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Another daft business idea


MarkW
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A woman gets out of the shower just as the front doorbell rings. "Who is it?" she asks. "I'm just a blind man" comes the reply, so she nips downstairs in the nude and opens the door. "Bloody hell!" the man says. "Look at those tits! Do you want to buy any blinds?" :lol:


OK, reason for one of the few jokes I can actually remember is that my brother has just come up with what looks to me like an even worse business idea than his last one, which was to get into property development. I thought that was a non-starter for a number of reasons, not least of them being his complete lack of DIY skill. Add into the mix the fact that it's a business area neither of us knows the first thing about and that 15+ years of 'Homes Under the Hammer' has probably produced more wannabe property tycoons than the market can handle, and I thought he'd be better off thinking again. Still, he seemed dead set on it, so I agreed to help him out with the finance side, and got myself a domestic installer qualification so I could do the electrical work and save us a bit of time and money.


In the end coronavirus put paid to that idea, and his latest brainwave is to be a fitter for Hillary's Blinds. Apparently this involves him handing over £2.5k for a week-long training course, presumably with a final assessment to demonstrate the correct use of a tape measure and the ability to drill four holes in a straight line and shove a rawl plug in each one. After that he will be retained on a self-employed basis, providing his own transport and covering his own running costs in exchange for a 15% commission. None of this sounds very enticing to me, even after factoring in the prospect of knobbing the occasional bored housewife.


But again, this is a business area I know nothing about. Has anyone here had any experience of working for an outfit like this? I don't want to dampen his enthusiasm - especially if it is actually possible to make a good go of it - but from my perspective it looks like a bit of a turkey.

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This is similar to a "business" where you pay £3.5k to become a driver instructor.

Then you lease a car from the same company and it's up to you to get the learning drivers.


You know the saying. "if sound too god..."

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It's a typical franchise operation - loads of similar things around. Usually the only one who makes any money is the person selling the franchise, not the poor sap who is doing the work. If he thinks there's a market in fitting blinds set up independently and just make sure he's got decent public liability insurance.


When my father retired he went into making bespoke furniture. Within a year word of mouth was all he needed to keep going.


In the end it turned out what most people needed was someone to fix a door, rehang a gate - all those silly jobs most tradesmen aren't interest in. That kept him going - until someone nicked his van.

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that sounds like a waste of 2.5k to me :shock:


You could probably go to a college and get an actual qualification for that money :|

 

Yup - that domestic installer course I did only cost £1.5k, for which I got four weeks of intensive practical and theory training, a load of useful books, and four City & Guilds qualifications. It's only entry-level stuff, but the way I looked at it is that as my house needs completely re-wiring it gave me the skills to safely do it myself for very considerably less than a professional electrician would charge. I can't see any value whatsoever in spending £2.5k learning how to fit blinds.

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If you ain't got the skills to open the type of business that you're thinking of.......then you shouldn't even be considering it.

 

Especially when the required skill set is so basic! I said that while the current pandemic is still raging he'd be better off investing in a bottle of Dettol and opening a telephone sanitising business. Of course the success of those outfits back in the 1960s was probably more to do with having an attractive young lady leaning over your desk than to any genuine fear of germs, so he might be onto a loser there as well...

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If you ain't got the skills to open the type of business that you're thinking of.......then you shouldn't even be considering it.

 

Especially when the required skill set is so basic! I said that while the current pandemic is still raging he'd be better off investing in a bottle of Dettol and opening a telephone sanitising business. Of course the success of those outfits back in the 1960s was probably more to do with having an attractive young lady leaning over your desk than to any genuine fear of germs, so he might be onto a loser there as well...

 

Given the Covid situation......and all the other contributory factors affecting the economy back there.....it's probably not the best time to start a new business.


The only possible exception to that is something internet based......but even then, he's got to choose the right business model and actually know what he's doing.

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A woman gets out of the shower just as the front doorbell rings. "Who is it?" she asks. "I'm just a blind man" comes the reply, so she nips downstairs in the nude and opens the door. "Bloody hell!" the man says. "Look at those tits! Do you want to buy any blinds?" :lol:


OK, reason for one of the few jokes I can actually remember is that my brother has just come up with what looks to me like an even worse business idea than his last one, which was to get into property development. I thought that was a non-starter for a number of reasons, not least of them being his complete lack of DIY skill. Add into the mix the fact that it's a business area neither of us knows the first thing about and that 15+ years of 'Homes Under the Hammer' has probably produced more wannabe property tycoons than the market can handle, and I thought he'd be better off thinking again. Still, he seemed dead set on it, so I agreed to help him out with the finance side, and got myself a domestic installer qualification so I could do the electrical work and save us a bit of time and money.


In the end coronavirus put paid to that idea, and his latest brainwave is to be a fitter for Hillary's Blinds. Apparently this involves him handing over £2.5k for a week-long training course, presumably with a final assessment to demonstrate the correct use of a tape measure and the ability to drill four holes in a straight line and shove a rawl plug in each one. After that he will be retained on a self-employed basis, providing his own transport and covering his own running costs in exchange for a 15% commission. None of this sounds very enticing to me, even after factoring in the prospect of knobbing the occasional bored housewife.


But again, this is a business area I know nothing about. Has anyone here had any experience of working for an outfit like this? I don't want to dampen his enthusiasm - especially if it is actually possible to make a good go of it - but from my perspective it looks like a bit of a turkey.

We had blinds fitted buy one of those self employed own car chaps, but he only did it in his spare time as his full time fireman job Gave him the spare days to do it, I’m sure he wouldn’t have been able to make a living from it, he worked for Hilarys blinds.

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If you ain't got the skills to open the type of business that you're thinking of.......then you shouldn't even be considering it.

 

Especially when the required skill set is so basic! I said that while the current pandemic is still raging he'd be better off investing in a bottle of Dettol and opening a telephone sanitising business. Of course the success of those outfits back in the 1960s was probably more to do with having an attractive young lady leaning over your desk than to any genuine fear of germs, so he might be onto a loser there as well...

 

All

Those on the B ark are laughing now!

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A woman gets out of the shower just as the front doorbell rings. "Who is it?" she asks. "I'm just a blind man" comes the reply, so she nips downstairs in the nude and opens the door. "Bloody hell!" the man says. "Look at those tits! Do you want to buy any blinds?" :lol:

There is a special thread to contain jokes of that quality...

https://www.themotorbikeforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=38588

Let's not let them leak it 8-)

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Tell him to think of all the times he has gone to do diy and the nightmares of what should be a simple measure drill screw job.... Turns into a measure , drill feck bodged plaster work by previous owner , re drill etc etc. But this time it will be him under scrutiny.

Any job you have to pay to have means walk away in my book ....

It's not as if blind installation is a city and guilds ..

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Tell him to think of all the times he has gone to do diy and the nightmares of what should be a simple measure drill screw job.... Turns into a measure , drill feck bodged plaster work by previous owner , re drill etc etc. But this time it will be him under scrutiny.

Any job you have to pay to have means walk away in my book ....

It's not as if blind installation is a city and guilds ..

 

Yup - I'd be happy enough doing electrical work in my own home or in one I'd bought to renovate and sell, but there's no way I'd want to do it in someone else's home, and especially not with them breathing down my neck! And when you add my brother's lamentable interpersonal skills to his Frank Spencer DIY abilities this idea looks like a guaranteed recipe for disaster.


The reality is that his money is running out, and as his desperation increases his capacity for logical thought decreases. This latest idea is just him clutching at straws in my opinion, not least because he doesn't seem to have any of the basic information you'd need to work out if this is a viable proposition. He told me that he'd be working on a 15% commission, but 15% of what? What's the average value of a sale? How many fittings could you do in a day? How far will he have to travel to collect stock, and how frequently?


This one definitely needs a re-think in my opinion.

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Re think? Understatement.


I know of a couple of folk who have gone into franchised schemes, the only thing they they did was feed thousands into others bank accounts.


He sounds like a prime target for amway or tupperware.


On the subject of your electrical course did it get you to a level to be registered with neceic or the likes?

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On the subject of your electrical course did it get you to a level to be registered with neceic or the likes?

 

I think that to register with NICEIC I'd either need to have a Qualified Supervisor to work under or to be one myself, and whilst the course I did satisfies the 'competence' requirements for domestic situations I don't have the 'experience' bit. If I recall correctly you need a couple of years experience under your belt to join. Could be wrong though.


For someone who wanted a career as an electrician there are probably better ways of going about it, but for me I just wanted a crash course on how to work safely and in accordance with the current regs, and a recognised qualification that made Building Control more likely to say "Yes" when I asked for permission to re-wire my house and replace the consumer unit.

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If you're going to start a business then work for yourself. Nobody else!


These franchise outfits are little more than Ponzi schemes.


If you don't have the hands-on knowledge, the business acumen, or the funds to start a business then you need to look at other options.


And if you have to think of what business you could do.......then don't do anything!


Because you should already have the necessary knowledge or prior accreditation within a specific field. Simply put, you should know it inside out!

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If you ain't got the skills to open the type of business that you're thinking of.......then you shouldn't even be considering it.

 

So you are saying I should stick to either drugs or wanking to online porn?


You might be right, I don't think I've seen that combination on a YouTube channel.

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If you ain't got the skills to open the type of business that you're thinking of.......then you shouldn't even be considering it.

 

So you are saying I should stick to either drugs or wanking to online porn?


You might be right, I don't think I've seen that combination on a YouTube channel.

 

I'm too lazy to do the wanking bit i would have to get a machine to do it for me, and i don't do drugs too tight to buy it :lol: :thumb:

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If you ain't got the skills to open the type of business that you're thinking of.......then you shouldn't even be considering it.

 

So you are saying I should stick to either drugs or wanking to online porn?


You might be right, I don't think I've seen that combination on a YouTube channel.

 

You're a master at talking complete shit on the Internet Dave!

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