Hey Steve,

This is Nathan. How are you?  I had a question or two for you.  I had my door hangers and business cards printed up, and delivered them to some higher end homes in my community around a golf course.  It would have been better to have flyers but I didn’t have them yet so if the people were home I gave them a business card and explained who I was and if they weren’t home I left the door hanger.  I got lots of people that seemed interested, but unfortunately I did not take a record of which people I talked to and which ones got a door hanger.  My question is: do I go again and deliver flyers or hangers again, some of which to people I’ve already talked to or should I get postcards made and sent?  Also, can postcards just be sent to the golf course area or not?
 
Also, I was in town the other day in my truck with my lettering on it and I knew there was one other window cleaner in this community that walked down the streets doing store fronts and some houses.  Anyway, I have never met him but when I parked my truck on the street he was doing the store fronts right there.  He came up to me and wanted to meet me.  It was a little akward I must admit. 

Anyway he was polite, gave me his card and wanted mine, and was more than willing to tell me how successful he was.  In my opinion, he also hinted that he was the "Window Guy" in the area and surrounding areas, but tried to be encouraging.  I couldn’t quite tell what he was saying except that he said he is 70 (I’m only 26 so you can see it was a little akward) and going to be significantly reducing or quitting the business in a couple of years and when he does, he’s not selling it he’s just letting it go.  I obviously want those jobs but I also don’t want to wait 2 years.  I don’t know all of his customers  and I’m not going to take his, but what is my best option for now without stepping on his toes for the possible future jobs.  I need to build my business and yet it appears maintain a good relationship with the other guy. 
 
My last question is that I’ve gone to the fast food places to inquire about window cleaning.  I think I need those kinds of jobs to keep going in the winter.  Most of them say that their employees do it.  Is there a tactic in getting them to accept being put on a weekly or bi-weekly route?

Sorry so long but I love hearing your suggestions.  Thanks
Nathan 

My Response:

Hi Nathan:

How are ya?  It’s good to hear from you.

I can appreciate what you did as far as business cards, door hangers, and "if people were home", but there are a few probs with this kind of marketing attack.

1- I assume you’re saying that you knocked on doors since you mentioned "if people were home".  This is really, really time consuming to do, so I recommend window cleaners not knock on doors.  The goal is to get out as many marketing pieces as you can in the quickest amount of time.  Knocking on doors simply takes too long.

2- Using a business card as a marketing piece to tell your prospect a story about your company/service isn’t going to work.  There isn’t enough room on the card.  A nice 8 1/2 by 11 flyer is an excellent size and can tell a complete story.  Flyers are inexpensive to print up.  Much cheaper than business cards as a matter of fact if you have the slightly more expensive quality business cards printed up (recommended). 

Anyway…I would absolutely distribute again to the same area. Makes no difference if you talked to them, gave them a door hanger/business card or whatever.  But this time go in with inexpensive flyers and go in quick. Just swoop in and swoop out.  )  Don’t talk to anyone at all because it’ll slow down the process.  Just distribute as quick as you can or better yet get a couple of kids to help you out.  

Postcards can absolutely be distributed in golf course areas.  I had a number of different postcard campaigns I conducted which happened to be in golf course communities.  When you’re cleaning the windows at a home on a golf course, make sure you have a yard sign in the front for street traffic and a sign in the backyard for the golfers going down the fairways.

That sounds like a great guy you met.  This is the way I wish more window cleaners were.  For some reason, some window cleaners feel "threatened" by another window cleaner.  There’s no reason for it.  First, there’s plenty of glass to go around.  And second, you can really help each other. Maybe he needs help with a job. Or visa versa.  Or maybe he’s too busy and can’t get to a job for 3 weeks but the customer needs it done right away.  So it would be smart to maintain a relationship with this guy.     

You wouldn’t be stepping on his toes by simply marketing your business like I talk about in chapter 7.  Not at all.  In other words, I wouldn’t give much thought to his customers.  There’s not much you can do now since he’s "letting them go" in 2 years.  It’s definitely not worth waiting around for 2 years for them.  So continue to build your business.  And then in 2 years when you have your own solid customer base, you can maybe make him a deal where you pay him a small percentage for each job done.  Not a bad deal for him since he was planning on making nothing from his customers.  I would pay him this small percentage (10 to 15%) for 2 years or so.  So maintain the relationship for sure.  I would take him out to breakfast and pick his brain.  He may be able to impart some helpful tricks.  Be careful though…some window cleaners who are older and have been in the business for awhile are really set in their ways.  So they may not think out of the box too much when it comes to marketing.  As a matter of fact, they might not even be in the box because they might not be doing any marketing at all.  )   

As far as the fast food places, if they have their own people in place, there’s nothing you can do to make ‘em change their mind.  So no worries.  Just move on to other storefronts.  There’s lots of them out there.  Besides, having these fast food/franchise places as customers is not all it’s cracked up to be.  I spoke to someone yesterday who told me he knows a window cleaner in his area who had 37 Boston Market’s that he was doing.  And he lost them all.  Not sure of the reason.  Probably heavy competition and another window cleaner was willing to do it cheaper.  So fast food/franchises come and go.  Can you imagine losing 37 stores in one fell swoop? 

I hope the above helps.  Take care for now.

Regards,

Steve

Hey All,

I ran across a nifty marketing product that I think every window cleaner should have. When we’re at customer’s homes, we have a yard sign out front, right?  And it’s very effective at drawing people in and making folks who pass by take notice of us. But why not enhance the yard sign with a business card holder adhered to it so anyone who stops by can "take one". The more ways we can get our marketing materials into people’s hands, the better. 

That’s where this product I’m about to mention comes in. You can see it at http://cardcaddie.com/  It’s a business card holder that is designed to be placed securely on your vehicle or on your signage. But in addition to making sure that the card holder is on your car while you’re doing a window cleaning job, how about making sure it’s in place while your car is parked in a store parking lot or anywhere else your car is parked if there are people around?  There’s no telling how much business may have been lost when I was in the field as a result of someone seeing my magnetic signs, making a mental note to contact me, but never did. "Out of sight, out of mind" as they say. So this is a great way to get your business card in their hand. 

Now the good news is that I’m going to give you a web page to the card caddie where you can save a few bucks from the normal price.  Derek made up a special web page for us at http://www.cardcaddie.com/995adbuypage.html where you can buy each card caddie for $9.95.  There is no shipping and no tax.  So that’s a $5 savings over the normal price of $14.95.

Read about the product first on the main site (http://cardcaddie.com/). You can check out the different colors that are available. Then go to http://www.cardcaddie.com/995adbuypage.html and get ‘em each for $5.00 off.

The bottom line is that it’s all about exposure, right? This is just one more way to increase your exposure. The window cleaner who gets the most marketing material (flyers, postcards, business cards) in their prospect’s hands is the winner.

Have a profitable day.

Steve

An email recently received:

Steve,

Is there some way to get a map of my area that denotes the price ranges of the houses. In other words, a map that will let me see where to focus my marketing by income? I can certainly see that some areas are better, but I don’t know all the different neighborhoods and how to get there. It would help to have some way to quickly identify where to flyer and place ads.

Todd

My Response:

Hi Todd:

Good morning.

A good place to go for maps of your target area would be the national association of realtors.  I’m sure they have an office in your area.  Just tell ‘em your target market and what you’re looking for.

I personally didn’t use maps. I just got in my car and drove around entering subdivisions and developments.  If the homes in the subdevelopment looked like they were ideal for my window cleaning service, then I made a note of them. 

Another way to identify target markets is to hook up with a direct mail company in your area.  They mail items for multiple companies day in and day out, so they would know the best areas for your service.  I’m not sure if they’ll reveal this info. to you though if you’re not going to spend any money with them.  So you may want to start the conversation off by mentioning you want to do some postcard mailings and you’re looking for the best areas to mail to.

If you really wanted to offer this prospective seller some dollars, I would offer her between $1500 and $2000.  But there needs to be some assurances that most, if not all, of that 9k will come to you from those customers.  And you need to have her sign a contract stating that she can’t start another window cleaning business in that area for a certain period, 2 years should work.  You can find these basic contracts at any office supply store.  Then pay a lawyer 100 bucks to personalize it for your company and add whatever legal verbage is needed for your State.

I advise folks to go through the manual quickly first and then go back over it slower a second time.  It may seem a bit overwhelming, but I urge you to just take it one step at a time. 

As far as advanced techniques, I believe in starting with the fundamentals, but you can certainly expand into different techniques if that’s what you want.  I personally wouldn’t advise it now though.  There is no need.  The primary thing we need to do now is to bring in customers.  The squeegee stroke is secondary.  One of the reasons i personally never spent the time learning these fancy strokes is because for the average residential window, they’re not needed.  The advanced strokes like the swirl or the snake are mostly beneficial on large commercial panes of glass, and these were accounts that I stayed away from.

Right…over time, you’ll get better when cleaning windows.  "Practice makes perfect" as they say.  Initially I wouldn’t worry about the time spent on a job or anything like that.  I would focus only on mastering the window cleaning process.  Once this starts falling in place, your time will improve tremendously.

As far as artwork costs, it’s best to contact barb directly on that.  She has her own graphic design firm that is independent of me, so I have no idea what her exact charges are for specific situations.  I do know though that her costs are lower than most graphic designers out there.  I’ve used many.  And Barb provides a quality service/job at good rates.  You can contact her here: barbara@ecoverdesigns.com.

Have a great day.

Regards,

Steve