Hey All,

This morning I wanted to talk about what to do when a prospect calls you looking for an estimate. Should you visit them in person or should you try and close the person on the phone? This topic was brought up in a phone conversation I had yesterday with a window cleaner, so I thought maybe it could be expanded here on the blog.

As most of you know, I always did my estimates in person. I grouped them all together every friday and just went boom, boom, boom, right down the line. This worked out great because it allowed me to stay dressed in my nice company polo shirt instead of having to change into my work clothes. So the entire day’s focus was on estimating. The night before I would personalize and print my estimate packages and the next day off I went.

But…is this the only way to get it done? Of course not. Lots of different ways to accomplish the same end result (more jobs) that we all want. I know many window cleaners who prefer using the phone to close jobs vs. visiting the prospect in person. They save gas, they save time, etc. etc. I understand all the arguments for the phone method vs the “in-person” method.

Keep in mind though that one size doesn’t fit all. The window cleaners who are successful using the phone for estimating are generally ones who have been in the business for awhile and have a nice, healthy customer base. They have the confidence and the experience to be able to confidently close the deal right on the phone.

But there are different stages to any business. What about the new window cleaner just entering the window cleaning business?  When you’re in this “new” stage, I just don’t think the phone will give you the results you want. There’s no denying that a face to face presentation backed up by a high quality estimate package that you give the prospect will close more jobs for you than trying to close the jobs over the phone. It has to! You’re just a voice on the phone when they call you. They’re not committed to you in any way, shape, or form (unless of course the prospect is a referral), so it’s too easy for them to hangup and call the next window cleaner, especially if it’s a yellow page caller.

In person however, there is a commitment made. The prospect is listening to your explanation of the service that you’ll perform. Eye contact has been established. So whether a prospect realizes it or not, they have made a commitment to you. The most natural thing in the world after your presentation is for them to say “yes”.

Obviously not everyone says “yes” as we all know, but the percentage of jobs you close WILL be more when presenting in person vs using the phone. With that said though, do your own testing if you have given some thought to phone estimating.

I do think for the first few months, a new window cleaner should present estimates in person simply because he or she needs as many jobs and customers that they can get in order to build a nice customer base, but once you’re established, you might want to test attempting to close jobs on the phone. I do agree that it certainly saves you time. And yes, it certainly will save you gas. But after this savings is calculated, if you’re ending up with less jobs which is negating the savings, then go back to one-on-one in-person estimating. Or continue to test but maybe change up your phone script.

As mentioned at the beginning of this blog post, there are many ways to accomplish the same thing. And through all this, we obviously want the most jobs that we can get, whether it be by phone or in-person. So do what works the best for you. Some folks are simply smoother on the phone. Maybe their confidence level is higher since they don’t have to look the prospect in the eye. Different strokes for different folks.

I actually enjoyed going out in person though. Since all my prospects were all grouped together on fridays, it made for a nice relaxing day of presenting and securing jobs. Easy as pie. And at the end of the day, whoa mama! When you do 10 to 15 estimates in one day with an average price of $250 per estimate and close 80 to 85% of them, it sure was a sweet way to head into the weekend. 

Take care for now and have a great day.

Regards,

Steve

Hi All,

I hope you are all having a fine day today. I thought I’d post an email below that I received recently. I hope it helps you in your window cleaning business.  Take care for now.

Regards,

Steve

Steve,

Today I replayed in my mind all the things I must do for a successful launch. (At least the things I know, and I have many lessons to learn.) I’ve identified my biggest weakness as Quoting and estimating. My solution is to wash all my families homes, recording the quantity of windows, floor levels, time required, etc. I am also washing the bank where Debbie works next Sunday for bigger glass practice. I guess practice practice practice.

I know you cover this and I have read it many times. I am concerned that some competition may be chopping prices to stay in business and we both know that is a death spiral in any business. I must be better, more confident in my pricing, learn what the competition charges, and be ready.

I can not believe anyone can stay in business over the long haul by pricing less than $40 per hour, once they are experienced. Perhaps you can coach me sometime if you have anything beyond what you have written in your guide. I am like a sponge trying to soak up everything in sight.

Thanks,
Doug

My Response:

Hi Doug,

You will find a few competitors out there who try and undercut.  There is a well known window cleaning franchise out there that is famous for this.  Their entire business model is to get the account by any means possible.  And this usually includes the willingness to be cheaper than any other window cleaner bidding on whatever job they’re bidding on.

But you’ll find these sorts of businesses in any industry.  The trick is to not adopt their mindset.  You’ll never be able to compete head to head with these businesses because it turns into a “my price is cheaper” game and you never ultimately win that game.  You may get some jobs that way, but  making $20 to $25 an hour isn’t the way to be successful in the window cleaning business.

So my suggestion as I discuss in my manual is to craft a company image that puts you in another league. But keep in mind that regardless how good your image may be, you’ll always run into the few prospects who want you to spend all day at their house for chump change. That’s just the way it is.  So you’ll never close everybody.  Just shoot for an 80 to 85% closing ratio at your pricing levels.  This is what will make you profitable. So it’s necessary to stick to your guns on pricing.

I did want to mention though that you will have prospects tell you that they decided to use your services because of your presentation.  Most window cleaners simply won’t present estimates the way that you will.  They don’t have an estimate “package”, they don’t have references with phone numbers, etc. etc. I get calls regularly from window cleaners telling me exactly that.  And of course I experienced it personally.  What I mean is that customers will pay $20, $30, and even $40 more based on your presentation alone.  And once you get in the door with a high quality image/presentation and then back it up with a quality job where the customer is super satisfied, they’ll be tickled pink and glad they didn’t choose the cheaper window cleaner.

Here’s a really good saying that you should build your business around:

“The  bitter taste of poor quality and service remains long after the sweetness of low price has faded away.”

Anyway…I really wouldn’t focus or worry about competition.  They’ll get some jobs, you’ll get more jobs.  And the jobs you get will be more profitable, so your business is the winner.  They’ll be just a “commodity” and those types of businesses are a dime a dozen.

On a different note, when you do your practice jobs, try not to focus too much on the time it takes you to do each job.  Early on in the biz, you’ll be a bit slow.  But as you get a few jobs under your belt, your speed will pick up nicely.  You’ll eventually iron out any sticking points that were initially slowing you down plus the confidence in your squeegee stroke will increase which means you’ll be spending less time on “touch up”.  When you get to this stage, that’s when you’ll bring in window cleaning pay between $40 to $50 per hour, sometimes more.

Hope this helps.  Take care for now and have a great day.

Regards,

Steve

Hi All,

I hope everyone is having a fine weekend and a big happy Easter to everyone out there in window washing land.

We’ve been busy over here putting the finishing touches on a hosting service we’ll be providing to window cleaners and other service businesses, so stay tuned for that.

And 3 Bears Window Cleaning Directory is going to go through some major restructuring over the next few weeks with a new name, a new look, and enhanced functionality for the search engines. We’ll keep you posted on this as well.

I’ve learned a lot about search engine optimization over the last few years in addition to buying the necessary software to achieve high rankings, so I’m going to pull out all the stops when it comes to getting window cleaners who are listed on the directory ranked high so that they can be found when prospects in their town are looking for window cleaners. So now is the time to create a listing for yourself if you haven’t already at 3 Bears Window Cleaning Directory.

Ok….I recently was sent an email asking about costs to get started in the window cleaning business. This is actually a hard question to answer because it really depends on how a person’s financial situation is, but hopefully you’ll benefit from the answer.

Steve,

I received everything and have read the manual twice since I received it.  Nice job.  I have looked at a lot of businesses over the years and owned 3 different ones and I must admit you seem to be dead on when it comes to the window cleaning business.  My career has been spent in sales and marketing roles so i really enjoyed all the tribal knowledge on the marketing side.

I do have one question as I look at planning my entrance to this business.  Assuming I follow your process to the letter and I will, what do you think would be a good solid amount of working capital to start out with?  Just for the record I would not be taking out any salary of any kind.  Just covering all expenses and supporting the marketing campaigns your recommend.  Can you give me a good estimate?  I am playing around with some numbers but I figured you might be able to give me some ballpark figure so I might use it as a benchmark.

Best regards,

John

My Response:

Hi John,

I appreciate your comments most definitely.

The capital question is a good one, but it’s a tough one to answer because I don’t know how deep your pocketbook is.  )  There are so many ways to get started with some methods (like postcards for example) costing a bit more vs other methods (flyers) that are less expensive.  So I always recommend that for folks who are starting on a shoe string budget, you really can’t go wrong with flyer distribution. They’re inexpensive to print and they provide a quick return.  It’s almost immediate.  What I would do this saturday is hire a couple of neighborhood kids, pay ‘em 20 bucks each, drive ‘em to a good subdivision filled with your target prospects, and let ‘em distribute for you.  A great investment.

Even after I had postcard campaigns going on autopilot though, I still continued to distribute flyers every saturday at 9am.  No more than 4 hours later, on average 1000 flyers was distributed. So if you do that consistently with 4000 going out each month for the first 6 months (and even beyond), it’ll build you a really nice customer base.

If you didn’t want to do any flyer distributions though and you had a few more bucks on hand, I wholeheartedly believe that postcards is the way to go. I do want to say that you should have (time and money permitting) as many marketing methods in place as you can. But with this said, postcard mailings really pack a punch.  If you set it up properly (info. in chapter 7) and are willing to be consistent with it, the rewards from postcards are excellent.

In terms of marketing, for $110 (not counting window cleaning supplies), you could be out the door with 1000 flyers (including printing and 3 people to distribute @ $20 each)  Postcards are a tad more expensive, but I’ve seen some good pricing at gotprint.com and psprint.com.  The last time I checked, gotprint has 5000 postcards for around 100 bucks and psprint has ‘em for $106 after the 25% discount they have going ’til april30th. Regardless where you buy ‘em, buying 5000 postcards at a clip will save you some good money.

The other costs involved are for things like signs, t-shirts, polo shirt, bus. cards, letterhead, etc. So if you decide to get it all up front, it might run another $250 to $300 max.  Personally i would get the bare minimium needed to create a solid impression to prospects and pay for the rest from job profits.  Just a thought though.

I hope this helps a little bit.  If you have any additional questions, please let me know. Thanks again for your comments for sure.  Have a great day.

Regards,

Steve
256-546-2446