[Paul Coleman]

If you turn over £100'000 what is £350 to join all 3

Being a member of any apart from the fsb should go along way to securing that contract

And if you don't turn over £100,000? .......................

I'm only in the FSB myself.
Although it's not an organisation specific to W/Cers, I find useful info in their literature.  Buying an insurance policy to cover the accountancy costs of an IR investigation can cost more than FSB's annual membership yet they offer this benefit just for joining.  I use their logo on some of my paperwork.  I think taking the trouble to join something and get a logo is possibly more important than what the organisation or logo actually is because most of the customers haven't heard of the organisations anyway.  I grant you that there will be the occasional customer who does know but that is very unusual.

[Clive McDonald]

If you turn over £100'000 what is £350 to join all 3

Being a member of any apart from the fsb should go along way to securing that contract

I don`t care what anybody turnsover,turnover is for vanity profit is sanity.

Expansion is vanity. What this means is that two vans on the road may not be the right move, because a second van plus employees is quite a large overhead.

[DASERVICES]

I don't want to go over the licensing thing again as you have probably had enough of me

But what I can say if you set out to achieve a goal as an organisation you will start to reap the benefits for its members.

The SLWCN has achieved the full backing of the Council we are working with at the moment in that jointly a full advertising campaign will be held backing the SLWCN. A leaflet has been produced which the Council are now looking into funding and distributing to businesses and householders. After that a press conference will take place.

And it is also being enforced in some areas.

We are also negotiating with Yellow Pages, have a website in top search keywords.

All this is helping to promote the SLWCN, it will take around a year before we have achieved our goal nationwide.

Recognition is the key, never say it cannot be done. That is the key to success. Another big factor is window cleaners working together, that is the only way it will work.

This does strengthen your business as window cleaners can now charge what they are worth.

Doug

[Moderator David@stives]

Doug

Have you got over 250 members ?

[DASERVICES]

Doug

Have you got over 250 members ?

Dave,

We have around 100+ members to date, I would expect to hit around 400 to 500 by the end of the year. We have not gone all out in getting members as we have been very busy with a couple of Councils.

There would be no problem in getting 250 within a couple of weeks, the one Council that we are working with closely we had to speak to all licensed window cleaners. Around 35 joined the SLWCN in that area, surprising how many were not on the internet.

[Kev R]

What a pile of tosh - License or FWC or others!!

Firstly let me say I have been a member of two so called professional organisations.

The FWC couldn't even give me any decent help with a risk assessment some time ago. The woman on the phone hasn't got a clue and no one ever got back to me. These organisations are all the same, Ok they might have some valid info for the newbie but what help are they to a growing firm - in my experience none

What I am saying is the FWC and the organisations like it take your money, look at your insurance and send you a mag - hardly progressing the professional image is it? It went to a few of there talks at Windex and was amazed how backward they really are.

I soon discovered these organisations are a waste of money.

I now belong to safe contractor and I am now well aware of my obligations and with their help have a range of health and safety measures in place to deal with my commitments towards safety. I didn't join them for the badge I joined them for the information they provide. I now have no worries regarding health and safety.


In my opinion the only person that can give window cleaning a professional image is you - act professional -get insured and have the correct equipment and training in place -  look professional - do a good job safely - and no matter what happens remain calm and polite. Of course there is much more to it, but to be honest most window cleaners I know are their own worst enemies and long may it be so. I spend time and effort providing a professional service and I am rewarded by the work I compete for and gain.

When I quote I often ask who else is quoting, locally I am only concerned about one firm as they are true professionals and price wise we are very similar and guaranteed one of us will get it. No one else gets a look in. Why because we both are professional window cleaning firms, not jack the lad with a fAg hanging out his mouth.

A license will not make a jot of difference to me or jack the lad.  

[Kev R]

Kev R, Why bother with Safe Contractor if it’s a pile of tosh!

It’s not really about acting professional it’s about being a professional. That’s why you should have these things in place. You have now gone with Safe Contractor.

Understand your point about your competition, most being disorganised leaving you only one real competitor, so I can see why you don’t want things to change. The change will be very slow anyway.


Ewan 

Safe contractor is not a pile of tosh, sorry for the misunderstanding, I like safe contractor because I pay my money and they evaluate my health and safety provisions and where these provisions are lacking they help me to implement them correctly. They offer a service for which I am happy to pay.

What I meant was the so called window cleaners federations offer nothing, they claim they do but everytime I ever asked I got nothing back for my membership fee - I refuse to subscribe to organisations that offer nothing in return as the in FWC. If you just want a logo for the image make one up like some have recently and stick that on you van - if hoodwinking the customer with fancy associations is your bag good luck to you - personally I think it sucks. I provide my commercial clients with copies of my insurance as standard, I don't need a group of "window cleaners come do gooders" to assist me. I am also happy that I run my company as professionally as possible.

The FWC runs a shop that sells trad gear only "alarm bells" should be ringing, there supposed to be an up to date association for window cleaners not a cleaning suppliers business and if they are going to sell window cleaning supplies why not supply the wfp people too? - because they are behind the times - profiteering tosh - I rest my case.

[Simon_King]

[quote   The FWC runs a shop that sells trad gear only "alarm bells" should be ringing, there supposed to be an up to date association for window cleaners not a cleaning suppliers business and if they are going to sell window cleaning supplies why not supply the wfp people too? - because they are behind the times - profiteering tosh - I rest my case.

I think the reason the Fed dont stock wfp supplies is the cost of the stock. Also if the Fed stocked Ionic for example and not Omnipole then it could be said they favoured certain suppliers over others. As a Trade Organisation that might be seen as illegal.

Regarding the selling of Trad gear well the outlay in cash terms will be less and basically there are only 4 main suppliers of trad gear. Unger, Ettore, SYR and Pulex with equipment all costing relatively small amounts.

[Kev R]

But should they be selling at all - Its a federation not a shop

[Steve Lowe]

Hi Ewan
You are right that the fwc is an association just for window cleaners and in my opinion it is worth joining. However having been on there executive council for three years i would also say it is screaming out for new blood. It would be great to see some new and enthusiastic younger members join, and truly make it an association to be proud of !

When you applying 

Steve

[Steve Lowe]

Good Luck to you Ewan

Its great seeing someone after all the answers !

Steve

[Kev R]

I think you are having a better relationship with safe contractor than you did have with the fwc.

Safe contractor is a subsidiary of national Britannia which is all about profit.

Ewan

Safe contractor sell a service the same as I do. If I dont give results I get the sack, this also applies to Safe contractor.

The FWC are supposed to also supply a service to window cleaners but I have in my experience not seen any of this except for scaremainering and whipping up controversy over the health and safety laws. Also they are biased towards northern window cleaners as they dont even put on courses in the south- the national voice of window cleaners my bum.

Look at the poll above, I think the results speak for themselves.

[Simon_King]

But should they be selling at all - Its a federation not a shop

No they shouldn't ......but then they would loose out on some income. Catch 22 really. If they didnt sell equipment then membership would probably be double what it is now at least. result being even fewer members.

[Clive McDonald]

Ewan,
we can see what you say, but  we already know this. We've let been let down in the past on a very consistent basis on almost any issue you care to name.

Even well intentioned people who have attained some kind of office and come away disilusioned.

The primary strategy of any such org should be firstly to attain substantial numbers, and to do this they need guild type membership fees. They are happy as things are though and have no intention of changing or adapting in any way.

[Kev R]

Ewan,

I had no intention of joining Safe Contractor but was told by my largest client that they would like me to go through the process. I employ several sub-contractors on this large maintenance contract and I didn't really have much in the way of health and safety in place at all. So I though keep the client sweet and give it a go. I paid my subscription and went through the process. All I can say is what an eye opener!! I had been in the fed and I didn't have a clue about most of the things I leant. In fact it showed me the Fed are just scaremainering to get members. Safe contractor was very valuable to me. I have also recently gained several large contracts because of it. The Fed did stuff all for me, its just a badge, why? Because its run by do - gooder window cleaners that haven't got a clue in my humble opinion.

Join the Fed and get nothing back, Pay for a health and safety audit and find out the FACTS and move your company forward. Its that simple

[Jason Atwell]

Kev R,
Does safe contractor help you, in regards to providing risk assesments and method statements?
I was under the impression you have to send these in and they say wether they are adequate or not, and if they are not, YOU have to sort it out and re sub mit them, or do they tell you what you need!

[Kev R]

They help you develop your own method statements, and risk assessments and much more, they provide guidance notes, training, and phone support from your own personal auditor.

They do ask you to submit what you have, they look at it then show you how to improve them if there is a need. The idea as the auditor told me was not to fail you but to help you develop a better understanding of all aspects of health and safety. Its a two way street, they don't do it for you, but they provide the necessary tools and support to enable you to do it. After all every commercial job we do requires a different approach so therefore some of the risks are different, but now I can see the risks and assess them and provide documentation that will improve overall health and safety.

I have also found by applying these techniques at the quotation stage, I appear very knowledgeable, regarding the job, the law etc, and clients pick up on this. Recently I was told that my quote was way to high for a large job, but they liked me and my professionalism and told me they wanted me to do the job. They asked me to re quote at a slightly lower rate (basically they gave me the middle price) . I did and got the contract.  The contract is worth just over 15K. 

Its been very worth while in more ways than one.