Clear View Plus - Team Blog

Stupid is as stupid does….

2010-09-01T16:06:00.004+01:00

Can you think of one person that likes to look stupid? Well besides clowns and people that dress like Elvis, I cant think of any. And yet, I do look like a bit of a wally when im out and about. If you read my last Blog post you will know that I (rather absurdly) waited a whole year for a car. A car that reaches 60mph in 3.3 seconds, now I thought this would be cool but apparently not, because having a car like that people expect that you can actually drive where as I, unfortunately, cannot.

Here’s the problem; When you have 500 horse powers in you engine, they want to get out, and the only way this is possible is to spin your rear tires when a breeze touches the accelerator peddle. This means you travel sideways along the road quite often which is, frankly, very scary. After some very ‘interesting’ moments and dave our finance guy complaining about my underwear bill, I thought the only cure for this is to get some expert tuition on driving.

Fortunately Nissan in all their wisdom realised that this maybe an issue for some and have their free GTR driver training course at Silverstone race track, so I booked my place on one summers morning.

For the petrol heads among you, you will know abbots curve, for the rest of us, it’s a right hand bend followed by a left hand bend. While ‘warming up’ and getting ready for our GTR tuition, we were able to try the newly released 370z sports car that you see me driving here. Unfortunately, I am a far worse driver than I realised and on the exit of abbots curve I lost control of the rear of the car and hit the barrier at about 70 mph. What made this experience even worse was that the car I drove was only 3 days old and only had 150 miles on the clock. Oops. So in an effort to stop myself looking like a plonker on the road to people who don’t care, I turns up to the home of British motor racing and bins a 3 day old race prepped car in front of hundreds of motoring enthusiasts…

Even I have to smile at the irony!

But the whole episode taught me a valuable lesson, its not about just having the best kit, its about what you do with it that counts and so I have taken a leaf out of Nissans book and now offer a free business package called advantage pro.

Advantage pro provides you with tangible business tools like uniforms computer software, business cards, leaflets and loads of other cool stuff, but also adds the knowledge so you get where it is you want to be.

Some of my clients want more time and your business can be structured for that, some want more money, this too is easier than you may think when just one or two of the right changes are made. Some want both more time and money which your business can also provide you with in a remarkably short time.

But here’s the best bit; advantage pro is absolutely free so if your looking to upgrade your system or purchase your first one call Julie on 01494 240 640 and she can tell you more about it all. You can also see it here; http://www.clearviewplus.com/news.html

As for the car I wrote off, Nissan weren’t too upset and I can report that, even though I still can’t drive, I do know what’s it like to crash a race car. I should have just listened to instructor but hey, we live and learn…!

Little Willy...

2009-07-09T14:08:00.005+01:00

I have an apology to make. Its been a while since I have been able to write a new Blog post. Things have been really busy lately and I have been coming to terms with an awful truth. You see, as I have already mentioned in my past Blog posts, I have been on the waiting list for a very special car. It’s the new R35 Nissan GTR. And about three weeks ago, after more than 12 months of waiting, I took delivery of said motor car.

So you would naturally assume that I would be happy and excited driving this super-car everywhere like I had stole it myself, but no, that’s not the way it has been. Firstly, after that length of time of waiting, you tend to have a lot of time to ask yourself a lot of questions. Questions like, do I really need it? Did I choose the right colour? And the big one – why do I want a super-car?

Secondly you have a lot of time to ponder the answers to those questions. Take the last question for example, why would you want to buy a super car? Well there are only two reasons, either you have reached middle age and you are in the full scale grip of a crisis, or you have a very small willy.

At age 33 its hard to be in a middle age crisis, the age keeps moving forwards, but I recon that middle age is currently around 50 or so. By the time I am 40, that would have moved to 60 and when I was 18, middle age was 25, but whatever it is, I don’t think that 33 could be justifiably called ‘middle age’

That’s a shame, because it means that the reason I purchased this car was because I have a very little willy. Which as you can imagine is a truth that will take some getting used to. I have not really thought too much about it up until now, but it has been a while since I seen the little fella and I am not even obese yet. How depressing is that? Well, since I am answering my own questions, I can truthfully say its very depressing. Sometimes I think the only good that could come from this is that I could get a new job as an agony aunt for Subaru and Mitsubishi Evo drivers, if you could call that ‘good’.

So its just as well that summers here and that means it’s time for the annual BBQ for the Concept 2O™ owners. For me its an opportunity to catch up with old friends and get to know the new operators better. But of course the benefits run a little deeper than that.

It is a rare chance to use the enthusiasm and experiences of others to help top up your own motivation. Sometimes you can get caught up so completely in the ebb and flow of your own business that you forget just how much fun being a business owner can be. The BBQ is just the opportunity to refocus and just enjoy the enthusiasm that others have for their businesses and find out all the new developments, let me just give you a few examples.

If you have been receiving our newsletter you will know the story of John and Jane Carty, both of whom are registered as profoundly deaf. Just short of a year or so ago, John and his wife picked up their brand new Concept 2O™ system. obviously they had very specific and specialised requirements and that is always difficult to accurately predict the outcome of such things. However, at the BBQ they were able to share their tale and shocked many operators with the success they have seen. Their vehicle is full of work and they still have so much work coming in, they now have to sell excess work regularly. Both are doing well materially and emotionally.

There were also operators that were moving on to their second vehicles with even more contemplating a third vehicle. Some operators that are local to each other are combining forces into a larger business and taking on partners to help share their success and some operators who were part time at the last BBQ who have now turned full time. Excellent.

Two operators got married, another two couples had their baby’s, a little girl called Isabella, and a new baby boy called Logan, welcome to the world both of you! There were also two new doggies bringing the total to three. Our puppy Blue Belle was more than happy with that.

All in all it was another very successful day and so much was shared by all. This week I approached work refreshed and exited to move our business even further forward despite being handicapped by the smallest willy in the organization.

Events like this make you wish that you network with like minded individuals more often, and we will no doubt work on making more events during the year to facilitate this. In the mean time, two events have been planed, a meal in the south of the country towards the autumn and a new group that meet in South Wales and Bristol that meet once a month to exchange ideas and to brainstorm.

As always, if your not yet a Concept 2O™ operator, come on in, the waters hot!

For further information contact Julie or myself on 01495 240 640

Best Regards

Carl Phillips

I don't like carrots...

2009-03-31T14:16:00.001+01:00

Whippets, nice looking doggies but, damn-it, they are so stubborn. Now those of you who have read my last Blog know that Julie and myself have a new addition to our family, Blue Belle our puppy. But as is the case with most drop dead gorgeous women I find on the internet, just because they are pretty, it doesn’t mean they are easy to live with. As it turns out, whippet pups are no exception.

Every time, and I mean every time you ask, tell or order it to do something, she laughs in your face and carries on eating the TV remote, the sofa or your brand new Nike trainers you bought because your getting fat and need to loose weight. She even has the cheek to look at you, then walk up to said valuable object and then start chewing.

Strangely, if it was just the chewing, I could deal with it. Google said puppies grow out of that. But she just wont listen to anything. No ‘walking at heal’, no ‘leaving’ no ‘sitting’ no ‘rolling over’ and the only version of ‘paw’ you’ll ever see, is her version of the ‘two finger salute’ when you ask her to do any of the above!

So, what do you do? its simple, read every book, article and Blog posting you can find on the subject.
Interestingly, as it turns out, a good woman’s stubborn nature is not the only thing that dogs have in common with people. Almost all the articles I read stated that - I needed to find the right motivation for bell. I needed to find out what makes her tick, what she really wants. In blue belle’s case, it was simple. Food. She will wash the dishes, vacuum the floor, and do the weeks shopping if you motivate her with treats.

You would not believe the difference it has made to our doggie. Training her is so much easier, in fact it’s a joy! I was so impressed with the difference it has made to her, I started analyzing what motivated me and if I could improve my performance and the performance of my staff based on the same principles.

However people are a little more complicated that that. You see the trouble is, there are a number of different ways of motivating yourself and others. I have split these up below-

1. Fear motivation
This is the first and by far the most common of all motivation techniques. Do this or else… there is a reason why fear motivation is the most common. It works! The downside is that it doesn’t work for long. Back when I was working by myself window cleaning, I always worked harder when I knew I had a bill to pay. I would put in two or three really hard days and would find the money to pay the bill.

Unfortunately, fear motivation doesn’t last because eventually the pain of the ‘or else…’ becomes less than the pain required to avoid it. In other words, if all I was working for was to pay bills, I would soon find myself totally unmotivated. It will eventually have the opposite effect.

2. Incentive motivation
Commonly referred to as the carrot and stick method this. You see something that you would like and so you go for it. Awesome motivation for you, your staff and doggies. Unfortunately, this type of motivation also suffers with an issue or two. Firstly, we have to have the right type of carrot. Usually (but not always!) this is money and the trouble with that is that the more you have the more you could do with. You soon start to see that the struggle goes on and on and you are always chasing your tail. Excuse the pun.
Another problem with the carrot and stick method is that eventually the person you want to motivate, even if it is yourself will get to eat the carrot, in other words you will have to find new motivation frequently. If you don’t, you will again find that the pain of chasing the carrot is worse than the pain of not having the carrot. This form of motivation doesn’t work for me because I don’t like carrots. Finally;

3. Growth motivation
So here it is then, the ultimate form of motivation. Personal growth. Humans have a built in need to better themselves. Think about it. Why do we really want the new house, new car and a successful business? Isn’t it really about proving to others and ourselves that we have worth? Material possessions are just the outward reflection of our success and in themselves are meaningless. They do not make us happy. What makes us truly happy is that having these things means we have accomplished something. We have grown and matured as people.
If this point needed further evidence, every parent I have spoken to has had this goal; To provide the things for their children that they never had. The desire to improve is hard wired into us and everything we do follows this. The very best news is that by following a program of self development, all the other material things come naturally as we hit goal after goal.

At Concept 2O™ we believe, that we provide the best business tools to start your successful business adventure. But we also believe that that a community of people that think as you do is an invaluable asset as you start to personally grow, people who like yourself, want to grow their business and become successful at the ongoing process of self development.

For further information contact Julie or myself on 01495 240 640

Best Regards

Carl Phillips

Its big, black and furry and I be afraid of it!

2009-02-10T13:15:00.004Z

I am 32 years of age. Julie my lovely other half is 30, and any married man knows what that means… kids. According to Google, women have something called a bio-logical clock?? but I don’t have any such thing, I ve checked.

The inter-web says; thirty is the age where women think they need to have a child. Currently we don’t have any kids, all the children I ever see are already taken so I gave up looking a long time ago. But Julie didn’t.

If you have read any other of my Blog posts, you will realise that I am a bit of a mans man. I like playing with guns (see last post) I like fast cars and any sport with blood in it, like boxing. I do not however, like little, pink, wrinkly things that cry and poop in their trousers all the time.

The thought of kids makes me come over all queasy and I get a sickly feeling and spots in front of my eyes, so you can understand my concern when Julie approached me one quiate evening and said she wanted a baby.

I spilled my coffee and burned my winkle, I was so shocked in fact, that I may have let out a little pee as well, good job my trousers were already wet then!

When Julie stopped laughing, she told me that she didn’t mean a real human baby, she had just made a funny and really meant a puppy instead.

A puppy? Aren’t they hairy, smell a lot and have teeth? As it turns out, my assumptions were correct! They do have hair and, if you pick the right one, they have massive teeth, with sharp bits on them. As you can imagine, thoughts of walking down the street with a Doberman or a German Shepard named fang, straining on the leash ready to eat other dogs and small children was beginning to sound like a good idea to me.

So, I done the gentlemanly thing and gave her the go ahead….

Women are not nice. They know exactly what to say and when to say it in order to make us men do whatever they want. So it was only after I said yes that she told me she wanted a ‘whippet’ and was going to call her blue belle. I now know what it feels like to be mugged.

Blue-bell? Doesn’t she know what will happen to me if I run down the street calling blue bell? Even the children fang was supposed to eat would fall around laughing till their eyes popped out. I thought my life hit an all time low at the cow tent but apparently Julie thinks not! And that I deserve more punishment for being male.

But as I said, a mans sole aim in life is to please the woman hes married too and so last Saturday Julie gave birth to a fawn coloured whippet pup which she duly named ‘blue bell’

As I write this I can hardly keep my eyes open, im bare foot and I have a headache; ‘blue’ howls like a wolf all night. She also chews things; like my speakers, my shoes, trainers, and worst of all my prized possession; my acoustic guitar. Doggies like wood you see. They are also quite fond of pooping and I have become a professional at the pooper scooper thing, I can even operate it with my eyes closed and one hand over my nose.

But you know what? I actually have fallen in love with her and what’s a bigger surprise, is that Julie, for the first time ever in our thirteen year marriage, has no objections to me looking lovingly into another woman’s eyes. She’s great and for all her issues, we haven’t laughed so much in ages. Her taking a leak on Dave, our Finance guy, had everyone in stitches for a whole two days. Belle also left her needle sharp teeth marks on our Operations Managers’ nipple which was also very humorous… Quality.

I guess sometimes you can work so hard and so long you just forget to enjoy yourself so thank you Julie and thank you ‘blue-belle!’

Carl Phillips
Director

Clear View Plus Ltd

2009-01-13T14:24:00.003Z

Is it ‘cos I is black?

Christmas is a hell of a time of year if you ask me. All them presents being given and visiting relatives you haven’t seen in ages and of course the food. Well actually, I like the food bit. But anyway, Christmas is that time of year when you re-evaluate what’s important to you and yours. Personally, me and the wifelet like a quiet time.

This year wasn’t quite as quiet as we would have hoped, in fact it was rather exciting. We nearly died you see. Let me explain. For those of you that know me, you will know I have a fetish with cars. Not an unnatural affection, I don’t find them sexually attractive or anything but I do like them. The car I have is quite a rare model golf r32 and I lovingly polish it whenever I am allowed. My Christmas tale starts with me at the wheel of my car.

I normally keep a very close eye on the condition of my car but the other week I realised that I had a break light out on the passenger side. Unusually for me I didn’t change it straight away. It was cold outside and I was warm and it’s hard to get to and the bulbs, like everything else with that car has to be ordered and well, I just thought it could wait. Well, on the Saturday after Christmas, the 27th , me and Julie decided to go to the climbing centre with some other Concept 2O™ operators. We had a good time and drank a lot of very nice coffee. When it was time to leave we mounted up and rolled out of the climbing centre quite happy and content.

I had to pull sharply out of the entrance way because it’s a blind bend but to my horror, there was a police car on the opposite side of the road. Both officers looked into the car as we passed and then turned in the road to follow us. It’s not a nice feeling having that kind of attention from the police is it? And, so we quickly run through everything they would check just to make sure we were safe. We were quite confident that the only thing that we could be pulled on was the brake light, which I was expecting a quick telling off for.

It was a little strange though, because the police kept following without pulling us over. There were many twists and turns on our way home and they kept close but no flashy lights or anything. Maybe they just liked my rear end. Julie does.
So I carried on into my street and up onto the driveway. I didn’t use the foot brake for the whole 4 miles preferring to slow down with the gears. An old trick my dad taught me just in case my brakes ever went. But I had to use the foot brake on our drive and as I did, the police 4x4 screeched to a halt, blocking our car in and the flashies went on.

We turned off the engine and got out. I was ready to start apologising for my lighting discrepancy when we were met with a rather unusual response -

“Armed police, place your hands on your heads!” you say what? He repeated his command loud, to the point of screaming and then the Mrs and I suddenly became aware that all the police were in a defensive position behind their vehicle and they were holding guns. Not just little guns either, MP5 sub machine guns.

“Put your hands on your heads or we will fire” oh bugger, these guys weren’t messing about. So well we, err, put our hands on our heads.
“Interlock your fingers and SLOWLY get on your knees!” we looked at each other and slowly got down on our knees. Well what else are you supposed to do! I couldn’t help thinking this was a bit heavy handed though. But if I was in any doubt, the south Wales police soon cleared that up.

From out of nowhere, a further three armed response vehicles turned into our street with sirens blazing and lights flashing and then came the air support helicopter, which kindly hovered about thirty feet above us. Helicopters are loud and quite windy at that height.

Thirty seconds later I found myself hand cuffed face down on my driveway, with four armed police pointing their rather impressive looking weaponry at my head while two more cautiously approached my car pointing the mp5’s firstly in the car and then slowly opening the boot, only to find my puffer jacket, my sub woofer box and a mars bar I was saving for an emergency situation.

At this point it gets a little real, because I could hear Julie getting upset. So what do you do? Well I started shouting taunts and threats at the highly trained tactical officers. Needless to say they weren’t too scared of an unarmed, handcuffed man face down on a driveway, but I swear to God, I would have given them a nasty bite on the ankles… 10 minutes later and in front of all my neighbours we were unceremoniously shoved into separate vehicles and questioned. Ten minutes after that and we were left standing in the street waving goodbye to our newly acquired friends. Apparently, someone had reported armed men in balaclavas waving shotguns out of a car similar to mine. It wasn’t us though, we were sipping lattes in the climbing centre café. Yeah, nice one, thanks guys.

Over the rest of that day, there was a mixture of emotions starting with excitement, its not every day things like that happen, well not to us anyway. All the way to the sheer danger of the situation. What upset me most was the fact that there were live rounds in the guns and the police were pointing them at my wife. Good job neither of us had a backpack is all I can say!

Seriously though, if there was ever a case where details are important, this was it. The police didn’t run checks on the number plate to see who owned it and the registered address. They took no notice that they were in a 4x4 and I was in a powerful sports saloon and could have outrun them at will if I was a real baddie. And I should have got the brake light fixed when I had noticed it out. All were small things but they could have led to a tragedy. By the way, I’d just like to thank the south Wales police, tactical armed response units for not killing me. Appreciate that.

Business is exactly the same. So I’m here on my first day back to work, working my way through a list of jobs I should have done ages ago but were just not important enough. Trouble is, you never know how these things can mount up and turn into something ugly.

So my humble advice to you is to watch the details because they count apparently.

PS. Sliver R32 for sale, good runner, mint condition fully loaded….

Carl Phillips
Director
Clear View Plus Ltd

Ewe.. Snot!

2008-11-13T11:35:00.006Z

Julie my wife has been ill, really ill. It started with a violent chesty chough then a headache caused by heavy congestion and then sneezing fits, aching limbs and a sore throat for good measure. Its all really rather nasty. The doctor said that she had a chest infection and then a virus on top, just for that little something extra. But the surprise was that Julie, who thinks that ‘time off’ is a place in china, somewhere between Hong Kong and Shanghai, actually had to take 4 days off in a row. Which is unheard of. She loves work and I think that she is addicted to it which is a shame because there are far more fun and exiting things to be addicted too.

But to tell you the truth, I don’t care about Julie for this week, and I have no sympathy whatsoever. None. This is simply because I sneezed, one of my eyes went watery and I also coughed. This means I have man-flue and that is far worse than anything Julie could ever have. Man-flue is by far the worst affliction in the known world and I for one have lost many a good friend to it. This means all my sympathy has to be saved for me and I have none to share.

Did I have time off work? No I didn’t, I like to think that I can work my way through anything. I thought this was a brave and selfless act and that as a boss my staff would look at me for an example to follow when they are struck down with the terrible illness that is man-flue.

Can’t imagine Spartacus staying in bed with the sniffles the day he fights the roman armies, or William Wallace on the battle fields of bannock burn with his box of Kleanex and a Lemsip can you? no good leadership wouldn’t allow it.

But that was wasted, they didn’t care either. That is until this morning when 2 of my managers came in with sore throats and sneezing…

Which I guess means they caught the deadly virus from me. Opps. This actually got me thinking as to why I turned up to work in the first place. Did I really need to be here? Am I so important that the business cannot survive without me for a couple of days?

My ego would automatically shout that if I was not at work the walls would fall down, there would be a fire and all my customers would leave me because I wasn’t there to help them. But in reality, I know I could have time off.

This brings me to the reason for this post. The difference between being self employed and a business owner.

Business ownership is different from being self employed. Self employment is just that. You still have a job to do (the ‘employment’ bit), but you decide what job you will do and how and when to do it (the ‘self’ bit) but self employment is dangerous. Its dangerous because it relies on you to generate income. If you don’t work, you don’t get paid.

A business owner is a person who has set a chain of events into motion that will eventually lead to a constant supply of money. If he is ill one day, his money will still come in. if he decides to go on holiday, his money still comes in. If he has an accident, his money still comes in. this is because he works on his business not in his business.

The good news for us is that window cleaning is such an easy business to develop from self employment style owner operated format to a business owner format, in other words, others go out and work your vehicles for you. That leaves you time to build your business. you become a business owner and not self employed.

If you’ve not got yourself into the window cleaning industry yet, what on earth are you waiting for? a written invitation from the queen? If you are fortunate enough to be a Concept 2O™ owner, congratulations, you can be a business owner, whenever you choose.

Carl Phillips
Director
Clear View Plus Ltd

Looks don’t matter…

2008-09-19T17:20:00.004+01:00

Really? Who would you rather a date with; Angelina Jolie, or Jo Brand? Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure Jo brand is quite lovely, but I would still choose Angelina. It’s a shallow male thing.

That’s not all, looks go further than people. Remember a little while ago now that the fiat multipla won all sorts of awards across Europe, it had some serious innovation in internal design. Two bench seats that sat three, plenty of leg and headroom, a sizable boot and some pretty nifty foldable seats.

But what in the name of all that’s holy were the designers thinking. It looked like the love child of a dolphin and an elephant and I for one would rather arrive at my destination riding piggie-back on John Merrick than step out of it. And the truth is, I am not alone. Despite its good manners and supreme practicality, sales for fiat were disappointing low. It was meant for families, but no self respecting child would be seen getting out of it in front of the school gates. They would be beaten, tied to a tree and laughed at all day by passers by. So disappointing low were fiats sales, they decided to tone down the exterior design to just ugly instead of repulsively hideous. Thanks fiat.

Even if the product is good then, design still matters. But why? Well I have a theory about this. I personally think that good well thought design helps in two areas. It shows firstly that the company cares about the product. They have thought long and hard about how people will view it and they design it to look as pleasing as possible for them.

Secondly, good design delivers something that money almost cannot buy. Pride. Have you ever wondered why all Ferrari drivers have a smug grin? Surly they must know that everybody hates them? I have a friend that owns one and yes, he knows that people want to do him a serious injury, but he also knows that secretly, deep down inside we would love to drive round town in one too. He knows he is the ugly bloke with the super model girl friend.

In business, pride provides a little bit more. It provides motivation. If your proud of something your motivated to tell as many people about it as possible. Now I know that I have touched on this subject before but the power of motivation is astonishing.
A recent survey from America studied the results of ‘grades verse motivation’ to prospective employers. The results showed that as many as 90% of employers will take someone who is highly motivated over someone less motivated but with good grades.

The same is true when we own our own business. There is nothing we cannot learn, or accomplish, no problem we cannot overcome and no mountain we cannot climb if we are motivated enough.

There are some things in business we can save money on, there are some corners we can cut. But with your equipment always, always buy with your head AND your heart. You will never regret it.

Carl Phillips
Director
Clear View Plus Ltd

Oi, Weirdo!

2008-09-01T19:23:00.007+01:00

Last week I went camping… yes I know that’s not the kind of thing you’ll find Sir Alan Sugar doing, or any self respecting business owner ‘truth-be-told’, but there is a real good story behind it. If you remember in my last blog posting (the power of support), I highlighted the fact that I visit Ikea quite often just to keep my dearly beloved, other -half happy. I feel it is my responsibility to keep a smile on her face in any way I can. Those of you that are married will know that this is the purpose of life.

Firstly, it is my duty to explain that my wife has an obsession, she loves cows. We have over 50 ornamental items in our kitchen, each depicting a cow of sorts. She would have a real one if our sofa was big enough.
Unfortunately for me, a little while ago, she was browsing through an Argos catalogue and saw a cow pattern tent…

She had to have the cow tent. No amount of pleading and begging on my part was going to stop it. You see, I would have liked to have been more supportive but guessed that if she bought the cow tent, then she would want to use the cow tent. And I guessed right. I knew it was coming, both the bank holiday and the question…

How about we go for a couple of nights in my new cow tent?... shame not to use it.

OK, so now you see I have a problem. I don’t like going away to begin with. I don’t like camping and I have issues with sleeping in a cow pattern tent on a camp site full of drunken welsh skinheads. They will tease me or laugh at me or even try to make man love with me as soon as our lights went out.

But how can you fight a bubbly blonde with blue, puppy-dog eyes and a smile more addictive than chocolate cake? So, on Saturday morning of the bank holiday weekend, I find myself packing the cow tent, my toothbrush, bug repellent and a suspiciously large camping knife for under my pillow.

I began thinking this could all go wrong when we arrived at the campsite. Strangely, some people take camping very seriously. There were tents that were as large as a small house, with fridges, cookers, and bathrooms. More than one had those solar powered garden lights that made up driveways. Size doesn’t matter my wife says but with camping it does, apparently.

Of course it got worse. We had enough time to find a quite corner, pitch the tent and sharpen my knife, when the heavens opened. It rained all day and all night and all the next day too. By the second morning even the hardcore campers had called it a day and were moving off. But not me. I had a point to prove. I was more man than them, even if my sexuality was in question because of my tent. But that was just at first.

It didn’t take a genius to work out that this is Britain, its always going to rain on a bank holiday so I expected rain. We sat outside wearing water proofed coats laughing and chuckling until we fell over. Then we started again. We persisted even when a bald man with a beard came and told us off for making too much noise. We carried on of course.

By the second day we almost had the field to ourselves and there was no letup to the merriment. It may have even changed my mind about camping.

It wasn’t until we returned home that I started thinking about the other occupants of the campsite. After the first day of rain there was an evacuation of almost everyone. And that reminded me a lot like the business world.

Isn’t it strange that people quit their jobs, a massively difficult step to make, then they start out on their own, which is also a time consuming and complex hurdle and then as soon as they hit the first major obstacle, they call it a day? Unfortunately, more start-up businesses do this than those that succeed.

Real entrepreneurs have a different attitude. Real entrepreneurs find the silver lining in any cloud and stick at it, making the very best of the situation. They view set backs and situations that are far from ideal as natural and they set about working out creative solutions. The more you look for examples like this among the more successful entrepreneurs, the more you will find this to be case.

Can you imagine how James Dyson felt when after 4000 prototypes; Hoover laughed him out of their offices? Or how Richard Branson felt when the bank called in his 300 million pound overdraft? These people fought the odds and won because of their irrepressible positive-attitudes.

No doubt, as business owners you too have had experience in overcoming adversity just because of your positive attitudes. For those of you that have read the ‘pure inspiration’ newsletter article on John and Jane Carty, you will know what I mean. If you missed it, you can subscribe to our newsletter by sending an E-mail with 'Newsletter' in the title to - info@clearviewplus.com

For this post however, I have a question for you. How far do you think that a positive attitude will take you? Is it all you need? Post your answers below.

Carl Phillips
Director
Clear View Plus Ltd

Its all about the money!

2008-08-14T10:22:00.004+01:00

Credit crunch. Everyday for the last three weeks to date, there has been something on the news about how the countries population is snowed under with debt and struggling to repay things as important as mortgages, car repayments and even food. Worse still, the banks are not loaning as they used to, mortgage lenders have withdrawn the 100% mortgages and energy and fuel suppliers are increasing their prices far faster than the rate of ‘usual’ inflation.

So what about our businesses? Is this the time invest and grow? Or should we all be consolidating our income and waiting it out? Is this the time to spend thousands of pounds on equipment? Or should we all be looking for the cheapest equipment? Is it really all about the money?

At first glance the current situation in the UK looks Bleak, bleak enough to turn the average home owner into a swivel eyed lunatic waiting for the impending recession to hit, but lets take a closer look at what this means for the self employed business man.

Without delving deeply into the endlessly fascinating subject of economics, we can safely assume that the problem is people in general are spending dangerously to close to maximum amount of money they earn. Which is bad. However, there is some good news for the window cleaning business owners.

Window cleaning works well as relatively small amounts of cash are taken from a large number of people. Even though window cleaning is not a typically essential bill, it is usually very small, usually £2 or so pounds per week. Most people loose more than that down the sides of their sofas. So things have to get really tight before the average home owner will cancel the service. This does happen of course, but when it does, the window cleaner looses a very small percentage of the income that can be replaced relatively quickly.

Look even closer and it gets even better for the window cleaner. Most of the cliental that make up a window cleaners round will inevitably be of the cash rich time poor sector of the general public. This sector is made up of professional working couples or singles that work full time and choose to relax on the weekends rather than carry out the household chores. According to HSBC in a recent survey, that market is worth some 6 billion pounds annually to the UK economy. It makes sense then that these individuals are not usually the first to be hit in any downturn of the market.

Think about this for a minute. As stated by a well respected economist, recession could be defined as more companies shrinking or down sizing than are growing. Its easy then, for people to panic when large companies put hundreds of people out of work at a time. The good news is referring back to the same HSBC survey 80 percent of the income from businesses is due to SME’s (small to medium enterprise) the days of giant British companies has gone and now the smaller more adaptable businesses are here. This in turn has given rise to the same cash rich time poor sector where the window cleaner spends most of his/her time.

The result of all this is simple, businesses still grow, employ staff, and reach record levels of growth in a down market the same as in an up market. For every negative, there is a positive. Take the fuel prices for example. Many businesses have suffered as a result of high fuel bills, cutting staff and some have gone under. The result for LPG conversion business and all the associated businesses of that industry tell a different tale. They have seen previously unimagined growth, with one firm experiencing a 1000% growth in one year! That’s not a printing error or typo, one thousand percent growth!

The truth of the matter is that with such a varied economy and such a massive amount of capital income coming directly from the smaller more adaptable business, the chance of a devastating recession is very, very small indeed.

This is a time for happy expansion for a window cleaning business. people will get laid off, find new jobs with thriving companies and the circle will continue as normal. Growing your business in a down market is such good business sense. The silver lining for us? -while your competition is shaking in the shadows believing the worst, you can be expanding with little or no competition.

Go for it!

Best Regards

Carl Phillips
Director
Clear View Plus Ltd

the power of support

2008-08-07T11:14:00.004+01:00

I hate Ikea. No really I hate it with such intensity, I cannot explain. Don’t get me wrong, I actually like the store, the café is cheap with some different but not unusual food, the products are mostly cheaply made but don’t cost the earth, and I kind of like the European style layout.

My wife however is the polar opposite. If she could move into the Ikea store she would. She loves it to death. Whatever mood she is in, if I suggest an Ikea trip, she is instantly transformed into a puppy, bouncing around outside the car door waiting for me to unlock it, and set off. I’m not complaining of course, some wives are far harder to please and a lot more expensive too.

So at this point, you would think that I have the most blissful happily married life. After all I know the magic ‘happy key’ of my wife. But no. life is never that simple.

If you could just pick up that new funky-looking cabinet from off the shelf, man- handle it to the checkout ,squeeze it into the car and then into the house, fine. But no. everything comes in flat-pack.

You could not think of a word that instils so much fear into me than ‘flat pack’ for two reasons. One I have to put them together and two the instructions always lie. You would think that because of my wife’s obsession with Ikea that I would have plenty of practice, but as each one is different, and I have a memory like a goldfish, I have no clue.

I approach a flat pack box as though it was a dangerous snake, or a large dog with big teeth. I know quite well what pain awaits. Each time I bring one back I decide that this time, I will follow the instructions. I will work them out. But each time the same thing happens. I lay out all the bits, then carefully unwrap the instruction list. Whereupon I am presented with something that resembles a very large fold up origami map. There are diagrams but some are upside down some are the right way up, some instructions are in Dutch, German, French, Italian and other exotic languages that I don’t understand.
After some flipping and turning, I find the English instructions but they still don’t make sense. Insert 2:1.3 into side B, slot C, flip over and repeat…. some very sadistic people live in Holland.
So I do what I imagine every other male in the country does, carry on without them. I look at the picture on the box and try to make all those bits into the closest resemblance possible. The worst part is my wife repeatedly asking if its done yet, then finally loosing her patience and trying to help, spoiling my chi in the process. We argue and end up with some very unstable furniture.

Business is a lot like Ikea. We choose what we want to do, spend money on it and are then left to work out the pieces to get the desired result. Is it any wonder then that sometimes business can be frustrating.

Certainly, we all know support helps, the word is used quite a lot. But the power of support cannot be underestimated. Just like having a flat pack genius helping you to put your furniture together, a helpful supportive company pointing you in the right direction can have a dramatic effect on the outcome of your business.

As usual post a comment if you wish

Carl Phillips
Director
Clear View Plus Ltd

Networking sucks...

2008-07-11T14:50:00.006+01:00

mmm… summer hay? Not such a good summer so far unfortunately, not that I think most of us window cleaners believe in summer anymore! But never the less, as part of our ongoing Business Development and Awareness Program (BDAP) Clear View Plus Ltd had its first s’ summer BBQ last Friday. Before I tell you more of what went on, I would like to share with you some more information on why we have a BDAP in the first place.

Early on in the life of our company, we understood the need of a reliable, solid foundation for a window cleaning business, that’s why we spent so much time, effort and money on the development of the Concept 2O™ system. Fail to get your foundation right and anything else you do will be seriously compromised. But please don’t ever be fooled into thinking that all that is required is the best equipment, business is far more complex than that!

Once you have the best equipment for your business, you can then concentrate your efforts on the growth of your company. The single most common and indeed fatal mistake business owners make is not understanding the dynamic nature of business itself. What that means is basically a failure to appreciate that business is a learning process that changes frequently and that is affected by many different and varied things.

Running a successful business is all about your ability to learn and then applying this knowledge. There is not a single person alive or who has ever lived that can do this by themselves. Entrepreneurship is learned, in the same way you learned to talk, walk, read and write when you were young, successful business people are avid learners.

Take as an example, Richard Branson. Do you think he was born with the knowledge of how to run a record shop? Or an airline? Or a finance company, a train service, or any of his numerous businesses? Of course not, he learned the required process along the way. Taking advice, learning about the nuances, shifts and trends in each individual industry and then he applied the information to his company.

The next obvious question is who taught him? Well in my own personal studies I have found that you can learn an amount of information from your competitors just by observing them do what they do. The key here is not to copy them, but to offer more. But there is only so far that will take you. To really get the fire started under your business, you have to get insider knowledge of a business the same or as similar as can be to yours. It’s the only real way to understand what is required, the problems you will face and the formulas to working out associated issues. The business world has its own term for this- Networking.

Most people think of networking as a group of people who get together so they can sell their product or service to each other. When I say ‘most people’ I mean myself included. All the networking meetings that I have been associated with have meant just that. A neat way for people to sell to other businesses. That’s why they suck. Who wants to be sold something that they didn’t really want in the first place and when they do want a product or service like the ability to research a number of different options first?

Which brings me neatly back to the BDAP. I wanted the business development program to be totally different. To me, the perfect network would consist of an eclectic group of people all sharing the same goal in the same industry. Imagine how cool it would be to have a group of people with the experience of a national company. Can you imagine just how much valuable information could be openly shared and called upon whenever it was required?

The BDAP provides just that. A varied group of Concept 2O™ owners, all with the goal of making the best of their businesses. What makes the network strong is the fact that all these people have different ways of improving their businesses over time and openly share their findings with others. In return they benefit from receiving information on problems they face. The fact that all these people are from different areas of the country provides answers to even specific area problems. Can you think of a more effective way to supercharge your business?

Last Friday was the inauguration event for the BDAP. It was an informal event cunningly disguised as a BBQ. Concept 2O™ operators from all over the country arrived mid afternoon many travelling for 5 hours or more and staying overnight.
What made the event remarkable was the mix of entrepreneurs that participated. There were operators with multi-vehicle operations, veteran window cleaners, new start business opportunities, operators that were brand new to pure water window cleaning and operators with years of experience.
Below are comments from some attendees-

‘Thank you so much for such a wonderful day, it was excellent talking with the other operators. I had such a good time and learned a lot from the experience. It was great to have the additional support from everyone.’

-Ian Gray
Ian Grey window cleaning

Thoughly enjoyable experience, its not what you’d usually get in this industry, it fabulous to be part of something like this. The ideas were flowing freely, everyone was so friendly and it was great helping each other. It was great to interact with people who use the same system as me. The only negative was that there was not enough alcohol!’

-Andy marling
Lynx window cleaning

We had a great time on Friday at the bbq. Thanks for arranging it. It was such a good idea and so well organised. Thank you!!

Lynda egiz
Crystal Vision

I wasn’t sure what to expect from a company BBQ its not the usually done thing. I was surprised how much I enjoyed it. I was able to share some things with other operators and I learned how to do things better and more efficiently. I think it’s a very good idea and will be a regular at these events from now on.

-Wayne mills
TEC cleaning services.

As for us, it was so good to see so many operators again, although many have become friends since their purchase, catching up with those further away was great. Finding out how well their businesses were doing was awesome, and I think I personally enjoyed the experience more than anyone. (Sorry about the karaoke thing by the way!)

Every year, the BDAP will consist of an informal summer BBQ (with the lure of free alcohol for the non drivers!) and a more formal winter seminar program. The seminar will be held at a hotel and the program will feature deliveries from business professionals, owner operators and us. The topics will cover marketing, finance and bookkeeping, employing staff and further business related titles. More information on this event will be posted closer to the date.
If your not yet a Concept 2O™ owner, contact us for further information on our new business packages and how we can help you reach your business goals.

Best Regards,

Carl Phillips.
Clear View Plus Ltd

Trade shows, the hidden power!

2008-04-11T09:29:00.002+01:00

Everyone knows the obvious benefits of trade shows but what visitors to the show don’t often think about is what it is like to exhibit at a trade show. So in this blog id like to give you an insiders view of how a show is organized, the benefits to your business, the drawbacks and then the real power of a trade show.

Lets start by defining a trade show and the benefits for show visitors. A trade show by definition is a gathering of manufacturers and distributors of products usually intended for a specific market. A trade show is open to all trades persons in that market or industry.

Visiting a show holds some very specific advantages for these businesses. As well as the obvious benefits such as being able to see and feel respective products from different manufacturers, and the networking with other ‘movers and shakers’ within the industry, you can get a feel for the directions an industry is taking.

This last point is the one true advantage of visiting trade shows and it is as important for the manufacturers as it is for visitors. Being able to assess what the market is doing at present and the way it is heading is the true power of a trade show.

Doing it right
For an exhibitor, preparation for a show starts many months in advance. There is a serious amount of organizing to be done if a manufacturer wants to get the best from the show and if even small things are missed, they can have a devastating impact on the results of the show.

Firstly, shows are expensive, very expensive so the first question for a manufacturer is whether it is the right time to show at all. Before a decision is made a manufacturer has to be absolutely confident that his/her products have a ‘niche’, a specific benefit or advantage that they can do, or that their product has that other competitors don’t have or don’t do well.
Usually, this is split into three distinct categories.

Quality
Service
Price

All competitors in all industries will compete to a greater or lesser degree with these three tools. As a customer, you want all three, but unfortunately the three never go hand in hand.
One manufacturer of a product will offer high service levels along with a quality product, but then price will suffer.
Another manufacturer will offer the lowest price, but then quality and service will suffer.
In reality, all manufacturers will offer a fine mix of all three to the best of their ability. That is why trade shows are beneficial for visitors. A visitor to a show can clearly observe in most cases where the manufacturer is aiming in the market place and make their choice from there.

Once a manufacturer is happy that they can compete on some level, the rest of the time before the show is spent organizing marketing literature, informing potential clients of the show details, designing stand structures, and the small but vital issues such as hotel accommodation, transport and logistical issues.

Showtime
On the days of the show, the manufactures sales team will do their very best to highlight the advantages of their product based on the manufactures mix of quality, service or price.

Choosing equipment for your business is a matter of deciding what mix of the ‘three’ you feel is the best for you based on the quality, service or price rule.
A good manufacturers job on show day is help make that decision easy for you to see.

A word of warning here though. If a manufacturer cannot compete fairly on the three rule basis, they will all too often try other tactics. The most common of these is to attack the credibility of other manufacturers. A quality manufacturer will never have to resort to this kind of aggressive marketing; it is a sign of a weak company, stay well clear.

The hidden power
As mentioned earlier, the hidden power of a trade show is the opportunity to observe the direction of an industry. Observing trends in an industry will help prepare your business to adapt to change and it is this ability to be flexible that will quite often be critical in your business surviving or becoming extinct.

In the window cleaning industry, we have seen comparatively small change when compared to technology based industry but the changes we have seen over the last ten years have been significant and will have far reaching effects.

Summing up
Trade shows are an excellent way of assessing the industry you are part of. They provide not only valuable information on the products of individual manufacturers and the manufacturers themselves, but also networking opportunities and the business trends that will to varying degrees affect your future business.

Windex 2008 turned out to be a remarkable show for us a company, all the effort, time and money spent was worth the ability to talk to like minded individuals. For this show we had no sales team, instead all the people that staffed our stand were concept2o owner operators. This provided them with an opportunity to discuss both equipment choice and network with others sharing tips and advice with other window cleaners.

If you missed the windex 2008 I hope to see you at the cleaning show next year.

Best Regards

Carl Phillips
Director
Clear View Plus Ltd

Growing your business - Part 6

2008-01-10T08:50:00.001Z

Part 6

Referring briefly back to part 4, we learned the components that made up a window cleaning business and in part 5 we discussed some ideas for gaining the type of quality client that makes running a window cleaning business easy. In this section, I want to focus on the operations side of the business. to be absolutely clear of what we are discussing, operations in this context refers to the actual window cleaning itself and the structure behind it.

The subject of window cleaning operations is truly massive, covering sub headings such as equipment choice, time scheduling, employing staff and employment law, client database organization, customer service, complaints and how to deal with them, staff training and recruitment, advanced cleaning techniques, problem solving, marketing and brand advertising and the list could go on. It is difficult to determine which subjects to cover here because they are all important and all play vital roles at various degrees at various times in your business growth so I am going to deal with the two of the most essential for your business; equipment and customer service, they are both interrelated and are very, very, important.

Before I go on though, id just like to warn you that what follows is not going to be popular among many in the window cleaning industry and I must admit it is a little strong, but nothing irritates and upsets me more than the way window cleaning is viewed among the general public. A little while ago now I was sent an e-mail from an old school friend inviting me to join friends reunited. During the login process, I had to fill out my job title, what I did for a living. At this point I hesitated. Was it because I hated window cleaning? Defiantly not I love the job and 16 years in I still enjoy it. The truth of the matter is, as soon as window cleaners are mentioned, certain stereotypes will be applied. We have George Formby’s banjo solo with a voice like a high pitched kazoo, or there is the porn film, which I haven’t seen yet, which follows the adventures of a window cleaner. or the dole bum who lives a few streets over who cleans windows for beer money and to buy his 19 kids shoes. And that’s why I hesitated, did I really want to open myself to this kind of abuse.
I must add here that its not me being paranoid either. I once went to the bank for a small bank loan to invest in couple of sets of ladders and an abseil training course. I had a well written business plan and some financials to show how I would pay the monies back. He nodded all the way through my presentation, smiled broadly at the end and gave me the ‘we’ll call you’ speech as he walked me out of his office. Nice. I got the distinct impression that he would rather invest the money in Ronnie and Reggie Cray’s collection business than to a window cleaner.
To be honest here, this is what the Concept 2O™ machine and the corporate vehicle branding was all about, to try to change peoples view on the window cleaning industry. to finally shake off the stereotypes and allow people to see just what a fabulous little business window cleaning really can be. So please excuse me if I get a little passionate about this subject. Read on at your peril!

Ok, so I don’t know at what stage your business is at currently, you could be quite established just looking to polish some rough edges or brand new to window cleaning but whatever your situation, the following will apply to you.

Customer service
This may seem obvious to most but to emphasize the point, a business without customer service will not grow and will be lucky to survive at all. Common sense really, but have you ever wondered why so very many companies get it wrong?
All of us at some point have been dissatisfied with the customer service we have received, but the important question to ask is how did that make you feel about that company afterwards? Would you use them again? What if they treated everyone that way?

Unfortunately, you may have had your issues with a large business or company so the next question that we need to ask is if the ‘big boys’ get customer service wrong, what chance do we have?
Well customer service is called customer service because its just that; serving your customers. So what we need to do is radically change our thinking when we view our business. instead of thinking what we think is good, acceptable or the norm, we have to ask how will my customers view this?

To do this effectively, we need to put ourselves in the position of our present or would be clients. I want you to imagine if you will, what your perfect window cleaner would look like. Would he wear a uniform? Would he have a security pass? Would he be polite, courteous and well mannered? What vehicle would he drive?, would he have the correct equipment? What would his literature look like? If we are imagining the perfect window cleaner he would probably have all those things.

The point missed by many window cleaners is that just because many people accept the way the status quo as it is, doesn’t mean to say that they are happy

Just to give this story a little balance, I want to tell you about our local window cleaner. He drives a very old van, it has rust on it and has not been cleaned well… forever I think. He wears jeans to work and they have tears in them, not designer tears either, just threadbare knees and a Manchester united fleece. He has an eyebrow ring and both his ears are pierced. He has a home made pure water system that uses the same rain collection butts that I have in my garden and a plastic B&Q hose cart, the same as my neighbours. He fills a little yellow trolley from his water butts and pushes it up and down the street refilling his trolley every 1-2 houses. Now before I get a brick through my window I want to add that he is one of the nicest guys, very friendly and surprising approachable, but would I think of him as a successes business owner? Not really, but would you?

The purpose of this story is not meant to be unkind to people who make an effort to earn a living rather than steal everything that isn’t bolted down, but it is meant to show to you how dangerous it is to only think of what you think is acceptable and not take into account what your clients think is acceptable.

Our local window cleaner doesn’t see anything wrong with the way he looks or the equipment he uses. He doesn’t feel it is necessary to clean and maintain his vehicle, he doesn’t think that his jeans having holes in them makes any difference to the service he provides. But in business, he doesn’t count, his client’s do.

Which window cleaner would you have if both called and offered their services to you? Once you appreciate that our clients and potential clients view of us is vital, you will begin to understand one of the essential keys to business growth. After all if we don’t want to spend money on our own business how can we expect others to?

Unfortunately, I have heard it said many times that image doesn’t matter, it’s the service you provide that counts. Every person who has told me that has been a single owner operated business similar to our local window cleaner. Meanwhile every person who has told me that image is vital, has been a millionaire business man or women.

I did say that this was going to be a strong one and im sorry if I have given offence to anyone, but the whole point is this… lets stop thinking about what we think is right and start worrying about what our clients view of our business is. If we have plenty of happy clients, the rest kind of follows naturally.

Seasons greetings to all and all the best in the new year!

As always, if you feel like you would like to comment, post below!

Regards,

Carl Phillips
Director
Clear View Plus Ltd

Growing your business - Part 5

2007-11-20T17:45:00.000Z

Part 5

In part 4 we stressed the importance of understanding the key basic elements of any business and then highlighted some of the industry specific requirements of the window cleaning industry. Please remember that this is not an exhaustive coverage of the topic and there is a lot more key information required in order to build on these key elements but for now, lets take a closer look at some of the areas mentioned in part four.

Client acquisition-
As highlighted in part 4 one of the key areas of client acquisition would be the knowledge to grow your client base. Unfortunately, there is more to this than just having a very large number of clients. The quality of the work you will need to provide a substantial foundation for your business is also vital.

What do we mean when we say quality? Isn’t a window cleaning customer a window cleaning customer? Well the answer to that is not as straight forward as it seems.
Some clients are fine for owner operated businesses where they can provide for the individual concerns of their clients, while the quality of clients for a growth business with higher overheads is quite different.

So what is a quality customer? Well firstly clients need to understand two definite rules of your business and be happy with them.
Rule one for a customer of a growing business must be that the client will accept a reliable service. Unfortunately, in our climate this means that occasionally you will call when the weather is far from ideal. Your client must understand that unlike many window cleaners they may have had experience of in the past, you and your staff are professionals and this is your living, if they will not commit to a regular service, you and eventually your staff will end up with a long list of ‘please knock first’ homes on your list and will spend more time knocking empty homes than cleaning them.

Rule two is closely related to rule one, in as much as your service to them will also be regular, meaning that clients who always refer you ‘till next time’ have the same result on your business as those who refuse your service in the rain. Once a client understands that your service is regular, you want to clean them without having to constantly knock and check every time you call.

Now the trick here is not to fall into the trap that almost all new business and even growing businesses fall foul of, thinking that all work is good work, it is defiantly not the case. Nothing is more disheartening and frustrating for both you and more importantly your staff, than starting the day with £400 on the work list and then only cleaning £200 of that work because of the referral and drop of rates.

The trade off that new businesses make is that they sacrifice the quality of the work just to increase the amount of work they have on the books. This is understandable as this extra work provides an immediate physiological boost; however, the boost is cut very short when compared to the impact of the frustration of that new, irregular work.

Instead of concerning yourself with those kind of irregular clients, more attention should be paid to gathering quality clients. This is not as hard as you may first think, but does require attention in order to get the very best results.

Now, when window cleaners think of increasing the amount of clients they service, most think of leafleting campaigns. A well worded leaflet posted through the doors of prospective clients is by far the most common method of growing the average window cleaning round. The trouble is, we are not trying to build an average window cleaning round and so we have to look a little closer at whether or not leaflets really are as effective as they appear.

Leaflets do not work effectively for the following reasons-

Compact work
Leaflets by their very nature lack the ability to deliver compact work. Compact work is vital for maximum return on investment. As a quick illustration, if you had a number of homes to clean and each were 10 minuets apart; you might clean 4 homes in a hour at an average cost of £10 per home that’s £40 per hour. If however the homes were only two minuets apart you could clean 8 homes in the same hour, double the amount! That’s £80 per hour and a massive £83,200 in extra cash per year. Compact work is very important.
Leaflets cannot deliver this kind of work because a high response rate for leaflets is, on average, 1 in 100, meaning that 1 out of every 100 leaflets you post will bring in one new customer. That client could be next door to the first client or 100 homes distant.

When a leaflet is posted through a potential clients door that client may well be initially attracted to your service, but very few persons act immediately on the information they receive. How many times have you received a posted leaflet thinking that the service presented was a good idea or a useful service but then never got around to contacting the company?
The reason for this is simple, as we have already discussed in an earlier part of this series, we now live in a cash rich time poor society, many people just don’t have enough time to do all the things they want to do and sometimes even the things they need to do. Unfortunately, even if a client really wants your service, other more important things in the clients mind just get in the way of calling you.

The next reason you should carefully consider leaflets as a main form of gathering new work is this; you are offering a personal service, you are requesting permission to enter the grounds of a client’s property and access the rear of that property in most cases. The fact is, a potential client is unlikely on the strength of a leaflet to employ your service without first being introduced to you.

Ok, this leads us neatly to door to door canvassing, by far the best way to ensure your businesses growth in a steady controlled and efficient manner. To most window cleaners the mention of door to door canvassing sends shivers of dread up ones spine, but considers the advantages;

Every time you knock a door, you are commanding a client’s attention. For that few seconds you have been able to briefly interrupt their busy time schedules to present your service. This has obvious benefits, you can be sure that if a client would respond to a leaflet you will gain that client by calling personally, but also you will gain those clients who would have seen your leaflet but would have never called because of their busy schedules.

When you canvass from door to door, you are personally introducing your service to a potential client; they will be able to see who is asking permission to call at their home. If you are polite, well mannered, present yourself smartly and respectfully, you have a very good chance of gaining a massive amount of clients.

Door to door canvassing has further advantages. There are tried and tested, set canvassing ratios that apply wherever you are in the country and whether or not the areas you call on has an active window cleaner or not. These canvassing ratios will help you organize your business growth around the operations side of your business. The flexibility of this cannot be overestimated; you will need to be able to plan the service all new clients will receive and this imperative for a service based business.

To summarise briefly, pay real attention to the quality of your new work, you wont want to do work that is to spread out, under priced, or is constantly referring your service. Leaflets on their own are not really effective enough to bring in the quality new clients your business will need. If you want to use leaflets, by far the best way use them, is to leaflet homes a few days before you call and canvass personally.

Well there is so much to say on this subject, I am sure that I could write a book on the subject but for the purpose of this series, we are going to move on now to part 6 where we will take a look at logistical operations.

As always, if you feel like you would like to comment, post below!

Regards,

Carl Phillips
Director
Clear View Plus Ltd

Growing your business - part 4

2007-11-05T16:30:00.000Z

Part 4
The basic elements

Ok, we’ve covered quite a bit on the background of the window cleaning industry in general. Believe or not there is more, much more but for now, we are going to move this series on to the essential parts of a window cleaning business.

Every business has basic elements that will not change throughout the industry, regardless of how individual companies within that industry structure their modus operandi. These basic elements are the building blocks of an industry, the functional and operational issues and opportunities that will be encountered. The modus operandi or mode of operation is how an individual company will deal with these opportunities and issues.

Focusing on the essential elements is vitally important for the business owner and entrepreneur. Without identifying these essential elements, it is impossible to plan your growth, and as we all know, growth is just a series of small but well planned steps.

Bear with me while I relate an illustration to demonstrate how important identifying essential elements are to a businesses health.

Over in the states, lived an entrepreneur an his business partner who’s dream it was to open a bar in the busy tourist area on the coast. However, the problem was the average bar business in the area had a life expectancy of only 18 months.
Undeterred, the partners spent the next year or so frequenting as many of the bars as they could in an attempt to identify the basic business elements for their bar businesses in the locality.
They were already aware that there were plenty of potential clients around, the area was a tourist trap and most of the new bars had no problem filling every seat when the bar was new.
The pattern followed in all the bars they observed however, with a new bar opening, filling for the first 6 months or so and then declining over the next 12 months until finally closing.

The pair finally identified the essential elements and then discovered that the current bars all made the same fatal mistake.
All the bars had very good looking female bar staff, meaning that all the bar stools located around the bar, were filled with hairy, male bottoms.
While the good looking bar staff kept the men entertained, every time a female, couple or group of females entered the bar, the fact that the bar stools were filled with male occupants made the females feel less comfortable than needs be, providing a ‘singles’ atmosphere. In this particular tourist area, this was obviously undesirable.

The pair decided to employ some good looking male and female bar staff. The result is that the business thrived, recently celebrating its 30th anniversary.

Planning for these business nuances is a vital step for any business and especially for those that deal with the general public. The basic business elements of the bar business in our illustration were;

Location
Atmosphere
Service

Without a full understanding of these elements, growth at best would be difficult and at worst, catastrophic. So what are the essential elements for a window cleaning business then? What actions make up the business and affect our decisions?

The three basic business elements in window cleaning cover the subjects;

· Client acquisition
· Logistical operations
· Client retention

Each of the above elements needs to be addressed, planned and developed in order to ensure business health and growth.

Client acquisition covers the how to grow your client base. What makes a valuable client, how to find them, how to present to them and win over their confidence and finally how to train them to help ‘click’ with your business requirements.

Logistical operations will include; how the rounds are structured, employment of staff, time schedules, equipment, hardware and software, technical improvements and innovations, training routines and further considerations.

Client retention is a simple matter of keeping all your clients happy! No seriously, its entails; How far to go for a client, how to inform clients of business practices, how to deal with complaints requirements and preferences and communicating price increases and new developments.

Each of these headings and subheading requires substantial explanations so as to understand why our own business operations are run the way they are, in fact over 30 years of experience led to such information and so it isn’t possible to cover each subject in full detail. However, I would like in part 5 to briefly cover one or two of the subjects and show how we as a company are on target for a 400% increase this year.

As always, if you feel like you would like to comment, post below!

Regards,

Carl Phillips
Director
Clear View Plus Ltd

Growing your business - Part 3

2007-10-25T09:09:00.000+01:00

Just to quickly re-cap on the first two parts of the series, we learned in part one about the importance of firmly establishing the motivating reasons for growing your business. in part two, we took a closer look at the window cleaning industry and found that although at present the greatest majority of the UKs window cleaners are owner operators, the window cleaning industry is an established service and the industry is growing rapidly.
We also touched on the fact that until pure water systems, growth of a window cleaning business was limited because of staff retention issues.

In this section I think it necessary to examine how pure water technology can and indeed for many has, affected the window cleaning industry.

For many years, the world of business has some hidden diamonds, businesses that are more likely to work than others, pay a better return on investment than most and are scaleable, meaning that the business can be systemised (more on that in a later article ) and then replicated. Window cleaning with pure water is one of those businesses. The reason is simple, many people think that for a business to work and be successful, the business idea has to be new, exiting and never been done before, but the reality couldn’t be further from the truth.
With a new business idea, the inventor has to explain his idea and then persuade the general public that it is necessary to use the new invention. Very few brand new inventions succeed in breaking the market.

The best business ideas take an established market and then improve on the service or product. Take for example James Dyson’s vacuum cleaner. He did not invent the vacuum cleaner, but he did think of an innovative way to better the existing models.

Michael Dell followed the same route, he did not invent the PC but he did understand that as that technological industry moved so fast that it was better to sell his PCs online rather than the vast sums of money and the huge amount of time and effort that establishing and stocking a huge distribution network would take. He took an established idea, selling PCs and then offered a better service – mail order = up to date PCs.

Window cleaning with pure water is so exiting because it ticks all the right business strategy boxes. In the UK window cleaners have been around since glass was first invented, a truly established service. The industry is growing rapidly, and more importantly, the window cleaning business is a profitable one, but the industry required a little more to truly flourish.

This is how pure water has found the window cleaning industry; desperate to modernise, it has been the same essentially since its inception and the people who are in the industry want to be viewed as professional trade’s persons but the accessibility to all sorts of people have prevented this.
Scalability has also been an issue has we have seen, growth has always been limited to the number of staff that can be persuaded to stay.
Finally, as every business requires a unique selling point, something to help stand your business apart from others, window cleaning with traditional methods left price as the only real bargaining tool when attracting custom, and price wars have always been self defeating.

Pure water systems directly addresses these issues, firstly pure water technology removes the skill level from traditional window cleaning and replaces it with a capital investment. The investment serves to discourage window cleaning staff from leaving your business and starting out on their own. It also means that as the skill level required is lower, staff can be trained faster.

Secondly, the use of pure water systems means that the time that it takes to clean glazing is substantially cut down, on average, a third faster than quick traditional work and 50% more efficient on commercial work.

The third benefit is that the use of a pure water system provides a better service to your clients and it accomplishes this in many ways, from the ability to access previously inaccessible windows to the framework being included in the clean, privacy factors and many further advantages.

Individuals inside the industry desperate to grow their businesses have welcomed the use of pure water systems with open arms. Window cleaners who do not necessarily want to grow their businesses have had a more difficult time in accepting the technology, but both sides would have to agree that pure water systems have become an established tool in many hundreds of businesses in the UK, and there is little wonder when you consider the benefits for the window cleaner, the clients of the window cleaner and the business growth opportunities.

So now that we have established a little on the background of the window cleaning industry, some of the issues and the benefits of window cleaning and how pure water addresses these. Let’s take a look at growing a business using pure water technology.
As the vast numbers of properties in the UK are residential, it follows that there are more residential window cleaners than commercial, for this reason, I am going to concentrate on the residential window cleaning business.

As always, feel free to leave a comment.

Best regards,

Carl Phillips
Director
Clear View Plus Ltd

Growing your business - Part 2

2007-10-17T09:50:00.000+01:00

Well after reading part 1 I hope you have been able to identify some of the motivating factors for you when you are growing your business. The importance of these motivating factors cannot be over-stressed, identify them and you will be able to fall back on them time and time again, they will serve you well. If you’re unclear on your personal motivating factor/s, then please spend more time thinking on the subject, you will not be disappointed, I can promise you that.

Lets move on now to the window cleaning industry itself and why you should consider it worthy of your time, energy and investment.
Now when the general public think of window cleaning, what do you think springs to mind? Unfortunately for most of the public, the image of George Formby plucking a banjo singing that rather irritating song is the default image, followed by the ‘adventures of a window cleaner’ film of questionable repute.
For those of the general public who have never seen a television, the very mention of cleaning windows brings to mind unhealthy images of Joe flatcap with a set of ladders, old jeans and a holly t-shirt.

None of the above stereo-types are what you really want as a business owner as you can imagine, if your motivating factor is pride in your business you should justifiably be feeling a little uncomfortable at this point because the general public’s perception of the window cleaning industry at present is not that far from the truth.
In order to help us understand this issue and why things are the way they are we have to take a closer look at the industry.

Window cleaning falls into the category of home services. The home services industry at present is worth some 6 billion pounds annually and is one of the fastest growing industry sectors. Which is nice. A home service is categorised as a service carried out for the general public on their own properties.
As you can imagine, the sector is growing fast for two reasons. Firstly, the swing to ‘cash rich time poor nature’ of our society. People are working longer and harder than ever before and there is less time to do those laborious but necessary tasks around the home. Secondly, the population of the UK is growing at the fastest rate in many years, causing the home building industry to build far more new homes than ever, more good news then.

So why is the window cleaning industry viewed as negatively as it is then? Well firstly, using traditional methods, ladder bucket and a squeegee, window cleaning is a cheap to business to start. We have already provided some testimony as to the size and growth of the industry, so with plenty of work out there and cheap set up costs the industry is open to anyone. Even those of an unscrupulous nature unfortunately.

That is until they start to view it as a business. when a person decides to become a window cleaner, they find that gathering enough customers is not the issue. There is always work for a good window cleaner. The trouble is, is that window cleaning using traditional methods has a skill level, a skill which has to learned over time, even ladder work is suited to some individuals more than others.
This is fine if you just want to earn cash and work for yourself rather than for an employer and by far and away the greatest majority of the window cleaners in the UK at present fall into this category of individuals working on their own rounds.

As we said before the problem arises when that same individual decides that he or she has been cleaning windows for a long time and wants to grow their business by employing staff of their own. After all, there are only so many windows one person can clean in the day.
Now the same individual runs into all sorts of problems. They can always find someone to help out, but the training process is a long one and staff are never as fastidious with your clients as you are. Window cleaning with traditional methods is hard work and there is always the temptation to cut the odd corner or two.
Besides the training times and trust issues, the problem is further compounded by the fact that once trained, there is nothing stopping your new staff member from purchasing his own ladder and equipment and starting out on his own. From personal experience this can be very frustrating to say the least and the employment process has to start all over again.

Since the introduction of water fed pole technology some ten years or so ago, this was just the way it was and this state of affairs may account for the fact there are still no national domestic window cleaning companies in the UK.

Pure water systems have changed the status quo beyond recognition. They clean windows faster in a safer manner and provide substantial extra benefits for their clients.

In part three, I want to focus on how pure water technology affects the traditional window cleaner in a little more detail, in the meantime, as always, feel free to leave me a comment.

Best regards,

Carl Phillips
Director
Clear View Plus Ltd

Grow Your Business - Part 1

2007-10-08T12:25:00.001+01:00

Growing your Business - Part 1: Introduction

Now I would like to start this series by chatting to you a little about why you would want to grow your business in the first place. This is important because as you will already be aware, growing your business takes a lot of motivation, hard work, and patience.

If business growth was easy, then everyone would be doing it and we would all be as successful as Richard Branson, James Dyson and every other top entrepreneur's appear.
It may seem strange then, that many, very hard working business owners never seem to make it off the starting blocks so to speak, struggling on year after year as frustrated owner operators.

During our conversations with business owners both small and large, I have come to notice a pattern with those who are succeeding and those who’s businesses are not heading where their owners desire. The reason for this is that when a person decides to grow their business, they don’t have a clear goal or target in mind, but more importantly, they are confused about their motives for wanting to grow their business.

A large part of a successful growth campaign is having your motivation crystal clear to begin with. This forms a solid foundation for your business growth and so when the going gets tough, these individuals have a seemingly endless supply of motivation to call upon. As a wise man one said its always too early to quit, and these business owners are the ones that make it to the top of their fields, simply because they refuse to give up when they suffer setbacks.

These guys are not super human, they simply have the reasons and the motivation clear in their minds, then they just get out there and make things happen.

During our conversations with our clients, we come across all sorts of reasons why individuals decide they need to grow their business, and contrary to popular belief, its not all about wanting to be stinking, filthy rich!
Of course, there is nothing wrong with wanting reserves of cash in today’s society; it is the wealthy that get the best of things. Just take the NHS for example. It seems every day there is something in the news about the NHS facing a new crisis with either waiting times, withholding treatments, the MRSA virus Ect… Private health care on the other hand, suffers far less issues. You or your loved ones can be seen straight away, in clean hospitals, and you can have any treatment you want - provided you have the cash that is!

The vast array of reasons why our clients want their businesses to grow always astounds me. Many don’t want more money at all. Most business owners just want more time. With the financial pressures faced by us all, some employees and business owners find that they have to work such long hours, they never seem to be able to spend much time with their families and even when they do, they are just too tired to make the best of it.

Other clients of ours just want to own a business that they can be proud of, getting up and actually being excited to go to work in the morning.

Whatever the reason why you want to grow your business, and im assuming you do as your reading this, the first step is a realisation that without this motivation, growing your business is going to be very hard indeed, if not impossible.

So before I focus on how to grow your business, I want you to think about the reasons why you want to grow your business, and please feel free to share them with us.

In Part 2 of growing your business we are going to take an overview of the window cleaning industry and highlight some of the opportunities window cleaning offers.

If you want to send me an e-mail directly you can do so from the contact us page on the site http://www.clearviewplus.com/

Best regards,

Carl Phillips
Director
Clear View Plus Ltd

A Warm Welcome

2007-10-08T12:25:00.000+01:00

Hi, I'd like to welcome you to our very first blog ever!

As you can imagine, we have the opportunity to chat to many hundreds of window cleaners with varying sizes of business, from the owner operators to the large multi-vehicle operations.

We thought that it would be nice to share some of the experience we have gained through our interactions with these businesses and of course within our own sucessful window cleaning company.
Your can find out more on our window cleaning operations at: http://www.concept2o.com/

The longer that I am in Business the more I realise there is to learn regarding Marketing, Customer Care, Finance and the list goes on and on. So using the analogy that a problem shared, is a problem halved, this is your opportunity to test us and find the answers to your business questions.

We are privileged to have a very strong management team with a broad skill set and all of the senior management here at clearview, have had vast window cleaning experience, so the likelihood is that we can help you with almost any window cleaning related questions you may have.