[ronnie paton]

i was thinking i sometimes get calls from people who have a national contractor (usually subbed out) and there never happy with the work.
Now i dont believe a small company like me would ever be national, but could we get a goup of window cleaners to create a national group to try and attract the asda and tesco ect ect we could break all the areas down and have one window cleaner per area?

We could quote for national contracts and if we get break the the payment down to different areas, i know there would be lots more to think about and the people involved would all have to be running in the direction but just thought it may be a way that the small window cleaning could compete with the national ??


all your feed back good(if any) and bad welcome and remember its judt a quick idea!!

[Mo]

Mnnnnn :

Mo

[cvdewsbury]

how would the tax point work

[cvdewsbury]

ronnie don,t think its a bad idea at all cleaned my local asda store by special request from the manager as the national lads were making a b88ox up of it......one to get folks thinking hats on

[ronnie paton]

like i said i dont have the answers but there is enough people on here that proberly do or even have thought of the idea and didnt think it would work.
the group owned by the window cleaners would be subbin the work of the group so they would pay there tax(i think) but there maybe a conflict of intrest???

like i say i dont know but  all involved in the group would have to be insured  working with in the criteria set and do the work to the standard expected.

I mean the customer would be getting a national contractor with the quality and standards of a local window cleaner!!

[ronnie paton]

no i dont think they do this would be a group that every one in would be on level parr they would have there own area.
they sub it to any one and because by the time the person doing the job gets the price they fly round doin a not very good job.
the price for the job would be the price the window cleaning got the group would not take any money?

I dont really know if it would work this is y im asking on here!!

[stevekennedy]

Someone would have to do all the organising and marketing etc. This costs money.

This is what these national contractors are doing effectively.

Also, when you see the prices they charge, you might cry.

Years of undercutting has eroded the margins to the bare minimum. You need to go for volume with this stuff to make a good living IMO

[simonwonder]

great idea
national coverage
local service
 is what i think you are saying
this would need a lot of research
will ask some of my fsb collegues if they could help at our next meeting 
need to talk about the legals and tax situation
almost like a national /local window cleaners co-op

[Richy L]

sounds complicated and it could get messy

[Rob_B]

sounds complicated and it could get messy

Yes I agree. I have thought about this before, wondering why the fwc didn't do this sort of thing for the benefit of their members. Then I realised how many members there were, it would be a bit unfair to pick a few from so many. I suppose the closest thing to this is something like laddersfree, but then I think they get all their cleaners in the area to quote and then go for the cheapest. Back to square one.

[Londoner]

You have to ask why the big National organisations always have problems with quality and would what you are suggesting be any different.
Or would it be plagued by all the same problems for all the same reasons?

[Alex Gardiner]

A co-operative is a good idea, but......

The trouble is with the organization of it, who would pay for, coordinate and do this. It would be a full time job for several people.

As has been said the margins are stupidly small on the large contracts and tend to be tied into other types of cleaning as well.

The other trouble is quality control, how do you check up on the standards nationwide. Not everyone has the same standard of work.

[simonwonder]

spoken to my fsb commitee guys and they recon  a national network with a set code of ethics would need to be in place am going to see business link in the next few days to see how they can help   fsb membership and possibly apwc membership could be the answer as they are fairly new organisation and well over due for the professionalism of what we do may be it is something they cou
ld help us with almost a national franchise operation style of operating
fsb membership has lots of benefits as you see most shop and office based businesses are members
legal and tax investigation assistance are the main benefits
make us stand on the same ground as the nationals  with local quality and recognition  as true professionals in our field which i believe we all are . just my thoughts 

[AuRavelling79]

When I sold word processors for office use my company had engineers to repair them in the South West but we had one huge contract nationwide and when a repair/installation/maintenance call needed doing out of area we called in a local Olivetti dealer and they invoiced us for the call out.

Window cleaning relevance:-

So if I (for example) landed a major national contract and covered all the shops in my area I would arrange for one of you guys to clean in all the other areas and you would invoice me for the work you've done but I would invoice the customer and hopefully make a profit and pay you your whack too.

Maybe I'm a bit parochial but I'd rather be a big fish in a small pond than a small fish in a big one!

(Malc of the minnow in a puddle class! )

[ronnie paton]

well soe good points i do feel that there is space for it but yes lots of hard work involved.

you say about price but i have two points on this the first from my experience lately the work is passed down sometimes 3 or 4 times all taking a cut well surely the first price before everyone takes a cut would be very proffitable if it wasnt passed on??(if you know what i mean?
secondly i recently picked up a preimier inn which was done by a national but the standards were just really poor so there are companys that are willing to pay more for a good service.

who would do quality control? the group would all be responsible i mean i offer a satisfaction guarentee so if there werent happy and it was justified i would re do the job(or the windows there unhappy with) so if all in the group did this then wouldnt we be offering good value!

[bluez]

I feel a national window cleaning association (maybe one of the ones allready set up) offering a national service from local (insured, uniformed, id'd, trained, licensed) providers could work.

Keeping the numbers managable would be important, 15 - 20 operators nationwide and 1 in Ireland(me)

[Village Gleam]

This an interesting idea.
My comments are made with no knowledge or firsthand experience of the subject whatsoever and I'm going to qualify them even further by saying it is just my opinion.
The problem I see is that not all contracts are awarded on merit or price or quality. Examples I can think of; A couple of weeks in someones florida home, or a new car for the daughters boyfriend, or a very strong friendship, or being a relative of a main board director,or simply a brown envelope etc.

In the real world boudaries get blurred. So the only work I can imagine a group like this getting imo would be price sensitive.

My apologies for lowering the tone of this disscusion. If anyone feels strongly this is wrong  I will delete this

[windowwashers]

This an interesting idea.
My comments are made with no knowledge or firsthand experience of the subject whatsoever and I'm going to qualify them even further by saying it is just my opinion.
The problem I see is that not all contracts are awarded on merit or price or quality. Examples I can think of; A couple of weeks in someones florida home, or a new car for the daughters boyfriend, or a very strong friendship, or being a relative of a main board director,or simply a brown envelope etc.

In the real world boudaries get blurred. So the only work I can imagine a group like this getting imo would be price sensitive.

My apologies for lowering the tone of this disscusion. If anyone feels strongly this is wrong  I will delete this

IMO thats a valid point 

alot of things are who you know and not what you do  (as long as you do it reasonably well, if this changes then it will be different for alot of commercial work out there.

Ian

[mark dew]

This an interesting idea.
My comments are made with no knowledge or firsthand experience of the subject whatsoever and I'm going to qualify them even further by saying it is just my opinion.
The problem I see is that not all contracts are awarded on merit or price or quality. Examples I can think of; A couple of weeks in someones florida home, or a new car for the daughters boyfriend, or a very strong friendship, or being a relative of a main board director,or simply a brown envelope etc.

In the real world boudaries get blurred. So the only work I can imagine a group like this getting imo would be price sensitive.

My apologies for lowering the tone of this disscusion. If anyone feels strongly this is wrong  I will delete this

there you go lowering the tone again...
That's the trouble with common sense though. It shatters illusions.

[forest]

Easier than you might think, just need a guy who can talk the situation up with the big firms, need to be confident with them about quality and coverage.

I undertake large contracts for National companies and could line up more work for other areas even within these national contracts for other guys, so whether its doing national work for nationals or direct it can be done.

Only prob is when they ask for accounts, who can show hundreds of thousands of turn over to prove they can fulfill the work?

All i am saying is with a little luck it can be acheived quite comfortably.