well after reading all the post's and looking at it from an outsiders point of view, the problem i can see is simply this and i learnt this the bloody hard way.
Business is Business and should never get personal, its always going to a very fine line between to two, especially when employing people. I have yet to meet a successful business man who allows that golden rule to be forgotten. I'm not going to sit here and tell ya all how to go about running your own business, cos everyone is different, however if your got problems with site managers etc approaching ya staff, then i would say you need to be working on ya PR more and selling yourself and your company! Before i got into plastering i worked in sales for 10+ years and relied on repeat business and the only way to do it is to build a relationship with the decision makers, once your got that the business will keep coming back! Sounds simple that cos it is, i read the posts and id say your an intelligent bunch, (well sort of
Ask ya self this, why do ya buy from the same builders merchants is because of the price or is it that you get on with the staff that you deal with? i bet its the latter! People buy from people, price without doubt does come into in it, but if your got the relationship right with the decision matters, then your 80% there in getting the repeat business.
Does that make sense or am i just talking b*ll***s as normal?