[NWH]

It can make you life a bit easier but when you sit down and do the figures your not much better off by much when you include the crap they give you,good wage or bad.

[8weekly]

I have employed for nearly 10 years and it can be a nightmare-joke all rolled into 1,the best way to advertise a job in this game is to say window cleaner required Tuesday Wednesday Thursday only,Friday's off to get ready for going out on the p and Monday's off to get over your hangover included in the job lol.having staff is mostly likely to increase your productivity by a 1/3 not 50% they don't work as hard as you they turn up late if at all and can't wait to get home,I found the worse thing you can do with staff is to finish early quiet a few days over a short period,they start thinking you'll finish earlier most days after a while.

I agree with your last sentence. The rest is down to your skill (or lack of) as an employer. 

[NWH]

Doesn't matter how skilful you think you are as an employer most people that take a job window cleaning have done most other jobs and have an appalling attitude,if you can find someone who makes sure he does a good job does as he's told and turns up 5 days a week you'll be one of the first I know. It sounds harsh but most of them I've come across would slot into the Jeremy Kyle show a treat,every problem they've got with there other half and kids becomes yours.

[sunshine windows]

That's the beauty of franchising. The potential is there for the franchisee to be turning over just short of the Vat threshold on us own. Makes it more appealing than being paid £10 or less an hour.

One of mine was on £17,500 per annum. Took a massive leap of faith with a business loan to get the van and pay the fee. He's now one of the happiest blokes around and has no financial worries.

[8weekly]

Doesn't matter how skilful you think you are as an employer most people that take a job window cleaning have done most other jobs and have an appalling attitude,if you can find someone who makes sure he does a good job does as he's told and turns up 5 days a week you'll be one of the first I know. It sounds harsh but most of them I've come across would slot into the Jeremy Kyle show a treat,every problem they've got with there other half and kids becomes yours.

Why hire people like that?

[NWH]

It's not a case of hiring them by choice it's the type of person that this job attracts IMO,people think anyone can do that job it's only cleaning windows. I has one bloke I went through things with him and after 2 hours with me telling him and explaining to him how I wanted things doing he looked at me and said how hard can it be its only window cleaning,I stopped the van turned round and dropped him back off and said I don't think this is going to work do you lol. He just said fair enough and got out the van and that was that,what I'm saying is that the majority of people going for window cleaning jobs apply because they think it's easy and care free with no hassle for them they don't think of it as a proper job that you have to do 5-6 days a week and be taught to know what your doing.

[colin bird]

I need around £2k worth of monthly work asap to get a new franchisee off the ground.

Can anybody recommend a reliable canvasser?

Cheers

The best canvasser in my opinion is yourself if you have. Time.
People buy from people if they like the look of you they will give you  a go,also you are seeing and pricing the work so you then know what your getting for the price and know what is in store,ie access and the type of customer,that's my opinion others will have other views

[Ian Lancaster]

I'm still working my own round John, so don't have the time.

Surely Lance with the money you should be generating from 4 franchises you could give the new guy your round and semi retire. 

That's why I decided not to go down the franchise route. You need 5 franchisees generating the same as you generate yourself  (i.e. five times current turnover) to be able to do that. If you employ you can do it with two employees generating less than double the work the sole trader has. Ok, you don't hit the VAT threshold and you don't have the admin overhead, but you're still effectively managing the franchisees.

But how long does that take?  I go out quoting on enquiries (a couple of hours a week at the most), my wife invoices the franchisees for their royalties (2-3 hours once a week).  Apart from that I am available most of the day, within reason, to sort problems, repair equipment etc but it's a rare week I spend more that 2-3 hours doing this.  In the last couple of weeks we have gone through one franchisee's customer base and upped all the prices - time consuming, yes - we had to write to every customer with details of the increase and explaining our reasons for the increase, but this was the first time in several years!!

Compare that to the constant involvement required with employees - no contest

[Smurf]

I'm still working my own round John, so don't have the time.

Surely Lance with the money you should be generating from 4 franchises you could give the new guy your round and semi retire. 

That's why I decided not to go down the franchise route. You need 5 franchisees generating the same as you generate yourself  (i.e. five times current turnover) to be able to do that. If you employ you can do it with two employees generating less than double the work the sole trader has. Ok, you don't hit the VAT threshold and you don't have the admin overhead, but you're still effectively managing the franchisees.

But how long does that take?  I go out quoting on enquiries (a couple of hours a week at the most), my wife invoices the franchisees for their royalties (2-3 hours once a week).  Apart from that I am available most of the day, within reason, to sort problems, repair equipment etc but it's a rare week I spend more that 2-3 hours doing this.  In the last couple of weeks we have gone through one franchisee's customer base and upped all the prices - time consuming, yes - we had to write to every customer with details of the increase and explaining our reasons for the increase, but this was the first time in several years!!

Compare that to the constant involvement required with employees - no contest

Fare play to you Ian as sounds like you have a good franchise business model in place.
 

[Smudger]

Thankfully unlike  NWH we've had very little problems with out guys, sickness virtually zero, they work hard, always willing to do a little more if required and even work late through the night when we've had to.

I think it's down to your selection process...

Darran

[NWH]

Ex army are the best people  to give a job too as long as they weren't cooking for all the other soldiers lol

[8weekly]

Ex army are the best people  to give a job too as long as they weren't cooking for all the other soldiers lol

To be honest, given all the things you've written about people that have worked for you I don't think you're in a position to advise. 

[NWH]

No you would be much better off taking advise from someone who has been working for thereselve for about 6-7 years eh.