How is your spring season starting out?
Sales?
Weather?
Hiring?
Our office is slammed… work booked is 118% up YTD over this point last year. We are 35% up in work completed in March. We were bracing for a slow year…
Weather has been amazing in the Midwest overall.
Hiring has been decent. We pay our guys above average for all positions. Just finding guys able and willing to walk roofs is our pain point.
Worried that the rush of sales early will result in sluggish sales this summer… especially if we have a hot dry summer. Even though we are swamped we are doubling our advertising efforts to hopefully avoid this.
We were prepping for a down year in growth and possibly sales. In election years we normally see a slight drop off in growth. We also did another large price hike across the board. (our pricing is 45% up since 2020) With the economy being rough we figured it might be a year to run lean, so we slashed our budget and was planning to possibly run with smaller crews. Prepping for the worst, hoping for the best.
It’s still very early and it’s too early to tell what kind of year we will have.
Off to a slower start here than last year. It should pick up more in April. But I’m not complaining, I was focused on other business things (setting up new PW, taxes, organizing).
This year, I just want things to go smoother, is the best way to put it.
Hopefully this time next year I can be marketing and ready to rock.
Slower start in the north, but smooth.
Picking up a number a route work accounts, all adjusted for you inflation; raised all existing route work by 8%, minimal grumbling.
Getting our residential side off and moving, same deal, raising prices across the board. Sadly it’s needed just to hit equivalency with last year’s buying power.
Here in Delaware it’s as busy as last year. Weather is a struggle. We’ve had to reschedule 5 days so far. 3 of those were consecutive days. I’ve never had that happen in 29yrs. Hiring was much better this year compared to the last 2. Looking forward to what looks like a good year. I haven’t advertised in a long time. I’d like to start again.
The end of march and the first of April our sales fell off a ton after a record start in February and into March. We then picked back up 2nd week in April HOT and havn’t cooled down since. Still up about 60% YTD from this point in 2023.
Don’t really know why they sudden rush in sales. I have some ideas…nice weather, several competitors ether not in business or not marketing like they use to…
Our marketing budget never gets cut… its a nonnegotiable topic in my mind. You cut your marketing you are cutting the lifeline of your business.
Look into Google local service ads and Google Guarantee. Not sure if it’s worth it where you are, but it places you on top of ‘window cleaning service near me’ searches more often.
It weighs in your reviews(age and number), ratings, and authority (website visitors/business age) these are some of the key factors, but others exist.
Can also never go wrong with door hangers/flyers. Just do it multiple times. And target dirty places.
I agree. We would have been thrilled with 15% up lol. Our schedule is still buried. I was waiting it out to see if it was a hot start to the year, but we are still over 50% over last year… currently hiring out another crew and looking to equip another truck.
in this crazy cyclical biz I’ve enjoyed 12 month rolling totals and averages each month to see what’s going on since they include the whole weather cycle, been helpful for a lot of things
last 12 mos vs previous 12 mo totals, gives a nice pulse too
Learned some lessons this spring. If you’re going to book a big power washing project for first thing in the season, be ready to roll with de-winterizing, equipment maintenance, and so on by the middle of February. We ended up with some unseasonably warm weather early March, that could have enabled me to tackle a condominium project and get cashflow started early. Instead, we waited until the last two weeks of March, and got hit with some surprise snowstorms. After getting covid halfway through the project, I was finally able to complete it this past Friday.
But, it’ll be my best April on record so far. And I’m currently booked halfway through June with only one or two openings left before then. The calls keep coming. Hoping this keeps up!
We are trying to hire on more techs with no luck… if i’m 3-4 weeks for a long period of time then its time to add another truck. We are about to be book into June which is insane.
