning]

The only flaw is if they have a window cleaner already and they are happy with them its unlikely they will dump them to let you do both....

I have no idea on this so just asking but do people really pay a gardener all year?

100 customers a month sounds achievable though if there are plenty of houses that size in the area...

[richard jagger]

I think the biggest challenge is dealing with customers of means.AS one can feel a little intimidated. One needs to feel comfortable working with them. 

[GDwindowcleaning]

It can be tough dealing with money, I would never feel inferior in any company but its how they treat you. I wouldnt work for anyone who looked down on me, but thats just a personal thing.

That said they are not all like that....

[scott12345]

Only thing with the posh folks they dont want to pay the money there tight thats why there loaded lol