Hey All,
A few days ago I received an email from a window cleaner asking me for some thoughts on how to drum up business right now to cover his typically slow january/february (he’s in a colder climate). I figured that all window cleaners might benefit from my reply to him, so it’s posted below.
I hope your year is going super so far. We’ll soon be coming up on the busy, busy, busy season. Yippee!! Please let me know if I can assist. 256-546-2446. Take care.
Steve
Hi Aaron,
Good morning and it’s good to hear from you. From talking with other window cleaners in colder climates, it has been a bit slow this month. You should move to florida. 
)
Are you in an area with subdivisions/homes near trees? Just wondering if gutter cleaning is a viable service in that area. Some areas have limited trees which makes it a bit more challenging in offering the gutter cleaning service. But I know lots of window cleaners who are doing very well cleaning gutters. I spoke to a window cleaner last night who said he averages about $75 an hour cleaning gutters. He charges on average about $125 per home and it takes him no more than an hour and a half to do.
On this blog, I do have some blog posts about gutter cleaning and other services to be provided in the winter. You may have to search a bit to find the posts, but it’s good information that I think will benefit you.
When you say your return on flyers is low, how low? And how many do you pump out? I talk about numbers all the time within my newsletters/manual, so is there any chance you can consistently distribute 1000 flyers each and every single saturday? That’s some strong numbers that’ll provide you strong results. I did this repeatedly using 2 to 3 kids (pay ‘em $20 each). We’d go into 2 or 3 subdivisions and in 3 hours, at least 900 to 1000 flyers were left behind. Doing this consistently has to overall give you good activity (phone calls/jobs). But it’s all about getting in the habit of doing every week. I had it inked right in my schedule:
Saturday: 9 to 12, flyers to Haile Plantation, Meadowbrook.
With that said though, given the time of year, sure, I think some folks will definitely hold onto the flyer and call more towards march during spring cleaning time. I think that’s a natural response. Not everyone of course. But it’ll definitely happen.
To avoid this (having people wait ’til march to call), maybe you could offer a discount or special of some kind that "expires" at the end of the month. Or maybe have it expire at the end of feb 15th. I’m usually not a big fan of discounts, but it could drum up some good business if done correctly. And when I say done "correctly", I’m referring to building it up by distributing multiple versions of the flyer to let’s say 2 (no more than 3) neighborhoods at most. So this flyer would be your "discount" flyer. Clearly show the expiration date of Jan 31st or Feb 15th (i would lean more towards feb 15th). And show the normal pricing (ex: Gutters are normally $125. Until feb 15th, take advantage of our $99 special). But don’t just rely on that initial flyer. I mentioned "multiple" flyers above. You have to follow up with another flyer a week or so later. This flyer would remind them about your specials and that the expiration date is coming up.
The final flyer (distribute 3 flyers total) can be distributed one week prior to your expiration date offering prospects one last chance to take advantage of your specials. This really, really works. So I would start working on creating the flyers today. Determine what specials you can offer and what your expiration date is and go from there. Make a slight tweak to flyer #2, but keep the same "look". Again, you just want to remind them of your specials that’ll soon expire. And the same applies to flyer #3.
And finally, have you thought about sending a "new service" or "winter special" letter to your current customer base? This is a great way to drum up business fast. Since you’re a member of The Customer Factor window cleaning software, this is piece of cake to handle. Create the letter, think of what specials/new service you can offer, and send it to all the customers in your database.
The advantage of a letter is that you can explain the "why". In a flyer, there’s usually not much room for the "why". I’m referring to why you’re offering the special. So in your letter, explain to your customers that this time of the year is typically the slowest for window cleaners, so you’ve decided to do something out of the ordinary. For example, you can write that you’ll include a free ceiling fan cleaning with each window cleaning if their service is completed by feb 15. Or your gutter cleaning service is just $99 until feb 15th, etc. etc. I’m sure you get the idea.
A word of caution. Be careful of going to crazy with discounts. Keep in mind that if you offer to do a window cleaning job at half off, chances are that you won’t be able to go back in a few months or a year later and get full price for it. And the goal in this biz is to create "repeat" customers, not "one time" customers. Sure…the one time customers are nice at this time of the year just to drum up business. But you want to turn those one time customers into repeat customers at some point, and it’s hard to do (and remain profitable) if you’re doing their follow up service at half off or something similar. So please keep this in mind.
I hope the above helps Aaron. Take care for now and have a great day today.
Regards,
Steve
Just kidding of course since there’s plenty of customers for us all. But you will have put a serious dent into their potential prospect base because you’ve already "been there, done that". 
