140 individual panes. Outsides would be pretty straightforward. Insides would require lifting blinds, moving tables and chairs, and lowering the blinds. Pretty common stuff at most restaurants, but not for $42
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Oskar really is a great guy. I canât say a single bad thing about him. He had some growing pains as he was building his business, but nothing out of the ordinary. I moved away from that part of the country in 2012 and from what I understand, he sold his franchise a few years ago and has moved onto bigger and better things.
I totally understand that each franchisee runs things a little differently. Most have zero window cleaning experience and come from various professional backgrounds. Anyone can watch a few YouTube videos and learn how to clean a window. Thatâs not what the franchisor is for. The franchisor is there to teach you how to build the business into an empire.
I attended the same training in St. Louis that each new franchisee attends immediately before their Grand Opening. At the time, Oskar had aspirations of opening franchises all over New York State, so he sent me to St. Louis to learn everything there was to know about Fish Window Cleaning. I got all the âinsider secretsâ without having to pay a penny.
It turned out there were no insider secrets. The sales training was pretty basic stuff. Go door to door and say, âHello my name is _____ from Fish Window Cleaning, who could I speak with about giving you a FREE window cleaning estimateâ? I think at this point everyone in the room understood there was no top secret formula to gaining new storefront accounts and they were all looking a little nervous because they just poured their life savings into this.
The thing that really irked me though was when they taught us all how to lowball the competition just for the sake of âgaining a footholdâ in the market. ABC Hair Salon is currently paying $40 per service and is entirely happy with the quality of work being performed by XYZ Window Cleaning Company? Offer to do it for $25, they wonât be able to refuse that offer! Then you raise their price 5-10 percent every year until itâs priced appropriately. They wonât even notice a small increase each year, at least not enough to complain about it. Straight out of the âBucket Bob Marketing 101â playbook if you ask me.
The smart franchisees go back to their hometowns, ignore everything they learned from the franchisor and price their jobs appropriately from the very beginning. The not too smart ones, undercut every account they come across because theyâre more concerned with winning âSalesman of the Yearâ at the annual Fish Convention than they are with building and sustaining a profitable business.
Granted, this was all a decade ago and maybe things have changed for the better. I really donât know to be honest. But 10 years ago, Fish was a glorified Bucket Bob operation who was teaching franchisees a pricing system that the founder had obviously been using since he started the business from scratch in 1978. When I came across this $42 restaurant that should have been at least in the $125-$150 range, I couldnât help but think, âSome things never changeâ. Different city in a different part of the country, ten years later, but still charging prices from the 1970âs.
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Sounds about right. They do build empires though. Weâve got one here in the Boston area
âEmpireâ
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Impressive video man. Youâre quick for sure but as you already imagined, the average 19 year old Fish employee who operates out of the trunk of his 1999 Civic doesnât have a vehicle mounted WFP system.
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Itâs all good. If only we could convey tone in txt. I guess thats why emojis are getting so popular
thus no USP that drives the customer to them and only them
= what is actually being sold, JUST window cleaning
=commodity
=pricing race to the bottom
without a niche, specialty or some other USP itâs difficult to sell a faceless team of churning employees
I say that since they are the frontline for the company, and if low skilled, low paid, low equipped, low experienced, what is one selling that someone would pay more for?
plus in storefront the lowest of the paying jobs its even more amplified ( the pay)
but storefront is the lowest denominator where low skill, equipment, pay and experience can survive
one just needs triple or more the volume, and profit eating staff, mgmt and infrastructure to run it, I think it was figured that it would have to be 500k company for the owner to just make 100k a year and a wife working for free in the office, in one analysis in a thread ages ago. 500k in storefront, could you imagine a) getting that in storefront b) the admin work of it all c) the staffing and backup floaters necessary?
meanwhile high rise companies only need 50 jobs at 10k each vs 11,905 $42 jobs of a storefront only co
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Appreciate your openness @BlackTieAustin. I was unaware that method was taught 10+ years ago. There is no undercutting taught now.
I wouldnât compare Fish back then or now to a âglorified Bucket Bobâ operation, I donât think that is fair or accurate. I also wouldnât judge an entire operation based on 1 low priced job.
I believe @Chris mentioned somewhere on the forum that when he had his business he expected to break even or even lose a little money in his slow season. When you have employees you need/want to keep on payroll the math for pricing changes quite a bit; not sure how much of that you were exposed to with Oskar. That is a possibility in this situation as well.
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@Bruce the USP of Fish is similar to most storefront & residential window cleaning companies. Fish also gets to add that they are a national brand. I understand many on this forum donât like to hear that but that is the simple truth.
Any sizable service company in any industry has employee turnover. I am sure that when @Chris had 40 window cleaners in the field they were not all 15+ year tenured employees⌠I bet at least half were college kids working for 2 or 3 seasons before moving on with their lives.
What we all sell is perceived value. Most of our customers just want clean windows.
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Thereâs a company here that has more than that in all store front. The sub it all out. Itâs owned by a family who does the management. Itâs the Sina business and the father sells the sister works in the office with the mom and the son trains new subs and floats. They might have one more person in the office. They store fronts and corporate accounts all over the DFW Metro area. I donât know their numbers but they have to be clearing more than 500k.they have all the Walgreens, Ihopâs, Olive Gardens, and much more. They do a great job with their business.
Thatâs not too bad. I would do it at $60.00 and it would take about an hr. I probably wouldnât go under $50.00.
And thatâs traditional methods. That doesnât count using a wfp.
Thatâs a very fair statement and youâre probably right. Iâm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume the salesman screwed up royally or got desperate toward the end of a slow month.
Iâm currently chasing after a few of their very large accounts that have dozens of locations apiece. Iâm going to submit my proposals at my normal pricing and weâll see what happens. If I lose out on all of them because âFish does it for less than half of thatâ, then my suspicions will be confirmed. If the decision makers eventually tell me, âYouâre about the same as Fish and they generally do a good job, so weâll just stick with them for nowâ, I would be content with that.
Lol. I have to deal with fish on my accounts. And they have even gone into my businesses. One location actually took a five guys location from me under bidding me. They raised the their price after a few cleanings. I got the job back anyway. But,a long as they make a cone up even if itâs$10 they still take it. What scavengers to be ruining the market. Guess thatâs why their called fish cause they all over the God damn place.
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Fish is shit!! Worked for the one in Fort Collins, CO for 2 years, didnât know any better at th time. I donât have one positive thing to say about them or the owner!
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Yeah, they hire a bunch of inexperienced guys to do the work. I have actually gotten jobs from them mainly due to poor service and lack of availability. Since I started residentail one home called me and said they could not get to them cause theyâre booked. So the person called me and Iâm picking up there scraps. I was actually going to buy a franchise last year but Iâm glad I didnât.
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The worst quality Iâve ever seen in my entire career was from fish employees.
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In their defense the employees have to move very fast to make any money, really fast, with no time saving skills. Iâve watched them work more than a few times.
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This thread is kinda like a thread about McDonalds where everybody is complaining about their crappie hamburgers and why five guys is so much better. Both FiSH and McDonalds are good at what they do.
That sounds like a good way to approach it.
There are accounts in my area that a competitor had been doing for 20+
years for 1/3 my price; and he does an excellent job. When he retires
theyâll either have dirty windows or pay the market price.
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That statement is not true. They still do it and teach it! Thatâs my experience.
