Your points:
1. Greed
2. Lack of concern for safety
3. Inability to perform work
My points:
1. Don't want employees
2. Focus on jobs that 1 person crew can do
3. Grow company to have enough accounts to merit hiring a helper, then eventually crews (if that is what our students want)
4. Want to verify that a person can actually clean hoods, not just memorize fire codes and regurgitate for an exam
5. Want to truly help people change their lives
6. Charge a reasonable amount of money to set somebody up in business (people will spend more on a used truck or car than what we charge)
7. Have trained over 100 people since 1995
8. Have established a nationwide network of hood cleaners working together
9. Focus on people who want to do this for a living
10. Provide ongoing support after training
I'm curious, what was the school that you worked with back in the 90's?
We can agree to disagree, but I think people don't understand what we do. They think they do, but they don't.
We'll be having an Open House May 15, 2005 (think of it as a round table discussion), and everyone is invited. Doesn't cost anything, just RSVP and show up (so I can know how much food to cook). If you're interested, we are going to have an optional (read pay if you want to go) golf tournament on Friday, and an optional dinner cruise that Saturday night. It's held in Nashville, and is set up for families (bring spouse and kids). Come meet me face to face and talk about this industry and what we can do together to change it and move it forward working together, instead of at each other's throats.
We are actively doing something to change this industry, not just sitting back with our heads in the sand wishing someone else will change for us. Sometimes, you just have to step up to the podium and do something, whether anybody else thinks it's a good idea or not. You don't take polls, you don't see what everybody else is doing, you simply do.
There are some mighty big companies that are getting their act together, and us little companies have to band together to have a chance to go after some of these multi-regional accounts.
Now whether you agree with me or not, we're still moving forward with our training program and helping people get into this business with proper training and equipment. We're making sure that they know the fire codes and how to actually clean an entire grease exhaust system and have happy customers. If you don't have happy customers, you won't be doing this business for very long.