I’m in season 3 now and pulling in about 50-60k each year. This year was the least amount I’ve subbed for other window cleaners so that’s a plus but I can’t get consistent 500-600 days like my competitors get here in Seattle. I’m just not getting enough calls. To make matters worse, I can’t throw enough money to bump them from the top of Google.
Any tips on how to circumvent this issue? Flyers seem inefficient (most claim .5-1.5 percent callbacks and my experience was even worse)
You can crush the big guys. Your lean, your mean and you hungry. Seattle is a great market with lots of window cleaning companies big and small. You have that Microsoft money out there as well as lots of other big businesses. There’s cash everywhere just waiting to be taken.
Set a goal. What do you want to make? 100k a year?
SEO isn’t really the sort of thing you can just throw money at and expect results. It’s about building quality content on a solid ‘foundation’ or platform. It takes time, but all the info is out there for you to do it yourself.
As far as your business goes, if you intend on keeping your operation small for a while, You can leverage that to your advantage.
Instead of focusing on the things your competition can provide better than you (like convenience, expedient scheduling, or a faster service), focus on what you can provide that none of the big dogs can. Things like personalized service (customers working directly with the business owner from start to finish), perfect quality control, trust, and building solid rapport with each of your customers.
These are all things that the right customers will pay a premium for, because, “supply and demand”. There’s only one of you. And there are thousands of potential customers who would want to use someone just like you instead of a big company, if they only knew it were an option.
So your job is getting your message across to as many of the right types of people as possible. Conveying with confidence that you’re worth more to them than a big company that will take their call on the second ring, process them into their mysterious computer system, give them a vague price estimate, and then dispatch ‘two technicians’ to arrive between 12pm and 2pm next Thursday.
If the big dogs are pulling $500-$600 per man, per day in your market, that means you should be able to pull $750+, if you just leverage your strengths as a solo operator.
Boom
What avenues have explored so far to get the phone to ring?
I’ve done flyers in the past. About 2000 flyers and 500 postcards. Got 0 calls. Last spring a built a website and tried seo stuff but it didn’t yield a whole lot. Maybe 5-6 jobs a month from that. Most of my work came from my friends old business that he sold and shrank the size of their service area.
By big dogs I mean successful owner operators. There’s actually very few large scale window cleaning companies out here most are one man.
I have great reviews on thumbtack and a good reputation. But that’s kinda moot if no one else picks up the phone
Are you posting every day on Craigslist? They might be mostly cheapos but you need to get your name out there.
Sounds like your business is still in the phase where you should be knocking on doors and hanging flyers.
You could also park your truck in a prominent location like the local Starbucks. Sit for an hour doing paperwork sipping a Latte and get a lot of free exposure.
… Not even close to enough for the results you want, especially in a large market like Seattle.
10,000 eddm cards…
My business is in Phoenix, When searching window cleaning or window washing nearly anywhere in the city, we come up in the maps and near the top of all organic search. Then I decided to do work in Tucson about 6-9 months ago. I “opened” a Tucson page on our website, and now we get calls all the time in Tucson. We’ve done $50,000+ in Tucson in only 6 months simply because of our website. Search “high rise window cleaning tucson” you will see us. search “commercial window cleaning tucson” or “window cleaning tucson” you will see our site. I know and understand SEO, this makes marketing so simple. I’ve spend $0 in advertising in last 3+ years, and business has quadrupled in that time. (People in this forum seem to get bothered and upset when I mention this.) I’m not sure why. I have a heart for other window cleaners and like to help. (I’ve NEVER done flyers, so I cannot comment on flyers)
Window washing cost typically range from $2-$7 per pane, but there are some companies that charge an hourly late. For best results, it’s always ideal to have the windows cleaned at least twice a year.
Clean site but maybe change Late to RATE, sorry it just stuck out as I was reading
As always…great information Alex!
Something that i would work on passionately is a customer referral with your current clients. They all have friends and family that need there windows cleaned. Your current customers can be your best sales people, because they know you do top notch work and your trustworthy.
One good referral from each of your customers can/could double your business over night…just saying 
Customer referrals can be a huge growth avenue, if you are dedicated to it.
I like that.
If you do one small thing everyday to better yourself and/or family or for your business in one year that is 365 small thing will equal “Huge” results.
Also if your local coffee shop, diner, convience store, etc has a bulletin board you could ask if you can put up a flyer.
On Sundays take your truck when you go to morning mass. Be sure to arrive early for the best parking spot so all the rich old ladies walk past it.
