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Is it just me this effects? Every other day I now seem to get an email offering to flog me some sort of 2 word domain name like, heatingboilers.co.uk or hotwatersystems.co.uk or plumbingwashingmachines.org.uk. Is it just some poor lost soul sitting in his/her back bedroom stringing together a couple of plumbing related words together and trying desperately to make a living by marketing these as domain names, I've been quoted some real silly prices of upto

I've had the same scouse geezer from this lot call me on and of for over six years now. Always starts of with the same old patter, which just makes my ears cringe always in aid of the police, get another one for the fire brigade, another one for the local education authority all 3 generally just want me to place an advert on their holiday planners. I also get another one in aid of Great Ormand Street Hospital, although these are legit, they are no different from street chuggers, so every quid you give 20p goes to the charity with rest going in wages and administration costs.... Anyway I already pay for these organisations via the HMRC, saying that they ring up now and then asking when are they likely to see my next contribution. I am somewhat more diplomatic with them than I am with the others though!

I'm behind you all the way, the SEO industry lets itself down, by not having any kind of regulatory body to oversee it, It's probably not what most SEO companies want either. But for the end user if there were a means of seeing that the SEO company complied with certain standards and conformed to the standards set out then that would give me confidence. So many UK companies charge you thousands to do the work, only to pay someone peanuts out in India to do it. Had a phonecall today from an SEO expert today, it went like this... "Hello" "hello" "what's your name?" "why?" "I'm so and so and we've been tracking your website" "Oh why?" "because your not ranking high for certain search terms" "whose search terms?" "ours" "not my search terms but yours?" "yes, sorry what did you say your name was?" "It begins with an F and it ends with an F any ideas?" And he hung up.
Then last week had a similar email to be quite honest get several a day. Similar type "You know your website isn't ranking blah blah blah" So I thought I'd waste their time and pretend I was interested, I sent a reply asking how much. Reply comes back, saying that depends on what you have done. This got my back up somewhat, hang on a minute I said to him, you send out unwanted spam emails touting for work yet you don't have any kind of pricing? Well if he hasn't a clue of potential costs, then there was no point in carrying on with the conversation.

I think generally things are tough out there, I tend to speak to plumbers merchants to gain an accurate guide to the market they have nothing to gain from telling me anything other than the truth. If I speak to plumbers then 50% if not more of what is said seems to whiz through one ear and out of the other, although if I visit the uk plumbing forum then there are only one or two that say they are inundated with work with others saying their just ticking over maybe doing 3 or 4 day weeks and their just covering their day's money. There are lots of factors for this, migration influx, fast track plumbing courses and of course the economy. The chances are if you've been made redundant your probably do a diy job rather than call a plumber, likewise if your job is in the balance your hardly likely to be thinking about having a new bathroom suite of heating system installed. I'm quite fortunate in as much as I work for letting agents in Central London whose clients seemed to be mainly bankers, embassy staff and Arabs, what more could a plumber want? So they keep me busy, but I am at their beck and call. And they will call you at 3 in the morning to say they have no hot water and they expect you to go. Of course for me to show my mug at this time, is reflected in the final invoice. Any other customers that call is a bonus as I don't really need anymore work, however saying that I never depend on one customer alone.
I think if most people that run businesses were honest, the majority would say their not business minded, most have never attended any kind of business studies of any kind and even those that do still seem to go to the wall. For me a lot depends on luck, it dosent matter how much you've spent on advertising, websites or attending whatever business seminar. If the phone dosen't ring you have no business

As an honest plumber, I would never lie ha ha

Having now shopped at the local Asda's for the last 5 years, I've got quite use to queuing. I tend to while away the time people watching and counting the different languages being spoken, I use to love listening to one sided conversations, now I have no idea what half the conversations are about. What I really look forward to though, is the person who is only buying one item, who thinks that this gives them the right to jump to the front of the line. I tend to always object, and tend to get comments like " your just like that Victor Meldrew" lol