Mindframe has a lot to do with it, for sure. And the grass always seems greener on the other side.
… Until you realize it isn’t. Earlier this week I was clued in to the fact that the grass is pretty lush on my side of the fence.
(Now before I share this story, I just want to clarify that I mean absolutely no disrespect to Matt, who may find this post someday in the future. I’m not trying to belittle or make fun of you in any way, or gloat over my own success. This is simply to share what I learned from our exchange, and I’ve tried to leave out any details that would make it easy to identify your company)
(And my apologies for the long read)
Monday and Tuesday I was doing a big job with old storm windows, some power washing, gutter cleaning and whitening, the whole shebang. This was on a higher end lakeside community. And as I was starting out, I noticed that there was a kid cleaning windows next door. Much easier job- tilt in windows with removable muntins. It was obvious right away he didn’t know what he was doing. But he looked determined to figure it out, and I was rooting for him in my head. I figured he was the homeowner’s son, doing it for some spending money or something.
Later that morning, I find out it’s a professional team. The kid I saw was the new helper to the owner, who’s been cleaning windows longer than me.
So I go over and introduce myself. The owner was super nice to talk to, and we talked a bit about business and pricing. He told me he charges a per man/per day rate of (insert $xxx amount between $239 and $241). This particular job they were on, he had scheduled 3 days for him and his helper. So 6 man-days at $xxx/day. The job had 52 double hungs with muntins and a bit of scraping.
I realized that the job would have taken me well under 2 days solo, working at a very comfortable pace. I would have charged less and made way more money. And if not for the scraping, I would schedule one long day to bang out the whole house.
And I also realized, that for the job I was actually doing that day and the next, I was making close to what he would probably be able to take home in a week working with a helper.
So I shared a little bit of my pricing structure, my timeframe for completing a job like that, and even encouraged him to check out WCR (if you’re reading this Matt, Welcome! We should meet up sometime . I know there’s a lot I can learn from you, with the fact that you’re already incorporated and have a background in highrise and lift work)
Learning these details about my “competition” caused a strange boost in morale for the remainder of the week. Not in an arrogant sense of, “Wow, I totally blow their socks off!”, but more like, “Hmm, last week wasn’t as bad as I thought. I’ve got my stuff together more than I think I do.”
And I’m hoping that I was able to provide some encouragement to another business owner. I would like to wish him continued growth and profitability in this profession