New to the business, should I leverage that or keep presenting professional?

Newbie Corner
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Hi everyone! I’ve been lurking the site for the past month, and I figured I should get around to making an account and posting! I’m 100% new to the business, and I’m trying to climb from “bucket bob” status to “real business”. I’ve closed about 10 accounts or so in the past two weeks, which I consider good! I’m not hitting hard enough really, but I’m proud of the results so far!

The reason I decided to do window cleaning, is that I’m a recent college grad, and I’m having a little bit of a rough time with the job search, and I’d much rather do this than part time working for someone else. I have business cards made up, I dress in khaki shorts and a nice collared dry fit shirt. I’m trying present myself as professional as possible, because even if I am a bucket bob, I don’t want to look like one. I’ve basically just been walking into mom and pop shops asking if they currently have a cleaner, and if they would be interesting in having their windows cleaned.

I was wondering today though, would it possibly help my conversion rates if I was to let on I was a recent college grad on the job hunt or if I should keep trying to present as a professional, legit business. I was chatting with one business owner while doing his windows (my second ever) and I let that slip all that and he said good for me and offered to embroider one of my shirts for free! So that one turned out well but I kinda wonder about it possibly affecting me down the road. Any advice would be appreciated and thank you ahead of time!

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I dont see how presentinging yourself as being new would be unprofessional.

You may have a good selling point as being a new graduate and being driven to build a business as a new startup. Nothing wrong with that and many would likely appreciate that as it is becoming rare.

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I wouldn’t present myself as “new in business” and I wouldn’t hide it either. When asked how long I’ve been in business I would then talk it up with exctitement>

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We haven’t told people up front that we are new since it lends the idea that we dont have experience and know what we are doing. Some of our customers ask how long we have been in business and we tell them. Most of the time I get the feeling they would have liked to hear a longer period of time but it helps that I had previous experience working for a company doing window cleaning. Some though have said ‘good for you!’ And have been very encouraging to us as younger people starting our own biz. I think it all depends on each potencial customer and how you present yourself. If you speak with confidence and conviction it won’t matter that you are new to the industry.

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I have quite a few residential customers that have been with me since I started my company. They all said they admired me for starting a company and wanted to give me a chance. We all start somewhere.