Not making the hourly income you should?

First of all…happy belated father's day to all the fathers out there. 

Before getting into an email I received, I thought I'd share this cool video with you.

To continue on, I received an email where the sender is asking some questions about his hourly pay and how it's not where it should be. My response is below his question. 

Hi Steve

Happy Fathers Day to you also.

Well so far I have done three free window jobs.  One was my home and the other two were for relatives to get some testimonials.  As soon as I receive them, I'll send you all the information you need for the web site.

I've been keeping track of the time I spent on each job and trying to estimate what I would charge.  So far, I only seem to be making about $15/hour.  Either my estimates are too low or I'm way too slow.   I have had my 17 year old son working with me so I have to double the clock hours. 

The house I did today was a small ranch with 13 windows, 12 window screens, 2 doors with glass, 2 storm doors and 1 six foot mirrored bifold closet door.  It took us about 6 man hours.

This is what I figured the estimate should be.

13×4=52
12×1=12
  2×5=10
  2×5=10
  1×8=8
——————
 $ 92 or 15.33/hr

Where am I going wrong???

Regards
Dave

My response:

Hi David:

Good morning to you.  I took yesterday off so a little bit of a delay in getting back with you.

As a side note, I did secure the domain for you that you get as part of the free website bonus of The Customer Factor. So whenever you're ready with the text, just pop it on over.  And we can always put a "Page Under Construction" sign on the testimonials webpage if you don't have your testimonials ready.  So no probs.

As far as your hourly situation…

What you are experiencing is what every single one of us experience when we first get started.  I hear this a lot from folks just getting into the biz.  It does take time to develop confidence where you can burn through houses quickly. In addition to this though, your pricing in the early stages of your biz does need to be fine tuned until you hit on the magic number where 80 to 90% of the prospects are saying "Yes…clean my windows".

Let's talk specifics.  Many new window cleaners get hung up on the scraping part.  It should take you no more than 5 to 7 seconds max to scrape the outside glass.  It's real quick.  You don't need to line up your scraper and go row by row.  It doesn't need to be as methodical as that. 

Another thing that plays into being slow is perfectionism.  This is what I'm going to talk about this week on the blog or in an email.  I'm a perfectionist and many folks are also perfectionists when first starting.  The tendency is to get each window absolutely "perfect".  So usually what ends up happening is that you'll clean the window and then you look at it from different angles to make sure it's perfect and there are no marks or blemishes. I used to bend down and do all sorts of crazy things just to see if any spots were there.  I'd do the same thing when I was inside (looking for outside spots) and more often than not, there would be some which would cause me to go back outside and spend another 1/2 hour or more getting the marks off.

The above is simply cured by mastering and believing in your squeegee stroke.  So starting out, you will make less than the average window cleaner.  It takes a bit of time to get the squeegee stroke down pat so you can move on to the next window and not spend time going over the window you just did. 

So after a few dozens jobs, you should have total confidence in your squeegee stroke and you will have developed your own way of doing things that fit you.  When you've reached that stage, you will then be whizzing through houses and making $45 to $50 per hour or more.  You'll know exactly what needs to be done and you'll be able to do it fast.  In the beginning we all stumble and bumble our way around because it's all new to us.  Make sense?  I will say though that after the first handful of jobs, you will notice your speed picking up.  So it's not like you won't see any improvement until you've done a "few dozen" jobs as mentioned above.

And yes…it is important to look at pricing also just to make sure we need to be where we need to be.  This could certainly have a part in us making less than we want to. 

On the job you did, I would have charged $5 for the windows.  All the other pricing is fine, although because it's such a low estimate, I would have gone $2 on each screen.  Or at least do some kind of bump up.  If using $5 for windows and staying with $1 per screen, I come up with $105.  That adds another $13 to the job.  Then I probably would have bumped it to at least $119.  So that adds another $14 to the job.  The bump up though really depends on the prospect and how you think she'll react to it.  I've also bumped up jobs that were in the low one hundreds to $129 and $139.  Again, it's up to your "feel" for the prospect.

My own personal attitude was that it just wasn't worth driving anywhere for a job less than $100.  So if the true estimate fell below a hundred, a bump up was automatically necessary.

A word of caution though…when you're just getting started, you really want any and all jobs you can get, so I would be careful with going too crazy with bump ups.  At the same time though, you certainly don't want to be cheapo because keep in mind there is an excellent chance you'll be doing the customers again and again (assuming you do a great job the first time).  So if you were too cheap at first, when you come around the 2nd time, it's kind of demotivating doing a job that you know you'll make only $25 an hour or so.  But I firmly believe that the $15.33 per hour you did would turn into at least $30 an hour if it was 3 months from now.  Because you would be much smoother from beginning to end. 

And based on my calculations, a house like this should also take you no more than 3 to 3 1/3 hours for one man.  But again though, taking 6 hours at the beginning of your biz is the norm.  I wouldn't worry about it in the least.  If you do feel that there's something missing, you should refer back to the chapter in the manual where I talk about window washing techniques.  Those techniques combined with my pricing in chapter 8 did provide payouts of $45 to $50 (sometimes more) an hour for my business.  So if you can master them, you'll reach that stage also.  Anyway…refer back to the manual as needed to help fine tune your techniques.       

The above are some things to think about, but the main thing is to just allow yourself a few dozen jobs to get into the groove and develop your own level of confidence.  After you've put these few dozen jobs under your belt, you will be making a consistent $45 to $50 per hour.  There is absolutely no doubt about it.  So to respond to your last question: You're doing nothing wrong at all.  Yes, you may want to tweak your "per window price" by a dollar, but other than that, just keep on working at it and develop the confidence in your scraping, squeegee stroke, towelling, etc. and it'll all come together nicely.  And this confidence will allow you to move on to the next window without wasting time on a window you already cleaned. 

Hope the above helps. 

Regards,

Steve

David's 2nd email to me on same subject.

Hi Steve

Thanks for the information.  It helps me figure out where I stand. I did spend extra time trying to get every little spot.  I was trying to do a really good job because the house is going to be put on the market soon.  Besides, my wife was there to point out every little spot <VBG>

Regards
Dave

My Response:

Hi Dave:

Right…getting every little spot is only natural. We've all been there.  :o)  And I would recommend that you continue to get every spot.  Here's the thing to keep in mind though:  You can do an excellent job (and get every spot) without being a perfectionist.

It took me awhile to realize this.  It all stems from the confidence in your window cleaning technique.  When you trust it 100%, you'll know the chances of any spots or streaks left behind are slim to none.  Therefore you can move around the house at a much faster clip.  But this confidence only comes with time and a few dozen jobs under your belt.  It's easy to teach someone how to clean windows.  But as mentioned in my earlier email, being fast just comes from experience.  In a few months we'll look back at this $15.33 per hour that you made and have a good laugh.

I did get your website doc.  for the free website offered through The Customer Factor. I'll get on it in the next few days and send you an email when I'm done.  If you have any more questions, please let you know.  Take care for now.  Talk soon.

Regards,

Steve