My local council's trading standards dept operates a 'Fair Trader' scheme & I've just been accredited as a member!
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that difficult to satisfy their standards TBH, I already did 90% of it anyway. According to several people I've met who are members it gets you a lot of business. Cost me £124 a year.
You get to use the logo on your web site (CD supplied with images is absolute crap), get listed on the councils web site, you can use the logo on the van etc.
Another opportunity to tuck up the punters :-) (Just joking).
Don't know if these schemes run anywhere else in the country, might help some readers?
Which section? Property Maintenance? Will Consider all Jobs?
How do they check that you do what you say you will do, or what they think you will do? It is good that they are doing something proactive rather than sitting on their botties waiting for the complaints.
I'm a bit bothered about Medway Council's motto, though. Serving you.
Don't know yet - typical council they react with the speed of a ruptured ferret. I've asked for a handyman category.
Little bloke comes around for an hour & asks questions. Things like customer records, pricing structures, complaints procedures etc. I think the main point is that they now know who you are and are able to react more efficiently in case of a complaint.
They come back & audit you every year or can spot check whenever they want.
My glazier mate told me that he had an unreasonable complaint about him, they looked into the circumstances & sided with him. They told the client he was being unreasonable.
They serve you parking tickets with amazing efficiently............
I found it really simple. They just want to see your paperwork systems e.g. jobsheets, invoices, quotes etc. They ask if you are a member of any trade bodies, check your PL insurance. Nothing complicated.
TBH the bloke they sent round was a plank. Badly in need of a personality transplant. I could have given him a load of bullshit & got away with it.
They only tugged me on one thing, they insist on £2m PLI and I only had £1m.
As I said though, I was doing most of the stuff they wanted anyway, most people probably are as well.
I liked the recent story about the bloke who was getting tickets on his van while working at a particular house. Cost effective solution: he hired a big skip (with door on one end) and got a legal skip permit from the council. Put it outside the house. Each morning, he arrived, opened the skip, and parked his van inside...
Looking through the form (having gone through (enhanced) CRB checks with my job recently) I was suprised to see standard CRB checks required. I understood they were not available.
Then I noticed that Medway had been teleported to Scotland.
You mean, like a council would _know_ what a newsgroup is?
Personally I found this thread, with information on what it takes to get onto such a "fair trader" scheme and how much weight it carries from either the trader's[1] or their clients'[2] POV, quite useful. You may think TMF is a mouthy b*** but it seems clear to me that his posts are motivated by a wish to share the joys and woes of his working life with us rather than soliciting more business than he needs.
[1] many of us on this group work for a living, and some of us do work which overlaps with what others do as DIY
[2] not all DIYers are such fundamentalists that they do everything for themselves, so most of us employ tradespeople from time to time.
I don't think much one way or the other about Dave and his lifestyle choices. However his stealth advertising is out of place here. If others started to post thinly disguised business advertising it wouldn't be long before the general population started to complain.
Just because someone is seen as OK, pleasant, friendly etc. is no reason to persuade them to continue to commit newsgroup abuse.
Either that or declare a general amnesty and I'll start advertising my businesses here.
He parked his van in the skip on the first day. On the second day he arrived to find the skip occupied a 3 sofas, a fridge, washing machine and several copies of Bravo Two Zero.
For 99% of us it isn't advertising because we're not in the Medway area. Or to put it another way, how many of uk.d-i-y's readership lives in the TMH catchment area - probably TMH only!
Personally I appreciate Dave's contributions to the group: takes me back to when I was first self employed - a fellow BCO and I got so fed up with some of what we saw that we thought we couldn't fail to make a good living. We found out - as Dave often reminds us - that it's harder than it looks.
Yes... I think you're rather making my point for me. It is similar to the situation when ucsm permitted on user to start prattling on about his computer business in the same way that Dave prattles on about his van and dungaree business. Then the same individuals got all hot under the collar when others started to spam the group.
However where was the moral highground? They were simply being faced with more of what they had permitted.
I have no beef with Dave, other than that his business experience has no place here. If he wants to rattle on elsewhere he's welcome, or if he's really keen he start up uk.getitdoneforyou or whatever he wants to call it.
Oh dear, it's that Firth man again. Missed your post because of my kill file.
I'll type this very slowly Steve so you have a chance of understanding it.
Lets examine the accusation of "a policy of unsolicited commercial advertising" shall we.
I operate exclusively in the ME postcodes. Actually I don't operate in all of these postcodes, but whatever.
Since to my knowledge none of the regular contributors to this group live anywhere near the ME postcodes, that wouldn't be a sensible "commercial advertising" policy now would it?
If my assumption is incorrect, and unknown to me, many of the contributors do live in the ME postcodes, what would be the point of offering a handyman service to dedicated, knowledible, experienced DIY enthusiasts?
You will now probably start a rant about me obtaining information for free from the group to use in a commercial activity.
I plead guilty to that charge. I do ask many questions and gratefully receive answers from those more knowledible that I am in certain areas.
However, those who reply to my posts do so willingly.
The other side of the coin is where I use the information I have gained in the course of my commercial activity to help members of the group who are seeking information. Since I do more DIY in a month than some do in a year I hope my input is useful to some.
Fair Trader status means I run my business properly with good intention.
I doubt this reasoned reply will change your attitude, but I accept that's because you are simply a f****it.
Nonsense. There are plenty of professionals posting to their relevant forums with taglines and signatures that advertise their trade...myself included. In general such posters are welcome in their associated forums.
Depends on how useful their posts were.
Because someone is helpful and knowledgeable it's a good idea to encourage such a resource to stick around.
Go ahead....but bear in mind that when you do so, you associate your business with your posts...and that can work in more than one way..
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