Hey all,
So august has been utterly depressing. It’s our first year in business doing residential and we’ve been managing pretty well but this month was brutal. Every quote we’ve given was rejected. I’m guessing there’s people under quoting us. I’m a little worried for September. What do you seasoned window/gutter cleaners do?
Side note: When do you launch your fall campaigns?
Why are you focusing on residential only? Commercial will get you through the slow times.
I am not fully in window cleaning business but what we do is run a promotion for cleaning business by increasing the price on website and lowering our actual prices by $5 off each our.
Also slow times are good to think about your dependance on where you advertise, get your leads and overall campaign to get more jobs.
This is my 10th year in business and 8th doing residential only, and this is the first time that August has been busy straight through. Wait til the kids are back in school, then market hard to those who shot you down over the summer
July is traditionally my worst month and this past one was no exception. August is slow but picking up.
Target areas that you haven’t done before like gated communities. Go in and talk to the Resident Manager or call if you can to see if you can get on their community newsletter; call all of the people that you have cleaned in the past from 3 months back to a year ago and see if they are ready to get their next cleaning done; Grab a handful of your business cards and write on the back how much it would be to do exterior and interior/exterior monthly at strip stores or stand alone shops, restaurants, etc. Hit Doctor offices, dentist offices, hair salons, any place that has dirty windows or sloppily cleaned windows - heck any place that has windows - you don’t care as long as they potentially have a need for your services. The thing is with no jobs lined up you have all of that free time to see how many “No’s” it takes to get several good “Yes’s”.
After a few jobs set aside a percentage of money for marketing purposes and use those funds to revamp your efforts. Always be selling. Businesses have homes with windows, and homes have businesses with windows. 25, $10 jobs near each other is $250. 9% taken from that is $22.50 towards your marketing budget and $227.50 in your pocket; Repeat.
It ain’t easy, don’t get too discouraged.
Get out there and kick it!
Don’t get too worried, it’s your first year in business. You’ll gradually build up a customer base who like their windows done this late in the year, but typically August is a transition month before the fall cleans.
It’s my third August in business, 1st full time. Always slower. I try to market heavily January to March to catch these customers on the biannual mark in Summer. The phone starts to blow up October 1st from the snowbirds arriving. Try to offer early repeat service interval incentives, set aside a percentage from every job to get you through the slow months, and be frugal. Before you make a purchase, ask yourself if the item is an asset or liability to your finances.
What state are you in?
Try and build up some storefront. It is a nice bridge through the slower times and allows you to enjoy the break that a slow down can bring. Personally, August has been slow and I couldn’t be happier. I’ve averaged a 50-60% growth this year, so the time spent doing other things has been rather nice. My vacation is next month and I am looking forward to not being stressed going into it.
My observation over the last 13 years has been that people who are really serious/motivated buyers will contact me earlier in the year, or later in the year. The time we’re in right now seems to be when all the stragglers appear out of the woodwork, slightly bored and thinking to themselves, “yeah, I might as well get this done now, if the price is right…”
Each year will be a little better than the one prior, though, as your list of repeat customers grows, and your reputation builds to the point that you’ll never slow down to a complete crawl like you’re experiencing now.
This is my fourth August and resi is always slow. I did a few commercial jobs so that counteracts the slow resi.
Wow thank you guys for answering! Very practice information and also lots of encouragement. Yeah we need to plan ahead for August… we’re still making ends meet (sp?) but its a huge drop from other months. I definitely will work on marketing more in the August months and offering some kind of discount. We do have a couple of commercial clients so I also like the idea of scheduling them for August…
This is my fifth season and this August is just as slow as the previous ones, especially for resi. This July was my best July, so that helps.
I started a weekly PW of the electric utility’s fleet last month so it is nice to have that stable revenue to offset the WC slowness.
Since this has become predictable I am not very concerned. I took a week off at the start of the month to see my grandchildren and I will take another week off to see them at the end of the month.
Our July was really great too - August wasn’t bad either. Surprisingly we have a lot of new business this year and hardly any returning clients. My guess is they are waiting for fall since spring was thrown off due to covid.
I learned from last year to also plan a week off from work so I try to book what I can for September just to sort of fill in more days. At this point haven’t booked new work in about 5 days so I’m anticipating September will be as slow as last year 
Though we did upgrade the marketing budget I think next year I’ll focus it a little more towards power washing
This August has been crazy for me. I am on pace to double my best August to date. I added PW and that accounts for about 25% of the increase.
Lost my employee at the start of the month and finally have a new person starting Tuesday. Thank goodness…
Other than April and May, this year has been on fire.
July was a surprisingly good month for me. June was bad and August is looking only slightly better than June. Traditionally the summer months are slow here in Florida because snow-birds go back up north and people go on vacations - but the covid has thrown a wrench in the gears so do not know what to expect. No jobs booked for this week or next so far, but it is Monday and I am going searching. Hoping for a change…Hey wait a minute, I have heard that somewhere before - ah, never mind. Dirty windows everybody. 
My August slow down is minimal as the year had a bit of a late start. However, I always welcome down time.
I’ve found over the the years that I need rest. That feeling only lasts for a few days and then I start to get antsy. I’ve found it’s good to develop other passions.
Now I really look forward to down time. I build ebikes and do powerlifting.
How in the world do you have the endurance for wfp when you powerlift? Are you doing more strongman stuff, or true 2-8 rep cycles in a weight room? I used to be into powerlifting, but hurt my back in college because I overworked it doing odd jobs, then I wasn’t lifting alot, but I moved the wrong way on a squat. Window cleaning actually helps keep my core strong so my back doesn’t slip out.
Very cool but I’m sorry to hear about your back! I got into it a few years ago because my brother is heavy into lifting. When in busy season I try to only maintain with a minimum of one weekly workout of lifts 60-80% of one rep max. It’s in the off season that I get back into 3 rounds a week staying below 5 reps and cycling to cut in between.
I’ve got a few old injuries from my youth that I’m working around and trying to build muscle and stability on so that I can keep up with the work load.
I actually find that huge wfp 6-7 story jobs have gotten much much easier every time I do them since I’ve been training more. It’s definitely hard but the benefits far out weigh the effort! My posture feels more natural and I’m more stable when window cleaning. Plus, you can’t gain without the best possible diet so that’s probably kicking my butt more than lifting heavy weight!.. I love beer and pizza too much! LOL
Chiropractor does wonders on muscles and ligaments.
Part of the cost of doing business.
