Rough day

I woke up to my equipment getting swiped from my work truck. 24’ ladder with stabilizers and two track vacuums (one was my Dyson :frowning:) The pressure washer was moved but they likely saw how rough it truly was and weren’t savvy enough to understand the value of the IPC Eagle with the gas pump. I guess locking up isn’t enough!
What bothers me is that it takes 15 minutes morning and night to get that stuff in and out of the garage. The $800 I will spend to replace stuff isn’t the biggest issue. It is the estimated 15 minutes x 2 times a day x 5 days a week x 50 weeks = 125 hours of time I’ll lose because some moron is too lazy to go work for a few tools or wants to pawn it for a few bucks to get high! They just cost me 3+ weeks of working time!

I was able to squeeze in a late afternoon appointment and the client, a huge luxury rental property owner with a $2M home, tells me he has raised rent every year by at least 5% and this year by 8% because the market is so good and cost are going up. He compliments the work, his wife loves the cleaning. I show them the bill $300 (should have been $515). They said, “but we always pay $275.” I remind them of the confirmation email that their bid was over 5 years old and that I will be providing an updated price. The lower of the two options 1. the new bid or 2. 10% higher than the old bid would be the new price. They freak out and tell me to send them an invoice and they’d pay later…nothing but an email complaining about how the old owner was so great and he never raised their prices! He is also going to end up with next to nothing from selling the company he owned for 8 years because of taxes and low prices. He is a very good man but worked crazy hours to make a decent living when raising his prices even 5% annually would have made his life much easier.
Rant over. I choose JOY.

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Sorry to hear that Ron, sucks when thieves target your livelihood. That is why I don’t like “utes” or whatever you guys call them, I would much rather my equipment be behind a locked door, I would go with a van or a station wagon depending on your situation.

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Why did you do a $515.00 job for $ 300.00 ?

The former owner only raiaed prices once in ten years and only on a few clients. I’m trying to slowly bring up the prices instead of literally doubling 50% of the clients cost. Basically- I’m afraid of losing the clients.

I am wondering if your work is so light that you have no other " Premium Pay " customers to supplement this underpaying job. Unless you have some personal commitment to this customer I don’t understand the fear of loosing them. When you loose this " Low Pay " customer ( create that vacuum ) then you leave an opening for the void to be filled with " Market Value " customers. So, " Loosing " can really be " Gaining " when you are playing a the long game.

When I read your post I immediately thought that this was a possibly a simple Supply and Demand Challenge. Imagine you are sitting at a table selling ( pick anything )… lets says Bolts. They are all the same.
You have a pile on the left side selling for $2.00 each and a pile on the right side selling for $1.00 each. A line of 20 people in the $2.00 line because that is where you are sitting ( looking confident and competent ).
There are 2 people in the $1.00 line waiting on you to move over and sell them a $1.00 bolt. The only time a sane person would move to the other seat and sell the $1.00 bolt is if there was no one left in the $2.00 line. If you move to sell a $1.00 bolt while you have people in the $2.00 line you just lost 100 % ( that you could have made ). Another option is to never move to the $1.00 seat but encourage or wait until the people in the $1.00 line either leave or move to the $2.00 line.

This is not about what the customer thinks we are worth. It’s about what we think we are worth and take a stand for that.

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If the price that these purchased customers, is not a sustainable price and you need to jump prices (no matter how much), you just have to bite the bullet and do it, win-lose-or draw.

He sold out because he didn’t know how to run a business right. You aren’t looking to do the same thing as him, are you?

And it sucks that someone stole your tools. A thief should be hung from a tall tree with a short rope…

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@WDW @HoosierSqueegee-thank you for the sage advice. I do understand the principle well. I paid what I and my partners thought was a fair price for a business that was, in fact, a hefty price for a work crazy hours one man job. I am keeping everything above board by maintaining licenses and insurance and even claiming ALL cash (I’ve learned that is not the case with many in the service businesses). I do not want it to be my job that runs me but a business that I can operate in whatever capacity is needed.
My thought is to tell the non-regular clients (regulars-monthly to bi-annual I’ll rebid next year) that we will be rebidding their home prior to the next cleaning. Is there a better way to bring along clients that haven’t had a price increase in 5-15 years? I will also raise prices every year by 3-5%-ish.

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I think its great that you are being intentional about this sensitive issue, especially since it sounds like this is not an isolated issue and that more of them are under priced. I don’t have any good suggestions on what you can do to get them higher. You obviously have experience in the field to even recognize that they are under what they should be at todays prices. I do agree with annual increases. I have almost always done that. Keep us posted WIndowGuys.

@WDW Do you go up on all your customers every year? Do you go up a percentage or dollar amount? Thanks for the feedback!

This year I started doing a 3%ish increase on clients from 2016 and 2017. I have had one comment so far but no objections.

Personally, I don’t raise prices on residential unless I missed the bid initially. I feel that I’m actually making more on repeats since I tend to be quicker each time due to familiarity.

If I feel that my income needs a bump, I just raise the estimates on new customers.

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Sucks you got robbed.

You could double your price, lose half of the customers (which I doubt you would), work half as hard, and make the same amount.

The customers you do lose probably aren’t the ones you want to keep anyway.

That would free up that 30 minutes a day to put the tools in the garage.

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I can’t tell you what to do with any certainty, that may not negatively effect your business.

I personally would raise the prices where you need them to be. I do an increase every other year of 5%, for inflation. Some people raise an eyebrow, but I haven’t lost anyone over it.

If you only increase 5-10% a year on the old clients, you’ll never catch up to where you want to be any time soon.

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I’m actually only in my 6th month of window cleaning but was in business for 10 years before becoming a teacher and bought this company at the end of December 2017. @TexasRich I had told myself to not raise any prices for the first year but found myself on some homes that have 75 large panes for $170 inside and out. I have only raised the price for two people and two others said, “the other guy was a good businessman, he never raised prices!” That, not raising prices, in and of itself does not make someone a good businessman. Repeat business is great, 93% of my clients this year are repeats. That said the 7& of the new clients are 12% of my gross.
Followup to the client. I told them I would do $275 and the new rate would be in effect next time. They immediately said thank you we will pay now. I don’t expect to see them for 2 years…just like the last time they had it cleaned. @TexasRich Question for how you decide who is a regular to keep prices the same. We call them repeats because we did it before but if they only clean windows every 2-3 years do we hold that price? For my regulars, at least annual, I’m ALL IN on the same prices but if I’m scrubbing anti-Trump election night graffiti from their windows or Y2K new years crud- I’m raising prices.

It reminds me of a customer who called me a few days ago, she was telling me that I forgot to clean her paths when I did her house wash, I aksed her if she asked me to clean them when I turned up and she replied, that’s what you did last time…3 years ago! I said I would accomidate her can next time I am in her old folks home I will clean her paths.

Then as I drive home after the call, I’m trying to remember the job, then I remembered that I didn’t do a house wash I cleaned her roof.

She called me back later and also remembered that I did not do a house wash, so now I can get paid to clean her paths for the whole 10 mins it will take lol.

The funniest thing was she was telling me how much my services cost, these are tiny 2 bedroom cottage things take about 20 mins to wash ,I charge my minimum house wash charge she is trying to tell me what is included in my minimum I had to kindly remind her that I run my business and charge how I see fit and that in 3 years my business has evolved and if you would like to see up to date prices she could check out the website.

First off, very sorry to hear you got robbed. That really sucks. Hopefully you can find an easier solution to keeping your stuff safe, than the extra half hour of loading & unloading each day.

It sounds like you might have fallen into the trap of the Sunk Cost Fallacy.

Because you invested all that money into the customer list, you feel like you can’t risk losing half of it. Unfortunately, that list doesn’t hold the value that you thought it did. As you’ve already demonstrated to yourself with the new jobs you’re completing, you could/should be getting at least 70% more for your work (12% / 7% = 171.4% - a fuzzy representation of the math, but I think it checks out).

This seems like you have put an arbitrary constraint on yourself based on the sunk cost, and not good business sense. I’m really not trying to bash you here. I would probably be struggling with the same thing if I were in your shoes. In fact, I’ve fallen prey to this fallacy repeatedly. I’ve held onto low paying work for way longer than I should have.

The good news is (well, I’m guessing here) that you got more than just a customer list from buying the business. You hopefully got a name with a good reputation, some type of marketing pipeline (website, yellowpage ads, whatever) and a phone number. So all is not lost.

Your situation is probably complicated a bit by having partners in the business. I’m guessing that for any major operational changes, you’ll have to get them on board? Maybe share articles like this one:

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No not every year. Usually the equivalent of about 5% every couple years. On small route work customers I would round it off and very few customers ever even notices the increase.
Example : A $55.00 route stop would go to $58.00 / A $15.50 route stop would be rounded to 16.50.

So sorry to read this. My biggest fear is thsi same thing happening. Doesn’t matter how carful. If some low life loser wants something they know how to swipe it.
Sux bro !!

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Thanks for the advice! Do you raise residential every other year? I am 99% residential. That is why I ask. My expenses go up every year.

I have heard from a variety of service industry business owners (landscapers, carpet cleaners, house cleaners, window washers etc. ) that they try to raise their prices 5% each year, so that every 20 years there is a 100% increase in prices.
-Joe