i figure i recieve so much help i might as well try and give some too.
Here is a piece of literature that i have my guys hand out at store fronts. I just picked up a larger commercial account with 21 locations, so i have the guys drop these off everywhere in the surrounding areas. First test area in a month landed me 6 jobs (with no follow up on my part) to juice up the first area i tried. (This area was where i got the first of the 21 corporate accounts)
Good piece to use as an icebreaker or name recognition tool, or to start a conversation with a manager.(some of my guys arnt really the “sales” types, and id rather open and close the lead with an actual sales guy.
Don’t take offense to this, but… Your prices are very low. You are leaving money on the table. That example on your flyer, I’d charge $30. I don’t see how you can run a legitimate, profitable business charging $1/window. I would like to encourage you to try raising your prices and see what happens
this is a volume thing. 10.00 mimimum for 5-10 min of work. A window cleaner can do this 6.00 of work in less then 5 min. Im going for full days of commercial work in 21 areas in a month to total 21k in mc for the month, paying out a 3rd or less.
The 2 companies I worked for, 2 of the largest in minneapolis, both charged around 1$ for commercial as long as its ona monthly basis. (He way I see it, money is in paying people to do commercial, while I knock out resi from my dm eddm campaigns.
Have you ever tried charging more? Even if you only charged $2 you would still double your revenue. How much does labor cost you out of that $6? I just don’t see how you’re making money. Again, I’m not trying to attack you, just want to help you think outside the box
i appreciate the help, plz dont think otherwise. Its more of a promo thing. as i said, landed 21 new jobs, about$50 each, want 700-1000 more in work around each store. in my mind, commercial storefront wise $1 per is going rate. I still go in places with this promo and say im too high. my pricing is still 60-100 per hour depending on the work.but commercial storefront i can do 80-100 windows an hour, and these places go anywhere from more then once a week to monthly, so im grabbing my $1 for every window i have every month if not every week.
Anyone else in the midwest going more then 1-2 per window on a monthly basis???
i appreciate the help, plz dont think otherwise. Its more of a promo thing. as i said, landed 21 new jobs, about$50 each, want 700-1000 more in work around each store. in my mind, commercial storefront wise $1 per is going rate. I still go in places with this promo and say im too high. my pricing is still 60-100 per hour depending on the work.but commercial storefront i can do 80-100 windows an hour, and these places go anywhere from more then once a week to monthly, so im grabbing my $1 for every window i have every month if not every week.
Anyone else in the midwest going more then 1-2 per window on a monthly basis???[/QUOTE]
Dave,
I am in KS and unfortunately that is “normal rate” around here too. I have been raising my prices though. Sometimes I bid an ext. With interior touch up to keep them if all they care about is $. But it is tough in the Midwest for sure. I am considered higher than my comp but I offer the best service around here, so I pick up a lot of bucket bob accounts when they get tired of paying $.50 a window for a really bad job!
Wow, I charged $1 per window for commercial storefront when I first started out 9 years ago. Thats what the guy I used to work for charged too, but I realized quickly $2 per window for in&out was more realistic, and after doing that for 6 years I raised my prices to $3 per window. Today I charge $2.50 for exterior only on storefront or more depending on circumstances, and $4 for in&out.
Is there no inflation in the Midwest? There was when I used to live in Indiana.
Shawn White
Streakless Windows Inc.
(520) 808-6635
Sorry I should have specified: My storefront pricing is at $2-$3/pane/side. Residential I charge double or triple that.
I don’t have any restaurants per se. I do have a couple of pizza places, a wine store, and a specialty grocery store as far as food-related businesses go. I have a few industrial businesses, some small offices, and dentists. Looks like I should be landing a clinic and pharmacy when they finish some construction they’ve got going on right now, they will be my first weekly jobs, everything else is monthly.
The commercial corporate stuff we go for big stuff. We can get 2$ per pane per side stuff,like the jobs u mentioned. I’m going for 10 pane 10 $ jobs that we can surround with some 50 -80 $ morning restaurants. The guy I learned from did 10k a week in work. I think , thanks to chris and all u guys, I can do that in 3 years. 4o I think a little like someone buying a fish franchise, get my own big jobs, and surround them with smaller ones for the afternoon. 1eek long routes that cover my entire metro area, then use direct mailing to get my residential, along with other forms of marketing, then train my guys on commercial, give them a rase to residential, and work myself on just getting the work.
true true, but paying out 1/3rd, i cant see alot going wrong. guys in my area have been in business 30+ years doing things like this, and in my eyes, they still are not doing things the best they could. Take the guy i used to work for. In business 25 years, 10k a week in work every week of the year( this guy does not do direct mailing, only call backs from old client lists.), few bad decisions along the years like everyone, but his company was ot ran right. Another example on the oposite side of the spectrum are the 6 fish franshises in my area. guys who bought this “turn key” franchise for whatever 80-100k that those things cost, then hire 18 year old kids or meth heads to do their labor for peanuts, making it just as easy to compete with both customer service and superior work. Fish tells you to make money by hiring other people to do the window cleaning. old timers say do it yourself and charge what your worth. Why not just apply both ideas into what works for people like Chris, sending out 1,000,000 pieces a year, and focusing on residential, while hiring people to manage the same thing that all these other companies are doing with storefront work, which is getting into the big restaurant chains and corporate stores, at cost effective labor( in my case being $1-2 per pane, now being 1$). Again 21 stores, lets say $500 in work around each base store, $10500 a month in route work, if each store only goes once a month. pay out about 4-5k in labor and expenses. i think it can be done in one season, and double the seasons after
Dave, how are you doing 80-100 windows per hour in storefront, especially if you’re doing them In & Out, or are you charging $1 per window because you’re only doing all these jobs Exterior Only? Even then, 80-100 windows per hour seems extremely fast. Do you use a wagtail or other squeegee/washer combo and not wipe the edges with a towel at all? Or is that based on multiple workers on each job?
squegee and washer. In my mind, anyone who has been doing this for a few years can do the same. 100 windows in a row, lets say the front of a strip mall, that go on atleast a monthly basis, should not take much more then an hour. I do have a trainee with me in situations like this, who accomplishes about 1/4 of the work. But how many windows do you think a regualr commecial route guy can do in an hour?
I’m not doubting you if you say you can do it, but I know I can’t. I mainly do residential and I have a few dozen commercial jobs. Mostly they’re all 2 story buildings and some bigger, but only a handful of storefront (so-to-say). As far as speed goes I pretty regularly clean 20-25 windows In & Out per hour with squeegee and washer (more like 50 per hour when I use WFP on the exterior). Now I do have one commercial job where I get 45 windows done in an hour but that’s exterior only and I have to ladder up for about 20 of those windows.
Ok, well having a helper explains a lot. When I have my employee working with me we blow through this same 45 window job in a half hour with just squeegee and washer.
So, when you say 100 windows in a row, are you talking about windows that can all be reached without ladder or pole? I could see getting those 100 done in an hour if you’re doing them exterior only by yourself, but to do them In & Out it would take me more like 2.5-3 hours. Even with a helper I don’t see getting them all done in 2 hours. Maybe I’m just slow. But I definitely wouldn’t say I’m a “commercial route guy”.
