Reinvesting and Advertising…news from Deland.
The post below was actually sent to me in an email by a successful window cleaner named Deland Moghimi.
There are all kinds of ideas, strategies, ideas, etc that we can share with one another to make serious profits in the window cleaning business. So if you have something of value to share that works in your business, please contact me and I’ll post it on this blog.
And finally…the following post needs no response although I’ve interjected a few comments throughout. Enjoy!
Hi Steve,
The reason for the e-mail is because I read on the window washing success tips page that one of the guys is writing a blog for you on his business. I would like to do the same for you in light of all of the updates that are coming around the corner for The Customer Factor. I hope this will help get one more thing off your to do list. I don’t mind writing anything for you I owe a lot to you, so if I can spend a couple of minutes to write something I don’t mind.
Thanks for all of the support you have given me the past year and a half. I left home (Utah) and drove to Florida on April 6, 2006. I don’t think I could have made it this far without you. I truly believe in business systems. I did not want to wash windows myself as a career but I would like to manage a business as a career like you did when you started. With that being said I know I don’t have to remind you of all of the phone calls and e-mails I sent you. There is nothing like a mentor with any business.
To date, looking at the customer factor, on the "Customer/Search/follow-up" screen I have 393 residential customers (commercial has not been updated because of the automatic scheduling feature. We are waiting until September to upload everything to make it easy on us.) and two employees and a business partner that controls all of our commercial clients. I’ll tell you it would be a horrible time trying to keep a paper trail on all of those customers, not to mention all the time to search a filling cabinet to update records, yuck! Thank you for inventing the customer factor!
My Comments: You’re very welcome Deland
. And almost 400 residential customers in under a year and a half? That is super. Keep it up my friend.
Anyway…I know that a lot of folks who are members of The Customer Factor and those who have purchased your window washing program ask about marketing a lot. I have also received a couple of calls from folks who have talked to you and asked me for some advice. I don’t know everything but I do know what has worked for me and my company.
Here are some of the things that work for me in my area and the thought process I had for residential marketing. Since I was new to the area and to the business I didn’t really know the area of town that I was supposed to market to. I took a couple hundred dollars and sent out a blanket postcard campaign but didn’t get as many calls as I would like. I actually got my first call when I bought my yard sign and put it in my in-laws yard. We were living in their front room and they are next to a busy road. I landed that job pretty easily and took 20% of that money and re-invested that into a local magazine that advertises local businesses. I didn’t put a display ad in there. Too expensive, but I put a word ad. ($65 a month) Well, the phone started to ring. I got a couple of other jobs. From those jobs I took 20% and invested it into keeping the current ad running and trying to find a similar company that does the same thing.
My Comments: Since deland wasn’t familiar with area, the postcards may have been sent to an area that didn’t contain his target homes. And Signage works! Also…remember to reinvest, reinvest, reinvest as deland mentions.
I found a couple of local companies that mailed to 7 different areas. So I went to those companies and jumped on board with an area. The phone rang from just a 35 word ad. This is the ad I put in everything:
Clearview Window Washing Service
"Windows So Clean You’ll Think They’re Open!"
Window sills, tracks and screens inside and out.
Insured-bonded-licensed. references provided. Call
for free estimates 407-xxx-xxxx
And that was it. I would like to note two things. I am not very good with numbers. So when I opened my free business account with Washington mutual I got two business accounts instead of one. (currently I have four accounts under clearview) One was for my general account where I deposit money, pay myself, buy supplies and so forth. The other was for marketing. That is where I would transfer money to over the Internet when I made a deposit. I figured the more I made the more marketing I could do and the more marketing I could do the more money I would make.
My Comments: Deland has this game figured out. Marketing=Jobs/Profits which allows for more marketing which brings in more jobs and more profits. One big snowball of a business that is always getting bigger.
Well, I kept those line ads up every month or week depending on when they sent them. I asked the companies to call me (no contracts) when my ad ran out and I would tell them if I wanted to re-new or not. They had my debit-card on file and it was really easy. The phone call lasted 15 seconds.
I am currently with four different companies that do the same thing. Yes, that means that a lot of areas see my ads four different times from four different sources. How many times have you seen the Geiko commercial? They got the caveman and the lizard. Plus if you ever inquired about car insurance through them they send you stuff in the mail periodically. I think that I would like to follow a multi-million dollar companies ad strategy to the best of my ability, plus Steve you tell us to do that all of the time.
To date I hit almost 200,000 homes every month. I only spend around $1000 to do so. To be honest I am trying to transition over to post cards so I can pin-point neighborhoods that I get a lot of calls from. Plus, some folks don’t see my ads because they are drowned by other ads. But my record amount of new customers for a month was 58. So it does work.
Well, I think I may be writing to long. Steve if you ever want me to write some more or expound let me know. Again, thanks for all of your help. I sure hope this gives another view point on marketing.
Best Regards,
Deland
Final Comments: It’s important to recognize that deland is willing to invest and reinvest. This is what it takes to see serious growth in your business. So don’t take the money from each job and run. Set aside 20 to 25% and put it back into the business so you can build it wider and deeper.
Have a profitable day!
Steve
Some More Pricing Talk…
The post below is actually based on a comment left here. I thought just in case you didn’t see it, I’d make it into an individual post along with my reply. Pricing seems to be a hot topic lately so here we go…
Hello,
I run my operation in the Chicagoland area and competition is fierce. There are dozens if not hundreds of window washing companies. Plenty of good, well established ones and numerous small ones. In this market it would be very difficult to charge more than $6 per window. My pricing is anywhere from $3-$5 per window and there isn’t really any more room for an increase. Just something to think about; Depends what market you are operating in.
Luke
My response:
Hi Luke:
You are certainly correct. I mean you can’t just walk into any market, pull a price out of thin air, and just go with it. When I was brand new, I started with pricing of $7 a window. But when I wasn’t closing that many prospects, I had to drop to $5 per window. It still put me in the higher end pricing market, so backed up with an impressive presentation, prospects now closed fairly easily even though I was still higher than some of my low-ball competitors out there.
Anyway…you do have to do your research and find out what per window pricing will fit in your area. Call 2 or 3 window cleaners, invite ‘em over to your home/friend’s home and ask them to give you an estimate. I wouldn’t take what they say as gospel though. Because most window cleaners do focus on price. And you really don’t want to do that.
I think the focus of the post here and subsequent comments from people is about "presentation". If we focus on a rock solid presentation, will prospects pick our pricing over some average window cleaner who has little or no presentation? Absolutely. Not all prospects obviously. Especially the yellow page callers since the majority are price shopping. But the beauty of it is we don’t need all prospects to say "yes".
The bottom line is that we should never make the focal point of our window cleaning businesses all about price. If we do, we are just like most other window cleaners out there that are cut from the same cloth. Sure you have to adjust to your market. But don’t match up your pricing to your low ball competitors. You’ll get plenty of business if you stay above the fray.
Look at the mariott hotel chain. And now look at super 8. There will always be the people who are cheap and looking to save money so they’ll stay at the super 8′s of the world. But do the mariott hotels suffer because of this? Absolutely not. They thrive because they’re providing a better "experience". At a higher per room price I might add.
So carry this philosophy over to your window cleaning business. Don’t be a super 8. Be a mariott. People will pay for a quality experience.
Take care luke.
Steve
Cold Weather Window Cleaning…
An email received recently:
Hi Steve,
First, thank you for the wealth of information and guidance you provide with your program. You are a credit the industry.
To the point: while your program gives very pointed instructions for how to secure jobs and perform them with a high degree of professionalism, you don’t cover much in the way of cold weather cleaning. Obviously I can’t clean windows below 0 degrees, so what do recommend in climates where subzero temperatures can run in 45 to 60 day stretches? What do some of your way-up-north system owners do with the freezing calender days?
Thanks for your time and your wonderful system.
Joe
My Response:
Hi Joe:
How are you doing? It’s good to hear from you and thanks much for your comments.
You bring up a good point. I’ll include cold weather talk in my next manual update. So thanks for mentioning it.
Actually though, you can do cold weather cleaning. All that is required is some extra solution in your bucket. In normal weather situations, you have water and glisten in there, right? When the weather is below 32 degrees though, include a little bit of the blue solution that is designed for your window washing reservoir under the hood of your car to clean your car windows. It’s great stuff. You don’t need much added to your water and glisten…maybe a 1/4 of cup. And it should keep your water good to go (prevent it from freezing) throughout the job.
Then you can go ahead and pick up a pair of gloves to provide warmth for your hands. You can find gloves on page 32 in ABC’s catalog.
Although down in florida, we generally didn’t have the below 0 days, it still did get cold some mornings in dec/jan. So I used gloves myself on those occasions. As far as the blue window washing fluid, I didn’t need to use that, but this is what window cleaners up north in colder climates use.
And it won’t affect the quality of your job at all. The glisten will still do it’s job and make the windows sparkle.
Hope this helps and thanks again for your comments. Have a profitable week.
Regards,
Steve
Note to other window cleaners: Although the word from northern window cleaners is that the vast majority of them will use the "blue solution" talked about above, if you use a different solution, please let me know.
Yellow Page Advertising Anyone?
An email from a window cleaner asking about his yellow page advertising:
Hello Steve,
I just have a couple quick questions for you. I just placed a ad in my local yellow pages the size of a dollar bill which is going to cost me 675.00 per month and also they are trying to sell me a website for $130.00 per month which includes marketing and in search engines(but no guarantee on placement)and a minimum of 240 clicks to my website over the year. my question is I am wondering if this sounds good as far as the website price.The name of the yellow pages is dex online.Also I am wondering if I am getting a little over my head on the whole yellow page thing. Could you tell me what you think. Also I know you said you aquired alot of customers in a short period of time. Could you give me some recommendations of how you did it. Hope your having a great day!!
Thank You,
Bret
My Response:
Hi Bret:
Good morning to you:
I think you’re going in waaaaaay over your head at $675 per month. You do realize that people price shop through the yellow pages, right? My friend owned an insurance agency and he spent over $3k per month on a full page ad in the yellow pages, but for his business, that’s what he needed to get the phone ringing. Our market isn’t like that.
My little $32 per month ad did me just fine with bringing in business, but it also left me lots of other dollars to promote my business in other ways. So I would run a little yellow page ad like what I show in my manual and invest the rest in the numerous other techniques available to promote your window washing business.
$130 per month for a website? It’s a ripoff. Heck for $19.95 as a member of my software program, The Customer Factor, I used to provide each member a free website. It may not have had all the bells and whistles, but it did what it was supposed to do. It was a real deal. $130 per month is not.
As a side note, 240 clicks to your website is window dressing. It sounds nice, but are they really "targeted clicks"? How do you know that those clicks are from actual homeowners interested in your window cleaning services? The answer is that you don’t.
And there definitely cannot be any guarantee on search engine placement. Are you familiar with the search engines? I spend quite a bit of time doing search engine optimization, and the vast majority of SEO is acquiring links back to your site. Only 15 to 20% has to do with on-page optimization like keyword density. The rest is all about off-page optimization like link building which I just mentioned. So the bottom line is that when the yellow page rep talks about marketing in the search engines, they’re talking about including some keywords on your webpages. Because they surely are not going to go out and get links for you. So again…you don’t need to spend $130 a month for this. Wow! They are really ripping off an unsuspecting public.
As far as your last question about "getting customers fast"…my customers were acquired in a variety of different ways, anyone of them can result in "fast customers". I did a lot of postcard mailings to generate immediate phone calls. I also went out every saturday morning with 2 to 3 kids and blanketed neighborhoods with flyers. I also belonged to a business breakfast organization. I also had maid services and other service businesses feed me business. I also had newsletter ads placed in newsletters in certain developments. Then I also had a yellow page ad-$32 per month, not $675 per month. So as you see, it was a multitude of things that kept the phone ringing.
You can review chapter 7 in my manual and all past newsletters also for more information on this.
Hope this helps. The stuff above may not be what you want to hear as far as your yellow page advertising, but I just don’t like it when a yellow page rep tries to rip someone off. They wouldn’t know what a window cleaner looks like if we fell on their head. What they do is make assumptions and assign those assumptions to ALL businesses when they try and sell you yellow page space. Therefore bigger must be better, right? Not true. Well…I guess I won’t be getting Christmas cards from yellow page reps anytime soon. 
) Oh well.
Take care for now. Talk soon.
Regards,
Steve
How many flyers?
Some more flyer talk…
steve- in order for me to have at least 3 window jobs per week, how many flyers should i send out a week?
blake
My response:
Hi Blake:
It was good talking with you on the phone today.
As mentioned, this is a difficult question to provide an exact answer to. The reason is because of the fact that not everyone calls right away. Whew…that would be nice. ) Some folks will call you right away of course, but others will call you in a week, 2 weeks, or more.
If everyone called like we’d like ‘em to, then in order to get 3 jobs per week, we would need to distribute a measly 500 flyers. This’ll turn into 5 calls. And those 5 calls will turn into at least 3 jobs.
To provide ourselves a cushion and to allow for the delayed callbacks, distributing between 500 and 1000 flyers per week should give you at the very least 3 jobs per week, minimum. Absolute minimum. Again, I’m talking about allowing for a cushion.
And of course keep in mind that as you start growing and building your biz, referrals will come in, people will see your yard sign, etc etc. So your distribution amounts can drop if you want ‘em to. I personally stepped up my marketing campaigns because I wanted to grow and establish crews. If you want to do the same, then step up your flyer distribution campaign. If you’re satisfied just coming up with enough jobs to provide for you, then eventually you can ease off on distribution.
Hope this helps. Take care for now. And have a profitable week!
Regards,
Steve
Procrastination isn’t the answer…
An email recently received:
Hi Steve
Read your article about procrastination and boy is that me !!
I have been getting the business ready tio go for almost a year, but enough is enough. I have started handing out flyer’s this week.
I have 2 small store fronts in the downtown area that I can take care of in less than 1 hr.
The question is when I try getting more commercial work should I be focused on the single cleaning or a monthly service?
I have yet to get a residential account yet but that will be only a matter of time. Determined to make this work because I really enjoy the job and being outside.
Second, should I pre make quotes up for business that I would like to do and then go in and present them in person or mail them. The wife thinks in person is the best but I have a real phobia about first contact. Any help would be appreciated
Ted
My Response:
Hi Ted:
It’s good to hear from you.
I think we’ve all been there as far as procrastination. And it’s especially hard to maintain focus and take the steps needed if we have other jobs we’re working in or trying to make the transition from one business to the next. I remember when I was transitioning from changing oil to window cleaning. It was tough.. The motivation though was that I didn’t want to smell like —– for the rest of my life. ) So what can you use as motivation?
Yeah…it’s time to get going. Getting all your ducks in a row is fine initially. I mean you do need business cards, signage, perhaps a nice polo shirt, etc, but this only takes a few weeks at the very most. It’s then time to implement some basic marketing strategies so you can get that phone ringing and building your business. One thing to keep in mind is after you get the first call and do your first job, it’ll motivate you to continue on even more. And therefore more calls come, more jobs are done, etc. But it all starts with that first call. It’s an easy business, but we need that first call to come in.
Excellent on distributing some flyers. Just keep in mind that it’s a numbers game. 100 flyers might sound like a lot, but that generally will only return one phone call. I’m just using 100 as an example number. I don’t know how many you distributed. But the more you can distribute (or have someone distribute for you), the more calls and jobs you’ll get. It’s just numbers.
For commercial work, I would focus on the repeat part of it. In my opinion that is the only benefit of commercial work. If you’re only focusing on the one-time service, then you may as well do only residential windows because there are a bunch of advantages to dealing with homeowners vs commercial people. It does take a little more effort securing residential jobs, but as strange as it sounds, that’s a good thing. This means that not every Tom, Dick, and Harry window washer out there is going after this business. Whereas with commercial, anyone can walk in off the street and offer to do a free estimate. So please keep this in mind.
It’ll work Ted. I see and hear from people across the country every single day that it’s working and their businesses are growing. So there is no doubt about that. It’s just up to you to get out there and let people know about the service you provide.
As a side note, try and introduce yourself to other service businesses who are in customer homes like carpet cleaners, maid services, blind cleaning companies, etc. Build an army of businesses which will send you jobs regularly.
If the store is small, I do think it’s best that you go in with a quote right away. I mean it only takes a few seconds to come up with a price for a small commecial store front. On the other hand, if it’s a place like a car dealership, then I would walk in and see if they’re interested first. Plus it wouldn’t look good anyway if you’re walking around the dealership with clipboard in hand prior to meeting anyone in the dealership.
I read your part in your email about "quoting in person or mailing them". I was under the impression you were talking about coming up with a quote prior to walking in or just walking in cold, asking them if you can do a window cleaning quote, and then presenting them with the quote. So that’s why I responded like I did in the above paragraph.
But if you’re talking about quoting in person vs mail, there is absolutely no doubt that you need to do it in person. Sorry about that. ) But a quote mailed to a business owner/manager doesn’t mean a thing. If you have a phobia about 1st contact, then I would recommend coming up with a flyer that you can leave them to review. You can see a commercial flyer at link provided in manual.
So in other words, you’re not there to necessarily try and "sell" them anything. You’re there just to drop off a flyer and let them know about the service you provide. So when you walk in, you might say something like:
Hi my name is Ted Whitcomb and I own Clearview Window Washing Services in town. I just wanted to drop off a flyer that talks about the window cleaning service we provide. If you are ever interested in receiving a window washing estimate to get your windows cleaned up spic and span, please call me.
And that’s all there is to it. Easy. As another alternative you could hire someone to do this for you. But make sure it’s someone you trust becaues they could dump the flyers in the trash and tell you they distributed them all.
There is a really great post being posted to the blog friday, so make sure you check it out. It’ll get you fired up.
In the post, tony talks about his growth and what’s happening in his business. I remember not too many months ago he was working for a school district and now he’s got a window cleaning business with 186 customers! There is absolutely no reason why you can’t do the same. Especially in <location deleted>. It is the perfect window cleaning market.
If you need any assistance, please let me know. Take care for now.
Regards,
Steve
256-546-2446
Window Cleaning for REPEAT profits…
An email received recently:
Hi Steve,
Just wanted to say thanks again for all the help you have given Laura and I. Things are looking up here. We are up to 186 customers now and growing!! I sent out 5000 postcards last week and when I read your window blog (about the person who was frustrated with low return from fliers) I thought I would let you know how this has been.
We have received 6 phone calls for estimates so far. But, it seems like everyday someone is calling from the mailing. I did get all 6 of those jobs, so that more than pays for the mailing already. Plus, we are sending out two more mailings to those houses – all mailings are 3 weeks apart. I think this should make the fall months pretty busy.
The one comment I would make about not being frustrated with slow returns from fliers is that when you get a customer, if you do a good job, you will be back there every 6 months. This isn’t just a one-time deal – it is residual. Looking at it from that angle, those 6 jobs I got will pay me around $2500 a year!! I just thought that would be useful to help keep people motivated. Thanks again for all the help!
Tony
My Response:
Hi Tony:
That is just great, great news. Excellent. 186 customers is perfectamundo. )
And thanks for your comments on your postcard mailing. The postcards do clearly work, but sometimes it takes a little time to see the response rate where we want it. Ideally it would be great if most folks called within 24 to 48 hours, but as you know, it doesn’t always work like that.
Wow….closing.6 jobs out of 6 calls? Now that’s cool. As you said, your mailing is now paid for. Everything else coming in is gravy. Your plan is perfect as far as mailing out 2 more mailings 3 weeks apart to the exact same neighborhoods. And the beauty of it is that these mailings are hitting at the perfect time-heading into the Fall. July and August do tend to dip a little bit, but it really starts moving full steam ahead as we go into the Fall. Kids are back in school, homeowners will stop taking vacations, etc. etc.
And you’re exactly right as far as thinking of it in repeat terms. Let’s say that we distribute 1000 flyers. The numbers dictate we’ll get 10 calls over time. But let’s say we only get 6. Is that such a bad thing? People need to remember that this is a repeat business. So if correct follow up procedures are implemented (The Customer Factor), then it stands to reason that you should do those 6 jobs again and again, right?
Now it doesn’t always work out like that obviously regardless how good someone might be in following up. But even if just 4 jobs came back, that’s great. And since they came back a 2nd time, there is an excellent chance that you’ll be doing those jobs over and over again for a long, long, long time.
They’re generally sold on you and having clean glass if they come back for a 2nd service. And all this from a 1000 flyer distribution that might cost $110 max ($50 for the cost of flyers and $20 each for 3 kids who do the distributing). Not a bad return on investment, huh? )
Keep it up Tony. Things are moving onward and upward for your business. Congratulations and I’ll talk to you soon.
Regards,
Steve
256-546-2446
Letter Sending…
An email I received recently:
Steve, how are you? I know you’re extremely busy so I want make it a habit to ask such questions of you. Do you have any samples of effective letters you’ve used to target a particular business? I live in a resort community with a hotel, some cottages and cabins and I’m going to target the property manager regarding my window washing business.
I want to write an appropriate letter but wanted to see if you have something that’s been effective for you. Please share some thoughts with me.
thanks, alonzo
My Response:
Hi Alonzo:
Sorry for the delayed reply. We’re working round the clock over here on a bunch of new features for The Customer Factor so it’s taking me a bit longer to reply to emails lately.
But you can ask anytime anywhere. No probs at all for sure.
I don’t have any specific letters for specific businesses. The reason is because I never went after businesses in a big way. I know this sounds kind of old school, but if I were you I would just pay the property managers a personal visit. Drop off a business card and give ‘em a brief overview of the fabulous service you provide.
It’s really pretty simple to get business/commercial customers. A personal visit giving an overview or even a personal visit with the intent of dropping off a flyer works real well. Either way will get you customers.
Direct mail works very well (postcards) when mailing to residential customers. Your postcard just jumps out at them in the few pieces of mail they might have. Businesses on the other hand get inundated with all kinds of offers and solicitations through the mail. So a direct mailing as far as window washing isn’t going to be that effective. It won’t get their attention. But a personal visit wearing your uniform will definitely do it.
I hope this helps a little bit. If you feel more comfortable with a letter, no probs. I can do you one up, but it’ll have to be this weekend, ok? In the insurance biz, I used to send introductory letters a lot and then followed ‘em up with personal visits. Now that can be effective because you’re letting them know you’re coming beforehand. You’re not just relying on the letter to get the phone ringing.
Take care for now and I’ll talk with you later.
Regards,
Steve
