[sunshine windows]

I love taking them back, just up the price considerably.

[capn sparkle]

Whether you are short of work or not, in my opinion it is best to drop customers like these. That way you are under no illusions as to the value of your work and on a daily basis you don't have "not today thank you"s. Unless you are very thick skinned, they sap your spirit and confidence as a new starter. To me they have virtually from day one been an immediate dump. The only difference now is that I don't feel the need to put up a post about it although I do get annoyed at times for 5 minutes. That's not meant as a criticism, just giving DM a note of optimism for the future.

In terms of getting to that point, you need to be confident that work will continue to flood in. That won't just happen. You need to be marketing.

Just to clarify 8weekly - I have been around a long time.  For most years after the first two, my round has been oversubscribed.  It's weird how it all evolved.  My slightly over subscribed traditional round became a round with quite large gaps after switching to WFP - due to the increased speed of working.  I never really got around to closing those gaps because I ended up doing loads of regular, subcontracted commercial work down the years - meaning that the gaps in my own work didn't seem so important.  As the subcontracted work was from four separate sources, my eggs appeared to be spread around the baskets - i.e. if one source dried up it wouldn't be an issue.  Unfortunately, after a few years, three of the sources stopped in quick succession - a situation that would not have been easy to predict.  So I'm left with a bit of subcontract work, maybe 60% of a residential round and some commercial work of my own.  Because I haven't been chasing work for many years, fresh enquiries are thin on the ground.  Also, referrals from most of my existing customers already happened many years ago.  I feel a bit foolish being in this situation after being around so long but it could have happened to anyone I suppose.  Leafletting brings in the usual quota of maybe 4 or 5 enquiries per thousand - with 2 or 3 turned into regular jobs.  So I'm faced with the prospect of canvassing - something I've hardly done since the mid 90s.  Although canvassed customers don't stick as easily as leafletted ones, at least they are in greater quantity and assist the more immediate cashflow.
I believe the way forward for me in the next three months is to finish work a bit earlier, go home and freshen up, then go out canvassing from maybe 5.30 till 7.30 maybe three nights a week.  Even if I manage one new customer per hour that would be 6 per week x 13 weeks = 78 new customers.  Obviously there will be a drop-off rate and I will need to dump a few - but that may be balanced by picking up new customers who see me working.
I do have confidence in the system and the numbers game - I've done it all before.  I once had nearly 500 customers in the mid 90s - over half of them were messers; so even being a bit light on work right now, I do appreciate quality over quantity.  78 new domestic customers would be a full round for me and I might even struggle to keep up to date in winter.

Reading your post tells me that you will be fine in the future - experienced, eloquent and have a simple solution to deal with the messers...

Good luck fella

[richard groves]

I love taking them back, just up the price considerably.

Everybody seems to say that on here, but unless it was under priced to begin with, why ?
Say you're a customer with virgin but sky has a deal on so you jump ship to them, 6 months down the line you're having issues or the cheap deal has ended and you want to go back to virgin but to teach you a lesson they will only take you back if they up your bill by 50%. would you accept that ?
Of course you wouldn't.
Maybe its because you don't want their business and regard them now as a messer, I take a slightly different approach that I am just one of many service providers. As my previous post we can all be fickle customers and I can never take for granted that my income as a self employed person is safe, I'd do all I can to retain my customers, even the returning ones.

[Paul Coleman]

Whether you are short of work or not, in my opinion it is best to drop customers like these. That way you are under no illusions as to the value of your work and on a daily basis you don't have "not today thank you"s. Unless you are very thick skinned, they sap your spirit and confidence as a new starter. To me they have virtually from day one been an immediate dump. The only difference now is that I don't feel the need to put up a post about it although I do get annoyed at times for 5 minutes. That's not meant as a criticism, just giving DM a note of optimism for the future.

In terms of getting to that point, you need to be confident that work will continue to flood in. That won't just happen. You need to be marketing.

Just to clarify 8weekly - I have been around a long time.  For most years after the first two, my round has been oversubscribed.  It's weird how it all evolved.  My slightly over subscribed traditional round became a round with quite large gaps after switching to WFP - due to the increased speed of working.  I never really got around to closing those gaps because I ended up doing loads of regular, subcontracted commercial work down the years - meaning that the gaps in my own work didn't seem so important.  As the subcontracted work was from four separate sources, my eggs appeared to be spread around the baskets - i.e. if one source dried up it wouldn't be an issue.  Unfortunately, after a few years, three of the sources stopped in quick succession - a situation that would not have been easy to predict.  So I'm left with a bit of subcontract work, maybe 60% of a residential round and some commercial work of my own.  Because I haven't been chasing work for many years, fresh enquiries are thin on the ground.  Also, referrals from most of my existing customers already happened many years ago.  I feel a bit foolish being in this situation after being around so long but it could have happened to anyone I suppose.  Leafletting brings in the usual quota of maybe 4 or 5 enquiries per thousand - with 2 or 3 turned into regular jobs.  So I'm faced with the prospect of canvassing - something I've hardly done since the mid 90s.  Although canvassed customers don't stick as easily as leafletted ones, at least they are in greater quantity and assist the more immediate cashflow.
I believe the way forward for me in the next three months is to finish work a bit earlier, go home and freshen up, then go out canvassing from maybe 5.30 till 7.30 maybe three nights a week.  Even if I manage one new customer per hour that would be 6 per week x 13 weeks = 78 new customers.  Obviously there will be a drop-off rate and I will need to dump a few - but that may be balanced by picking up new customers who see me working.
I do have confidence in the system and the numbers game - I've done it all before.  I once had nearly 500 customers in the mid 90s - over half of them were messers; so even being a bit light on work right now, I do appreciate quality over quantity.  78 new domestic customers would be a full round for me and I might even struggle to keep up to date in winter.

Reading your post tells me that you will be fine in the future - experienced, eloquent and have a simple solution to deal with the messers...

Good luck fella

Thank you for the kind words Capn Sparkle.

[Paul Coleman]

I love taking them back, just up the price considerably.

Everybody seems to say that on here, but unless it was under priced to begin with, why ?
Say you're a customer with virgin but sky has a deal on so you jump ship to them, 6 months down the line you're having issues or the cheap deal has ended and you want to go back to virgin but to teach you a lesson they will only take you back if they up your bill by 50%. would you accept that ?
Of course you wouldn't.
Maybe its because you don't want their business and regard them now as a messer, I take a slightly different approach that I am just one of many service providers. As my previous post we can all be fickle customers and I can never take for granted that my income as a self employed person is safe, I'd do all I can to retain my customers, even the returning ones.

I have an awful tendency to not increase prices enough myself.  So, in the case of a returning customer, it will often be the case that I ended up with their price a bit low - so I re-price at the rate I would quote for a new customer.  I regard not putting up the prices frequently enough as an unofficial "loyalty bonus" and the act of cancelling wipes that out.  It's unlikely that the new price would be more than £2 or £3 above the price when they cancelled but it can certainly be justified if the price has not increased for a long time.

[richard groves]

I love taking them back, just up the price considerably.

Everybody seems to say that on here, but unless it was under priced to begin with, why ?
Say you're a customer with virgin but sky has a deal on so you jump ship to them, 6 months down the line you're having issues or the cheap deal has ended and you want to go back to virgin but to teach you a lesson they will only take you back if they up your bill by 50%. would you accept that ?
Of course you wouldn't.
Maybe its because you don't want their business and regard them now as a messer, I take a slightly different approach that I am just one of many service providers. As my previous post we can all be fickle customers and I can never take for granted that my income as a self employed person is safe, I'd do all I can to retain my customers, even the returning ones.

I have an awful tendency to not increase prices enough myself.  So, in the case of a returning customer, it will often be the case that I ended up with their price a bit low - so I re-price at the rate I would quote for a new customer.  I regard not putting up the prices frequently enough as an unofficial "loyalty bonus" and the act of cancelling wipes that out.  It's unlikely that the new price would be more than £2 or £3 above the price when they cancelled but it can certainly be justified if the price has not increased for a long time.

I'm just the same David, I think the way you've just explained it is a justifiable price increase.