From the Mailbag…and Some Motivation!
Hey All,
First I’d like to say that I hope you are enjoying your memorial day weekend. We’ll be having our traditional cookout later, so that’ll be a fun time. But before focusing on fun, I figured I’d post a quick post to the blog with an email I recently received from a window cleaner. And below the email and my response to the email, I’ll explain why I posted it. Here it is:
Steve,
Looks like you have been a busy guy! Just wanted you to know that I intended to read a few pages of How To Adopt The Business Mindset last night about midnight last night… Finished it about 1:30! It was fantastic! I really think that if every person were to read this manual when entering into any small business and followed it, there would not be the fallout with small business start ups that there is. Great work, I like seeing all the places that I am doing things right as well as being reminded of the few areas that I noticed I’m not following so closely.
How To Adopt The Business Mindset
Hi Everyone,
This morning I just released the manual How To Adopt The Business Mindset. If you’re a past purchaser of my window cleaning program, you’ll be able to download it for FREE at the materials webpage here.
This 41 page manual discusses the “Business Mindset”. Actually there are 20 business mindsets that I talk about. Each and every one of them are important to adopt and to live by if you want to experience the ultimate success in your window cleaning business.
Chapters include:
Read more…
5.88Webhosting.com: A New Hosting Service
Hi Everyone:
We finally launched our much anticipated hosting plan where we’re providing high quality and inexpensive webhosting for service business owners and managers who need to host their websites.
Many folks have asked me over the past few years where they should host their websites. Although there are many hosting companies around (some good and some bad), they all seem to have one thing in common…and that is that the world is their market. In other words, they go after any and all customers which means that they have to offer multiple plans and multiple options for the many different types of customers that are out there. And this my friends, is enough to make your head spin. 
What I’ve done at 5.88Webhosting.com is simplify hosting by providing… (click the link below to continue)
The Importance of Yard Signs…
Hey All,
I hope you are having a super day today.
I love talking to window cleaners on the phone for a number of reasons, but one of those reasons is because I get some great ideas to talk about on this blog. Recently I spoke to a window cleaner who is really seeing excellent results from his signs in his window cleaning business, so I thought this would be a great topic to talk about.
He bought 100 signs for $544 which is an excellent deal. $5.44 per sign? Whew. Each sign even comes up with a stand. The signs themselves are the kind that the politicians use. Not too fancy looking, but for $5.44 per sign, it’s a wise investment.
Anyway…what he does is he asks every customer who he does a window washing job for whether he can keep one of his signs in their yard for 5 days. He hasn’t had a customer say “no” yet. He even had one customer tell him they were having a party so they’ll need to take the sign down during the party, but they’ll put it back up the day after the party. And lo and behold…they did! Brian went cruising by the house the day after the party and there was his sign.
After 5 days he’ll go to the customer’s house and pick the sign up. But just imagine the exposure that he is receiving during this 5 day stretch. He said he’s growing his customer base nicely just from his sign efforts. He is doing no other marketing method at all currently. I really don’t recommend just relaying on signs as you’ll certainly see more results from taking a more proactive approach (flyers, postcards, etc). And brian will be the first to agree with that. But the point is that using signs in your business work!
I had a conversation with a window cleaner a couple of weeks ago who basically said that he doesn’t have any yard signs because he has a magnetic sign on his vehicle. He went on to say that since he parks his car in front of customer’s house while he’s working on the window cleaning job, that’s good enough. I respectively disagree.
Have you ever heard of banner blindness? This refers to when a visitor to a website tunes out any banners or advertisements on a webpage. They just flat out ignore the ads and focus on the content. Banner advertisements don’t work as well as they did back in the 90′s because we’ve become so used to them that we don’t even see them anymore. Thus the term “banner blindness”.
This is what happens when someone drives down the street or walks down the sidewalk and sees your magnetic sign on your car. It’s part of the vehicle and they don’t pay a great deal of attention to it. It blends in. On the other hand, with a standalone yard sign sitting in a front yard all by itself, it’s noticeable. Way more noticeable than a vehicle magnetic sign.
Picture yourself driving down the street. You see a car in the street in front of a house which happens to have magnetic signs on it. Which signage do you think you’ll notice first? The magnetic signs as you’re driving by or a standalone yard sign by itself in someone’s yard? The yard sign is an item that doesn’t belong there, so therefore it stands out more. Make sense?
So the long and the short of it is that having some yard signs is one of those important “must have” silent advertising partners.
Contact some local sign shops and see what kind of pricing you can get. Buy a few dozen signs with the goal of using the “leave behind” strategy for some great yard sign exposure. Not every customer will say “yes” to you leaving one of your signs in their yard, but no biggie. It only takes a few signs to experience a higher call volume. Literally hundreds or perhaps thousands of potential customers could be traveling past your signs.
Another thought to keep in mind here is that let’s say the actual sign doesn’t generate the call, but they receive a flyer from you shortly after they see one of your signs. This is what exposure will do for you. Again, they might not call as a result of your sign, but because of the sign, they may be prompted to call you after receiving one of your flyers because they have been exposed to your business more than once which is ultra important. As I’ve written about before on this blog and have mentioned to folks in phone calls, the response rates increase with the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and up exposures.
So yard signs are a great way to get that exposure w/o a lot of effort on your part. Take care and have a great day.
To Your Success,
Steve
Should you be knocking on doors?
Hi Everyone,
Hope you’re having a fine day.
I received a call a little while ago from a window cleaner and I thought it would be a good subject to discuss on the blog.
This gentleman was distributing flyers (good), but he was knocking on doors (not good) to distribute them.
It’s really, really important to make sure that you “play the numbers”. Many of you have heard me talk about this a few times, so I’m sorry to sound like a broken record.
But it’s about getting out as many flyers as you can in the shortest amt. of time. It simply takes too much time to knock on doors, wait for the person to answer, talk to them about your service, leave them a flyer, and go on to the next person.
I don’t know the exact number of prospects you can talk to in 3 to 4 hours, but does 50 actual conversations sound good? Maybe 100? I’m thinking that if each conversation lasts just 5 minutes, talking to 50 prospects takes more than 4 hours. In that same 4 hours, I can get out 1000 flyers which I can guarantee you will get more action, more phone calls, and more jobs than talking to 50 prospects.
I actually call ‘em “suspects” initially because you have no idea if they’re even a prospect yet. A prospect is someone who has at least expressed some interest. Someone who has requested an estimate.
So keeping everything extremely conservative, a 1% return on 1000 flyers distributed to 1000 suspects gives you 10 phone calls from actual prospects. These 10 calls should turn into 7 or 8 jobs when presented correctly. Read chapter 8 in my manual for more information on this.
Now if we apply the 1% return to 50 suspects who we talk to, what does that give us? A half a call.
Some window cleaners may argue that if you’re actually talking to them in person, then you’ll see a higher interest level and get a higher return. Maybe. But I’ll still take 1000 flyer delivery suspects over 50 talked to suspects any day of the week. So please understand that it is truly about the numbers. Nothing else matters. And anything that slows you down (talking to people) in achieving those numbers should be avoided at all costs.
To clarify something…as I wrote about in a recent blog post, an excellent way to close jobs is to do a face to face presentation. But I’m referring to a presentation to someone who has expressed an interest in your service. I’m not talking about doing a presentation to someone who you don’t know if they have any interest or not. You have to let the flyer do the work of determining for you who has any interest or not. If they don’t have any interest, no probs. They’ll throw it in the trash and you’ve saved yourself some time. Maybe when they receive a 2nd or 3rd flyer from you, they’ll start to take more notice about your service. They may or may not. But again, who cares?
Some window cleaners get too hung up on the people who don’t call instead of the people who do call. Don’t even give a second thought to folks who don’t call. It just doesn’t matter. Just make sure to distribute plenty of “numbers” consistently and as fast as you can, and you’ll have your hands full with people who DO call.
I hope this helps some of you who may have thought about doing some door knocking or for those of you who are currently knocking on doors. It’s a huge time waster.
Sure…you may make a friend or two along the way, but isn’t the goal to get as many phone calls and jobs as you can? You’ll be able to turn your customers into friends.
One final note to make on this is that my definition of solicitation is someone who knocks on my door. In the old days, I sold encyclopedias door to door, gourmet meat door to door, light bulbs on the phone, and lots of other items direct to the consumer via the direct selling method of door knocking. But there are plenty of “No Solicitation” signs nowadays that warn against solicitors.
Flyer distribution fast and easy under a door mat with half sticking out and moving on to the next w/o talking to anyone isn’t my idea of solicitation. You’re not bothering anyone. You’re not intruding on anyone’s day. You are simply using a “leave behind” to let folks know about your service. If they have an interest, they can then call you. If not, as mentioned above, no probs.
For those of you who have not heard me say this or write about this, my own method was to go out each saturday morning at 9am. I took 2 to 3 teenagers (usually 3) to my preferred subdivision, distributed 1000 flyers between them, and pointed them in the right direction with instructions for them to be quick, don’t talk, put the flyer under the welcome mat with a half of the flyer sticking out, and move on to the next home.
No more than 4 hours later, the vast majority of them (if not all of them) were distributed.
See how this works? It’s not rocket science. Serious numbers can be put out quickly for a minimal investment ($50 for flyers and no more than $75 total for all 3 teenagers).
So there you have it. JUST DO THE NUMBERS! Sorry to shout, but it’s that important.
Take care for now and have a super day today.
To Your Success,
Steve
Close the deal by phone…or not.
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
Initial Costs For Your Window Cleaning Business…
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
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
