[Londoner]

Its Saturday morning, the sun is shining. Who is going out playing catch up? I'm off out as soon as I have finished this cup of coffee. Its no good moaning about the rain if you don't take advantage of the good days.

The temptation is to look at the forecast the night before and if its bad just stay at home. Thursday the forcast was diabolical and although the sky was black and that cold wind was blowing that preceeds rain it didn't actually start till 1.30pm. I got all but one of my jobs done that day.

I have just been sitting here organising my jobs for next week. As its the start of a new month and I am away for some of August I have to get off to a good start, weather or no weather.
My wife will phone all the customers the night before to make sure they will be in and arrange an alternative time if its raining. Most days its good in the morning and in the evening so if I get rained off during the day I can go back that evening.

This is one of the reasons why I am very careful only to work within a mile or two of my house. You can't just pop out and do a few after dinner if its a twenty mile round trip.

[S.A.J]

Sunny down here in Plymouth too, off out at 9 to start catch up.

[Londoner]

Wish I was in Plymouth

[matt]

sunny here aswell

though i dont think my 4yr old would be very happy if i said " guess what, "i have a treat for you today, your coming out to work with me for a few hours "

instead its either the park, or a trip to get a new V-smile game for her, i expect we will do both 

[Sir Squeaky]

I'm not exactly flush with cash at the moment, but it's the weekend.
No way I'm working.

What's the point of going out making extra money if you're never getting chance to spend it?

[gary999]

have been! seen! and conquered!!

now off down the pub

[pylofm]

Squeeks what the point of having time and no money?

[matt]

Squeeks what the point of having time and no money?

dont they say the best things in life are free

and 1 of them is TIME

[pylofm]

When you owe you owe....how many times have we heard I have no money, not enough customers...time is then the asset to remeady these situations.

[Londoner]

Make hay while the sunshines. How true is that in this business? I can't see the arguement for saying work Monday to Friday but Saturday and Sunday is off limits. They are my best two days.

[matt]

forecast is good for next week

im going for it 110 %

[mark dew]

I put out about 30 leaflets wednesday when it was chucking down. I got a call yesterday for a quote. Went out today to see and picked up a new 4 week job. £22.
I only work saturdays if i have a complaint on the friday. Which has been once this year so far.
I used to work shifts before wc and i enjoy that 'weekend is here' feeling again.

[tacky]

money is like weekends off .once thier gone their gone .enjoy ur weekends . work bit longer next week.

[Londoner]

If I stay at home at the weekend my wife finds me all sorts of jobs and errands to do.

Might as well go out to work. At least they pay me!





 

[Clive McDonald]

Vince I want to work saturdays ( i already work saturdays but doing something else)

I want to know what the customers think do they mind? Do you tell them or make special arrangements first or just turn up?
I i get a gutter clean I often say I will come 7am Sunday and people have been fine with that.

I always feel a bit awkward starting domestic before nine as well, and the same feeling after four. Should I?

[Londoner]

I offer Saturdays and Sundays as a premium service and I make sure the customer understands that. On my leaflets it says "Early morning and weekend appointments by arrangment."

Where I am is London commuter land and a lot of houses are empty all day. A typical example is a new customer I picked up this week. A young woman, obviously very much a career type. She and hubby don't get in until gone 6 during the week and there is no access to the back except through the garage.
No other window cleaner has been able to fit in with her routine and she doesn't want front only done. So I will be doing her next Sunday morning but for Sunday money. After that it will be front only every other time.

This is fairly typical. People don't have side gates that can be left open any more and extensions and garage conversions restrict access.
A small but significant slice of my customers can only have their windows done at the weekend but those are also the ones who are happy to pay for the service.

I often think that there is a big market for serving these "too busy to do it themselves" types. These are the people who were too busy to wash their own cars so they took them to a car wash. Now they don't even have to do that, the car wash comes to them in the form of a truck mounted system with a tank of water and a pressure washer and all the chemicals on board. The blokes who do it come once a week so its regular work for them. Worth thinking about for some of us perhaps. It works in London but it might not work everywhere.

There is someone else I know who walks dogs around St Johns Wood for £10 an hour. The thing is he walks three dogs at a time. He does the same dogs every day so he only needs about 10 customers in total to make a decent living for about four hours walking in the park a day.

[matt]

vince, roughly what do you charge for weekend work ?? ?? ??

2 X or 3 X the clean price ?? ??

[Londoner]

Time and a half usually.