Very strange business model. An intelligent guy spends three years studying and acquires a huge amount of knowledge about a subject. Rather than employ or franchise, decides to sell his intellectual property, all he has learnt for approx £250.00 .
We now have at least 55 sub-contractors...tomorrows contractors, available to sell on or use all that has been taught.I can see websites being made now with "fully certified and approved" in their headings.
Ironically Steve cannot do this...the HSE frown upon self certification.
I am waiting for the first of them to put the information in writing and selling it. It could be a nice Christmas bonus for some one.
The certified can now be teachers!!
To get this info for that money, seems like a bargain to me.
With franchising and employment, the franchisees and employed are desperate for the franchisor or employer to succeed, with this model the sub contractors are hoping for the demise of the contractor, to step in his boots.
Like I said...strange business model.
Nick, interesting comments. We do employ. Two years ago there was just me. Now there is 8 of us. Three in the office and five on tools. That's not bad growth in two years I don't think.
It was too early in the business development to previously look into franchising. Franchises usually require a degree of company and industry history before anyone is willing to become a franchisee. That attitude is changing as the industry develops though. Like everything else I talk, about in public on here, I will not go into detail, but that is changing too. A lot of people on here said I would never get a training course up and running, let alone get anyone to come on it....
I could not and to a degree still cannot grow my business fast enough without considerable cost or risk. Going down the route I have still carries a degree of risk. What is to stop Og coming on here and telling all for example? Nothing. But I have weighed up that risk and made our business proposition good enough so that others want to protect it and the Clean Solar Solutions brand as much as I do. I have sacrificed the 'me' for the 'we' and our Approved Contractors now do the same.
Self-interest is not as strong as collective-interest. Alone we are one drop of rain, but together we are an ocean. My employed staff and our Approved Contractors know that if we all work together, we all win.
You say you can see websites being made now with 'fully certified and approved' on them. Guess what's? They are already out there, shed loads of them. People who claim to be 'fully trained' for solar panel cleaning, which puzzles me because the only place you can get trained is with us and they are not our Approved Contractors! But we do get great joy in quoting from these websites during the afternoon session of the training day and reducing their ACTUAL knowledge of solar panel cleaning through either their pictures or outrageous claims that they make on their website.
On the training days, I do not sell 'information'. Some information money cannot buy and some information is not worth selling. What I do sell is a business proposition which makes my brand and company stronger than it already is. I sell a formula that makes it in the interest of the Approved Contractor to promote Clean Solar Solutions. If Clean Solar Solutions win, so do the Approved Contractors. We all win.
That's far superior to selling 'information'.
Anyway, if you go back to the beginning of this thread, you'll see that didn't want to talk about the training. We still have need for subcontractors in some areas though with work GUARANTEED. Penrith, Carlisle, Newcastle upon Tyne and Manchester have now gone, but Liverpool and Birkenhead is still a good sized area still available, among a few other places.