[Shaun_Ashmore]

remember that when you are busy to keep on advertising then you will always remain busy lots of us get marketing lazy !

Like Doug I thought I was down on sales on the year but when my wife did the books I'm actually up by £3,211 on last year (oh she does like her book keeping).

Having the confidence to put your prices up only comes with experience and how you monitor previous years patterns of spending.

I have this same arguement well discussion with Ken Wainright about when someone cancels their appointment on the day that you should take time out and enjoy life, well new starters can't as it was hard finding that job in the first place and you needed it to pay the phone bill.

If you are patient and keep advertising in 1 shape or another you will fast track yourself to an easier life.

Shaun

[carpetclean]

try and work this one out then i had a guy working for me who i paid £120 a day cash in hand and he walked out on me this morning as he says  i am too busy!!!!

[BRSL]

It's funny I herd of a lad yesterday that was put on fire watch at falmouth docks, all he had to do was sit in a cabin of a rfa ship under the deck of where a guy was welding, just in case a spark came through, six hours a day £50, he was alowed a flask of tea and a book but he walked as he was bored, so offered him a job working 8 hours a day for £75 to clean the engine room, just to follow the dockies around and wipe of hand prints but that was to hard, there aint no pleasing some people

James

[Matt Lindus]

Can any of you guys tell me why an industry needs to franchise out?
I know the answer but wanted to pose the question to see if others know why.

[craigp]

cant be sure i know which answer your refering to, but the obvious is secure insurance work (having a national network) that and cream dosh off your hard working franchisee's through many avenues,

am i right sir?

[AJB]

I've always been wary of franchises,
i feel that if a business is that good
then you employ someone and open another branch.
If its a big risk then get some other sucker to put up the
money!

[Terry_Burrows]

we have done cc for some many years but we thought we would make it the main line,instead of wc, I do promotion work shows TV adds etc,we have spent money on adds and the results have come from local paper!
haveing said that we have noticed the work has fallen off since November
we get some calls a week,nothing other its far from consisitant,

if some things pan out for me which I have to wait at the moment I will be able to give up wc and cc to move into what I have always wanted to do work in TV,the waiting is the hard part,but it is dead out there at the moment

[stains-away]

Ok, now weve got that off of our chests,  what about the small business verses the big business when things get really tight, does Goliath win with brand image or does David kick him in the spuds with lower overheads and some stealthy tactics, opinions please.

[carpetclean]

in most businesses when times are tough who goes down the most but the small concern. the big guns on the whole manage to dodge most of the bullets and pull through, with the odd exception. The small concern hasn't the money to sustain a slack period . but as we all know when a big business does go down its with a bang as the debts are huge .
On the other hand i hear rumours that even some suppliers are feeling the pinch in this game  at the moment but cant confirm it. I forecast though certain suppliers will go under though i cant name the particular one i have in mind at the moment because its just a strong rumour. for the more astute i dare say you could figure it out as i did.
carpetmate you are talking sense as i too have another business and my initial outlay in this game has been quite high , though i am confident the investment will pay off as jobs i do pay well  and i always get referals but i have no intentions of letting my other business go at this stage

[HolmansUKLTD]

I think it takes time to build up a small cc business im now coming into my fith year of trading and i am up on last year, as most people have said advertising is key dont rely on refferals or reccomendations as they dont allways provide you with work, when sending out invoices add a self addressed envelope with referel slips in it and offer gift vouchers on return for them, this works a treat im my expierence its YP thompsons big websites etc dont pull in a huge amount of work ( in my area anyway) small church parish mags local association guides postcode booklets work far better even my local paper outstrips yp yell and probably Thompsons if i was in it. The best way is to look after the clients you have and work on them to help get you new ones at a smaller cost than massive advertising, it may take a while but if your patitent it will pay off in the end.

Nick