We'd had a few call-backs recently on silicone sealant jobs. A very frequent job that we do is re-sealing baths and showers, where sealant has got old and mouldy and leaky. Removing the old silicon, and resealing with new is the sort of job all of our handymen should be complete experts at, so hearing that some of them weren't was worrying.
So, we had "silicone sealant" as the subject of our masterclass on Friday. Every fourth Friday we have our London team get together over breakfast. This is partly for social reasons - as our guys work mostly alone, they can go for days or weeks without seeing any of their colleagues; and partly to share knowledge and skills. And most times, we pick a topic for one handyman to talk about - whether it be a new technique, a new tool they have discovered, or whatever.
Stan and Don both gave brilliant demonstrations of their silicone sealant technique. Stan had a secret weapon, which he had mentioned before but none of us really understood how effective it was until we saw it in action. The secret weapon is simply an old perfume spray bottle filled with soapy water - spray this onto the silicone, and onto the tiles an inch or so either side of the bead, then (and only then) smooth it off. It is very, very effective, allowing you to produce a perfect smooth bead of silicone with ease. We'd used a mocked-up tile corner using black tiles and white silicone so any imperfections would be very visible. And even under those conditions, Stan's handywork was perfect.
So now we are issuing everyone with a little water-spray bottle, and now that everyone knows what 0800handyman silicone work should look like we hopefully won't have any more sub-standard siliconing.
Thursday, 31 May 2007
Tuesday, 29 May 2007
Meeting with National Britannia / Safecontractor
So I went up to Caerphilly to meet with representatives of National Britannia (including their divisional managing director, James Ostler) to discuss the curfuffle I have created over our SafeContractor renewal.
I was actually quite impressed: National Britannia have put a lot of thought into what I have said, and took my concerns very seriously. Broadly speaking, this was the outcome of the meeting:
1. NatBrit agree that overloading people with information is counter-productive
2. Our risk assessments are very good, and do a good job of communicating information to our handymen
3. They would prefer to see more paperwork documenting the work we have done to produce those risk assessments (i.e. why we have chosen those risks not others; our process for identifying new risks, etc.)
This is also what the HSE hinted at: that the paperwork we issue to handymen is excellent, but we should have more 'back-office' paperwork to back it up.
NatBrit are going to re-audit our application and issue a revised list of additional things they'd like to see. I doubt if producing this extra paperwork will make our business any more safe, but it probably won't make it less safe (assuming, that is, that they don't ask us to issue more bumf to our handymen, just have it filed away for occasional review in the office) Once I know what new paperwork they would like to see, I will decide whether it is commercially worth the extra time and effort needed to produce it.
One question I did pose, which to their credit they did consider very carefully (and, I suspect, discussed further after I left) was this: "would you ever reject a risk assessment because it was too long-winded?". If one really does believe that over-loading people with excessive information is counter-productive, then it follows that you must reject some risk assessments for being too long. A 2,500 word document about, say, using a Stanley knife is unlikely to be an effective document and should be rejected. NatBrit didn't think they had yet rejected anything for ticking too many boxes, but maybe they will start doing that now?
I was actually quite impressed: National Britannia have put a lot of thought into what I have said, and took my concerns very seriously. Broadly speaking, this was the outcome of the meeting:
1. NatBrit agree that overloading people with information is counter-productive
2. Our risk assessments are very good, and do a good job of communicating information to our handymen
3. They would prefer to see more paperwork documenting the work we have done to produce those risk assessments (i.e. why we have chosen those risks not others; our process for identifying new risks, etc.)
This is also what the HSE hinted at: that the paperwork we issue to handymen is excellent, but we should have more 'back-office' paperwork to back it up.
NatBrit are going to re-audit our application and issue a revised list of additional things they'd like to see. I doubt if producing this extra paperwork will make our business any more safe, but it probably won't make it less safe (assuming, that is, that they don't ask us to issue more bumf to our handymen, just have it filed away for occasional review in the office) Once I know what new paperwork they would like to see, I will decide whether it is commercially worth the extra time and effort needed to produce it.
One question I did pose, which to their credit they did consider very carefully (and, I suspect, discussed further after I left) was this: "would you ever reject a risk assessment because it was too long-winded?". If one really does believe that over-loading people with excessive information is counter-productive, then it follows that you must reject some risk assessments for being too long. A 2,500 word document about, say, using a Stanley knife is unlikely to be an effective document and should be rejected. NatBrit didn't think they had yet rejected anything for ticking too many boxes, but maybe they will start doing that now?
Friday, 25 May 2007
Greenthumb
I love Greenthumb. These are the guys that spread magic fertiliser stuff on your lawn four times a year to make it look lush and green. Why is that so special? Why not just buy the magic fertiliser stuff from B&Q and do it yourself?
Because it costs more to buy it from B&Q (or any other DIY store), even before you account for your own time trying to spread the damn stuff over your lawn. And it takes ages and ages to painstakingly pour n grams per square meter over your whole lawn.
So, for £21 a time, a lovely chap from Greenthumb comes four times a year and treats our lawn. To buy enough fertiliser to cover our (quite small) lawn does cost more than £21. That is a great business. Imagine if you were a restuarant and you could provide your customers with a gourmet meal for less money than it cost them to go and buy the ingredients in the supermarket.
I don't quite understand the economics of Greenthumb, but I am guessing that:
(a) they are (obviously) paying a wholesale price for the fertiliser stuff
(b) they can spread it over a lawn in a tiny fraction of the time it would take the lawn owner, because they have bought (one) somewhat expensive fertiliser-spreading machine which it would be uneconomic for a single lawn owner to purchase. I've never actually seen Greenthumb administer a "treatment", but my wife tells me they are in and out in less than five minutes
(c) because they don't need supervised access, they can schedule their appointments to perfectly optimise (I like split infinitives; I think it is better to split than cumbersomely not to split one) their own travel time. So they do (I am guessing) a dozen lawns all within a stone's throw of each other, on a particular day, getting a good £250+ revenue per day. And presumably a lawn-treatment-dispensing person costs about £80 / day to employ (less?), minus (say) £5 a pop wholesale cost of the fertiliser, leaves you 40-odd% gross margin.
Then they charge extra for mechanical things over the winter (aerating and that sort of thing, which could easily add 50% to their annual revenue from each customer, if we are anything to go by), so all adds up to a good little business.
Plus they can charge extra to fix nasty things like leatherjackets (cranefly larvae, which live underground and eat grass roots, turning a lawn into a patchy brown area with some tufts of grass). Once you have a beautiful lawn, you are very, very ready to pay a bit more to keep it that way. (I speak as someone with a recently-cleared-up infestation of leatherjackets)
And, finally, I like them because they are focussed. They keep your lawn green, that's it. They don't mow it. They don't weed your flowerbeds, sell you compost or prune your roses. They don't do anything else in your garden at all. They just do lawn-fixing. There's a lot to be said for that - every additional thing you try and do inevitably reduces somewhat your expertise in your core area.
Because it costs more to buy it from B&Q (or any other DIY store), even before you account for your own time trying to spread the damn stuff over your lawn. And it takes ages and ages to painstakingly pour n grams per square meter over your whole lawn.
So, for £21 a time, a lovely chap from Greenthumb comes four times a year and treats our lawn. To buy enough fertiliser to cover our (quite small) lawn does cost more than £21. That is a great business. Imagine if you were a restuarant and you could provide your customers with a gourmet meal for less money than it cost them to go and buy the ingredients in the supermarket.
I don't quite understand the economics of Greenthumb, but I am guessing that:
(a) they are (obviously) paying a wholesale price for the fertiliser stuff
(b) they can spread it over a lawn in a tiny fraction of the time it would take the lawn owner, because they have bought (one) somewhat expensive fertiliser-spreading machine which it would be uneconomic for a single lawn owner to purchase. I've never actually seen Greenthumb administer a "treatment", but my wife tells me they are in and out in less than five minutes
(c) because they don't need supervised access, they can schedule their appointments to perfectly optimise (I like split infinitives; I think it is better to split than cumbersomely not to split one) their own travel time. So they do (I am guessing) a dozen lawns all within a stone's throw of each other, on a particular day, getting a good £250+ revenue per day. And presumably a lawn-treatment-dispensing person costs about £80 / day to employ (less?), minus (say) £5 a pop wholesale cost of the fertiliser, leaves you 40-odd% gross margin.
Then they charge extra for mechanical things over the winter (aerating and that sort of thing, which could easily add 50% to their annual revenue from each customer, if we are anything to go by), so all adds up to a good little business.
Plus they can charge extra to fix nasty things like leatherjackets (cranefly larvae, which live underground and eat grass roots, turning a lawn into a patchy brown area with some tufts of grass). Once you have a beautiful lawn, you are very, very ready to pay a bit more to keep it that way. (I speak as someone with a recently-cleared-up infestation of leatherjackets)
And, finally, I like them because they are focussed. They keep your lawn green, that's it. They don't mow it. They don't weed your flowerbeds, sell you compost or prune your roses. They don't do anything else in your garden at all. They just do lawn-fixing. There's a lot to be said for that - every additional thing you try and do inevitably reduces somewhat your expertise in your core area.
Link from John Kerry's blog
Gosh, this post I made a while back (noting how we have Margaret Hodge looking after Small Businesses; Americans have none other than John Kerry) has been noticed and linked to by John Kerry's own blog. That's one dedicated research team.
Wednesday, 23 May 2007
Safecontractor renewal latest
James Ostler, Divisional Managing Director of National Britannia has invited me to come to their office in Caerphilly to discuss my concerns about our SafeContractor renewal.
So I am up at the crack of dawn tomorrow to travel to Caerphilly in deepest Wales (well, 30mins from Newport, deep enough) to meet him.
Should be interesting.
So I am up at the crack of dawn tomorrow to travel to Caerphilly in deepest Wales (well, 30mins from Newport, deep enough) to meet him.
Should be interesting.
Tuesday, 22 May 2007
May 2103: 0800handyman completes its 100millionth job
I see that the AA attended their 100 millionth breakdown today. 100 million jobs in just over 100 years (the AA was founded in 1905). BBC reports they did 5 million jobs in their first 9 years (citing outbreak of WW1, which by my reckoning was 1914), but I don't believe that, they must mean WW2. Otherwise they would have averaged over half-a-million callouts a year between 1905 and 1914, surely there weren't enough cars around then to generate that many callouts (even if they did all break down more often)?
And, actually, the 3.5m callouts per year they say they do currently seems pretty high. Taking a wild guess that their market share is 50%, that implies 7m breakdowns a year - nearly a quarter of all cars in the UK (there are 33m cars in the UK) breaking down once a year? Surely not, seems far too high?
Anyway, I look forward to 0800handyman performing our 100 millionth job, which if we follow the AA's trajectory will be somewhere around May 2103.
And, actually, the 3.5m callouts per year they say they do currently seems pretty high. Taking a wild guess that their market share is 50%, that implies 7m breakdowns a year - nearly a quarter of all cars in the UK (there are 33m cars in the UK) breaking down once a year? Surely not, seems far too high?
Anyway, I look forward to 0800handyman performing our 100 millionth job, which if we follow the AA's trajectory will be somewhere around May 2103.
HIP fiasco
So, the government decides to postpone HIPs once again. What a fiasco this has been. I always thought the point of HIPs was to reduce the costs and time associated with a house purchase by making the seller do a house survey, not the (potential) buyer. That way, fewer surveys are needed (as each potential buyer would otherwise do their own survey, even if they later pull out); and purchase can be completed more quickly (as buyers don't have to wait for a survey).
But then the building survey element was dropped some time ago, leaving a watered-down proposal that seemed to be pretty pointless, I don't know why govt didn't just abandon it completely at that stage. I suspect the whole thing will be quietly dropped not long after Aug 1.
But then the building survey element was dropped some time ago, leaving a watered-down proposal that seemed to be pretty pointless, I don't know why govt didn't just abandon it completely at that stage. I suspect the whole thing will be quietly dropped not long after Aug 1.
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