Haven't you worked it out yet, mike started CIU to drum up business for express cleaning supplies and that hasn't happened. What has happened is that individuals have come on here and built their business up with some free advertising and now Mike has had enough. I can kind of understand it as if you built a website/forum and it advertised rivals more than yourself then you would be pretty miffed that this was the case. LWC I expect was a particular threat because he was going into supplies ie in direct competition to express. I do think thats why he was banned from posting although I do think it was heavy handed to ban him without warning (if thats the case). I also wonder if this "new" policy was brought about by people like lwc being in the same market as Express. Clearly some people are going to fall foul of this new policy eg window washers. I assume he will have to pay because he advertises a business yet he could hardly be called competition to Express. I honestly believe that what has gone on is that Mike is fed up of rivals advertising here and that he has realised that by charging £150pm he will be able to (a) Be able to stop direct competition from advertising here unless they pay which will mean he makes £1800 from every competitor and (B) he has realised that he can make the same from other companies that are actually NOT in direct competition with them. However what hasn't been considered is that if the suppliers are out off by this then they wont post, and therefore the membership lose a resource and the forum becomes poorer and could end up losing members as that is part of the attraction of CIU - the diverse membership.
The site sponsor is my local supplier. Do I use them? Rarely. Why? Because they don't stock the range of others. They don't sell Xtels, Sl2/SLX, etc etc. If I looked at their range I would think a powerpole was cutting edge (no offence Glyn & omnipole) and here lies the problem (from a window cleaning point of view). You cant get the products you want off em, Express dont have the range of up to date products that people want to buy, If they stocked xtels for example and they were well priced then maybe that would drum up more business. As for CIU I think it has failed in expectations from the sponsor in that it would promote their business but what is has achieved is it has become the largest cleaning forum there is and as great as that is it isn't quite how the founders vision saw it going.
