Hello everybody and thanks for the pleasant welcome.
Climbing chimneys, haha I don't think she'd be up for that. She does some rock climbing in her spare time so she has no problem with heights. But I think she'd draw the line at getting covered in soot though!
Tennet, I was offered redundancy when the company I was working for downsized and to be honest I was somewhat sick of the job anyway so I took it and with it the opportunity to work for myself. At the age of 26 I looked around at what I could do. I looked at several business including carpet cleaning, DVD rental franchise, and a few other things. Most franchises cost about £20k to get into and are hard work. I wouldnt have minded spending the money, but then my girlfriend didnt like the idea of us working our bums off only to have someone else take a slice of it at the end of the year. Fair point.
So I looked into window cleaning because I saw somebody doing it very badly and thought to myself that there would be a good market for it if done seriously. After all, everyone wants a good window cleaner dont they?!
The start up costs are very low in comparison to the other things I looked at and best for me is that its not a franchise, its our own business. And its not going to bog me down in boring paperwork, supplier accounts, stock holding and all that stuff that happens with other businesses. Never looked back, I really like it. As work goes I love working hard, but window cleaning just doesnt seem like hard work at all to me. I'll like it even more when the summer comes.
Ian Giles, thank you for your good wishes. I knew that starting any business would cost money, and I'm of a mind that we needed to get the right equipment in order to be able to sell ourselves well. The van and system were not too expensive and there are not many businesses that you can get going with as quickly as this. I sometimes wonder why more people don't do it as the money is so good. (a well kept secret, I wont be letting on!)
bernlyn, both me and girl tried lots of different ways to get new customers including newspaper advertising, leaflet drops, canvassing door-to-door, notices in post offices and so on. Some of it, especially the newspaper, was expensive for hardly any response. We had the leaflets designed professionally (girlfriends sister's boyfriend is a graphic designer) and they looked really good. We got some work from that but knocking on doors is what we found worked best. We always carry business cards, but we have found that people who dont say "yes" there and then almost never call you back. You just have to be persistent and not get discouraged.
We threw ourselves into getting the work very intensively for at least 3 months, maybe a little longer, and by then we were able to get along quite nicely. Smaller villages with bigger properties are our speciality. I also like townhouses as other window cleaners tend to avoid them, but they are easy to do with a pole.
Hi Andy at scs, we are based in devizes in wiltshire.
One thing that does worry me sometimes is illness. I dont have any insurance in case one of us gets ill and cant work. Girlfriend is a fit freak and is like NEVER ill, but still accidents happen. What do you guys do about insurance?