Limited Time To Work It…

Hey All,

Received an email below from a window cleaner who faces a time crunch like most window cleaners do when they first get started in the window cleaning business. I thought other window cleaners may benefit from it. Take care for now.

Regards,

Steve

Hi Steve,

Thanks for your email. I did receive all your information and have been reading through it very diligently. I have some business cards on order from PS print and hope to get those in the next few days.

I am really excited about starting my window cleaning business but right now have a bit of a dillema. The company I am working for just switched my schedule from not working weekends to working every other saturday in addition to working monday through friday. With my wife also working on saturday it only leaves me 1 free saturday to pursue my window cleaning business. I was hoping you could provide me with some strategies for this type of situation as tough as it seems.

As much as I would love to walk away from my current job and focus my 100% attention on building my window cleaning business, I do depend on the income to pay my bills at the moment. I would appreciate any ideas you might have or any words of encouragment you have to offer.

Thanks again for putting together such an awesome business package, you truly are a pioneer for this industry and I am sure many others have you to thank for changing their lives for the better through your knowledge and your willingness to help. Hope to hear from you soon and if you dont mind I would love to give you a call in the next couple of days to talk to you for a bit.

Thanks,
Christiaan Marais

My Response:

Hi Christiaan,

Good morning and it’s good to hear from you.  Um…that is a tough schedule to try and also build a window cleaning business.  It can be done, but since there are only 24 hours in a day, it may take some sacrificing on your part to see it all come together.  So at some point, you do plan on taking window cleaning full time, right?

If I understand correctly, you have 2 free saturdays each month?  Do you have any time after work at your full time job?  Or is that an all day thing?  I’m trying to figure out if you have any small chunks of time that would allow you to actively market your business (flyers/postcards/door hangers), and then that would free you up to do window cleaning jobs only (no marketing) on saturday.

If not, and you only have saturday to market and perform your window cleaning service, I would consider hiring a part time person who wants to make a few bucks on the weekend.  Your focus should always be on the marketing side of things.  Without that, you’ll never get any calls.  So I would focus your 2 free saturdays on flyer distribution.  It’s inexpensive and generates almost immediate responses/calls. 

The reason for a part time helper is because some jobs are lengthy.  If you market from let’s say 9am to 12pm on saturday, and then do a job after that, you might run out of daylight.  Plus when you really get going, after 2 or 3 saturdays of continued marketing, you may start filling up your schedule nicely.  But since you only have the two saturdays per month to do jobs, you might find yourself needing to knock out 2 jobs after your marketing time (9am to 12pm). 

So a parttime helper will really be a must almost from the beginning of your business.  Just be willing to not as make as much per hour for each job you do.  The goal during this time is to not necessarily to make a financial killing, but to build a customer base that’ll cushion your business when you walk away from your full time job.   

These are just some thoughts above.  And when you feel like you have some consistent calls coming in and the jobs are starting to stack up, at that point, it might be good to walk away from your full time job.  I really am not in a position to say when you should do it though because I don’t know your current finances and debt load, but I do know that if you market your window cleaning business actively (9am to 12pm every other saturday), you’ll eventually have a really nice customer base that’ll continue to grow due to your continued marketing and the referrals coming in from satisfied customers. 

I hope the above helps.  Thanks a bunch for your comments also.  And feel free to call anytime at 256-546-2446.  Take care for now and I’ll talk to you soon.

Regards,

Steve