Kempston

Like the Mansfield appeal, just out of interest I'd like to know who has been viewing my blog in Kempston, purely because whoever has been reading my blog in Kempston has spent the longest viewing what I have to say. It's nice to know that some people find what I have to read interesting!

Thanks.

SIGN THE WINDOWS SCRAPPAGE SCHEME PETITION NOW!: http://www.petitions.number10.gov.uk/windowscrappage

Blogs 3

I've added an 'Other Blogs of Interest' section on the side of my blog so readers can take a look at other blogs that are out there. If anybody has a blog/website and wants to add their link to the three that are already there just ask and I'll put it on there.

It could be useful to build and expand a network of blogs within our industry, try and get better communications between everybody.

SIGN THE WINDOWS SCRAPPAGE SCHEME PETITION NOW!: http://www.petitions.number10.gov.uk/windowscrappage

The Ultimate USP

In economic hardships such as the one being experienced now, it is even more important for double glazing companies to differentiate themselves from the rest of the market. The best way to do so? USP's.

There are a lot of companies on a level playing field now. The quality of PVCu products have greatly increased, from all suppliers. Companies are offering lots of different and innovative products. But therein lies the problem, most companies have diversified so much so that most companies now offer the same plethora of products and services. What used to be one companies USP, is now the same as maybe 20 others in the same area.

What should be the task for businesses now is to look for that ultimate USP. The one big unique differentiation that completely sets you apart from other companies and makes you that much more an attractive option for your potential customers.

Saying you have 'A' rated energy efficient windows is good, but more and more companies are joining the band wagon and offering those also. The USP doesn't have to come from the invention of a new product or service. It should come from within the company, look at the structure and the way the business operates and find that feature that is unique, then it is just a matter of knowing how to market that USP to customers in such a way that it would be of a great benefit to them.

SIGN THE WINDOWS SCRAPPAGE SCHEME PETITION NOW!: http://www.petitions.number10.gov.uk/windowscrappage

Website 5

Providing I get the hours I need, I could have the full and final draft of the new website complete by the end of the week! A lot of the work that is left is imaging work and layout designs. Most of the text is now fininshed. As for getting it live, it could be 2-4 weeks, but the aim is to have it up and running before the start of the Christmas period, to combat the quieter months through the winter.

A double glazing website has to be an online showroom, or as good as. To me, the showroom is as important as a website, both have got to show the best of what you have to offer. The website should be a tool in which to get customers to visit you in the showroom, there you have a better chance of gaining their business. The web however has evolved into one of the main avenues of gaining leads, so to ignore it would be shooting yourself massively in the foot.

As for the windows scrappage scheme petition, now the Government's response is to offload the issue onto the Office of Fair Trading, is there any point in me keeping the link on my posts below?

SIGN THE WINDOWS SCRAPPAGE SCHEME PETITION NOW!: http://www.petitions.number10.gov.uk/windowscrappage

Why Offer Anything Else?

What is the point with offering C and B energy rated windows if you can offer A?

I suppose if your frame isn't thermally efficient enough to achieve an A rating, then a C or B rating is better than nothing. But in reality, there are plenty of suppliers out there now that are able to offer A rated windows. And the cost differences between C and A are minute, it wouldn’t make much sense to offer C if A rated windows cost only slightly more.

There's one great big advantage about the changes to Part L in 2010. All those who are not selling energy rated windows are either going to get left so far behind the catch up will be too long, or companies will just go bust due to the inability to offer products that conform to the rules and are not competitive with other products on the market.

SIGN THE WINDOWS SCRAPPAGE SCHEME PETITION NOW!: http://www.petitions.number10.gov.uk/windowscrappage

The Three Rules Of Business

1.  Take care of the customer.
2.  Take care of the customer.
3.  Take care of the customer.

The most simple rule in business, and yet most companies, particularly some in our industry, disregard this most important of practices.

The disregard for this rule is the reason why the double glazing industry has such a tarnished reputation. When most people think of double glazing companies or salesmen, they immediately have the image of a sleazy, untrustworthy, unreliable outfit. This is due to companies' bad handling of customers in all departments.

We have a policy of making sure that the customer is informed at all times. Even if a minute detail has changed with the order, the fitting date, product spec etc, the customer is always contacted and made aware of what has been altered. And if it's a problem, we work with them to make sure satisfactory arrangements are made. All the time we get comments from our customers telling us how pleased they are with the customer service they have received.

And that is the key, provide first class customer service, and everything will run smoothly from there on in. If the lamer parts of our industry took note of the three points above, we could ditch the tarnished image and attain a friendlier, more approachable one. From little seeds grow mighty trees!

SIGN THE WINDOWS SCRAPPAGE SCHEME PETITION NOW!: http://www.petitions.number10.gov.uk/windowscrappage

The UK Unexpectedly Stays In Recession

The UK economy was dealt a bit of a disaster blow this morning after it was revealed the economy shrunk a further -0.4% in the last quarter, meaning we remain in recession. It was widely expected for the UK to return to growth in the last quarter, but these negative results may dampen the mood of recovery somewhat, and really put into perspective the size of the task at hand, getting the economy back on track. This is also the longest recession on record, a detail the industrial sector probably didn’t want to hear.

This could have a negative affect on our industry. While companies have been doing their best to beat the doom and gloom and keep their heads above water, this, coupled with 50% glass price increases by the major glass manufacturers, could be the two final nails in the coffins of those companies who have just managed to survive through the year by the skin of their teeth.

What will be ultimately concerning is the upcoming winter period. The double glazing industry and the country as a whole was relying on the third quarterly figures to be positive, giving the economy some momentum heading into the Christmas period. Now, thoughts will again be turning back to just surviving through the winter and hoping to make a more positive start when spring comes around. I've said in earlier posts that there may not be the bloodbath in company insolvencies that some had predicted. But after the latest figures from http://www.double-glazing-forum.com/ and these latest quarterly figures out today, I'm forced to change my opinion and believe that it could be a much tougher winter period that I had first thought.

SIGN THE WINDOWS SCRAPPAGE SCHEME PETITION NOW!: http://www.petitions.number10.gov.uk/windowscrappage

Anglian TV Advert Claiming A Government Scrappage Scheme?

Jesus I'm churning out the posts!

I had a browse on www.double-glazing-forum.com just now and Chris from DIY Conservatories has just talked about something which I also noticed the other day.

Anglian's latest TV advert has been claiming of a scrappage scheme. Now whether they are advertising their own scrappage scheme as a tarted up offer, or they are wrongfully claiming of a Government scrappage scheme is not completely clear.

If anyone else notices the advert, let me know what you think.

SIGN THE WINDOWS SCRAPPAGE SCHEME PETITION NOW!: http://www.petitions.number10.gov.uk/windowscrappage

Building Regulation Changes To Have Installers Over A Barrel

I said on RCG's blog I wouldn't write a post about the changes to Document L because Kevin Ahern covered my point well. But I'm going to, and I'm going to be blunt!

I think the BFRC and the GGF had all this planned months ago, it's all too convenient! The BFRC set up the OPTIONAL Authorised Retailers scheme to let installers have WER certificates in their own name, which they have to pay for of course. Then the busy bodies who decide on rule changes decide it's a good idea to change the compliance to Part L to needing to have a WER certificate in the installer’s name. How coincidental, so when the changes come into force in 2010, installers will have to buy the BFRC certification and licences anyway!

This just shows just how bent our industry really is, trying to scheme more money out of us, then changing the rules to make it necessary anyway!

SIGN THE WINDOWS SCRAPPAGE SCHEME PETITION NOW!: http://www.petitions.number10.gov.uk/windowscrappage

Don't Get Too Carried Away!

While the economy as a whole may be on the road to recovery, it is clear to see from the latest report from Palmer Market Research that our sector is far from out of the wood yet (despite all my positivity in come of my recent posts!).

The window and door market as a whole in 2008 dropped by 17%, giving the market a value of £4.32 billion. The market, according to PMR, is not likely to recover until 2011-12.

Conservatories have taken the biggest hit, dropping 27% in 2008, with a predicted further 25% drop in 2009.

For windows, in 2008 the market slumped 14%, and is expected to drop a further 16% in 2009.

Installation values have been predicted to drop 18% this year and 6% for 2010.

Areas like composite doors and secondary glazing have seen a surge, but these niche areas provide no real drive to bring the market as a whole out of the doldrums. The best thing for companies to do at the minute is to keep the mindset of recession, keep the effort levels up, and drive on as if times were as hard as they were 6-9 months ago. That way we don't slacken off because we think things are getting better, we now always have to assume that things could always get worse, very quickly. It keeps us on our toes and businesses operating as efficiently and productively at all times. 

SIGN THE WINDOWS SCRAPPAGE SCHEME PETITION NOW!: http://www.petitions.number10.gov.uk/windowscrappage

Burst In Signatures For The Window Scrappage Scheme Petition

The petition for the window scrappage scheme has seen a sudden burst of well over 120 new signatures in just over day. This is the sort of momentum the cause needs to make sure the government takes these issues very seriously.

I'm going to put the link on every blog post to make sure the petition is always in view, it is important that we all get behind this issue as much as we can. Finally, this seems to have pulled the industry together a little bit and forced us to start to work as a unit, not a fractured, bitter industry.

SIGN THE PETITION: http://www.petitions.number10.gov.uk/windowscrappage

Live Streaming

The interest in Glassex and other exhibition shows has dampened over the last few years. There needs to be a fresh approach in regaining that interest and put Glassex back at the top of industry shows to attend.

One idea could be to host seminars live on the internet. A big factor in the demise of Glassex was the lack of effort made by people in the industry to actually get there. By streaming the more important seminars live on the internet, those who are actually interested, but don't have time to get to the exhibition, would still get the chance to interact with the event. Perhaps then a forum section could be devised to host debate and FAQ sessions. This wouldn’t apply just to Glassex though. Any of the major seminars throughout the year could use this method to get their message across to those who aren't attending.

Perhaps GlassTalk could stream some of their 'On The Couch' sessions maybe?

This is just a thought, but it could be useful as a way to reach out to the thousands that are not able to attend these types of events.

A Problem With The Windows Scrappage Scheme?

It occurred to me while thinking of all the good that the scrappage scheme may bring, there could be one big problem with it. How would it be organised and policed?

It was easy with the car scrappage scheme as the DVLA have paperwork on every car on the road in the UK. So they would know when an old car was going in for scrap. How would the organisation running our scrappage scheme know when an old windows installation is being removed?

I think the most evident way would be to get FENSA involved and have them police the system. They already register all the new installations so there would be nothing new to do there. They would however have to inspect every old windows installation that comes out of a house, and then inspect the new installation when it is complete. The number of man-hours would dramatically increase, but could it also create jobs too? One thing I suspect would happen if FENSA were to police the scheme would be that they would charge for this service, and it wouldn't be a small sum either. Let me know if any of you think of any other ways, but to me this seems like the easiest and most readily available method to hand so far.

Support The Window Scrappage Scheme

It seems the petition for the windows scrappage scheme is gathering pace, as is evident in a recent post on the RCG website.

We received a letter from one of our glass manufacturers this morning asking us to pledge our support (which we already have done) and sign the petition. It is good to see suppliers showing their support for the cause, and not just installers making all the leg work. We are having all our staff register their details to vote, and anybody else they know with an interest in the double glazing industry, they are asking them to sign also.

The current total number of signatures stands at over 1000, but hopefully over the coming weeks and months up to Christmas the petition will gather more pace and collect a more significant number of signatures.

If you haven't already, go to http://www.petitions.number10.gov.uk/windowscrappage and show your support!

Have Orchid Gone Bust?

If you’re a reader and in Wakefield this will really only interest you. Have Orchid Windows and Conservatories gone bust? I saw their listing at www.double-glazing-forum.com in the September section of double glazing companies that had gone into liquidation.

Birmingham

I had the drive from hell yesterday trying to get to Birmingham.

Firstly junction 1 of the M18 was shut, so we were stuck for over an hour, moving just 1 mile in that time.

Then the sat-nav took us off at a junction on the M42 for no reason and directed us in a completely different direction. We got back on the M42 and were then plagued by mile after mile of 50mph average speed checks. What was infuriating was that there was hardly any work being done on what was described as 'essential maintenance'! This was all on the first half of the journey!

Then, we got behind what can only be described as a two lane wide moving boiler. The stretch of motorway we were on had only two lanes and this took them both up! By this time I had lost the will to be angry and just saw the funny side.

Finally we got where we needed to be, over two hours late. But from a double glazing point of view, Birmingham is seriously lacking in PVCu, and what PVCu is already there is of an extremely poor quality. Anybody wishing to expand should take a serious look at Birmingham and maybe the Midlands as a whole, there's some serious potential there.

Royal Mail Ready To Commit Suicide

Royal Mail will go on the first of its national strikes on the 22nd and 23rd of September, which in my opinion, will mark the beginning of it suicide as a company.

I say this because as someone who works in a small business, I know how much small (and large) businesses rely still on the services of Royal Mail. They really have managed to wind up just about everyone. So much so that a poll on Sky News recently showed that 75% of all businesses would seriously consider, or already have done, move to another mail delivery company. Despite the rise of the email and the internet, business still relies heavily on the postal service. So much vital correspondence is still sent via the Royal Mail, that to go on strike and lose so many of it clientele is a move that will put the final nail in its coffin.

Fine! Great! Do it! Now that there are so many other delivery companies in the market, some that could arguably do a better job, business doesn't need to rely on the Royal Mail anymore. Plus, it might encourage more companies to use email a lot more, cutting down on paper usage. As long as business stands up against the strikes and lets Royal Mail know what it thinks of it, which they are doing, and prepares by using other mail delivery companies, there should be minimum disruption.

Not really about double glazing, but I fancied a change!

Website 4

After a concerted round of evening effort, the new website could be finished quicker than I previously thought. I've got hold of some promotional CD's which will help me finish off the two biggest parts of the website much quicker. So the original deadline of Christmas might now only be a few weeks at the most!

A bit of tweaking with certain designs, colours and wording will be the final details that will need some attention. Then after that we should be able to get it up and running. The timing might be better than we thought also. If we can get it live soon enough before the Christmas period, we could arrange more appointments during the quieter period, setting us up for a good start to 2010.

17 Million People Still Haven't Used The Internet!

Believe it or not, 17 million people still haven't used the internet yet, not even once!

The government has set out plans to get everyone online by 2012, just think of all the extra coverage for double glazing websites over the next three years.

The task is now for double glazing companies to get into gear and do their best to publicise their website as much as possible to direct as much traffic as they can to their site. This is yet another opportunity for the industry to cash in.

VAT Increase

As everyone will be aware, on the 1st of January VAT will go back up to 17.5%.

To me this won't make a slight bit of difference, just as it didn't make the slightest bit of difference when it was reduced. Double glazing firms don't have to panic about the loss of business because an increase of £25 per £1000 is negligible enough for customers not to worry about it.

What will be a worry is if the government starts to hint at raising the VAT to try and gain some of their lost revenue back, that I think would be the point in which we should be raising some concern.

A Decent Double Glazing Video

Following in the footsteps of RCG, I though I'd trawl YouTube to find double glazing videos, but I thought I'd try and find a decent one. I think I might have:



Decent camera work and good interviews. Slick shots of manufacturing as well.

I still don't think however that videos on YouTube add much value to companies' appearances. You might get the odd customer who goes massively in-depth into research in the company, but I don't see any real advantage or gain.

But I might be wrong!

Rising Energy Costs Are Good For Us

Over the past week the news has been littered with reports and predictions of energy costs rises between 14-25%, with the worst case scenarios of a rise of up to 60%, over the next 5-6 years. All above inflation.

Everyone's immediate reaction might be one of worry and concern. But if you’re in the double glazing industry trying to sell the benefits of new windows and doors, this is the perfect opportunity! With WER's now the main selling point of replacement double glazing, companies can use these dire predictions to their advantage to help sell their products. What this might also do is kick other companies into gear to start selling energy rated windows. This really could stimulate our industry and provide strong, medium to long term growth, providing businesses market their advantages against the price increases correctly, assertively and factually.

This could be a double edged sword however. Energy price increases affect everyone and every company, including systems and glass manufacturers. With the mood Pilkington and the rest of the glass cartel are in; don't be surprised to see more huge price increases in the very near future.

This then may force this country to do more, quicker, to combat the energy crisis which will soon be upon us. We have to invest more time, research and money into making sure that renewable energy will be the main power source for the country when we eventually gut the earth of its fossil fuels.

For the meantime, double glazing companies can get themselves back in to a position of financial stability by tapping into the benefits of rising energy costs.

Authorised Retailers Scheme Update

The WER supplement to the Glass Times magazine has provided information on the costs involved to join the Authorised Retailers scheme. They are as follows:

• There is a one off registration fee of £200
• To licence a single product (per annum): £199
• To licence multiple products (per annum): £399

They do also point out however that between the 1st September and 28th February 2010, there will be an introductory offer of £75 for the one off registration fee. Though I doubt that will swing many undecided firms.

To me the costs are ridiculous. This is just another quick way to try and squeeze yet more money out of retailers, already struggling through the recession. I doubt the uptake on this scheme will be massive. Until installers see this as being a genuinely useful tool, and not another money making plan, few will join.

Rise Of The Roofline

There has been a huge increase in the number of appointments being made to replace soffits and fascias. Probably for two reasons. The first being that on some properties it may be the only improvement left to do, the second being due to the crash of the housing market. People are improving rather than moving, so soffits and fascias, especially the old rotting timber ones, are usually high on the list of things to replace.

The problem with roofline jobs, as I've said before, is that there are a lot of cowboys, gypsies and one-man-bands that are under-cutting jobs to get the work by not pricing for scaffolding for example. Or just as bad, over-cladding. There will be a lot of properties in the future that are going to have big problems with damp and rot in the roof. The more reputable firms and expert companies are losing a lot of jobs to these idiots.

Mansfield

Who's been reading my blog in Mansfield?!

Someone has spent a good 20 minutes reading what I have to say, far longer than any other city in the UK, not complaining though!

Just wondering who you are, would be nice to know what grabbed your attention.

Leave a comment at your leisure.

The Art Of Adaptation

It is so important to mould yourself differently around every type of customer. An area where salesmen sometimes fall down is not knowing how to adapt to different personalities and attitudes of customers.

Major example: the more 'well-to-do' type of customer requires a calmer, smarter spoken (pronouncing your T's etc!) approach. You have to show that your going to be on the same wave length as the customer, there's no point going into a posher customers house being broad and roughly spoken i.e. being yourself! There's a degree of acting required in this job to get you a sale. This works the other way also. For the broader, more DIY/builder type customer who has worked a manual labour job e.g. mining, going in too well spoken, too smartly dressed and too pompous could immediately intimidate or make the customer feel uneasy.

One of the major attributes needed in this job is knowing how to very quickly adapt to each customer as they come.

Postal Strike

Just heard on the news that there is likely to be industrial action taken by the Royal Mail staff, design to cause disruption, especially at Christmas.


Not helpful for any company!

My advice, as soon as we know the dates of when these strikes are going to happen, send and receive everything you can by email. We're on a good run, the start of a recovery; we don't need something like this causing any problems.

How Dirty Can Companies Get!?

I know I've said I'll try to keep my blog unbiased towards any company, but in this instance I have to mention the company name again, Safestyle.

I've come to know of a customer who had asked Safestyle to visit his home to quote for replacing his windows and doors. When the 'salesman' turned up, he was in a tatty T-shirt, scruffy jeans, no relevant paperwork to even begin to work on the quotation, and a terrible attitude to boot. The customer allowed him time to get into his sales pitch and talk about the product he would be buying, but that never came. All that he got was pressure to buy right there and then. After a lengthy amount of time, the customer had run out of patience and asked the salesman to leave. At first he resisted and gave the customer the usual twaddle about the kids not eating tonight, then the usual aggressive 'well you've wasted my time' speech. Eventually the rep agreed to leave but (and this is where it's gets disgusting) asked the customer to sign a form to say that the rep had actually been out to the house and had not been wasting Safestyle's time.

Two weeks later, a Safestyle van had turned with the windows and doors for the property! The form the customer had been asked to sign was actually disguised as a contract. Despite the fact that the customer had kicked the rep out two weeks earlier without any intention of buying, the fitters still initially tried to fit the windows! The customer quite rightly told them where to go and that was the end of it.

These extreme and disgusting tactics are something which nearly all national companies practice. In my opinion, the sooner they either get fined, stop operating the way they are, or go bust, the better it will be for the smaller, well established companies trying to shake off our terrible reputation.

Website 3

Last week I told myself I've got to get this website done! So I've set myself a target of Christmas to try and complete it, and the end of January to get the website polished and up live on the web. The problem I'm fighting against is time. While it remains busy, my time available to work on the website is seriously reduced, so I'm back on to the night shifts to try and make some decent progress.


Once the website is up and running properly, it needs to be backed up with an effective awareness campaign, getting as much traffic to the site as possible. From there it will be expanded with customer testimonials, some new, some fairly recent ones from 2009. As the months go by the picture library on the site will become larger and more in-depth, allowing customers more possibility to find exactly what they require.

One thing that won't be on there will be anything flashy, brash or any in-your-face 'offers' or 'discounts'. We've had feedback from our customers and they've explained to us that even though our existing site may not be the most modern or slick, it's clear, concise and they are able to view more options on doors, conservatories and windows than any other double glazing website. 

Increase In Company Bankruptcies

The latest figures from http://www.double-glazing-forum.com/ show an increase in the number of businesses that went bust in September, 222, up from 187 in August. Despite this, I'm still confident that we are on the road to recovery. What also has to be taken into account is that it takes time to close down some businesses, so some of those results for September may just be late in arriving and may not provide a true picture of what is really happening in our industry.


As for ourselves, we've had an excellent past two or three months. We have more than a month of solid work booked on in advance; we had a superb weekend last weekend and yesterday was one of our best days of the year. As far as we are concerned, the recession is over and the recovery is on, we survived the downturn and come out the other side of it stronger, smarter and wiser. Leaving us in a position to grow and expand, hopefully taking some of the market share in our area.

This Is A Tough Job

There are not many things that wind me up, but when people say to me 'there's nothing to your job, you've got it easy', it pushes my buttons!

I understand that this is not a physical job, but it's all the other attributes that make it hard work. If you’re self employed, you find that most of your time is taken up with work, especially if you’re busy or during the summer periods where there are lots more appointments. By the time you finish on a night, you’re either having something to eat an hour or two before bed, or come home to work. Then it's back to work.

Weekends aren't always free time either. You could either be manning the showroom, doing more tedious paperwork or going on yet more appointments. Then there are those unlucky enough to work Sundays also. Salesmen rarely get a proper weekend to relax and recharge.

Then you've got the appointments themselves. People don't always realize how hard a task it is to go into someone else’s home and try your best to persuade the customer to place their hard earned cash into your hands. Especially if one half of the couple doesn't even want to buy at all!

Being self employed also doesn't mean a regular wage. If you don't sell, you don't get paid. Which adds to the stress during the week if you've had a slow start. Some salesmen will allow that to get them down, having a positive mental attitude is vital, and mentally exhausting.

Plus the standard strains and stresses that come with customers. So, for those who can do without a social
life, work constant late nights, maintain 110% positivity and work and worry for potentially nothing (and that’s the ones without a family to feed!) then come join our ranks. If not, then keep your mouths shut!