Observing the competition

A little more to add…

Storefront is a mindset. @Majestic66’s post shows he has it. It’s not necessarily a race to the bottom. It’s just making concessions to get the biz and then raising the price after a bit.

If you’re not willing to make those concessions, it’s ok. It just may not be the type of window cleaning for you. No worries. I can understand when one is established, its perhaps more difficult to make those concessions.

To reiterate some previous posts, expanding service area is most likely a necessity. View as a dart board. Saturate bullseye. Move onto next circle. Saturate. Etc etc… Then return to bullseye and saturate again.

Targeting wealthy areas lends itself to weekly cleans and generates some sweet resi.

Volume. Lots of seed casting and not a lot of dwelling on any one prospect too much. Drop and move. Drop and move.

Lastly, remember it’s not just price. It’s Price, Scope, Schedule. Negotiate all three to get to a mutually beneficial agreement.

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It’s funny I don’t do post cards , but I see a lot of guys in here that get offended when someone ask can you do better. Lol
Meanwhile the ones who do post cards are saying here I’ll do 20 windows for way less then I usually do. Lol

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Great read. Thanks Hoosier and contributors. I gave up on storefront…they’re too cheap here, or they just don’t care. Medical clinics…nasty windows…they don’t care. Really? I’ve moved on. When the “Franchise” does for 20 bucks what I want 160 for…it’s time to move on. I’ve got rich clients, they don’t care about the money and they love their clean windows. Life is good, I moved on.

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Majestic - What do you mean by " ,Do Postcards " ?

My point is about discounts

I understand nobody likes giving discounts , An if someone is busy enough that they can fill therr schedule with the high paying jobs they want therr is no need. To. I get that !!

What I mean about the post cards is you have to have a call to action that usually requires a discount. So your sending out 3-5 thousand discounts. When you do post cards
Why does it kill someone to do a handful then. Lol. Realistically how many people ask for them …not many
I’m not saying do it if you don’t need to
It’s all about supply demand if the phone is ringing off the hook , them it’s “my price is fair , an that’s the best I can do”. If it’s slow I’m saying” sure I’ll give you the first time customer discount. “
I’m in control of what I give it’s all about negotiating. If my price is 490 ,an they say can you do it for 400. I’m willing to work with you , but the best I can do is 450.
Why Not ???
Is the 15-20 percent going to kill me I’d rather have a job lined up than nothing.
Then they reschedule for next year the price is 490. Why? because it’s was a first time customer discount.

I know we are taking about route work in this thread. So my point to that is. Get in the door first if therr squabbling about the price Work with them with in reason. I’m not saying do it for nothing.
Also put a time frame on it. Yes sure I’ll did it for that price for the first 3 months An then we’ll tske it from there.
Yes !! maybe they won’t wxcept your raise afte 3 Months then move on. They usually do once they see your for real.
Dam out here I’ve herd of guys giving 6 months free service just to get the job. Crazy. !!! I’m not saying do that , but working for a little less than what ya wanted to land a possible account is not a bad thing.
Route work isn’t for every buddy I get it. Yes it’s low paying , but it shouldn’t be payed out like residential. For many reasons, but it has to be profitable, an yes I understand about the bucket bobs that do it for nothing. If thy have your area locked down ,then do resi an commercial.

With all this being said , I havnt giving any discounts lately. To busy phone is ringing off the hook.

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Was giving this more thought, esp about price concessions.

Having employees, you could really accelerate the process of route-building and make it worth their while to sell for you.

They land a once a month account, they get 33% of first cleaning.

Every other week, they get 66% of first clean.

Every week, they get 100% of first clean price.

They might have the knack for it, esp if there is a little something to be gained in commission. Also spares you some of the headaches of negotiating.

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umm 100% wow.

Many employees may not be the best representatives of a company.

The time spent would be off the clock or on?

My employees for surely would get discouraged and take there regular pay washing windows I’m sure.

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Ok, here the thing. I will use a resi estimate today as the example.
I am the ONLY local guy. Everyone else is driving here from an hour away. On resi, I am 8.20 a window, 2.10 a screen, and tracks are extra. I’ll quick dust a sill inside, but if they want it detailed, it’s extra.
Did an estimate today. Price came out at $430. I estimated at 4-4.5 hours. Had to ladder up, front and back of the house was no way you were poling it. Hodge podge of screens on the inside, and outside as the windows were old/new mix.
I consider my price middle of the road, to higher end.
She about dropped her jaw when I told her the price. The other competitor was less than HALF my price. She normally called them, but they were not going to be able to service her in the time frame she wanted. Bear in mind, these guys have a 2 hour round TRIP to here and back. These guys are pricing at about 4 dollars a window, in/out/screens. This, on RESI, not storefront. THIS competitor is the one that has a good portion of the storefronts.

The cost of living in my area is fairly HIGH. Rent runs about 1k a month. We are definitely more expensive to live here, than that place an hour away. Still, figuring 200 bucks for 4 man hours of work, seem “ok” I guess, if you had NO expenses. But we all know what overheads cost, and what Uncle Sam expects when the tax bill is due. This company has several trucks on the road, but misses the mark on several things.

I’m willing to keep trying the storefronts, but I’m not willing to do them for next to nothing. They are either paying their workers a small commission or they are paying them next to nothing hourly. I am not going to do that. I will pay myself and anyone who works with me well, or I’m just not going to do it.

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So there was about 40 windows at this house? You were thinking that it would take you 4 or 4 1/2 hours to clean 40 windows? That sounds like a lot of windows in that amount of time, I’ve been at it 10 years, so I’m wondering if you’re really really fast or if many of these 40 windows were close together/easily accessible. Basically you are looking at $100 an hour. That’s higher than I make and higher than I ever expect to make. When I was starting my hourly was a lot less, as my company has grown I’ve been able to increase my hourly. Your expectation for what you are worth feels like it’s out of whack.

don’t forget to crosscheck with the labor rates at your local mechanics places, window cleaners can get pretty close to that

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Not so much. Personally, residential is about 100 per hour for me as well. I’m solo, work reasonably fast and efficient. I charge 5 per window pane in/out.

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Currently, the hourly rates at the small shops are running 100-125 an hour.
Edit to add: Dealerships are at 150.

Personally, it doesn’t matter to me what you think of my rates. I get enough business at my rates, I’m not worried about lowering them. Yes, I move somewhat fast, but I am no flying squirrel.

The point of the post, was to show how LOW the competition is pricing it’s work, not to ask if I’m too high. Not everyone can get the same money as the next guy, and that’s fine. But there are only so many hours in the day, the Wal-Mart theory of sales doesn’t work well for service businesses.

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I’d also say @anon82274079 is in a standard range of time and hourly.

If you’ve been around 10 years there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be able to hit or at least come close to those numbers.

Never hurts to either tweak your prices a bit higher or learn a more efficient method.

We commonly get guys with previous experience that are surprised at our production compared to what they have experienced prior.

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why yes they are . . . good food for thought, aspiration and implementation . . .

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If a customer does not care about the low quality of work that they receive, there is little to nothing you can do or say to change that. Better to move on and find the right kind of customer for what you do, and leave the don’t care-type of customer to the don’t care-type of service provider.

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Not all “call-to-action” requires a discount. If you are feeling hungry that may feel good to offer those on the fence a little monetary incentive, but bundling packages (wording and phrases) entices many people because then they don’t have to shop for another service provider of you can offer more than just one service. No need to discount, just make it easy for them to get a few great jobs done with one stop.

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To add to this, I don’t generally discount. I would see it as someone was trying to take advantage of me, and I am sure other people would too. If you could have initially offered a lower price, people could reason that you should have to begin with.

To update the quote I did yesterday that I talked about, she called me today and scheduled the job. I called her earlier today and asked her what she was thinking, and she said she was still undecided. Told her I was not trying to push her into anything she isn’t ready to do, and told her if she wanted to hire someone else, I would not be mad at her and would understand. I also told her that I really need her to make a decision soon, because I have another client that wants that spot, so if she could make up her mind in the next few hours, that would be helpful to me. An hour later she scheduled with me. I don’t know IF she had someone else come quote her(likely) or if she is just the type that needs to think about something a while before making the decision.

Either way, I would have been happy to walk, because I am not going to discount my services like that. Even a 10% discount would have been quite a bit, considering I would have been giving away a half hour of services to someone who seems to only be buying on price. She MAY return next year, but I won’t know until next year. It seems that the time of service is what seemed really important to her.

I only have three customers left who I have allowed to be Grandfathered in on my old discount offer of 20% off for quarterly. Sizeable numbers when you consider at the discounted price it is still well over $800. Once they lapse on the quarterly offer then everyone gets maintenance for $25 off.

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