Hey enviro, before you hit the kill button have you done everything possible to help your clients through this? Have you done all you can do to cut your expenses? Sure things are not what they were but they are certainly not dead. the idea is to add more value to your customers. Your route customers are experiencing the same issues you are so work with them, it will pay off in the long run. and hey if your in jersey give me your client list id love to visit them.
Ditto if you’re in North Jerz lol
Enviro,
My wife went into the hospital with respiratory failure & Pnuemonia on March 11th, 2010 right at the beginning of ohio window cleaning prime season. She also had cellulitus in her legs, one of which became infected and turned purple. She was put into ICU on a ventilator to breathe for her for two weeks! They tried three times to remove it but soon had to cram the hose back down her throat!
My wife before this happened was a big part of helping me from home, answering the phone, and watching two of our grand children so that my Daughter could help me and her husband (Dewey) to clean windows. (crew of 3)
The hospital was asking me to choose a nursing home in case she can’t walk or take care of herself when she does get out of the hospital. She was only 48 at this time. We have been married since 1980 and we never thought we would be talking about a nursing home so soon!
She did get out of the hospital, and avoided the nursing home because of being able to stand turn and sit in a chair beside her bed.
After replacing a claw style bath tub with a walk in shower, with a seat ,and grab bars, and added grab bars by the toilet, and since we had a one floor plan house, they let her come home on oxygen.
I had already missed, many days of prime season starting out the gate and now we faced the rest of the year 2010 with my daughter watching my wife and a crew of 2 not 3, plus without health insurance, I had to make appointments with SSI, Job & Family services. (to only get denied after months of paper work, appeals, and appointments).
But in spite of all this, my son in law and I still posted a 3.5% gain over year 2009 which is once again our largest gross profit in the 7 plus years in business. And this was with the loss of a city of Springfield city bldg. contract that had brought in over $8,000 a year in 2008 & 2009.
I am not looking to jerk any tears but if I had listened to the negative talk, news , skeptics maybe I would have cashed in my chips!
I nearly lost my wife, but she surprised the nurses and doctors. She had more want to live and survive than what the negative facts and forces against her were trying to dictate!
She has reasons to make it, Grand kids, two daughters, and I hope I’m on that list as well.
Do you have your want to,…your reason to survive,… your determination to make it?
Or are you looking to justify giving up, the economy doctors said it looks fatal.
A young man went to see an old wise man who had much wealth and wisdom. He ask the old man to share with him the secret to success. The old man said if you really want to know, then walk with me along the sea shore and I will teach you the secret to success. So they walked along the shore without saying a word for a long period and finally the impatient young man said well, when are you going to teach me the secret to sucess? So, after a breif stare, the old man grabbed the young man by the arm and pulled him out waist deep into the water. Without saying a word the old man forced the young mans head under the water and held him down. The young man struggled to get out from under the water swinging his arms and kicking and thinking he was going to die. Then after what seemed like an eternity to the young man the old man let him come up. The young man after getting his next breath shouted, " you old man ,were you trying to kill me, what is wrong with you?" The old man in a calm slow voice said, “when you were under the water,what did you want more than anything else in the world?” The young man said “you fool, I wanted to get my next breath!”
The old man said " When you want to succeed as much as you wanted to breathe, you will find a way!"
Some say 10% unemployment but that means there is 90% employed!
I figure that the unemployed ones do not live in the neighborhood that pays for window cleaning!
You have heard enough from this forum, that it should let you know that others should not tell you if you can be succesful in this 90% gainfully employed economy.
Clean the windows of the 90% and if you can’t keep up with the work you are fortunate that the other 10% want to work for you and help you earn more!
Anybody that reads this thread Please add Matt Perry wife in your prayer list. Thank you Matt.
Thanks, my wife is Carrie, and I hope that telling her story of how determination can help you, that you too will look beyond what others say, and find a way to make things work.
Wow thats a bold statement “Window cleaning business is DEAD”. I personally do not believe that. 2 years ago I decided to wash windows after losing my job. Did more than decided I ACTED on that decision. Printed up hundreds of post cards to email to storefront business, golf clubs, banquet halls, and offices. I also made up door hangers and started handing those out in the neighborhood. Put up flyers in grocery stores, hair salons, the library, hardware stores, etc. That first year I got a big contract with a local golf club/ banquet hall and from that came at least 4 residential jobs. I also got more than 12 residential jobs just from flyers and cheapo, one page website that showed up on local searches. This past year I got even more work and I credit that to the advise given on this forum. Stuff that I would never have though to try. Did it and it worked. Made more profit and had happier customers that were happy to give referrals. Just like any business it will die if you let it. If you put for the effort and more importantly provide EXCELLENT service there is no way it cant grow.
Me to, Thanks everyone. I remember when I was selling cars. I started hanging out with all the old timers sitting under the tent waiting for customers to show up and buy a car. Now, before this I had done OK selling. I got to listening to them talk about how bad things were and all the reasons people were not buying cars that the 20th of April rolled around and I had not sold one car. The customers That I had talked to that month I was convinced before I shook their hands that they were not going to buy for what ever reason. Finally in the depths of my self pity I asked myself one question; What reason have I given these customers to but? How will it benefit them to buy from me instead of the other guy? I went inside got on the phone and started giving people reasons to become my customer. The last 10 days of the month I sold more units and made more money than any month before or since. Once you land a new account keep selling because that’s when you’re the most pumped up. Joe Verde a great sales trainer said that selling is when you take your enthusiasium and pass it to your customer. That is something I need to remember my self
That is how I started after losing a job in mid march 2003. I had a friend in the WC business teach me how to clean and I just went everywhere I saw glass and started asking if they had a window cleaner or if they would like a quote!
I made 14K the last 8 mos of 2003, 32K in 2004 I have each year since grown from 11 to 39% over each previous year total with the exception of 2010 was a 3.5% growth but my wife had some major medical set backs that year that slowed us down.
But the business is alive and well and we have over 100 commercial accounts and have cleaned over 350 residential customers. The business is still growing mostly by referral now. I really think we will earn triple the annual salary that I lost in 2003 this year. That old JOB paid $17 per hour. I sure don’t miss it now.
Enviro, Sorry about Springfield, MO, but business is alive and well here in Springfield, OH!
Matt Perry- that is one of the best responses I have ever read on WCR.
Thank you for taking the time to share it.
Whoops, I am referring to this one:
Enviro:
I am a college educated, past six-figure earning Window Washer.
I like what I do. I can get as much business as I need by knocking on doors, talking to the people who own the businesses I buy goods and services from and by asking people the following question:
“Who do you know who might need my services that you would feel comfortable calling right now?”
If this is one of your customers and they truly love your work, they will know at least 2 people who will use your service. You can have your customer call the person while you’re standing there and then hand the phone over so you can introduce yourself and schedule an appointment. It is better, though, to head over to the referral’s home or business as soon as possible.
Sound too aggressive? It is for some. If you don’t have the “moxie” to pull this off, set a time and date by which your customer will do this for you and let them know that they will get a 5-10% discount, or a free service if the referral schedules and pays for a whole house window cleaning within, say, 10-20 days. Any longer and I think you will lose the job.
Does it make a difference that I went to college and earned a lot of money? No! It does matter that I’m honest, thorough, treat my customers’ homes as if they were mine and ask for additional business. Hard work and setting a fair price for your services is what makes the difference.
Window cleaning is not a dead business. If a business cuts what they’ll pay to clean windows, decide whether you should clean their windows anymore, or, ad a polishing and sealing service to select windows so the customer can go longer between cleanings. The benefit here is your customer gets clean windows that will stay that way longer and your benefit is that you preserve some revenue while adding your expertise and exposing your client to another service that they will probably add on to all windows in the future.
If you think the business is dead, consider calling it quits and make an orderly exit. Otherwise, double down, pound the pavement and you can make great money.
How do you define a “fair price”?
What I’ve heard before is that there were more millionaires created during the great depression than in any other time in history.
I have to disagree. My business is growing and I had a record year last year. I did have to work very hard for that. I started back in 2009 when the economy started to get bad. I joined two additional leads groups ( I was already in one) asked my customers to review me on Yelp, sent out more postcards and worked the internet much more. I am a one man show and I will be hiring someone this year so things are really looking up. I also have a diversified offering of services which really helps. Window cleaning is and has always been the # 1 money maker in my business, but I also clean gutters install gutter protection and cleand solar panels. I do window and door screens and install the ClearView Invisible Screen Door. I also remove fog and moisture from dual pane windows. The truth is I would get bored doing only one thing so doing many is a benefit in more ways than one. Try adding additional services. I added one new service per year for the past 5 years and it has helped my business to grow. I list all the services on my phone message so that the customer calling for window cleaning is reminded that I can also fix their screens, clean their solar panels etc. I have had many customers that have requested that I preform all my services for them on the same visit and this really helps a $150.00 window cleaning climb to $800.00 -$900.00 or more in some cases.
Keep at it and work hard and things will change.
Randy Mills
Pioneer Services
Sunnyvale, CA
This is the single greatest thing you can do ffor your business. Between screen repair, gutter cleaning / whitening etc you can easily double your per-job cost, and the customer is usually thrilled to have you as their “one stop” guy!
That is a profound truth!
Thanks Paul, It puts your priorities in order when your wife of thirty plus years thought she was going to die and could only write on dry erase board to talk to you. She had hoses in her throat, her nose, a pick line in her arm, countless wires taped to her body, machines pumping and chiming,and bags of I.V. fluids hanging.
Then she writes on a note… “Am I going to die?”…all the while tears are running down her face!..
So what if the economy is wilted, and people say business is slow, and a few% more people are unemployed than the normal % that really do not want to work ever.
Well my reason for working, is alive at home and, so what if I did not set a new double digit growth year!
I have her and our two girls, and our four grand children. Life is good!
And yes, I still love the window cleaning business.
Thanks again for your kind reply.
We need to see these stories sometimes to remind us of what’s most important in life. I know you weren’t just trying to get sympathy, Matt, but thanks for airing that out. Go get 'em.
+1
Thank you, sorry for the drama, but it is hard for me to hear and understand of people who can’t find a way to make a living.
I get so many people (customers) who ask me if I know anyone who would do a service for them, clean out my attic, power wash my driveway, pull weeds, fix a fence, repair this or that.
If window cleaning had been declared dead, I would knock on doors and ask for odd jobs, there is enough out there to start other lines of business, or at least find enough to feed a family.
You WCR fans are probably sorry I read this thread, I’ll get off my high horse now.
Thanks for listening!
