0161 723 2000
8AM to 5PM
0161 723 2000
8AM to 5PM
Of late, I have noticed a tendency television programmes to be absolute crap.
Do you ever just sit there after the programme has finished and think …I want that hour back?
Adverts as well – do they think we are all morons? ….Ok so they want to advertise ‘The Walking Dead’ ….but do they really need to run the same advert in every break every ten minutes…or…are they under the impression that we – their customers – are in fact …The Bloody Walking Dead.
Re-makes of classic old movies – watched the new ‘Tarzan’ the other night…what a load of old CGI crap.
Strictly Come Dancing – oh my god shoot me now.
Just saying.
Mike C
Of late I have noticed a tendency for my insurance costs to go through the roof.
Whatever you do your price increases and the cover is reduced.
Insurers will take money off you all day long but when it comes to paying out …it never seems to be covered.
If you try an insure something that does have a risk – no matter how small – not interested.
Public liability, Professional Indemnity, buildings contents, home insurance, car insurance, bike insurance, guitar insurance, phone insurance…etc etc etc
I’ve been working out that if many years ago I had set up an account where I paid all of my insurance payments into – and took money out for each successful claim – I would still be left with a balance of over £760,000.00
Just saying.
Mike C
Just thinking… Google Rankings November 16, 2016Of late I have noticed a tendency for Google to penalise the longer established quality companies in favour of those willing to pay more ‘per click’.
We now have a situation where crap companies can be made to look and sound great – simply by use of a new website and spending a few quid on PPC
How about Google adds something on top of the advert that shows that the website was made five minutes ago by a call centre in India?
Mike C
Of late I have noticed a tendency for fly tipping to be on the increase – and feel we need to take decisive action?
Driving through various beauty spots you can see piles of industrial debris just left lying in the car park – usually about a transit vans worth….
What type of idiot does this FFS…?
My proposal – that like farmers do with moles – we hang the culprits from a fence surrounding the area where they have tipped. The smell of rotting idiot will then put off the other idiots and they will collectively take their rubbish to a tip and pay to get rid.
Simple.
Mike C
New tendering process November 2, 2016For years I’ve been putting up with the… ‘tender’… process for Japanese knotweed eradication. What this means – (for those of you lucky enough to not know what this is) – you basically do a site survey (free of charge), you then come up with all the best options for eradicating the plant (again free of charge).
The client then decides which is the ‘best’ strategy… (for ‘best’ …read… ‘cheapest’) and goes with that option.
In the new world that we all live in this is a dangerous way to proceed due to the variety of methods available and the different levels of efficacy. What I’m saying is that you will end up comparing differing methods… which is a little like comparing… ‘apples with oranges’.
Add into this situation that most clients simply don’t have the time to read what the contractor has actually written and just looks at the price….and you have a problem
Surely to goodness in this day and age the better way to get works done properly is to build a relationship with your contractors…?
Why not invite people to an introductory meeting where contractors can present their services – go through their portfolio of works and discuss the strategies and methods that they would use.
You get to meet everybody – shake hands – look people in the eye and generally get a ‘feel’ for the various companies that you wish to work with. Maybe our accounts department could meet your accounts department?? Our surveyors meet your surveyors?? ….lets all get to know how you wish to work ….and who needs to speak to who…
Once this initial ‘meet and greet’ has been concluded you then get down to the nitty gritty. Insurances, health and safety compliance, trade body affiliations – anything you need to check can be checked.
I’m also suggesting here that profit margins and markup are agreed at this point – some sort of ‘open book’ system where everybody agrees what a reasonable business should be charging – no shocks.
Maybe at this point you agree payment terms and how you wish to be invoiced – are projects going to be VAT exempt? Etc etc
Then and only then will you discuss a particular project.
Just think about the time, effort and grief that this would save….
No more multiple tender situations where several contractors are squabbling over jobs – running all over the country knocking up thousands of miles on the car….then you lose out to some asshole that hasn’t priced the job properly.
How many of us have lost projects because we KNOW what we are doing!!!!! The idiots that think a single season spray will kill an established stand of Japanese knotweed and price the job on that basis – win work off those that allow repeat visits and multiple spray regimes.
Why not make a change in the way we all do things – cheapest is never best – you get what you pay for.
Mike C
