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I cannot remember the last time I gave a tip, though I do remember having a row 30 odd years ago with a black cab driver because I never gave him a tip, was left a bit flabbergasted at being asked for one having just paid him £10 for the fare. I occasionally get given tips, but generally feel uncomfortable accepting them so will normally give it to the young lad working with me at the time... Then get him to buy lunch

To be honest I forgot about Valentines day, but I have promised her a brand new kitchen this year, a new conservatory, a full side extension with wet room. All she needs to do.... Is find the time to build it all...

Yep great story just goes to show the power of social media....

Anyway, I'm after 2 new vans so I'll start the kitty of with £250.00 feel free to contribute

So who nominated you? Clive?

I tend to find any email that has in it 'there are no costs involved' usually has some sort of cost element the further you get sucked in to the sales spill.... In this particular case you probably have to attend a dinner function or something similar having parted with £300 for the table... You'll then be given your wooden plaque with 'Nominated Plonker of the Year' emblazoned upon it..... 

It always surprised me why the IRA never use to visit these works of art....

I wonder how much HMRC owes? As the left hand never seems to know what the right hand is doing.

@ Steve... I bet you'd soon get cheesed of with haggling if everyone signing up to the directory, thought to themselves... Hmmm I know, the owner of the site likes to haggle so rather than sign up online I give him a call and see if I get it cheaper...

I'm sure the drop in oil prices will only be short lived and once the issue with Russia is resolved the price will start to go up again. The mining industry is also diving, copper prices plummeted massively last week.......

I never haggle or get haggled, to me it is very un-Brittish. I've always formed the opinion that if you don't like the price, then go elsewhere. I love it when a customer or at least a potential one asks how much for cash... and I reply exactly the same price as if you were to pay by card or by BACS.........

Ok well this is the situation, I have a call center handle all the telephone calls, I will receive anywhere between 10-80 calls a day plus on average around 30 emails to deal with. If I'm honest I'll ignore just through pure lack of time around 90% of these callers / new leads. The call center staff get a lot of abuse because I've failed to or been unable to call someone back. I've got 3 electricians on a sub contract basis, I do all the plumbing, from breakdowns to installations, site surveys, invoicing ordering of materials and so forth. I can be working in London, Chelmsford, Bury St Edmunds and Brighton all on the same day. I've never targeted any areas outside of Greater London yet get calls from as far a field Scotland to Devon to Kent and Wales. I ended up pulling the plug on all paid advertising some six months ago. I'm also involved with a Scottish boiler manufacturer, so I get all their work and deal with all their inquiries in the South East. Oh and I have an online shop where I've started to sell boilers.

I only set this business up because Google hammered my old site, I was quite happy just swanning around London making a living that paid the bills, never had any intention of being anything other than being little ole me with me tool kit. But now I find myself having gone from one extreme of being killed by Google to the complete opposite. I'm very apprehensive about taking anyone on full time as I can do without having to do more paperwork and paye. But I've now got this feeling that the business is now getting a bit of a bad name simply because it cannot handle the workload. I am in no doubt of where this business can go, I'm just not sure I want to go with it, probably more to do with confidence than anything else, cant even say it is a seasonal problem as I knew six months ago things were changing drastically.... oh well time will tell..