Really excited to join the forum here. I’ve run Ottawa Student Windows www.ottawastudentwindows.com for two summers now. I figure I’ll add below what I had wrote in my bio as a way of introduction.
I started my window cleaning business two years ago after completing my first year of university. Since a young age, I had always wanted to one day run my own company. With my window cleaning business, I quickly found myself wanting to work on growth and marketing rather than cleaning (as most people would likely say). Once I had figured out the tricks to high quality cleaning and customer service, I passed down my lessons to the cleaning staff that I went on to hire. My attention now could be focused on doing what I found I did best - growing my business fast and at the lowest cost.
Like any business owner, I experimented a great deal in the early stage of my business. But I quickly began to tweak, and optimize the things that I found worked well. For me, my window cleaning business was the lab rat that led to my discovery of e-commerce and the potential in marketing a service business online. With the tools, tricks, tips and lessons I’ve taken away about growing a business in today’s world of evolving technologies, I’ve been able to help launch three other home service business in the auto-detailing, interlock, and house cleaning spaces.
Everyday I see small businesses that don’t take advantage of the opportunities in online marketing - through both paid and unpaid channels. What I like seeing most is the locally-owned, family-run business out-competing the franchises and large corporations that begin to care less about the first customers with the addition of every new one. There is something to be said about hiring a window cleaner who grew up in the same suburb as the homeowner. My hope is to help share some of my marketing knowledge on this forum with other small-run window cleaning operations. Here to help those who might not have the time nor desire to learn on their own the growing world of digital marketing. Please feel free to ask me any questions!
Welcome! I am also a young business owner at 21.
My main goal right now is basically what you stated, growing my presence online and using the tools that are offered online. But unfortunately that is also my weak point.
So I have to ask in your service description you state "Windows are polished using a 3 micro-fiber cloth system"
So your guys polish each window after they squeegee it??
Or am I miss understanding?
Great question Steve, I imagine that is not something you’ve seen often before. I would assume you ask because a properly squeegeed window would not typically require a cloth polish. In my situation, I hire students who often times are going through their first season of window cleaning. In order for us to be able to provide the best customer service, I make it a standard part of the cleaning process to polish the borders of the frames and prevent any “picture-frame” streaking. This takes longer to complete each pane of course, but if its what it takes to provide top-notch service given our less experienced staff, then it’s a trade off I’m happy to make! Hope that explanation helps.
Quite the opposite its whats classed as a maid clean vs a professional window clean, the glass is gonna be smeary in the wrong light no question.
I had a bunch more typed out but woulda got hated on so moded myself LOL
So its quantity over quality?
I am not entirely sure if I am following you. We don’t use the cloth on any part of the window except for the borders of the pane where it meets the frame. All of our cleaners use the straight-pull method, which always leaves a trickle of solution at the border, where we then go in with the cloth to make sure no streaks are left behind.
I think if a customer was guaranteed a window polishing with a cloth they would expect the entire pane to be polished with a cloth. You might want to reword that to something like "all panes are detailed with a micro-fiber cloth."
Do you track how many cloths are used per job site? Laundry expenses and time can be an annoying portion of the non-billable hours. There are some good threads on this forum about reducing cloth/microfiber/scrim usage. Back shortly, I have to go wash laundry
Ah yes - I can see where there might be confusion there. I will get to re-wording that on the website. Thanks for the tip.
We go through several cloths per job-site. The laundry is the responsibility of the cleaner however so that is not a business-related expense for us. I will check out the other threads you mentioned - I’m sure we could improve on our cloth usage.
Here is a thread that is sometimes hilarious but also has many good tips and videos on reducing towel usage. The OP was also doing straight pulls like your student cleaners.
Hello and welcome.
Time is money. You don’t need to be polishing the windows unless that is an up sell for your business. Even with straight pulls you can learn to detail less, but learning the fundamentals of fanning will be your friend - and your employees.
If you are having your employees take their towels home and clean them, then the incentive for that is - learn to fan and learn what it takes to detail less.
You’re the leader, so you need to research, practice, learn, repeat - until you have reached Instructor Status.
Hi Matt,welcome to hell…i mean the community.I can only repeat what has been said already.Teach your guys to detail less.To me it sounds like you’ve just thought your staff very basic window techniques.Teaching them now could save you hugely down the road.Are you hiring these guys with the intention of them one day setting up there own business?If not i would suggest you take the responsibilty of laundry as you re guys are first year window cleaners.I can imagine some of them find it to be a pain to have to do laundry after a hard days work.
It takes approximately 10,000 hours to become a professional at a trade, profession, or even an athlete. With two years of experience I find it hard to believe anyone could adequately train employees. It would take me two solid seasons just to train an employee before I felt they knew most of what was necessary to work on their own. This is insight coming form a 40 something year old with 20+ years of experience.
Please don’t mention mid afternoon soap operas. I had excessive second hand exposure to some tear jerking soap operas while doing an interior resi and I became emotionally scarred
