[Peterg]

I need to buy a window cleaning round in or around the Chelmsford/Essex area and I've had info back from a company called PDS Cleaning Services. They claim to guarantee a round for as much or as little as you need to earn....

It all sounds OK, if a tad pricey (£500 pw round = £8000 to buy), but I would love to hear from anyone who knows of these guys before I put my hand in my long-empty pocket :-)

[giftedk]

Have you got his number?

[need a cleaner]

I belive its the same guy as in this topic  http://www.cleanitup.co.uk/smf/index.php?topic=42016.0

[Peterg]

Thank you Hugo - Very informative..........

Seems to me the best way to BUY a round is to get it from an existing Window Cleaner who's built a good round and rapport with clients...

[macmac]

Thats way too expensive, it could be all crap work too.
Better (if possible) to buy an existing, established round or go & canvass yourself as thats all pds do anyway.
Save your money.

tony

[mark dew]

There are other companies who come on here that charge 2X to build you a round. That's half the price of PDS.

[brightnclean]

There are other companies who come on here that charge 2X to build you a round. That's half the price of PDS.

Yes 2x is the going rate from decent canvassing companies plus accomodation if they would have to travel each day.

[matt]

£500 pw round = £8000 to buy works out at 4 X the amount  a little more than the norm, though they may offer something out of the norm to justify them prices

[Russell Macdonald]

I dont see much justifing that 

[gsw]

 put on a clean ironed shirt, clean jeans and boots...note pad and pen, and knock on doors, easiest, fastest and cheapest way to build a round. get free business cards from vistaprint. away you go.

dont undercut and be polite the worst you will get is... NO THANKS.

this way you will learn how to price a house because you will know when you have messed up when you are cleaning, you are going to have to face your customers eventually so why not do it yourself.

[gsw]

i work chelmsford/essex so looks like PDS will be out undercutting me again at some stage......happy days!

[pjulk]

Save your money and build your own round.

If your not keen on doorknock get 10,000 leaflets printed and put them out it will take a bit longer with leaflets and the work may be a bit spread out but you will get work and for the price you want.

But i would never pay 4x for a round anyway.
there are plenty out there doing it for 2x and the work should be fairly close together

Paul

[niceandclean]

Give the girls at roundbuilders a call. Been using them for ages now, really happy with the service, prices and the size of the properties they have got me. They charge twice the amount.

[Neil_A]

I have spoken to pds bfor , But i didn not buy from them, They ask for to much money. Best way is to get out there yourself and get custom or buy from a local window cleaner!

[d s windowcleaning]

put a post on here a few weeks ago  WHY BUY A ROUND ?  think as been said build your own round up . why pay some one to build a round up & not even do any work b 4 they sell . buy off another cleaner b4 a knocking company .

[mark dew]

Funnily enough, i was asked the other week when i went out and quoted if i was the one cleaning or if i was selling the work on.
Darkest depths of suffolk too.

[Moderator David@stives]

I think some people are a bit shortsighted here.

4 times is not too much for the right round, If you can walk into a round earning £200 a day it is well worth it.

In 1 year you would of earned back £50k as opposed to less than £15k in year 1 if you knocked doors.

In year 2 in all honesty you will struggle to earn past the £20k barrier.

year 3 £25k if you are lucky.

Now by this time buying a £50k a year round you would of turned over £150k as opposed to £60k ? if you tried to build it yourself.

Also the money isnt "spent"  there is still value when you come to sell the round.

I would definately pay 4 times if not more for the right round if one came available in my area, I have been searching for the last 5 years to no avail.

People are prepared to pay doorknockers 2 times for rounds that are unworked with unproven customers, at least with a good established round you tend to buy good loyal customers.

[Neil_A]

I would be happy to pay 4 times for the rite round! But you wont allways come across the "perfect round".

Ive never paid anymore than 3 times.. i took over a small round the other week .. Just over £600 a month work.. I only paid £850 for it.. all the work was underpriced and not the best work in the world eather...

[colley614]

Hi There,

I'm just coming to the end of my first year in trading in a couple of months and I would have to say that canvassing is a slow and sometimes character testing task. But its free and gives you a good learning curve on the whole setting up your own company aspect of things. I remember everyday I used to get told by another guy " I never needed to canvass" and felt that I was beneath him for having to do it but have learnt so much from doing so. Now the guy I am talking about seems to have a phobia of new work as he was given his to him by his dad and instead of pricing new work and canvassing he ups the price of his old work for any losses in work leaving and I think its getting to the point were he will loose a lot.

My advise from experience  is get a shirt and jeans on, buy a conference portfolio from staples for about £10 with some A4 paper to insert into it and go door knocking in a nice area of town were the people have a good disposable income. Try to find 10 roads next to each other without a window cleaner and canvass all of it then turn up the next day and do the work you get then canvass again once finished. Each day should be a case of working then canvassing. Then the next week pick another area close to your new work and start again. But look out for the "my patch" boys as when your first setting up these guys can really hinder your progress and lowering your prices or working for free should not be an option.

Leaflets are NOT a cost effective way of getting new work. They tend to have a 1% success rate. But business cards used correctly on the other hand seem to have a much higher success rate. I would get yourself an established bit of a round before looking at getting somebody like roundbuilders in to help, even if you have 12 hours work a week that turns you over something like £120 to £200 then at least your company can afford to pay for something like roundbuilders and you with have a better idea of what work you would like and were. I am seriously considering getting somebody in next year once my tax return is done. Purely to put "the icing on the cake" of my work. I would like some good all day jobs that turn me over a good few bob say one day every week.

[marc]

hi peter g when you buy off another window cleaner you are buying goodwill when you buy off pds or the likes you get a list of work some good some bad but no goodwill and for me that goes a long way, i know of a few people that have  brought from pds one spent around £9000 on a round making £600 per week he had never cleaned windows in his life after a couple of weeks he was stuggling to do the work and had a injury preventing him going up a ladder i helped him out with a couple of hundred pounds of work and some one else helped him out with about £600 but some off the work in one area was said to be crap some of customers had not heard of pds and the guy doing it nearly got in a fight with other w/c because some of the work was theres , that said the work that i done was ok some a little under priced and some jobs were just not worth doing and pds did replace some of the work, if i was looking to buy some work i dont think i would be looking to spend £6 £7 £8 or £9k on it i would prob go down the road of buying £400 ish worth of work for around £1600 if it was good  i could always buy more at a later date if i was not happy with it then i have not lost so much money in the mean time you can go out canverssing more work you could spend all that money and find its not for you or you  could find you like it and are  good at canverssing any way good luck some one else i know brought a round for £6k around 3 years ago he is still doing it he was a bit worried at first when he just got lots of pieces of paper with names addresses on it but over the years he has taken on better paid work and let go the ones which were under priced well most of them hes still doing a few he hasnt looked back since and best of all he met me through w/c which he would not of done staying in his old job