[wightsurf]

I know mainland company comes over here to clean travel lodge(isle of wight) beats me ,must cost them a lot of money for the ferry alone!

[lovewindows]

guys , look at the positives not the negatives , yes logisticaly could be a nightmare , or with a bit of common sense easy peasy , yes someone could mess up ! but look at the nationals i'm positive they mess up i've seen it time and time again i'll see a building /hotel etc that obviously hasn't being cleaned for years or had a crap job done and i'm told sorry it's a national contract, and i'm damm sure we could do a better job than someone who frankly works for someone else and doesn't give a f**k .
If it's a good earner it gets a good job. we care because it's OUR business not some national who treats the staff as numbers not people.
I get told "you dont half work for your money " WHY because it's MY money.
The plum jobs go to the nationals we can do a better job cheaper IF we get together . THINK about it.
Sorry down off my soap box now.

[Big Dave @ CWC]

love windows has a great point...........

lets call him national windows ltd blah blah

im dave in kent

he gets a call for a job that im near to., gives me details,

i do the job, pay him agreed percentage cost. thats it, i put my money through my books like like im doing now, he put his through his books, no extra paperwork, insurance ect remain my problem.

those who cock up and dont do the job proper is removed from national window cleaners list.
if national windows ltd doesnt get paid by me for a set period of time he will ring client to check if i did the job, if i had he would remove me from the list. simple eventually he will build a list of solid reliable workers, bit like us with our honest paying custies.

theres a lot of firms out there who are getting very big, soon they are the peoples choice so its in our interest to join something like this and be genuine about it

[lovewindows]

love windows has a great point...........

lets call him national windows ltd blah blah

im dave in kent

he gets a call for a job that im near to., gives me details,

i do the job, pay him agreed percentage cost. thats it, i put my money through my books like like im doing now, he put his through his books, no extra paperwork, insurance ect remain my problem.

those who cock up and dont do the job proper is removed from national window cleaners list.
if national windows ltd doesnt get paid by me for a set period of time he will ring client to check if i did the job, if i had he would remove me from the list. simple eventually he will build a list of solid reliable workers, bit like us with our honest paying custies.

theres a lot of firms out there who are getting very big, soon they are the peoples choice so its in our interest to join something like this and be genuine about it

Thats right B D , although i was thinking more along the lines of "lets say ASDA for example we say we'll do them all for £X then Joe Bloggs in Lancashire does all the ones in Lancs , Jack Jones in Cumbria does all the ones in Cumbria etc ,ASDA have 1 quarterly bill and no messing about with H&S or anything,and cheaper than a national . centrally commision taken out then paid out to Joe and Jack depending on number of cleans. We could even join together for really BIG jobs.

[RSWindows]

i really do see what you are saying...really i do.

Hell i would even be willing to give it a bash, but u must look at the negatives as well as the positives to address the problems and deal with/discuss them.

Dont let haste take over. something of this magnitude will take lots and lots of planning BEFORE it gets put into action.

I would be willing to take care of the scotland side of the business and give it my all if requested.

[Paul Coleman]

I don't think it would be a runner quite simply because of price.  The current national companies charge a lot less than you might imagine.  This is because they often do the general cleaning contract as well and make their money by adding a fairly small percentage onto the wage bill.  I've even known it where the window cleaning gets thrown in free of charge to secure a contract.  I saw £50 an hour mentioned on an earlier post.  Dream on.
I'm not saying that this idea couldn't happen but the rate would be so low that you might not want it to happen.
Sorry to sound negative.  Positive thinking is an excellent business tool but it has to be peppered with realism too.
I hope I'm wrong though.

[lovewindows]

I don't think it would be a runner quite simply because of price.  The current national companies charge a lot less than you might imagine.  This is because they often do the general cleaning contract as well and make their money by adding a fairly small percentage onto the wage bill.  I've even known it where the window cleaning gets thrown in free of charge to secure a contract.  I saw £50 an hour mentioned on an earlier post.  Dream on.
I'm not saying that this idea couldn't happen but the rate would be so low that you might not want it to happen.
Sorry to sound negative.  Positive thinking is an excellent business tool but it has to be peppered with realism too.
I hope I'm wrong though.

I thought as you did , about a national doing internal cleans should be doing windows as well , but that is often not the case, a local company has internals and security by the same company who also do windows but the windows aren't done , i asked and was told they where too expensive. the normal cleaners wont / cant do the windows, my sil works for Indepth and told me the site she works in where binning Indepth for the windows because they had increased the price due to using WFP !
As for £50 per hour, that would be hard doing 5 £10 semis unless next to each other or same street, but generally doing commercials thats about right. ie office block taking about 6hrs to do =£300 quote or these new office buildings with 2 runs of glass up / down 1 hr =£50. Or am i DREAMING ON.    
My other point is WE quote what it's worth to us and if we dont get the job , ok fair enough, but if you quoted for a job out of the county where you are based you would include 1/ travel time 2/ travel cost 3/ pos accommadation, if it's on the doorstep you wouldn't.

[WCE]

This is an idea that I considered and in fact have found a way of doing it but it's not as easy as some of you have made out. I was considering tendering for national work on this basis and have been working on putting control methods in place to ensure the scheme works. Rather than making rash desisions/comments on here I am getting the plan together and will post on the subject when I have crossed the t's and dotted the eyes so to speak. The other thing to consider is that no one yet has mentioned is that this idea is already being carried out by someone - laddersfree.

[jaykie]

what happened to the window cleaning mag

[Paul Coleman]

I don't think it would be a runner quite simply because of price.  The current national companies charge a lot less than you might imagine.  This is because they often do the general cleaning contract as well and make their money by adding a fairly small percentage onto the wage bill.  I've even known it where the window cleaning gets thrown in free of charge to secure a contract.  I saw £50 an hour mentioned on an earlier post.  Dream on.
I'm not saying that this idea couldn't happen but the rate would be so low that you might not want it to happen.
Sorry to sound negative.  Positive thinking is an excellent business tool but it has to be peppered with realism too.
I hope I'm wrong though.

I thought as you did , about a national doing internal cleans should be doing windows as well , but that is often not the case, a local company has internals and security by the same company who also do windows but the windows aren't done , i asked and was told they where too expensive. the normal cleaners wont / cant do the windows, my sil works for Indepth and told me the site she works in where binning Indepth for the windows because they had increased the price due to using WFP !
As for £50 per hour, that would be hard doing 5 £10 semis unless next to each other or same street, but generally doing commercials thats about right. ie office block taking about 6hrs to do =£300 quote or these new office buildings with 2 runs of glass up / down 1 hr =£50. Or am i DREAMING ON.    
My other point is WE quote what it's worth to us and if we dont get the job , ok fair enough, but if you quoted for a job out of the county where you are based you would include 1/ travel time 2/ travel cost 3/ pos accommadation, if it's on the doorstep you wouldn't.

Don't get mr wrong.  I'm not saying that you couldn't get that sort of rate on commercials.  I achieve that (and a bit more) on some of my own commercial work.  It was not achieved when the jobs were out for general tender though.

[Edge Clean]

Isn't all this what Aim High is trying to achieve as well?

[Dean Taberner]

Are we going for it? 

[johns window kleen]

I went in a Tescos and a branch of Barclays today and the windows were an absolute joke. There were runs everywhere and they were still dirty/partially done.
Someone is having a laugh here and I cant believe that these big firms put up with it.
If the Nationals are responsible for these cleans, if you can call them that, then I really think we should try and get these contracts ourselves nationally, and put them to shame.
Individually I dont think we would stand a chance but collectively we could become a force, and police quality ourselves.
Logistically yeah it would be a nightmare, but do-able.
I would be interested if this can take off, and can cover Norfolk, Suffolk, with others in this neck of the woods if they are interested.

[ronnie paton]

im sure we would all be intrested and i posted about this about 9 months ago but who has the conbtacts??? im sure if there is anyone with these contacts they would do it there self and sub it out??