I live up in the great Northeast and the houses have stopped. I am now in the process of boosting my storefront route to make it through until the spring. Would love nothing more than to just do a route like our friend Chris. Than work on product development for the WCR on the side along with my production biz Molecular Health Media. BUT. I thought a thread like this would help us all. There are certain chains that I won’t even waste my time with. I have about a hundred stores on my route now. And prefer the independant stores with maybe five or ten plates that I clean every other week, outs only and in of the doors. These tend to be more profitable. There are chains out there that I like such as Dunkin Donuts since they are weekly and pay cash. The biggest problem with the D & Ds are they are too cheap. I had some but now none. I am reaching for on the average two bux per side. Tell me what you think.
Building a store front route that has all quality clients is extremely difficult and takes time. Of course, there are exceptions to every rule.
Remembering that for every window you bid 2 dollars a side a guy is willing to do it for 1.
I have found that building an effective route has more to do with route management and patience. If you don’t have patience then you will find yourself bidding lower and lower as time goes on. For us we put more focus on picking up houses and commercial but the right amount of store front is great to have and especially if you have employees
Henry, I’ve found similar tendencies where I work. Most of the chain stores are not worth it, but a small few are decent to deal with.
I can usually get more per side when it’s a smaller job, but that’s probably the same most everywhere. This is a good time of year to scoop up accounts that the faint of heart can’t hack with the weather.
chain stores in my area are a waste of time too especially the restaurants, I see them make their employees go out with a rag to clean their windows. Its funny because sometimes in a jack in the box or mcdonalds there will be a long line of people waiting to order and then I look at one of the employees with a spray bottle and rag cleaning windows, he is taking his sweet old time as if thats his escape to not be in the kitchen. lol
I do have several store front accounts that came to me over time, when they asked for a quote I gave them a high price and expected them not to call me back, they did and now I got some really good accounts. It took time and patience as Jared was saying. I think the key for me picking up those accounts was that they came to me so I had the upper edge in negotiatin, they had a problem and they came to me for a solution.
In the case of my first store, they had a janitorial company that mops the floors also clean the windows, they were not good at it and so the management got fed up with seeing streaks and drips, so they bunkered down and realized they needed a professional company. once they realized that window cleaning was not something that a average joe could do they knew they would have to pay a decent price to hire a professional.
I had a couple of ideas. First I was thinking about offering to do a single window just to show the difference.
Second I was thinking about demonstrating scratch maintenance. Removing some scratches first. And carrying a mirror treated on one side with a scratch guard chem. Take a broken piece of beer bottle and try to scratch. Only the side not treated will show scratching. Of course you would have to charge about four bux per square foot for this service. Maybe the best time to offer such a service would be when a store is brand new. And if the franchise owner also owns the building.
I think overall however the best thing would be to continually make yourself known. Patience is the best way as has been mentioned. If it is an independent store get to know the owner first. This might take a few months but it could be well worth the time.
One of my best accounts is a motel. I do the entry in and out. Also the pool area in and out. 75 bux every other week. Although out of 100 accounts probably 35% are either restaurants or hair salons. These are usually cash jobs too. Have been picking up a few quarterlys as of late. This is interesting cuz I can get my 2 bux per side even for very small windows that can be done in 15 seconds. Just picked up a Vet as a quarterly barter based on this pricing structure.
Henry, I follow almost that exact method to pick up store fronts. What I am curious about is the scratch guard chemicals. I have only read about them and I couldn’t figure out how to apply it to glass. Everything I have read seemed to me that the application is
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The chem I am speaking about is a silane created about 20 years ago. I shouldn’t be too specific about it cuz I don’t know if the WCR might want to sell it. I spoke with the chemist who helped develop it once. Told him that the application technique was critical to the performance. He didn’t believe me. Thats OK. Truth is the window must be microlapped with a cerium around five micron particle size. Then it is amazing. But not foolproof.
I haven’t had very good luck retaining chain stores. I’d guess only 5% of my route is made up of them. But if I calculated the lost accounts, I’d bet that number is closer to 30% to 35%
