[Colin Day]

... And Richard knows all about chickens... He has 20ft high ones in a huge coup, and the public are not allowed to see them. (Quote from Alan Partridge)

He also has 3 legged chickens... How do they taste? Dunno, no one's ever caught one!!!

excuse colin   he has been snorting his spm  he has been selling in 5 wraps in cornwall   ( ps his words not mine )

It's great stuff, if you wanna wrap, let me know.....

[Ian Gourlay]

I read that Groupon were under investigation

[Buckland]

Steve - makes a VERY valid point and one that many people who have commented on here on many threads seem to forget - if you are buying a service for 100 that is discounted to 34 then that discount should be verifiable by some standards or other - trading standards maybe!

This is contentious and I am not pointing a finger at anyone in particular but with the very best will in the world the effort and skill and time that goes into a clean worth (not 100 quid) but 17 quid (i.e. 34) is BOUND to suffer by comparison with a genuine clean worth 100 - there is such a huge gap there in terms of supposed quoted  price and actual payment.

We all know in our heart of hearts that we will pull out all the stops for a 250 or 300 pound job and throw in a few extras and generally see the customer right - the same cannot be said for a job with a very low ticket - yes you do the job right but you don't hang around and offer premium value - as the ticket price goes down there is a law of diminishing returns and most customers recognise this at that price - however when this natural law of things is cocked-up by groupon discounts it pre-supposes that something has to give and it is not the customer - in effect the cc has to out-perform his ticket price.

The deep discount loss leader model relies on a gain from economies of scale through producing extra units and I just don't think a service industry can replicate time and resell it at a discount when the fixed costs of servicing the visit are inelastic... I do give Jason's

[jasonl]

I saw Groupon as an investment , I am not working week on week for a wage ,and dont measure success by the week , but by what I sell the business for after 4 or 5 years. Groupon has given me a workable database . I fitted the joobs round my regular insurance work , when I would have been idle , so my costs were minimal.

As has been said it is not for everyone, but if you are sat doing nothing , you will make at least a decent wage getting out there , and then ongoing repeat referral work.

[Richard Basey-Fisher]

Jason i have read on here you have sold cc business in the past .  I can see their is a value to selling an esb franchise cc business  but is their really any value on an independant company apart from the obvious machinery etc. I would say that most est independants customer list are almost worthless as customers repeat because they buy from who they know ( the individual ) .

for example i get my chemicals etc from restormate   if john sold up  i would shop around again .

[Steve Rothwell]

Yes................ but you don't tell the person buying the business that...

You show them a full client list, and amount for each job etc and let their greed make the decision..

Called business..

 

[Carpet Dawg]

Depends how you run the business i guess.

There are quit a few multi van operations (like Ian of Lionheart etc) that dispel the "buying from the the individual" myth.

I think a well run, established carpet cleaning company with a large client list and a few commercial contracts can fetch a tidy sum.

I bloody well hope so anyway!!!

Tony

[Andrew Briscoe]

Depends how you run the business i guess.

There are quit a few multi van operations (like Ian of Lionheart etc) that dispel the "buying from the the individual" myth.

I think a well run, established carpet cleaning company with a large client list and a few commercial contracts can fetch a tidy sum.

I bloody well hope so anyway!!!

I bloody hope so too, its my pension !!!!

Tony

[derek west]

so are you guys looking to sell on when you retire or as i was thinking of doing, getting someone to run the business for a good wage and keeping the trimmings.

[Carpet Dawg]

Its good to have options when the time comes  

Ideally investing the money generated in to property and shares and living off that before the traditional retirement age.

[Andrew Briscoe]

so are you guys looking to sell on when you retire or as i was thinking of doing, getting someone to run the business for a good wage and keeping the trimmings.

That would depend on many things Derek, the year i turn 65, wife turns 60 and son turns
18
Would love it if he took it over, however you never know what they will want to do,
he is only 20 month old, mind you he has a mini Henry and a flat mop already 

If he dont want business i may run it a few years longer before selling,
a lot will bepend on our health, you never know what is around the corner

Andrew

[Neil Williams]

We all know in our heart of hearts that we will pull out all the stops for a 250 or 300 pound job and throw in a few extras and generally see the customer right - the same cannot be said for a job with a very low ticket - yes you do the job right but you don't hang around and offer premium value - as the ticket price goes down there is a law of diminishing returns and most customers recognise this at that price - however when this natural law of things is cocked-up by groupon discounts it pre-supposes that something has to give and it is not the customer - in effect the cc has to out-perform his ticket price.

This paragraph has to be the statement of the year and sums up in a few lines what the rest of us have written about this lot.

[Neil Williams]

I would say that most est independants customer list are almost worthless as customers repeat because they buy from who they know ( the individual ) .

They've got to be even more worthless if a sizable amount of names on the database have groupon attached to them.
If you just want a list of names and address then 192.com is quite good

[Shaun_Ashmore]

I will be living off the kids when I get older they are free loading off me now so it'll pay back, infact thinking about it Derek will be walking (or being wheeled around) like royalty with all of his kids 

Shaun

[ian harper]

guys

[Buckland]

Thanks Neil - the Vaclav Havel is in the post!