Archive for October, 2007

A Shirt Resource…

Just a quick post to let you know that I received an email yesterday from a window cleaner saying he found a really great resource if you’re looking for company shirts, whether it’s polo, t-shirts, or whatever.  I checked ‘em out today and they look good.  The great thing about this company is they only have a 4 piece minimum order and shirts can be mixed and matched so you can get two polo and two t-shirts for example.  Many companies will want you to order at least a dozen or more of one kind of item. 

This company can embroider any logo plus work with a current  logo you might already have.  Send me an email if you’re interested. I’ll then provide you the email to the window cleaner who initially wrote with this shirt resource.  He can provide you more details in addition to giving you a first hand testimonial for the company since he had his own shirts done by them.

Have a great weekend,

Steve

Invest in your Window Cleaning Business!

I received an email a couple of hours ago that I figured I’d post on the blog. It goes to show that determination and the willingness to invest in the proper tools will grow your window cleaning business where you realize maximum results and profits.  There are lots of window cleaners out there as you probably know. But they’re all the same. They all do the same thing within the same boring box. If you think outside the box and be different, you’ll stand out. And standing out is when the profits really start rolling in. 

Here’s the email:

Well Steve it has started to happen now just like you promised. I am approaching my two year mark and things are already starting to really pick-up. Since I signed up for send out cards like you suggested I have invested a lot of money into my current customers. And it is working like a charm. With my follow-up phone calls matched with all of the cards I’m sending out, there is nothing that can get in my way now. I love this program, the customer factor matched with sendout cards. This is exciting.

P.S. I really meant what I said. My dreams are coming true in life because of your system and guidance.

My Response:

Hi Deland:

Hope your weekend is going well.  That is fantastic.  Yeah…SOC is truly a great system.  And thanks for the comments on The Customer Factor. 

In my business, I was doing all my card sending manually, but I knew it worked so that’s why I spent the time doing it.  Referrals were coming in regularly.  But I wish I had Send Out Cards then.  Man oh man…the potential is limitless with this system.  So keep on hammering out greeting cards.  You’ll keep on seeing results.  

Another couple of techniques you may want to try if you haven’t already is:

1.  Take a snapshot of a prospect’s home if they have not made the decision to use your service afer you present your estimate to them.  Then use Picture Plus in SOC to stick the photo on the front of the card and send that prospect the follow up card a few days later.  Imagine their response when they open up the card and see their home on the front.  It’ll make their decision to use your service a no-brainer.

2.  After completing a job, take a snapshot of the customer’s home.  Again, using Picture Plus in SOC, stick it on the front of a greeting card and send it to ‘em.  Watch the positive responses you get.  How many other window cleaners do stuff like this?  Not many at all, if any.  And probably none in your area. 

Just another couple of ways to bury the competition. 

I appreciate your comments once again.  Some window cleaners are afraid of investing in their business or maybe they don’t know how.  But investing in the right tools pays off in a big way as you’ve demonstrated.

Oh….and stay tuned for new stuff coming up within The Customer Factor.  Sometimes it may not look like we’re doing anything since we don’t do uploads every day or even every few days.  That’s because we’re working ’round the clock "behind the scenes" on our testing servers.  Once a feature is tested and ready to roll out, the uploads to the live server begins.  Lots of powerful stuff coming up.  The next upload is the weekly calendar and/or employee/crew job assignments.  Plus we’re working on a new navigational area to provide members more screen room.    

Have a great weekend.

Regards,

Steve

A couple of notes on above:

First I’d like to emphasize that deland has been making good profits from the beginning of his business. So don’t think it takes 2 years to achieve success in the window cleaning business. Not at all. You can profit right away. Hang on and I’ll provide you a link to an email deland sent to me not too long ago which I posted on the blog. Ah…click here to read it.

And second…the message in my response to deland is basically to urge window cleaners to invest in their business. As the saying goes, "it takes money to make money". Of course we can all make good profits in window cleaning by investing the bare minimum in supplies, some flyers, yellow page ad, etc. But if we want to take our business to a whole ‘nother level, then we need to invest to make it happen. So give some serious thought to two must-have investments, The Customer Factor and Send Out Cards.

The Customer Factor speaks for itself and Send Out Cards is the best referral based system I have ever seen. Both of these tools will directly affect and increase your bottom line sales and profits in a big way.

I use to generate referrals by sending out multiple greeting cards to each customer manually, but Send Out Cards puts it all on autopilot. It really is impressive, so click on the link above to read more about it. I am going to release a newsletter next week detailing how to best make a greeting card program work in your business, with or without Send Out Cards. Oh…and as Deland above implied in his email, we created a feature within The Customer Factor that works perfectly with Send Out Cards. A mighty effective one-two punch. Have a great day.

Is Window Cleaning A “Luxury”?

Wow…I can’t believe it’s been over a week since my last post. Time flies. I did however post a newsletter last week which you can click on in the right column: "Put ALL your eggs in one basket". Let’s get into a question asked by a window cleaner wondering about the "wants" or "needs" of our ideal prospects.

Steve,

My Response:

Hi Dale:

Good morning to you.  Excellent question. 

My experience with advertising for window cleaning customers has taught me that the folks who will respond aren’t the ones who "need" the service done.  in my advertising mistakes section in the manual, I talk about what happened with my flyer distribution in a general publication newspaper.  I also tried the usual coupon advertising vehicles like Valpak.  They didn’t work. 

This was a real eye opener for me.  Because I was thinking that since everyone has windows, every homeowner is a potential customer.  Not the case though.  Getting clean windows is at the very bottom of a person’s "to get done" list or "to pay for" list if they are middle income or below.  Of course there are always exceptions, but the vast majority of my customers were either upper income or retirees.  I learned that although there is a ton of glass out there, it takes a certain kind of person to pay for a professional to clean it.  

With all this said above though, it never hurts to test in your particular area for "need".  I spoke to a window cleaner not too long ago who put in a little $40 ad in his service directory section of his newspaper.  He said he got $1500 in business from it.  Not a bad return. 

But there is a difference between our two businesses.  He makes price the focal point of his business.  I didn’t.  So there are two schools of thought.  I preferred to be a higher end window washer for customers willing to pay for piece of mind and the assurance that I’ll treat their home as my own.  The window cleaner above goes in and tries to be the cheapest.  I don’t agree with it and I think he’s taking a very short term approach to his business, but to each their own.  As much as I explain to folks that you can’t make it about price, that tendency will be there for many people because that’s what they’re used to.

Anyway…I hope this provides a little direction.  I think the best thing you can do is to test the "need" in your area as mentioned above.  This has worked for window cleaners, but again, generally it’s because they focus on price.  So they might offer for example a whole house window cleaning for $99.  Pick yourself a neighborhood where the homes are pretty similar and you can do the same thing.  Try it and see what response you get.  And this would be something to also test with a vehicle like Valpak, although it would be risky.  You may get a call from someone with a huge house which you normally would want to bid $400 on.  So if you do use a whole house special kind of thing, make sure it’s in a neighborhood that would fit that pricing.

Another idea is to approach townhouse and condo communities. Stop by the office first and say that you put together a special deal for all the townhouse owners in the community.  $66.00 for a thorough window cleaning in/out.  I’m just throwing a number out there.  And this assumes also of course that you want to test for "need". If not, then stick with the marketing materials in my program and focus more on the "want".  There are a whole lot of customers who "want" you to come by and clean their windows, and have plenty of disposable income to pay for it.   

Take care for now and talk soon.

Regards,

Steve

Price it and then lower it…No!

A question from a window cleaner below…

Steve,

Dale

My Response:

Hi Dale:

Good morning. It’s great to hear from you.

First of all I’d like to stress that not everyone will say "yes" to you.  There are a variety of reasons why.  One of the reasons of course is price, but stick to your guns. I got off the phone yesterday with someone who says he is routinely upping his estimate prices and folks are jumping on board without batting an eye.  So just because one prospect is balking at your price, I wouldn’t allow this one person to alter your pricing strategy at all.  Some folks have no idea how much window cleaning costs and they think they can get their whole house done for $50.  So good luck to ‘em.

Now on to your specific question.  I would never, ever, ever reduce your price after it’s been presented.  It’ll make you look terrible and have the prospect thinking "why didn’t he offer this price initially".  The prospect will feel like you’re taking advantage of him and that’s no way to build a solid, trusting relationship.  The best thing you can do is promise to follow up with the prospect like you did.  Maybe between your presentation and your follow up phone call, the prospect hired someone else for a little less money, but he did a terrible job.  This happens a lot.  So stick to your guns and don’t budge on price.

An additional note since we’re talking about pricing…some window cleaners make the critical mistake of defending their price at the door.  I wish those window cleaners could listen in on some of my phone conversations with other window cleaners who are going in with higher prices and closing the jobs.  But back to these window cleaners who defend their pricing….they don’t have confidence in their pricing, so they present it in such a way like this: "Lots of windows and time required for this job.  I normally do it for $220 but for you today I’ll do it for $180".  So they’re in defensive mode immediately.  Then they compound the error by offering a "discount".  By doing this, it’ll group these window cleaners in with all the other window cleaners out there who fight it out over price. 

To provide you more information, I don’t know if you remember  reading in my manual about when I would give an estimate and then if I wasn’t successfully in my follow up efforts, I sent them a flyer with a coupon offering them a discount.  It didn’t work. 

So again, the best thing you can do for your business is stick to your guns and feel comfortable with your pricing for the service you provide.  Never go back on it. 

What you might want to do though is do some testing until you come up with the right pricing for your area.  A good rule of thumb is that if you close 80 to 85% of the people you present estimates to, your pricing is right on the money.  If you’re closing almost everyone, your pricing is too low.  Yes…you might have lots of jobs, but your profits and per hour pay won’t be where it needs to be.  And if you’re closing somewhere around 50% or so, then you’re pricing needs to be lowered.  80 to 85% closing ratio is the perfect ratio giving you the best profits with plenty of customers.

One final note in the future.  Assuming this $436 comes up again just using this as an example, but if you feel that there might be extra profits in this $436 price, and you think you can still make some good profits by lowering the pricing, then for sales purposes present it as $395.  Usually with a job this size, your completion time will be fine which will make up for the small drop in price. Make sense?  Normally I don’t advocate a drop in price at all, but a $41 drop probably will not hurt your hourly pay at all.  I’m just suggesting this as an alternative because $395, $396, etc, sounds better than a number over $400.  On the other hand though, if your true estimate is $450, $460, etc, there is no way you can lower it below $400, so in this case raise it a few bucks.  You’re already over the $400 threshold so another few bucks won’t affect anything.

If you have any more questions about this, please give me a call.  In the long run, as long as you stick to your guns, don’t play the pricing game, and present estimates you feel provide value for the service you provide, you’ll  secure plenty of "quality" prospects. 

Take care for now.

Regards,

Steve
256-546-2446

When is the best time to mail?

Hi Steve!

My Response:

Hi Laura:

I was mailing so many cards so I really wasn’t keeping track of the specific times they were mailed.  And I don’t think it would have mattered anyway because of the fact I was mailing bulk.  It’s hard to pinpoint exact delivery dates when mailing via this method.  Know what I mean?  With first class, it’s easier to track and pinpoint delivery dates. 

With this said though, if I had my druthers, I would prefer that homeowners receive the postcard on monday or tuesday.  So I was in the habit of notifying dick at my direct mail house to deliver my cards to the post office on thursday or friday.  And I kept my fingers crossed that they found their way in the carrier person’s mail bag for monday or tuesday delivery.  Even wednesday was ok. 

Hope this helps a little bit.  Take care for now.  Have a good night. 

Regards,

Steve

Magnetic Business Cards…

Hi Steve, I’ve used "Colourtech"  www.Colourtech.com  for a number of years now for all of my magnetic business cards. I haven’t had to order in about a year so I’m not sure of their current price, but they have always been very reasonable for a really high quality product. I believe I paid about $300 for 500 cards and because I only give them to actual customers they last a long time. Just thought I’d share.
 
Christian

My response:

Hi Christian:

I appreciate the input.  

What I personally did to make my magnetic business cards was just take my regular business cards and place them on these little peel and stick magnets.  You can buy them at any office store for like $6 for 25 or 50 of them.  They’re very thick.  You simply peel the adhesive paper off each one and slap a business card on it.  The finished product looks good.  And like you said, they last a long time.  I only mailed them within each thank you letter that was sent to each customer after a job was completed.  So the magnetic cards didn’t get handed out to everyone. 

Thanks again for your comments though.  Take care for now.

Regards,

Steve