[andyM]

Yep based in leeeds, not far from me.

a lot of my customers, friends and family have had the free clean leaflets.

I had an interview for a job with them a couple of years back, guy interviewing told me the owner has plans to go national with window cleaning so not surprising to see them on that path, seen loads of vans across the north, the area they cover is huge up here but i expect they will be nationwide soon.

First clean free is a damn good tactic if you can afford to pull it off which they obviously can, this isnt some dumb noob trying to pick up work its a large company who are succesfully growing with this tactic.

Should the average one man band be worried? of course not

As for their prices they are considered expensive around here, heard of the doing 4 bed detatcheds for £20  (this is yorkshire guys are doing these for under a tenner all day long up here)

Whilst I know nothing of this company and whether they are successful or not.
The strategy of offering any service for free to try to gain new business or oust competition is a hindbrain tactic and shows no business acumen or evolution whatsoever.
 

[SeanK]

Yep based in leeeds, not far from me.

a lot of my customers, friends and family have had the free clean leaflets.

I had an interview for a job with them a couple of years back, guy interviewing told me the owner has plans to go national with window cleaning so not surprising to see them on that path, seen loads of vans across the north, the area they cover is huge up here but i expect they will be nationwide soon.

First clean free is a damn good tactic if you can afford to pull it off which they obviously can, this isnt some dumb noob trying to pick up work its a large company who are succesfully growing with this tactic.

Should the average one man band be worried? of course not

As for their prices they are considered expensive around here, heard of the doing 4 bed detatcheds for £20  (this is yorkshire guys are doing these for under a tenner all day long up here)

Whilst I know nothing of this company and whether they are successful or not.
The strategy of offering any service for free to try to gain new business or oust competition is a hindbrain tactic and shows no business acumen or evolution whatsoever.

Plenty of companies offer freebies in the hope of winning your long term custom and it can work very well, five years ago I
got a £120 voucher from Sky and a years half price subscription and have been with them ever since.
Personally I cant see the incentive of one free clean making many dump a reliable shiner there just isn't enough incentive
to take the chance, its the same with undercutting other than the small amount of sole trading £500 an hour guys on here
there isnt enough wriggle room to tempt custom away.

[andyM]

Whilst I understand the point you are making SeanK, Sky tv is more of a niche market product and they can more or less influence their market prices to accommodate the special offers.

But back to window cleaning, I don't believe ANYONE has been successful in trying to go national with domestics and has made it work.
And lowering the financial value of the service is just going to lead to a race to the bottom.
I refer to my comment made earlier "Any idiot can sell something cheap!".......and I stand by it. 

 

[SeanK]

Whilst I understand the point you are making SeanK, Sky tv is more of a niche market product and they can more or less influence their market prices to accommodate the special offers.

But back to window cleaning, I don't believe ANYONE has been successful in trying to go national with domestics and has made it work.
And lowering the financial value of the service is just going to lead to a race to the bottom.
I refer to my comment made earlier "Any idiot can sell something cheap!".......and I stand by it. 

 

Tell that to the guys who started Poundstretcher,

[tlwcs]

Yep based in leeeds, not far from me.

a lot of my customers, friends and family have had the free clean leaflets.

I had an interview for a job with them a couple of years back, guy interviewing told me the owner has plans to go national with window cleaning so not surprising to see them on that path, seen loads of vans across the north, the area they cover is huge up here but i expect they will be nationwide soon.

First clean free is a damn good tactic if you can afford to pull it off which they obviously can, this isnt some dumb noob trying to pick up work its a large company who are succesfully growing with this tactic.

Should the average one man band be worried? of course not

As for their prices they are considered expensive around here, heard of the doing 4 bed detatcheds for £20  (this is yorkshire guys are doing these for under a tenner all day long up here)

Whilst I know nothing of this company and whether they are successful or not.
The strategy of offering any service for free to try to gain new business or oust competition is a hindbrain tactic and shows no business acumen or evolution whatsoever.

Plenty of companies offer freebies in the hope of winning your long term custom and it can work very well, five years ago I
got a £120 voucher from Sky and a years half price subscription and have been with them ever since.
Personally I cant see the incentive of one free clean making many dump a reliable shiner there just isn't enough incentive
to take the chance, its the same with undercutting other than the small amount of sole trading £500 an hour guys on here
there isnt enough wriggle room to tempt custom away.

So did I but, every year at renewal I cancel. Then then offer me all sorts of deals to stay. Only once in 10 years have I lost the service and used free view but within 3 months I've had another "deal"

if they can do it cheap to start, I ain't paying much or anymore. 😀

[Gerald Ash]

When I started I learnt very quickly that free cleans are not the way to go but reduced rate worked well. I now know the absolute way to build a round is quality of work and service.  At the start I thought give it six months ill have a round and earn thousands a month but as we all know the good customers are a rare breed. Free cleans will bring the bad ones out in droves and the good ones won't even bother.

[Smudger]

National domestic will never happen, simply not enough in it to cover all the overheads etc...

Besides 25 million homes in the uk, say half would use a windy, if you say an average round is 300 homes you would need over 40,000 employees to service the uk.

Darran

[SeanK]

Yep based in leeeds, not far from me.

a lot of my customers, friends and family have had the free clean leaflets.

I had an interview for a job with them a couple of years back, guy interviewing told me the owner has plans to go national with window cleaning so not surprising to see them on that path, seen loads of vans across the north, the area they cover is huge up here but i expect they will be nationwide soon.

First clean free is a damn good tactic if you can afford to pull it off which they obviously can, this isnt some dumb noob trying to pick up work its a large company who are succesfully growing with this tactic.

Should the average one man band be worried? of course not

As for their prices they are considered expensive around here, heard of the doing 4 bed detatcheds for £20  (this is yorkshire guys are doing these for under a tenner all day long up here)

Whilst I know nothing of this company and whether they are successful or not.
The strategy of offering any service for free to try to gain new business or oust competition is a hindbrain tactic and shows no business acumen or evolution whatsoever.

Plenty of companies offer freebies in the hope of winning your long term custom and it can work very well, five years ago I
got a £120 voucher from Sky and a years half price subscription and have been with them ever since.
Personally I cant see the incentive of one free clean making many dump a reliable shiner there just isn't enough incentive
to take the chance, its the same with undercutting other than the small amount of sole trading £500 an hour guys on here
there isnt enough wriggle room to tempt custom away.

So did I but, every year at renewal I cancel. Then then offer me all sorts of deals to stay. Only once in 10 years have I lost the service and used free view but within 3 months I've had another "deal"

if they can do it cheap to start, I ain't paying much or anymore. 😀

Exactly but at the end of the day getting you on the cheap is better than not getting you at all, they still get enough to make it
worthwhile. I do the same by the way.
But as I said in my original post there isn't enough in window cleaning for that sort of business plan to work, your not going
to get a sensible customer for a one off free clean.

[SeanK]

National domestic will never happen, simply not enough in it to cover all the overheads etc...

Besides 25 million homes in the uk, say half would use a windy, if you say an average round is 300 homes you would need over 40,000 employees to service the uk.

Darran

Not to mention the amount of 50inch flats screens that would be needed to keep track of them.

[Smudger]

 

[Perfect Windows]

So big they're using that picture of the most famous conservatory roof in the world on their website.  The one that appears on 50% of window cleaner's websites.  Can't even manage one of their own:

http://www.ukwindowclean.com/free-clean-offer.html

And their gallery features three people. 

They may well be taking a long-term view and covering outlying areas at a loss, of course, with the aim of growing into the areas they claim to cover.

Vin

[8weekly]

Yep based in leeeds, not far from me.

a lot of my customers, friends and family have had the free clean leaflets.

I had an interview for a job with them a couple of years back, guy interviewing told me the owner has plans to go national with window cleaning so not surprising to see them on that path, seen loads of vans across the north, the area they cover is huge up here but i expect they will be nationwide soon.

First clean free is a damn good tactic if you can afford to pull it off which they obviously can, this isnt some dumb noob trying to pick up work its a large company who are succesfully growing with this tactic.

Should the average one man band be worried? of course not

As for their prices they are considered expensive around here, heard of the doing 4 bed detatcheds for £20  (this is yorkshire guys are doing these for under a tenner all day long up here)

Whilst I know nothing of this company and whether they are successful or not.
The strategy of offering any service for free to try to gain new business or oust competition is a hindbrain tactic and shows no business acumen or evolution whatsoever.

but they have dozens of vans on the road, so obviously they have some level of acumen.

perhaps theyve done there figures and research and worked out they can offer free cleans  and take the obvious hit of messers nd still be worth it long term?

i dont know the answer either, but the proof is usually in the pudding and there pudding seems to pretty big to me


And shame on you guys for saying its not possible to go nationwide or that it cant be done.

anything is possible, especially in window cleaning, its not difficult to go national, its extremely hard butnot difficult, its very simple if you can build one round you can build 5, if you can employ 10 people you can employ 100,00. if you can cover your city you cover your county, etc etc, easy peasy

I agree with that mostly. The only thing to bear in mind is those idiots on Dragon's Den that had about a 15% margin.

[Shane sharples]

Iv just been told by a good source ...... The owner of this business is lee pryors .... Looks like he was telling  the truth after all 😱

[slap bash]

I have from time to time seen many of the deals and don`t really understand the misguide market behind freebees. The principal of having a goal behind a promotion just does not stand up with freebies. Anyone taking up the challenge of this type market has not guaranteed of future business. All they do guarantee is a disturbed market when they fail and the startup leaves the industry.
 I think the reason why we have so many trying this method of marketing is because it`s the first venture for so many starting up in any business. And so little do any research before committing to go into business because they believe they have very little to loose if they fail.

[Lee Pryor]

It's just some bloke in his bedroom who if he gets an enquiry will start phoning local windies begging them to be part of his network of barely employed windies. No need to panic,

Concerned if hes in his parents home in his bedroom with a 50" tv spying onhis worker in my area.....

I had to laugh!