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
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
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
Be Aggressive…Make Offers!
Hi Everyone,
I hope you’re having a fine day today. This is just a quick post to let you know that over in the right column of this blog under "Newsletters", you’ll see a new newsletter posted that is entitled "Be Aggressive…Make Offers!". So click that link to read it. Or you can click here.
Please let me know if I can assist you in your window cleaning business. Take care for now.
Regards,
Steve
256-546-2446
Reestablishing Relationships…and some SEO.
Good Evening Steve,
This is a super important issue for me and something I want to do wisely. I have a customer base of almost 450 clients, a percentage of which are residential clients. Coming to the Customer Factor from a progam like ShineSC that has a very difficult to navigate reminder program, I am even more clearly aware how I have not established solid relationships with my clients.
Honestly its been because there hasnt been any good way to really keep track of who needs to be called when before The Customer Factor and it is EXTREMELY time consuming to do the same things Factor does for you automatically.
With that being said, I want to start immediately with re-establishing strong relationships with my customer base and really would like advise on which way you would suggest. I am thinking about either using Factor to send them all a letter or maybe using Send Out Cards.
Either way, I want to begin now to re-establish those relationships BEFORE I start making courtesy reminder calls that they are due for services here in the Spring. Please let me know your thoughts.
And this is another subject completely, but I really would like to visit with you because of all of your experience in this area. I am completely redesigning my website, from the ground up. I "settled" when I first had it created and ended up with a product I wasn’t happy with.
What is worse, even when I try targeted and specific keywords for my website searches to see how I am ranked in the search engines, I am always listed about the sixth or seventh page. I don’t have to tell you that they are probably not going to browse through six pages of results to find me.
I know the vast majority of searches end after looking through the first page of results. This brings me to my need for your help. I want to set my website up in such a way as to make it EXTREMELY search engine friendly and make it so that more and more potential clients are able to visit my site and are at least given the opportunity to see what we can offer. So I mean this very literally, ANY and ALL help that you can offer to help my website would be much much appreciated. This is highly important to me and since you have lots of knowledge in this area, I know you could really help. Thank you again!
Sincerely,
Nicholas
My Response:
Hi Nicholas,
Good morning.
If you have not contacted your customers on a regular basis in the past, then my recommendation would be to send them a personalized letter first. The prob with making a phone call right off the bat is it comes across as too "telemarketerish" if you know what I mean.
My philosophy over the years has always been to reach out to my customers multiple times and not just when I wanted to do their job. So I sent out on average of 6 greeting cards per year per customer, with most of the cards just saying general type things like "I hope your summer is going well" to give you an example.
This worked to not only generate immediate referrals and plenty of customer goodwill, but when the time came to follow up for an actual repeat appt. via a phone call, it didn’t seem like I had my hand out just looking to take more money from them. I really think most service businesses get this part of the process wrong. Follow up is great and is obviously necessary, but it’s important to plant seeds throughout the months following a job. It makes the actual callback a whole lot easier for you. And it makes it very difficult for your customer to take a chance with another window cleaner, no matter if he’s a bit cheaper or not.
Anyway…with all this said, back to your original question, I would send out a personalized letter to your customers using The Customer Factor. In that letter, mention something like: The last time you’ve been serviced was on <insert token for "last job date" here>, so I’ll be calling you in a few days to follow up with you to see if you need to be serviced again." Keep in mind that you can use tokens for further personalization like a "job type" token, "job price" token, etc. It would actually be better to do this only with the customers who currently show on the quick summary screen as customers needing to be tentatively contacted now otherwise you may mistakenly send letters out to customers who you may have just completed jobs for and who aren’t quite ready to be serviced.
For the customers who don’t fall into the category of "tentatively scheduled now", I would start planning some greeting card campaigns. And yes, that’s where Send Out Cards would come in handy. They can put it on autopilot for you. There is some initial work up front in selecting the cards from their card database and inserting the wording into each card, but once this is done, it really is on autopilot. As a side note, once Send Out Cards is up and running, it’s not necessary to send out any personalized letters from The Customer Factor except the thank you letter after a customer’s initial job is completed. Some members may also send out personalized "reminder" letters when customers are ready to be serviced again, but I just preferred to pick up the phone and call ‘em.
I hope the above helps in planning your follow up. I talk about follow up a lot on this blog and within my manual because it’s the one piece of the puzzle that I think separates the truly successful window cleaners from the not so successful window cleaners. Oh…and speaking about follow up, the key is to just make sure to try and have both customer categories ("tentatively due" and "callbacks") display "0" on the quick summary screen within The Customer Factor. If you can do that, then you’re well on your way. I’ve had conversations with some members who let these numbers build up too much, and this is just leaving money on the table.
As far as search engine optimization, this is an entire industry in itself. Professional search engine optimization firms charge upwards of $1000 to establish top website rankings for their customers. So that’ll give you some indication of how involved search engine optimization is. But I can definitely give you some pointers to get you started. And feel free to also call me on this for further info. Again…there is just so much to it.
First off, I would go to my window cleaning directory and create a premium listing if you haven’t yet. And when doing so, view the video. I provide some detailed information on some search engine optimization aspects like meta tags and keywords. And then reverse engineer the actual webpage (premium listing) you’re creating in the directory.
Ok…so to back up for a sec, there are 2 ingredients to ranking well in the search engines. The first is what keywords are used on your web page ("on-page" optimization), and the 2nd is the websites/links you can get pointing to your website. This is called "off-page" optimization.
Most webmasters put all their energy into on-page optimization and getting their keywords correct, but this is actually only about 15% of the work required for good rankings. A full 85% of your effort has to be spent on link building. Sounds complicated, but it’s really not.
I use ezinearticles.com to submit articles to. Each article allows for an article resource box where I can link back to my site. You can also submit a press release. This is a wise investment. Webwire (http://www.webwire.com/) is a good place to go. For $19.95, your press release will be distributed to multiple press release services and get you many links back to your site. There are a whole bunch of different ways to get links like submitting to social bookmarking services, directories, etc. I can provide you other resources if you’re interested. But the main thing to take away from this is that getting your website ranked depends on much more than just having the correct keywords on the webpage.
As far as keywords though, what keyword do you want to rank for? You need to make sure that that keyword is the first phrase in your meta title. If you want to provide me your website address, I’ll take a peek at it. Most webmasters make the mistake of putting their company name in the meta title which does no good when it comes to trying to rank in the search engines. Again…reverse engineer the 3 bears window cleaning directory and the premium listing you create for your company, and you’ll walk away with some good ideas. Currently the directory is ranked #3 for "window cleaning directory" (search with no quotes) in google, so it’s ranked high.
I hope this provides you some initial info. to chew on. If you have any further questions, let me know. I’ve been thinking about putting together a video series on how to rank well in the search engines. But just keep in mind that there are so many variables that go into it. Another variable of course is competition. Ex: Ranking for "window cleaning springfield missouri" is a whole lot easier than ranking for "window cleaning".
Take care for now.
Regards,
Steve
Note To Everyone: If you have an interest in viewing a tutorial on search engine optimization and how to get your website ranked high in the search engines, let me know. I won’t do it if there’s no interest, but if there is, I’ll be glad to put one together.
If you don’t have any website yet, then it’s important that you get one online as soon as possible. There are prospects right now looking online for window cleaners in your town. It’s just another way to bring in jobs. If you already have a website, great. The next step is making sure it’s not buried on page 20 of the search engine results where no one can find you. So let’s get it ranked high. Call me for pointers and/or once again, please let me know if you’d like to receive a tutorial or two on these all important ranking strategies.
Cold Weather Climates…
Hi Steve:
I’m writing to let you know that I have finally gotten round to starting the business. In fact, I did my first residential job today. It went OK, except for the fact that I underquoted quite a bit, but I’m sure I’ll get better at the process.
I do have one big question to ask you. I have heard you give reference several times to the effect of winter and cold weather on window cleaning businesses. You have indicated that it causes business to drop. I’m curious – how strong is the effect? Is it stronger on the residential market than on the commercial market? I’ve very curious. You see, I live in Canberra, Australia. We experience a very long and cold winter here.
At present, since I have only just started the business, I still have my full-time job. I am hoping that I can generate enough business so that I can convert my job to part-time and eventually even leave it. But I don’t want to make any false moves, and the effect of winter on the business could prove critical.
I look forward to your response.
For your interest, I have attached some of my marketing material. You might find my business name and adaptations interesting.
Lou
My Response:
Hi Lou,
Good morning and it’s good to hear from you. Congratulations on doing your first job.
Right…there will be the slowness factor that you’ll experience with your first few jobs. That’s only natural. So I wouldn’t focus on the fact that you may have underbid. As a matter of fact, since you’ll pick up speed over time, that same job which you currently think you may have underbid may actually have been bid perfectly once you’re at full speed. So again the first few jobs will be a bit slow and you’ll make less per hour window cleaning pay vs the national average for window cleaners. But that’s ok…you’ll reach that average soon for sure. )
The cold weather does affect the residential market more so than the commercial market. There is no doubt about it. Commercial customers will always need your services whether it’s raining, snowing, or whatever because they constantly have customers coming in to their stores. Residential customers on the other hand may hold off a couple of months until the weather turns a bit nicer. They are not in as desperate of a need.
But there are always other services you can provide through really cold months that’ll carry you through. And this is especially true once you build a decent sized customer base. You’ll find that customers will turn to you for other services once they begin to trust you. So although window cleaning may not be at the top of their "to-do" list in the winter, they’ll have other services that are.
I can understand the point about not converting your current job to part time. Absolutely. I think you would benefit by reading other posts on my blog about this issue and lots of other issues. I talk about the winter time (and other services to provide), working the biz part time, etc. etc.
I love the marketing materials. They sure do look familiar. ) Thanks for sending ‘em. Take care for now and if you need any other assistance, please let me know. Take care for now.
Regards,
Steve
A No/Low Cost Marketing Method…
Hey All,
This email came in the the other day from a fellow window cleaner, and it contains a mighty cool marketing idea to implement in your window cleaning business as soon as possible. Enjoy!
Regards,
Steve
Steve,
A friend of mine and I were brainstorming this last week end and I think we have found a way that we will NEVER want to stop flyering!
How many flyers would a person want to put out if they were averaging $30.00 per hour just for putting them out? I talked with a handful of business owners (some I do their windows, some I don’t) and offered to distribute their flyers for them at a rate of $5.00 per hundred. 6 of them said yes immediately!
They said that they could not hire someone at minimum wage to put them out at that rate, which is true. I have door hanger bags that I use for my flyers, and it is not much trouble at all to put a few more in the bag along with mine. I get the bags for about $60.00 for 5000 of them. I think this is a great way to keep a little revenue coming in to pay for my own campaign as well as pay for my time doing it. I thought you might want to pass this idea along to the rest of the gang.Have a great day.
Regards,
Kelly Matteson
Window Pros
My Reply:
Hi Kelly,
Good morning. I think that’s a great idea for sure. A great way to save some serious flyer distribution costs or maybe even break even with no costs out of pocket. Love it. There’s nothing quite like marketing for free. 
Very cool. What I would do to carry it a step further is to hire as many people as you can that allows for you to break even which will allow you to get out some tremendous numbers. In other words, I wouldn’t look at distributing flyers for other business owners as a way to make money. I would take whatever money you receive from them and invest it into however many people you can until you reach breakeven. Bottom line…zero out of pocket costs that generate jobs and profits for you. Can’t beat that.
Ex: If you’ve done the math and have 6 fellow service business owners who are interested in using you for distributing their flyers along with your own, and you can get 3, 4, or 5 people pumping ‘em out for you at a breakeven point, then that’s what I’d do most definitely. You’ll be way ahead of the game for sure. Obviously time is money as we all know, so in addition to the marketing costs, I’m always looking at any way possible to avoid having to spend the time hoofing it through neighborhoods myself.
Anyway….just a thought. And thanks so much for the idea and your email. I’ll post this on the blog so that other window cleaners can see it and possibly benefit from it. Thanks again.
If any window cleaner is part of an organization like bni.com or some other networking group in their area, I would think it would be very easy to come up with a few small businesses willing to pay a few bucks to get their flyer distributed. Everyone is looking for low cost advertising. Especially in this economic climate.
Take care for now and have a great day.
Regards,
Steve
