Expanding Your Window Cleaning Business…and Some Questions.
Hi All,
I hope you are having a fine day today.
I haven’t posted to the blog in a few days due to a few other tasks needing to be done. For example, over the years I’ve realized that window cleaners really need some good low cost webhosting for their websites, so I finally decided to put together a hosting package specifically for window cleaners and other service business owners. Stay tuned as more news is coming soon.
Anyway…I recently received an email from a window cleaner with some questions. I thought it would be good to post here.
Steve,
It’s been a while since we’ve actually spoken, this is Peter. I’ve been in college and doing window cleaning in the summers, I purchased your package about two years ago. Needless to say business has been great, and I’ve built up quite a customer bank over the last two summers.
This summer I am planning on bringing on help because of the workload, and am looking generally to expand a bit, so a few questions. I’m looking for general ideas about the following, there may be nothing to say, but you may have heard that “this works” or “this doesn’t” Thanks for your time. . . .
1. What is the most important thing to look for in hiring someone new?
2. Is there a preferred age for employees?
3. What is the best way to train someone new? (speaking of which, I want to have them read through your book before they start, something to do to get excited untill summer officially hits)
4. Provide a car /use their own
5. concentrate on current area again with mailers/flyers etc. or expand?
My Response:
Hi Peter,
How are you? Long time, no talk. 
)
It’s good to hear that your business is doing great. Very cool.
–The most important thing to look for in an employee in my mind is appearance. If you’re working the residential market, your customers really need to feel comfortable with who is in their home. So whenever I hired someone, I always looked at their appearance first.
–There is no preferred age for a quality employee. I had men and women of all ages work for me. You’ll run into a dud young person just like there will be the occasional dud older person. ) I did find that college students made good employees for the most part because they liked the flexibility of the work and I didn’t need to commit to using them for 40 hours per week. So it was nice for both them and me. Older folks are nice though too. They’re definitely more stable, but they also might have more demands (need more money and work hours) since they usually have more responsibilities to fullfil.
–I always put a new person through a 90 day probationary period. They worked side by side with me or a crew leader. Don’t let any new person run loose or go to jobs by themself until they’ve at least gone through this 90 day period. Sure you can have ‘em read my manual (only chapter 5 because if they read more than this, they might get ideas to start their own window cleaning business) for window cleaning techniques. But I personally would just train ‘em for a couple of hours. Hands on training one on one. Cleaning windows is easy, so it shouldn’t be that hard to train someone one on one.
–I wouldn’t provide them a vehicle. Let them use their own from job to job. But I would cover some of their expenses depending on the work they did for me. If they did a real quality job or did a job in a speedy fashion, I paid them extra. You can call it a bonus, a car allowance, etc. etc., but whatever it’s called, it was over and above their hourly pay.
–I’m not sure if I can answer your last question w/o knowing how hard you’ve marketed to the current area already. Have you spent some good quality time marketing to your current area? I mean really, really hit the area up multiple times? If so, then definitely expand outward for sure. Tried and true Flyers work very well. I got an email from a window cleaner recently saying he went out for 3 1/2 hours with his 2 sisters and mother and generated $1700 in estimates in that time from just under 1000 flyers distributed. So I always advocate using flyers in your business. I did this every single saturday and it generated excellent activity.
With that said though, at some point you’ll want to integrate some postcard mailings into your marketing efforts too. You can read more about this in my manual.
Hope the above helps. Take care for now and keep in touch. Have a great night.
Regards,
Steve
Grab A Spot At The Next Home Show!
Hi Folks,
I received an email last night from a window cleaner who had a booth at a local home show last weekend. I’ve posted the email below. He also was kind enough to send over a photo of what his booth looked like…
Hey Steve
I just thought I would drop you a line. I just finished with our home show this last weekend and it was a tremendous hit. I have exactly 100 estimates to do in the next few days and I can’t wait. I enclosed a picture of the booth. You might want to remind people of the post you had last year from another window cleaner. These things really work. Have a great day.
Regards
Kelly Matteson
Notes: Just imagine for a moment having 100 estimates to do in the next few days. That can be a life changer. This is what home shows can do. They can be prospect magnets and literally put you on the map in a single weekend!
The blog post Kelly was recommending in his email is located here, so you may want to read/reread that. In addition though, there is a specific newsletter dealing with “home shows” over at the right under the “Newsletter” section. It’ll give you some additional pointers and ideas on how to conduct a successful home show. Oh…and here’s the photo kelly sent over…
Have a great day!
Steve
256-546-2446
Are You Surrounded By Window Cleaners?
Steve
A quick question. I noticed on 3 bears that there is only one other window cleaning company besides mine listed for the <area deleted>. I googled and found that around 15-20 have listings on the internet. The pages look pretty bad (some are okay), but my question is this: Is it possible to make this work with that many in the <area deleted>? I think I know the answer, I just wanted to know your thoughts…
Thanks,
Chet
My Response:
Hi Chet,
Absolutely w/o question it’s more than possible to make it work in any area with 15 to 20 (or more) competitors. And I’ll explain why. First and foremost, if you break through the surface of these window cleaners, they’re not really apples to apples competitors.
–Many window cleaners have made commercial window cleaning their focus. Sure, they may do a residential account every now and again, but their preference is commercial. I have no idea why because residential is way more profitable in my opinion.
–Most window cleaners will not present the estimate properly. That’s a fact. You’ll see this yourself when you get out in the field. They’re not going to present an estimate package to prospects with references. It just doesn’t happen. They usually give the prospect a verbal estimate or scribble a price on the back of their business card. I’ve had many, many window cleaners call and tell me that they had prospects accept their window cleaning bids even though they might have been $20 or $30 HIGHER than their competitor’s pricing. So it’s all in the presentation.
–And finally, if you get right down to it, most services businesses and window cleaners really don’t take a very proactive approach to marketing their business. They might put out a few flyers or maybe even send out a few postcards. But a real, full fledged, repetitive marketing campaign? It’s generally not done.
You need to understand that most window cleaners are “technicians”, so they run their businesses w/o any long term, systematic, marketing methods or plan of attack. This leaves huge gaps in the market where a window cleaning business owner who has a long term strategy can sneak right in and control the market.
So I wouldn’t give one thought to competition. Not at all. A perfect example is this: If you go to google and type in “window cleaning software” (w/o the quotes), you’ll see my site thecustomerfactor.com as number one out of over 13 million results. There have been companies selling window cleaning software way longer than me. I’m the baby of the group because I’ve “only” been offering my product since 2004. ) Yet I’m #1 in the results.
I mention this only to prove a point as it relates to your business. Out of all the so called “competitors” out there, you’ll stand out if you offer a high quality presentation backed up by a quality product followed by outstanding service/follow up. If I worried about my competition prior to creating my window cleaning software, hundreds of window cleaners wouldn’t be benefiting from using the software daily in their window cleaning businesses. So don’t give a second thought to how many other “window cleaners” might be in your area. They won’t affect your business overall.
Take care and have a good night.
Regards,
Steve
Screening Your Prospects?
Hey All,
I hope your weekend is going well. Before posting today’s blog post, I’d like to mention that I have a special 30+ page report that’ll be released free to all buyers* of How To Start Your Own Residential Window Washing Business.
It’s entitled "Discover the 20 Different Business Mindsets That Will Set You Apart From The Average Window Cleaner And Shorten Your Road To Success". I’ve been working hard on it, so when it’s completed, you’ll be sent an email with information on how to download it. If you haven’t purchased How To Start Your Own Residential Window Washing Business yet, now’s the time to do so. This report will really break it down for you as far as what it truly takes to succeed in the window cleaning business. There are hordes of "average" window cleaners out there. But being average isn’t any fun and it certainly isn’t very profitable.
*Some readers of this blog find the blog in the search engines, so they may not have purchased my program yet.
Ok…here’s a recent email I received asking about a previous window cleaner situation.
Hi Steve,
Just wanted to share an interesting problem we have here. There are lots of big houses with huge panes of glass on them, some of which are potentially good jobs, and I’ve got a few of them as my customers. Too often however, I go to do estimates and find they called me because they lost their other window cleaner who used to give them this ‘fantastic deal’, which is really true since after estimating it becomes apparent that the other window cleaner was willing to earn about fifteen or twenty dollars per hour.
Now whenever someone tells me they had another window cleaner I realize I’m probably just wasting my time with them, as I usually try to earn at least forty five an hour. Is this a common problem? Are there any effective ways to screen people before putting in all the effort to give them a good estimate?
Any input is greatly appreciated!
Eric
My Response:
Hi Eric,
Good morning. I understand the situation for sure. And it’s tough dealing with a prospect whose main interest is in looking at a price comparison. If a prospect ever said to me for example…"whew…the previous window cleaner was $50 less", I’d respond with:
That’s great, but where is he now? Most of the time a window cleaner who is willing to do jobs real cheap is a one hit wonder looking for immediate dollars with no interest in establishing a real relationship with their customers. We on the other hand are professionals who will be here for you all the time, this year, next year, and 10 years from now. We have all the proper tools, we have all the proper licenses, and we’re fully insured and bonded. These cheap window cleaners usually don’t have any of that. So you’re putting your home and your valuables at risk in order to save a few bucks. Is it really worth it?
So Eric I really wouldn’t consider it a waste of time in presenting them an estimate if they had a previous window cleaner do their windows. As long you present an outstanding image (uniform/company polo shirt and a quality estimate package w/references), you’ll close deals that are higher priced than the previous cheap window cleaner.
Remember that story I mentioned in my manual where I talked about how this prospect was willing to pay me $168 vs the $105 her previous window cleaner charged her? I happened to know her previous window cleaner. He was the one I mentioned in the manual who never returned phone calls and always used poles when window cleaning instead of getting on top of each window which really provides the best result.
So the bottom line is that I was able to snag many customers from him due to his overall business approach. Prospects were willing to pay my higher pricing so that they could be handled by more of a professional team.
Anyway…to answer your question as far as "screening", I wouldn’t bother with attempting to screen anyone on the phone or to try and make a judgement call on the phone whether it’s worth visiting the prospect and presenting an estimate to them. But know going in that you do need to be flexible a little bit with your pricing at times.
For example…although I never played the price game, I knew that if a yellow page caller contacted me, then I’d have to be a little lower (not much) than my normal pricing. This usually meant that I didn’t bump up the price like I normally did because she probably called 2 or 3 other window cleaners in the phone book also.
I still had a great chance to close the job even though my pricing would be a bit higher than theirs simply because their overall estimate presentation (or lack of it) wasn’t that good. Now if I was presenting an estimate to a referral (vs a yellow page caller), then I knew my pricing could be a bit higher because there was close to a 100% chance they were going to use my service regardless of price (as long as it’s not way out of line). The reason of course is because they were referred to me by a satisfied customer. Needless to say, referrals can be very profitable as you’ll soon find out. )
Hope this helps. Take care for now.
Regards,
Steve
