[Tom White]

one street we cleaned 36 in 2 hours....

1 man = 18 houses in 2 hours
1 man = 9 houses in 1 hour.

[JUST GUTTERS]

 ..Tosh ....Ive no reason to talk bull poop what would i gain from it.. would say i dont get them done every time like this as its not every time iam up for knock balls in...on friday i managed about 18 houses myself as i was done...

[Perfect Windows]

new water fed pole guy i know lost a lot of his £10 month houses,from another wfp guy,whos doing every 2 week for £4

That sounds a bit exaggerated, to say the least.  If he was doing a decent job, I doubt "a lot" of people would have moved from him for the sake of £2.  That just doesn't happen in my experience.  Customers aren't stupid and (within reason) tend to stick with the devil they know.

Vin

[michael o]

hi vin,its round the corner from me,its true,i wouldnt pay £10 to get my windows cleaned,so i dont charge £10

[GB Window Cleaning]

GB no frames.if they want them clean they can ask but they dont get charged.
.no sills (concrete)
no doors(wood)..
rince on the glass as the windows sheet.
no chatting first thing in the morning ..
no hedges, walls or fences in front garden can walk freely through the front gardens.
if a back gate is locked we can clean that house from either side of it from the other garden(only do this on one house..)
no top latch windows straight up and down
GB this is one off street only i wish i had a lot more of them... two houses is like one decent size house..
what i was trying to say that it IS worth while pulling your hose out to do five pound houses..
In some areas its not possible to charge £10 min not that i would anyway as you couldnt get away with it..you would just be under cut...   I did  start these houses a £6 but as i got more i dropped the price to £5
I did lose a few to a trad guy who comes round every two weeks...Hes now went wfp since i gave him a go cleaning one of theses house with my trusted harris pole...also made him a pole..

Also at these prices i wont have to worry about being under cut like some guy are getting done to them...
Its getting harder out there to pick up new compact work.
 Iam lucky i could lose a 100 houses or more and still be ok..  I think this willis group is going to go down the franchise route and our going about it the  same way as Ian lancaster (not under cutting but supplying the work as part of the package)


Only bad thing about doing so many houses was the collecting as it took 2 nights and will have to go out today
This is a one off doing so many, because of the july holidays and i had a minor op all the work in this area is behind (i have over 400 houses in this area) and the weather has been brilliant which is pretty rear for
n. ireland

TRAPS..are you saying you dont have one house that you can whip round in 10 minutes or less with frames..doors

GB you might also be happy to no i dont get any spotting..

okay thanks for the response mate, as long as your happy!

one thing i do find strange is that you would do frames if asked but you wouldnt charge more! 

GB

[JUST GUTTERS]

Iam sure i could spare 5 minutes to do the frames just wouldnt like them all to ask me at once
i do give the bottoms a wipe now and again with a cloth
(all windows have vents so they are a pain)

[L.J.Thorpe]

I'm thinking about starting up a round in Boston with an idea I want to try out where I charge a flat rate of 3 quid a house, I know it sounds cheap but I'll get a couple of my mates who are on the dole to do the work for beer money.

Has anyone got the phone number for Impact43 so I can send the lads on a training course because I want them to look like they know what their on about...

now that is funny

[L.J.Thorpe]

I know business is business but with the way they seem to be conducting their drive to expand along with their heavy handed (cut from wikipedia) threats of legal action make me think I would rather do business with the devil than anything to do with the Willis massive.

They did not threaten legal action regarding accusations of undercutting.  They threatened it because there was an allegation that they used people's customer lists, gained from their NVQ work as Impact 43, to target people's businesses.  The allegation was clearly wrong.  I did the NVQ course with them and they only asked to meet me at one customer's house to check on my working methods/ H & S competence etc.  They did not even ask me how much I charged for the job.  The allegation was clearly unfounded but potentially damaging to their Impact 43 training business if enough people were sufficiently gullible to believe it.  For that reason alone, I think they were right to threaten legal action.
As for the (random) undercutting.  That's the way some businesses operate.  Although that has been common in the commercial field, it has been less so on domestic work.  Now that many people's budgets are being squeezed, more operators are undercutting on domestic.  So far, it hasn't impacted on my pricing of new jobs - though I have sometimes been more hesitant about increasing prices.
Sure thing, none of us like being undercut and losing a customer or three.  However, it isn't illegal and, although it's not something I indulge in myself, it's probably not even unethical.
Who knows?  There may come a day when, if the economy implodes enough, when many of us on here have to do it to pay the bills.  I certainly hope not but can any of us hold our hand on heart and say that if we were £50 short on the mortgage, we wouldn't take a £50 job that someone else had been doing for £60.  I really hope it never comes to that.  I try to live by high ideals and dropping my standards would dent my personal pride.

PLEASE!!!! read the bloody thread
NOBODY MADE ANY ALLEGATIONS THAT THEY USED  THE DETAILS OF ANY TRAINING COURSE CLIENTS FOR THE PURPOSE OF GAINING WORK,someone got the wrong end of the stick at the beginning of the thread and the family willis got their collective pants up in a bunch about a different remark altogether which was removed by admin

[GB Window Cleaning]

Iam sure i could spare 5 minutes to do the frames just wouldnt like them all to ask me at once
i do give the bottoms a wipe now and again with a cloth
(all windows have vents so they are a pain)

but if loads started asking for frames and doors to be done all those five minutes would soon add up to hours!

[H S and Son]

So in other words you're making the level of money you make by cutting corners and supplying a less than satisfactory standard of work. Thats nothing to shout about mate, we can all do that.

[Sean Dyer]

So in other words you're making the level of money you make by cutting corners and supplying a less than satisfactory standard of work. Thats nothing to shout about mate, we can all do that.

Some customers are very happy to pay a low price and get the glass cleaned / sills wiped

Alot of work i bought early on was that way , now i price everything up based on frames, etc where i can but some still just want glass/sills

Maybe its a divide between the people who are cleaning richer customers , and those who have low income/doleys on the books, as the standard expected vs price they will pay is a huge difference

Ps, its not cutting corners if his agreement with the customer is say £5 a fortnight to clean the glass....

[traps7]

I do a job properly or not at all.

[laddermonkee]

they run the inpact training...and have now have started up a franchise clean safe or safe clean not sure the names...they have been accused before of using information that they gathered from guys that used there training scheme... that turned out to be false..then they came on this forum and threatened legal action to any one who tarnished there rep

Thanks