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Prospect Letters…
An email recently received:
Hi Steve,
I just had a quick question. I thought I had seen a letter somewhere for a prospect who has not scheduled yet…..a follow-up letter. Can’t seem to find it anywhere now. Can you point me in the right direction. Thanks!
Nicole
My Response:
Hi Nicole:
Good morning.
I actually didn’t have a specific letter designed for prospect follow up. I always called ‘em up. If it was a prospect and I gave them an estimate, I would call 3 to 4 days later.
With that said though, some window cleaners do prefer to send follow up letters, so here’s one you can use:
Dear Mrs Jones:
I wanted to thank you for the opportunity to present my window cleaning estimate to you.
If you have any questions about our service, please don’t hesitate to contact us. And please don’t hesitate to contact our references which were included in the estimate package we gave to you. We take great pride in our high customer satisfaction levels.
If we don’t hear from you shortly, we’ll contact you to see if we can set up a time to make your windows sparkle. 
) Have a great day.
Sincerely,
Steve Wright
Clearview Window Washing Service
This letter is primarily meant to be sent to prospects immediately after you give them the estimate. This’ll urge them to call references and also let them know that you’ll be contacting them "shortly". In other words, you’re preparing them for the follow up call you’re going to make.
Another letter window cleaners send is the one below where you’ve done the estimate presentation and you’re now sending a letter a few days later asking for their business. I would still suggest though calling them because it allows you to close the sale much more effectively. It’s too easy for someone to disregard a piece of mail. Anyway, here’s the letter:
Dear Mrs Jones:
Thank you once again for the opportunity to present my window cleaning estimate to you.
I wanted to follow up with you to see if we can set up a time to make your windows sparkle. Hopefully you’ve had an opportunity to review the estimate package we left you along with perhaps calling the references listed within.
Please give us a call at 256-546-2446 at your earliest convenience. Have a great day.
Sincerely,
Steve Wright
Clearview Window Washing Service
Again, just to emphasize, either letter above should really have a phone call or two or three associated with it for better results.
As a side note, since you’re a member of The Customer Factor, you can easily send personalized letters to prospects and customers with a couple of clicks. And again, each and every letter is personalized. We use tokens to do this. You can see the training video when you’re logged in for more info. But it’s easy and will save you a bunch of time. So I’d take the above letters and paste them into The Customer Factor so you’ll have them in case you need them. If you have any questions on this, call me at 256-546-2446 or email me.
Hope this helps. Take care for now.
Regards,
Steve
A Little Rain Anyone?
Before posting an email I recently received, I urge you to stay tuned to this blog for some exciting news to be released this month. Not sure exactly when, but you’ll be the first to read it right here.
Oh…and I recently put up a website specifically for Send Out Cards which is an outstanding hands-off referral building system. If you’re not working the referrals like you should in your window washing business, I urge you to check this system out. There’s also a short video on the site you can view with more videos to be introduced shortly. And I set up a free gift account if you want to see first hand how easy and fast working with Send Out Cards is. Click here for the website
Ok, I received an email about what to do when it rains. Here it is:
Hi Steve:
How’s it going. Well, I did some estimates and I can say that I improved on my pricing. I am losing my fear of pricing, and I’m getting into the mindset that these people are calling to have their windows cleaned by a professional so I must show up and be the professional.
I am concerned about one thing though. What happens when it rains. I just had a customer call me to cancel because it is going to rain the day I clean their house. What do you do on rainy days. Do you do estimates? Do you clean windows? If so, how? This is something that I knew would come up but I didn’t know what I’d do about it. So if you could give me your professional advice I would really appreciate it. Thanks.
Cordially,
Marvin
My Response:
Hi Marvin:
Good morning. Good to hear from you.
Yeah…it takes a little time to get comfortable with the pricing issue. As you mention, all it takes is you thinking that you’re a professional and feeling comfortable that prospects are willing to pay a bit extra for professional service. Not all will obviously. But most will.
Right…rain can be tricky. In florida, we had rain most every day in the afternoon during the summer months. To allow for rescheduling, I would stick jobs on either friday, saturday, or sunday if needed. My general work week was monday through thursday. On friday I did my estimating. So it was a day I could use to schedule a job if I needed to. My next open day was saturday if I absolutely needed to stick a job there. Last but not least (but rarely), I would do a job on sunday.
One thing to keep in mind though is that window cleaning is not an absolutely urgent need for your customers in most cases. Sometimes it is urgent because the customer may be having a party or get together coming up soon. But generally it’s not urgent. So if someone cancels, you can move them to another day during the week like 3 weeks from today for example. That was my first option actually. It really worked well. Because what happened is customers knew how busy I was. So rain or no rain, they rarely cancelled because if they did, they knew I wasn’t going to be able to come back for a few weeks.
But as mentioned above, if the customer absolutely needed their windows cleaned as soon as possible, then I would stick the job on friday, saturday, or sunday. My preference though was to schedule the job during my regular week of monday through thursday whenever my next opening slot was.
Hope this helps. Take care for now.
Regards,
Steve
Don’t run out of Customers!
An email recently received…
hey steve,
im done reading the manual and am fully ready to get started on this business and will be purchasing my supplies hopefully by the beginning of december. just had a question though.
my mother owns a pretty successful housekeeping company and her clients usually use her service bi weekly or at least once a month and her and her girls are busy year round. in this window cleaning business, i would think that people would only need this service once or twice a YEAR…how would i be able to work year round as this my only business if customers dont really use this service very often. what if i run out of work? what if i have a bunch of business a few months and then i have none for the rest of the year or something?
given i advertise as much as possible but like i said…this service isnt used bi weekly or monthly…or is it? im definitely going to find out when i get out there but just something that i thought of and thought maybe you can shed a little light on it, given your experience.
thanks for the quick replies.
oscar
My Reply:
Hi Oscar:
Good morning and congrats on finishing everything up.
Right…maid services generally do their customers on a more frequent basis. Residential window cleaning won’t be as frequent. It might be every 4 months, 6 months, or every year. That’s why it’s important to consistently market your business. Because this’ll get you a steady stream of phone calls coming in that you can turn into dollars. And by doing this, you won’t be relying on your current customers.
So keep it consistent. There are a number of different marketing techniques you can employ as discussed in the manual. If you just do a handful, you’ll never run out of customers. The only way that you’ll run out of customers is if you decide not to market your business for a few weeks. I have seen this happen on occasion. What happens is a new window cleaner will go out there gung ho, market like crazy, get lots of phone calls, and line up jobs. But he/she makes the mistake of filling in every available hour doing the actual jobs. There is no time available to market and expose their business. So what happens over time is the calls dwindle and their schedule opens up a bit. So make sure you leave yourself some time every single week to market your biz.
The great thing about this business is that if you’re consistent with it for the first full year, you’ll then have a regular flow of repeat business coming in, plus you’ll be getting referrals (use Send Out Cards for maximum referrals) from current customers, and of course you’ll be getting new business. But since you’re now starting at ground zero, it’s necessary to consistently and regularly market your business to get that phone ringing. Again…you won’t run out of work if you do this consistently. Fill your schedule up. Keep it going and continue to fill your schedule up. Always leave time available for a little marketing though. And yes, you might not have the advantage of frequent repeat jobs like your mother does, but you’ll still be able to build a very profitable window cleaning business with plenty of repeat customers. The jobs just won’t be as frequent. But if you have new customers coming in wanting your services, that’ll more than make up for it. In other words, you’re not just relying on current customers.
Lastly, if you’re looking to fill in any gaps, you can always secure a few commercial window cleaning jobs. They need your services more frequently then residential window cleaners do. The problem though is that you do have to be cheaper than you would if you were pricing a home, so keep that in the back of your mind. But if you want frequent customers, getting a few commercial accounts is an option.
Hope this helps. Take care for now.
Regards,
Steve
Nervous about charging too much?
First I’d like to wish you a belated thanksgiving. I hope you had a fine day with family, food, and football. It’s a day to wear big britches and roll around the house like a great big ‘ole butterball. 
I received an email recently from a new window cleaner thinking he made a mistake on his pricing. One common theme among new window cleaners is that they’re usually nervous about presenting an estimate that is too high (at least in their mind). The email and my response are below.
Hi Steve:
How’s it going. Hope your thanksgiving was a fine one.
Well I’ve done my first houses and they turned out to be good. However, there is one small problem. I think I cheated myself by charging too low. While I was doing the estimate for this one house I was afraid to charge $5-$6 so I only charged $4 per window and $1.50 per screen. They had some sliding doors that were like french windows but I only charged $4 per door. While I was punching in the numbers it totaled to $186. I was telling myself these people are not going to pay $186 to have their windows cleaned and I almost lowered the price but I stuck to my guns and presented them with the estimate.
Luckily they immediately asked when I could do their windows so I ended doing their house for $186. It took me 6.5 hours to finish the job. I guess they were satisfied with my job because they paid me $250. I then thought to myself that’s the price I should have charged. After finishing that house I went to this other house that only wanted some balcony windows done and I did those for $100 and it only took me 2.5 hours to do those, it was quite an easy job. Can you see the problem here? I only charged $86 more for the house that was more difficult and had me sweating more while the house with the balconies was a fairly easy job.
I have some estimates to do this weekend and I think they are going to be some pretty big houses. I’m feeling maybe in the $300-$400 range maybe even more. Now I really want to get these jobs because I know they’ll be worth my time, however I don’t want to leave the job feeling I should have charged more. Can you please give me any advice on why I should not hesitate to charge what I should charge as a professional window cleaner and clear any doubt in my mind?
Anyways, you have a fine day and I look forward to hearing from you. Thanks.
Marvin
My Response:
Hi Marvin:
Good morning. Hope you had a fine thanksgiving also.
As far as you situation with "charging too low", this is something that I wouldn’t spend any time worrying about. For a couple of reasons. Yes…you want to make a profit from the very first job obviously, but you’re not going to be at maximum speed yet. It does take time to get the window cleaning techniques learned where you can do it in your sleep. Plus after a few houses, you’ll know exactly what to do from the moment you pull up to the house ’til the moment you leave. No wasted steps or "do overs" causing you to lose time. So being "smooth" will help you in your hourly pay.
The 2nd reason why you shouldn’t worry about occasionally charging to little is something you talked about in your email. It always averages out. It really does. Sometimes you might do a job where you make $35 an hour. There might be some obstacles in your way, some extra heavy paint overspray, some tougher windows to access, etc etc. But then you run into the other type of window cleaning job-super easy, no obstacles, bam, bam, done. Your hourly pay for these jobs might be $60 or $70 an hour. I’ve made as much as $100 an hour on some jobs. But then I remember other jobs where the houses were older, they had these crank type windows, lots of junk on the windows, etc. So it all evens out over time into a nice average of $45 to $50 per hour.
I think in your situation though, part of the problem was simply speed. If you were maybe a dozen jobs or more into your business, then this 6.5 hours may have been 5. I do think however that you did under charge a bit. But I fully understand the need for this. Especially when someone is brand new to the business. It’s a complete mindset that you need to adopt as far as feeling comfortable presenting an estimate that is higher than you want to present. I had those same exact feelings when I first started. Most new window cleaners probably do. It takes time to get comfortable with it.
As a side note, if you go too low on your pricing, prospects may wonder why you’re low. They might hire another window cleaner because you’re too low, so be aware of that. A higher price doesn’t necessarily equate to higher value, but if you present yourself well, you’ll convince the prospect that your higher price will equate to the best window cleaning job possible.
Another negative to going too low is that you’ll more than likely be stuck on that price year in and year out. It’s hard to charge someone one price and then 6 months later raise the pricing on ‘em. I know a window cleaner who charged a customer way too little recently and he had to end up "firing" his customer because he couldn’t afford to do it at that price every time.
Anyway…to finish up, just go into the upcoming estimates this weekend charging $5 a window and $1 a screen. If the total estimate comes up to let’s say $236 as an example, then perhaps lower it to $229 or $219. I normally advocate going higher with a bump-up to $249 or $259, but I understand the need to capture as many jobs as possible since you’re new to the business. Being able to consistently "bump-up" your pricing depends on how booked your schedule is. Once it starts getting filled up, then you can start bumping up your estimates a bit.
Lastly, keep in the back of your mind that you will not get every job you present an estimate to. So if someone says "no" at the door or if they don’t respond to your follow up calls, that’s ok. They might go with another window cleaner for any number of reasons. It could be due to price or it could be for something else. But who really cares? Just continue to market your business consistently and you will get a stream of phone calls from prospects in which a large percentage will say "yes".
Remember to use the estimate package though. This will allow you to be a little higher priced and still close the majority of your prospects you present estimates to. I can’t stress this enough. Homeowners will pay you $20, $30, or more than a competitor if your service is presented properly.
Hope this helps. Have a great day.
Regards,
Steve
How can an employee help?
I thought I’d post an email I received where the window cleaner talks about how a recently hired employee is benefiting his business. It might motivate anyone out there who has not yet found that right gal or guy for their business. They are out there.
Hi Steve,
Just wanted to let you know I have found a part-time worker (college kid). I actually have 2 lined up now, but one wont be able to work until the summer. This other kid seems to be a hard worker and takes a lot of stress off of me. The amazing thing is that with him working, I only pay him about $40 a day and my profits increase by about $100 a day. I can average $500 days with him working (and not kill myself). Before he was working, I was averaging between $300 – $400 per day and was exhausted at the end of the day. The incredible news is that I am in cold weather country and people are booking me into the middle of December currently!!! I was just hoping to have work through October and now we are booked to December 14. It will be cold doing those jobs, but having an extra $10K in business is pretty nice 
I was looking at my income and from June through October I made $34K (my entire yearly salary as a school counselor). I think this was the toughest year and it will get easier next year. Just have to make it through February and then – look out! Thanks Steve
Tony
My Response:
Hi Tony:
Good morning. That sounds great on the hard working employee. Right, if you find the right one, they can take the stress off of you for sure. Sometimes we need to go through a half dozen people before finding that one gem.
Exactly. Your profits will go up with an employee. I always loved working with someone else because that meant my own hourly pay went way up. If you and one other person work together on a job for example, you should be pulling in a consistent $60 an hour each hour you’re on the job. Not too shabby. )
Excellent income for that short time. What is that…5 months? Super. It does get easier each and every year. Your company already has great exposure and you’ve done some great jobs, so all of this will factor in to you getting repeat calls, referrals, etc. I always tell folks if they can make it through year 1, they’ve got it made. All businesses need a "push" in the first year, but because of the window washing business bringing in great repeat business, the snowball of customers, jobs, and profits continues to grow in years 2, 3, and so on. It’s just a matter of time before the six figure a year income barrier is broken. Continue using The Customer Factor like you already do and the software will keep on capturing those prospects/customers and turning ‘em into profits.
I remember when you were working for the school. Things have changed a bit, huh?
Have yourself a great weekend. Take care for now.
Regards,
Steve
