A Competition followup

Hey All:

How have you been? Whew…things are heating up over here. Been absent from the blog in the last few days due to some projects needing to be completed (announcements coming soon), but we'll be doing more regular postings from here on out. Today is just a small "competition" confirmation post. To provide some background, I wrote a blog post recently where I responded to a window cleaner's question and concerns on competition in the window cleaning business. Soon after that post, I received this email:

Hi Steve,

I was reading on your blog about the  guy with the competition "problem".

It really isn't a problem. In my area there are about 10 window cleaners for a population of about 135,000. A few years ago I noticed more and more started out here and I was getting frustrated! The commercial route work was getting cut throat so I sold my route to a newcomer and went residential in 2007. And then more guys were starting in residential but this time I saw it as a good thing because that showed me that the market was growing. Some went out of business because they were to cheap, while I charge premium prices with premium service. Competition is great!!

Severn

My Response:

Hi Severn:
 
Good morning.  Right…competition shouldn't be an issue for any window cleaner willing to be different from the crowd.  There are too many cookie cutter window cleaners out there.  So it's pretty simple to rise up and be noticed.  Take care and have a good day.
 
Regards,
 
Steve  

Notes: Two things I'd like to bring to your attention about severn's comments.

1) Notice how he mentions the commercial route work was getting cut throat so he went residential?  Commercial  work is definitely more cut throat w/o a doubt. I've probably mentioned this before, but the reason it's so competitive is because anyone can do it. Any person can buy a squeegee and a bucket from home depot, call themselves a window cleaner, and then walk into any strip mall store and take business from other window cleaners based on price alone. The main selling point has to be price in a situation like this. What other selling point can he use? So let cut throat price games begin.

2) And the 2nd thing about severn's comments that jumped out at me is that some window cleaners went out of business because they were too cheap. Sometimes I feel like a broken record talking about pricing windows, but it's imperative that window cleaners charge a respectable price for a window cleaning job. It needs to be win-win between you and the homeowner. Being cheap doesn't help anyone. You may think it helps the homeowner. Sorry. It doesn't. Because if you're too cheap, you'll need to cut corners on the job in order to profit. So the homeowner ends up losing. Then when it comes time for them to be serviced again, they sure won't be excited to have you back. They'll have long forgotten about your low price and they'll only remember the service they weren't happy about. How can you build a repeat business this way? So price jobs which allow you to NOT cut corners on your window cleaning service and where you can make a healthy profit for your business. A win-win for everyone.

Have a Great Day!

Steve