Wednesday 16 January 2008

Cleaning Local Garden Sheds Business Opportunity?

I have just spent this afternoon totally clearing out and domestically cleaning one of my garden sheds. Whilst doing my shed cleaning chores I put on my business opportunity thinking hat! I have never heard or seen advertised any where a business offering a shed cleaning, re organising or valeting service. Maybe this is a well established type of business in places but I have never come across one of these businesses around Lincolnshire where I live, maybe you know differently?

I can see a tremendous opportunity here for someone with self motivation, basic marketing skills, full driving licence, willingness to work hard and most importantly do a first class job.

To get started it might be an idea to draw up a few interior shed designs for various sized sheds, for shelving arrangments, cupboard standing areas, work benches/areas etc etc so as to give yourself a professional appearance when meeting clients and pricing up their jobs. Obviously if you get your price right and do a top class job you should find that once the word gets around about your business and standard of work you may well get plenty of referal work from satisfied customers, also you may well get repeat work as over a period of time I am sure alot of customers would instead of keeping their garden sheds clean and tidy, would let them gradually return to their original untidy mess.

Things you would require would be a vehicle to get you from A to B, a few basic tools ie:- brush, screw drivers, battery drill, dust pan and brush, probably an hammer and a few nails and screws etc.

Also you would require stationary for sending out invoices, and an accounts book for keeping your companies financial records. Don't forget also to take out a liability insurance to safe guard yourself against disaster!

You would also require a name for your company although that could be as simple as Ivor Job Shed Valeting Services, or Ida Newidea Shed Cleaning Company. or just plain I B Trading as Garden Shed Cleaners etc.

To get your business up and running you would need to market it. The best way would be to do leaflet drops at targeted areas such as large houses with large gardens, council estates with attached allotments etc. Other ways to advertise your business would be newspaper adverts in your local paper and also telephone books, You could even get yourself a little website made up and so long as you had good search engine optimism (seo) within the code and pages then enquiries would start coming your way. To give it an initial push you could use google adwords for carefully selected keywords and phrase like garden shed cleaning, summer house cleans, shed interior renovation etc etc

Can anyone else see potential here? or have I already missed the boat?




Robin Harrison is the managing Director of Dolly Char (UK) Ltd. Dolly Char (UK) Ltd is one of the fastest growing domestic cleaning franchise companies in the UK today giving people the opportunity to work from the comfort of their own home.

Tuesday 15 January 2008

Website Urgent Feedback Required

Domestic Cleaning Franchise Work From Home Home Based Business Franchise Business Opportunity Management Franchise Franchise Advice Be Your Own Boss

Dear all I am seeking the respected opinions and views of you people out there regarding my company website. I have placed two links below (A) is how my site appears at the moment and (B) is what I am proposing to change it to. I would be happy also to accept any suggestion on amendments also to site (B). If after a short period of time the general consensus is that (B) is best then I will change the 100 odd pages of my site to this style, if (A) is preferred I will leave it alone. I have also set up a poll for you to indicate your preference, please click on poll to cast your votes, many thanks for your anticipated feedback.

(A) website version

(B) website version

POLL




Robin Harrison is the managing Director of Dolly Char (UK) Ltd. Dolly Char (UK) Ltd is one of the fastest growing domestic cleaning franchise companies in the UK today giving people the opportunity to work from the comfort of their own home.

Sunday 13 January 2008

Health & Safety The Robotic Mode Whats The Cure?

Domestic Cleaning Franchise | Work From Home | Home Based Business | Franchise Business Opportunity | Management Franchise | Franchise Advice | Be Your Own Boss


I often wonder if I am alone in the world in my belief that obviously not all, but very many work place accidents happen when people go into what I call robotic mode?

My definition of robotic mode is to give just one example from within the building industry, someone who lays bricks day in day out for arguments sake knows his job that well that he can fall mentally into a world of his own and instead of concentrating on the job in hand his mind is maybe wandering away to the pool match that coming evening or taking his girlfriend out to the Friday night disco, whilst he is in this state of mind even though his body is functioning and laying bricks perfectly his mind is far far away. In this dangerous state of mind if he is working high up on scaffolding and someone as left a trip hazard in front of him he may well not see it or realize that it is there and trip over and seriously injure himself if not tragically fall to his death! Some people may well call it daydreaming but I like to refer to it as robotic mode.

The point that I am trying to make is that when you are writing health & safety policies along with risk assessments and method statements how can you cater for the robotic mode? In my company one of my risk assessments that I have wrote asks for workers to stay alert at all times, but from my own experience this is nie on impossible for workers to do, especially when they are doing repetitive jobs. Can anyone come up with a cure? Other than spraying them with cold water every five minutes or so! We do have a responsibility for our own health & safety as well as other and across the board it is doing what is seen to be reasonably practical, but I believe many work place accidents are down to robotic mode and if a cure could be found to this problem it could save many lives and 1000s of injuries.




Robin Harrison is the managing Director of Dolly Char (UK) Ltd. Dolly Char (UK) Ltd is one of the fastest growing domestic cleaning franchise companies in the UK today giving people the opportunity to work from the comfort of their own home.

Company Logos is your Logo Recognised!

It is very important for a company that wishes to go places to have a logo that is eye catching and easily remembered. Mcdonalds M comes to my mind first as it probably will do to many people, eyecatching for its simplicity and instantly associated with obesity! lol, Other simple eye catching logos that come to mind are the the Kentucky colonel, Nike, Virgin, Coca Cola etc etc. Looking at all these large companies they have all gone for a simple design either using their company names as a simple graphic logo or instead used a simple logo design that as become an integral and recognised part of their brand as an whole.


Why are some logos better known than others?



Many large companies that do not have or need an outlet on the High Street either to work from or display their products are straight away at a disadvantage and can struggle to get their logo nationally or internationally recognised. High Street outlets like Mcdonalds, Burger King, Kentuckies etc tend to trade in very prominent places, near to busy roundabouts, busy junctions, and motorway services areas etc. I believe that this helps to get their logos to a much higher level. Also these mega companies generate the income to have vast advertising budgets and hence they can get their logo shown to millions through television advertising as well as on billboards up and down the country and worldwide. Mcdonalds like their competitors have their logos on all their food packaging and it is not unusual to see a Mcdonalds package blowing down the street or stuck out of a bin.

Other companies that are large within their own niche of the market place like Domestic Cleaning Companies, Oven Cleaning or valeting companies, Regional Developers, etc because they are usually not to be found on the High Street and rely on leaflet distribution, local newspaper advertising, word and mouth, small internet presence etc are never going to get into the same league of recognision with their company logos. This although does not mean for one minute that they are not a quality company because their logo is not as recognisable as some of those other business giants! Also some of these companies logos are only ever seen at the time of initial contact when the company was first found in the yellow pages for example. Once the client becomes a client they probably do not see the company logo again, this is not a failing it is because companies work in vastly different ways as they are offering totally different services. Also it is maybe not a regular weekly event that a client looks at obtaining certain business services it may only be once every five years or so and thus some large companies do not get the viewing to gain the recognision because the type of service that they offer is not an every day thing like food!





Robin Harrison is the managing Director of Dolly Char (UK) Ltd. Dolly Char (UK) Ltd is one of the fastest growing domestic cleaning franchise companies in the UK today giving people the opportunity to work from the comfort of their own home.

Saturday 12 January 2008

Franchise information That prospective Franchisees Ought To Consider

Domestic Cleaning Franchise Work From Home Home Based Business Franchise Business Opportunity Management Franchise Franchise Advice Be Your Own Boss



Before travelling miles to an initial meeting to discuss a business opportunity with a franchisor it is useful for the prospective franchisee to consider the following important points first.

  • How serious are you about this franchise opportunity?


  • Do you match upto the franchisors franchisee job discription/profile?


  • Have you looked into other similiar franchise opportunities to build up more of a picture of this particular type of franchise?


  • Research this type of business to gain more of an understanding about it?


  • Check out the area where you would wish to run your business to find out what competiton already exists?


  • Have you got any experience that may be of benifit to you within this field of business?


  • Are you really cut out for this type of business?


  • How adaptable are you to learning?


  • Could you adapt your present lifestyle to run your franchise business properly?


  • Would your family if applicable support you in your business venture?


  • Would you have the self motivation to succeed with your new franchise business?


  • Can you afford the franchise in the first place and if not how would you raise the capital to finance it?


  • Could you survive for the first few months financially whilst the business got itself established?



  • All these questions can be answered through doing a little research and I would strongly recommend doing so before arranging an initial meeting with the franchise business owner. You may unfortunetly find out that the particular franchise that you were interested in would not be suitable for you.

    This would save yourself valuable time in not having to travel potentially miles to meet up with the franchisor only to be turned down due to unsuitability.

    .


    Robin Harrison is the managing Director of Dolly Char (UK) Ltd. Dolly Char (UK) Ltd is one of the fastest growing domestic cleaning franchise companies in the UK today giving people the opportunity to work from the comfort of their own home.

    Franchise Advice, Questions To Ask The Franchisor

    Some basic advice when looking to purchase a franchise is to check out on the franchisors previous track record with his existing franchisees. Phone around their existing franchisees and ask for their honest opinion on the following questions to help you build up a good picture of the Franchisor. This is very important as there are franchisors out there who are very unhelpful towards franchisees within their network and I believe that this is a must for any prospective franchisee to under take.

  • How forth coming with information was the franchisor when enquiring initially about the business?


  • Do you think in hindsight the franchisor was more interested in signing you up than whether you were suitable for the business?


  • Did the franchisor deliver what he/she promised?


  • Was the training the franchisor provided adequate for your business needs?


  • Does the franchisor offer extra training if required at their sole expense?


  • Does the franchisor make site trips if required?


  • How helpful was the franchisor in the early days in helping you set up your business?


  • How easy is the franchisor to get hold of?


  • How long does the franchisor take to get back to your phone calls/emails?


  • Does the franchisor have a willingness to help you out if required?


  • Does the franchisor still maintain good personal contact with you and the other franchisees in the network on a regular basis?






  • Robin Harrison is the managing Director of Dolly Char (UK) Ltd. Dolly Char (UK) Ltd is one of the fastest growing domestic cleaning franchise companies in the UK today giving people the opportunity to work from the comfort of their own home.

    Friday 11 January 2008

    South Devon U F O Revisited With Pictures

    I wrote a blog on the 22nd of December called U F O over South Devon, a few people asked me if I could show them a picture, well I have finally worked out how to get a picture on here and below my original blog that I have copied below you will find two pictures. Please take into account that the pictures were taken using my table top tripod over a two second time span and the actual object when viewing it directly was just a bright orange dot!

    Whilst holidaying this last August down on the coast of South Devon one evening I was out on the balcony of the cottage that we were staying at which over looked the sea taking picture using my camera and tripod of the moon shining its reflection onto the sea. Whilst taking photos I noticed a quite bright but very small orange dot to the west of the moon and slightly lower in the sky. I was very curious as to what it was so I set my camera at a very slow exposure and zoomed in as much as I could. When I looked at the result the orange disc was moving in a quite quick but zig zag fashion.

    When we arrived home I was talking to my brother in law Frank whom before I had mentioned anything about my experience mentioned to me that whilst we were away one night that he and two friends were looking South one night when they saw a small orange disc in the sky. As it turned out it was the same night as us. When I told Frank that I had taken a picture of it on my camera he couldn't believe it as he said he had told one or two people whom were very sceptical and they thought that he was losing the plot! As anyone else seen or filmed anything similiar this summer?, My sighting certainly wasn't an airoplane or a shooting star but obviously there must be an explanation. It was certainly a UFO but as for it having little green men on board I am not so sure as I believe that we are not alone in the universe but if a species from another world had the technoledgy to come all the way here then they would have no worries and nothing to fear about making themselves known to us as they would be far and away in advance of us!

    Feel free to comment ask questions or give your story or views.










    Robin Harrison is the managing Director of Dolly Char (UK) Ltd. Dolly Char (UK) Ltd is one of the fastest growing domestic cleaning franchise companies in the UK today giving people the opportunity to work from the comfort of their own home.