What value do you emphasize when approaching storefront decision makers?
1 Like
Reliability
Quality of service
And of course the most important to the owner/ manager āActual Costā of our service compared to the other options.
2 Likes
Depends on what the objection is.
When people say "We already have a cleaner"
I ask: Is he/she clean, reliable and insured?
If people say they canāt afford it
I say: You might be surprised. Compared to your other operating costs, clean windows cost practically nothing, and they make a huge difference in your businessā curb appeal.
Then I gauge the response and go from there.
Another tactic that can help to close a sale: Offer a price for both bi-weekly and monthly cleaning. Then ask which one makes the most sense for their business. Instead of just dropping a price and leaving it as a yes or no, this gets the prospect to process data as if they had already intended to hire you. Then once they have selected an option as the one that makes more sense for their business (most seem to choose monthly by default), ask if they would like to go ahead and get themselves some nice clean windows on that schedule.
If they still donāt go for at least a monthly cleaning because of the cost, then offer quarterly cleaning like this: Ok I understand you want to keep your overhead low, as any good businessperson should. (Letās assume I quoted $30 for a monthly service) What if we could get your windows cleaned for $15 a month instead of $30? Would you take that deal? (yes of course they would take that) Well then Iāll just stop by every 3 months, for a $45 dollar charge, and you get to have clean windows all year for just $15 a month. So, can we do business?
5 Likes
I need yo money fo clean glass
6 Likes
Some of our main selling points when prospecting storefront customers include:
(1) We show up like clockwork. You tell us the frequency of service that you desire and we will be there. You donāt need to call us or remind us. Weāll just magically appear every two weeks, four weeks, or whatever.
(2) We are uniformed, unlike the guy in the mustard stained wife beater who I saw cleaning your windows last week
(3) We are fully insured. If we break it, we buy it. Does the guy with the mustard stained wife beater have insurance?
(4) We donāt necessarily require payment at the time of service. We can accept cash, check, or credit card payment on the spot. If you prefer to be invoiced, we can e-mail an invoice to you with terms of NET 30. If you pay within 30 days, we will continue to show up as promised. If we have to continually resubmit invoices and practically beg you to pay us, weāre going to drop you from our schedule and send you to collections.
(5) We provide a much higher level of service than you are currently receiving. If your current window cleaner was just here two days ago, why didnāt he bother to wipe the sills? Oh my God, look at all those spider webs in the corners! Knocking those down isnāt part of the service he offers? Why did your current window cleaner skip all the upper windows? They look like they havenāt been cleaned in months.
***Having said all that, it is important to know your local competitors well. We have a few who are tough to ātake fromā because they do a fine job of taking care of their customers. We have a few others who are lazy, sloppy, and their customers genuinely despise them. You need to identify who is who in the world of window cleaning around your area and create your plan of attack. There will be companies in your area who you will never be able to crack. There are others who as soon as you hear, āABC Window Cleaning does our windowsā, a big smile will come across your face because you know itās going to be a slam dunk.
3 Likes
It seems the values are not nessisarily that we show up, we are insured, uniformed, do great job blah blah. Thatās expected from a service business.
As I understand itā¦ the value is a potential lower operating cost, liability is transferred to the service provider and the level of service provided in a timely fashion is of more value than min wage employee or bucket Bob.
1 Like
you need to find someone who cares about appearance to give your spiel to -or it will be falling on deaf ears . Anyone who is walking around with āthe Chewbacca lookā is not going to care.
2 Likes
Yeah I find when Iām trying to convince someone it puts me in the ālosing the argumentā position. Rarly ever works. Confidence and enthusiasm gets much better results.
3 Likes
I think it can be some; or, all these things and more; or, none.
I look at each one of these as playing cards in my hand.
For some clients you only need to use one or two of the cards in your hand to win them over. Other potential clients, you could have all 52 cards and still not win them overā¦they just donāt want what you are sellingā¦not today, anyway. Leave your card and leave with a smile.
Demonstration Marketing has been a pretty strong card for me. For certain clients, that are a nice fit to the route or oneās I feel will help promote my business, I will clean a couple of windows for free. When I finish and walk back in their shop the selling is overā¦in my mind, the sell was made when they agreed to let me clean their windows. I say something like, āFinished.ā Then I shut up and let them talkā¦they complete the sell. Iāve had some accept a higher price due to āDemonstration Marketingā (Iāve also picked up some really dirty accounts, that swore their windows would never come clean again, using Demo Marketing. Got one the other day, itās now a $60 monthly.)
Demonstration Marketing is a demonstration of Value. I LOVE VALUE. The whole time I am doing it, I keep in my mind āThis is my newest client and this is their initial clean. The cleaner I get it now the easier it will be to clean two weeks from now.ā
So far, Iāve only had one that didnāt see the valueā¦but, I think maybe his business is in financial trouble. Thinking maybe next week Iāll swing by and do a free cleanā¦put a smile back on his face and make some merit on that one.
I had two clients tell me they had a contract with Fish. I told them there is no such thing. Then I showed them where they werenāt getting a proper clean. Apparently Fish is one of the devote followerās of the Zero Detailing crowdā¦frames were nasty. I found out after both switched I was a much higher bid. Fish is awesome!!! They need to keep providing the same quality of service; it is really helping me.
Not saying this will work everywhere. Demo Marketing slows down the passing out of the business cardsā¦I get about 25-30 out in a six hour dayā¦but, I am averaging about 2-3 sells a day. I donāt know, maybe thatās not much. (NOTE: Iāve only been doing one demo-marketing a day. When it stops working, or the schedule gets full, Iāll stop doing this.)
3 Likes
Thatās great Darryl! Keep it up and keep changing it up, different approaches close different customers.
1 Like
Iāve used the one free clean successfuly in the past. It takes the sale from an intangible and puts it in the tangible category.
When you say youāre good that statement is meaningless totally 100% meaningless because everybody says they are good. LOL
2 Likes
Actions speak louder than words. Though my fear is they will still say no and you washed for free lol but starting out i guess its worth the risk
1 Like
Licensed & Insured, follow up.
1 Like
Not against the free clean, but Iāve never had to do it.
1 Like
WCS, Thank you. I agree about different approaches statement
BostonMike, youāre correct. Iām getting the impression that a lot of shops, where I am marketing, have been screwed over in the past. So, when I walk in, itās like theyāre jaded by past service. But, once they see what they are going to get with my company there isnāt much need to sell them any further. I canāt wait to start marketing to the homes in this area. Looking at door hangers now.
Look to the value and not the cost.
I only do it for prospective clients that are a nice fit to the route or oneās I feel will help promote my business.
I might use the word āFreeā with clients, but I never thank anything I do as being freeā¦itās an investment.
I am demonstrating the value of my product.
Wineries do it.
Car dealers do it.
Doughnut shops and Ice Cream shops do it.
I let pre-qualified people take what I am offering for a test driveā¦I donāt charge for the gas.
The most time Iāve invested in one Client is 45 minutes. 45 min Value Demo now equals $720 for the year. Least amount of time 15 minā¦$208 for the year. I can remember working all week for $208ā¦I can remember working for less than a day for the same amount. Both times I felt like I was giving more work than what I was being paid. Weird, right?
Also, they might never schedule, but they will always remember us.
Sidebar: I will be servicing one job at no cost to the owner. One door and one window. It is a nice upscale hair salon with some nice cars parked out front. I walked in last week, we joked about so little glass to clean, and I told her I just wanted to meet everyone in my area. Before I left, she told me to put several cards on the counter and she would tell her clients about them. She just earned a free monthly clean. It will take longer for me to put more business cards on her counter than for me to clean her door and window. Free? No, that little 1" X 2" counter space has a lot of value to it.
I can understand and respect that. I donāt see it as āhavingā to do it. I see it as one way to select the clients I take on.
3 Likes
This is true. When I take over a square some of the stores wait for a year or two before theyāll sign up with me. I think it takes that long for them to feel confident that lām legit.
2 Likes
Thank you BostonMike for confirming what I was sensing. Put a smile on my face. Because, I got the cure for their pain.
Have a good day!
3 Likes
I smile and nod, say hello, whatever when I pass the nonbelievers. Then down the road out of the blue theyāll ask me to do their windows.
5 Likes
