totally
75/hour or whatever isn’t a wage (people like this can never get that thru their head) for a sole operator it’s the ANNUAL gross cost of running a sustainable business (INCLUDING owners wage and taxes) divided by 2,080 hours (40hours x 52weeks), well more like 1,370 after holidays, vacation, weather and drive time
“sorry ma’am, seems like your trying to auction off your work to the cheapest bidder, but i auction off my time to the highest bidder, we’re not a good fit”
we send our invoices in a template saying thank you for choosing us, also features text about how they can pay the invoice, and that their satisfaction is our number one priority so let us know if there are any concerns. People will usually complain if they need to before they pay at that moment.
We also have an email that goes out AFTER they pay asking them how did we do, would they recommend us…how can we improve etc… but thats only once they paid and we know they are satisfied
Lol 
. Love it 
If that came to me at the time I would of went with it. Is it to late ? 
She sent me pictures of all the areas she wanted done. I wanted to say it’s definitely a necessity over there doesn’t look like the lap of luxury
Your exactly right . have you ever done Groupon ? I did a long time ago, and I can assure you your statement is 100% accurate.
I’ve been at roughly $100 with my wife and I working for years. We recently upped the price to try and weed out the people that like to haggle and have three stories. We strictly do ‘nose to glass’ which seems to be a dying art where I live.
One they get is an invitation to offer a star review, which then prompts them to put it on Google or FB. Another is an email from our owner thnking them for their business, and making sure we exceeded their expectations (replies go direct to our office email account).
I think one of the things people do not understand about window cleaning is an experienced professional window cleaner can clean many, many windows to a perfect condition in an hour this take time to get good at.
I had a job a few months ago it was to be billed to NDIS (national disability insurance scheme) where the government pays for the work, they allow $50.25 per hour for window cleaning, it was a small 2 hour job where I had to bill NDIS 4 hours to make the value of the job. However after discussing this on the Aussie WC Facebook page if they audit me I can be charged with fraud because the government gives arbitrary hourly rate without any research, while a registered health professional in home 15 min visit is $350 per visit.
I’d be about the same as you. Remind him that a sub sandwich maker is making the shop $75 an hour and that’s a job you can do with much less skill.
I’ll share a similar scenario, had this potential customer call me, she got my number from so and so whos windows I clean.
I arrange a quote, was thinking in the back of my mind I should just link her my price list on my website to pre qualify the 10kms out of my way would be worth it, but didn’t…
in the initial contact from her, she wanted a quote and then wanted the job done that week if would be able to be fit in.
When I arrived to do the quote, I did my walk around twice as she had a ton of louvers of different sizes… long story short, they started to ask about also doing some pressure washing then I delivered the quote for the windows at $480, next minute they are not wanting to show me what needed to be pressure cleaned anymore and telling me how “oh we will think about it, we are not in any rush.” 2 days before wanted it done THAT week for visitors… cheapskates walk away from them… prequalify to save time and fuel
This is exactly why I do most if not all of my quoting over the phone. Saves so much time and I can give them a ball park which gives them an idea of how much I charge
Well if I would have ball barked this job from street view I would have been at about 250-300, in that respect if that is what they were expecting I’m glad I lost it…
It didn’t help that the google maps street view was from 2015 when the block had yet to be built on nor that the house had ever been sold so no real estate pics exists. meaning other than asking the customer to take pics of every window… yeah I quote in person… just landed a full property clean where price is no object. $3.5k windows, roof, house wash, paths and driveways for a 15 min quote, job will take 20hours if I stretch it out lol
I love those, had a similar one in the beginning of Spring. The lady was just like when can we do it.
It isn’t his business. You charge what you need to make. It’s 2022. Inflation has kicked in atleast 25% already, regardless of what the paid talking heads on MSM say…
The guy is most definitely a bafoon.
Thank him for his service inquiry and move on…
Yeah. I need to get better about it too. They aren’t worth the pain.
@Steve076 i don’t go based off of google street view. I ask the customer what kind of windows they have and then I ask them to count them out to me. That way it is based off of what they told me. Then when I get to the job to perform the work, I do a walk around and make sure what they told me was accurate. If it’s not accurate I’ll go inform them before I do the work.
Usually it is very accurate
Your “customer” isn’t running your books or profit margin.
The price is the price - doesn’t accept it? That’s fine, offer an adjustment if you’re hungry enough, otherwise have a nice day.
Next.
And never change the price, offer a one time discount due to a short term schedule opening…so they don’t expect that same lowered price the next time.
Just give them a hard price…have a couple CYA stipulations, and virtually never change it once you get there. Even if you’re off $100 once in a while, how much more work were you able to perform in all the time you saved on the other quotes. We used to do “count quotes” for windows, but with the new features for ResponsiBid we went to a straight SF pricing for window cleaning. It comes out to about 20% more than we priced it by counting, but we give them 10% off for booking it al the same time as their wash. We’re charging a tad more across the board, so we’ll have that to balance when we have the occasional bad number. Plus we have the added benefit of putting a window add-on option onto almost every housewash we quote, so selling a lot more of them than when we specifically counted. No one wanted to spend the time to go through all that if they weren’t particularly interested in window cleaning (including the salesperson). But now they see a price and they get 10% off, so they check the add-on box and buy that too. We ask if they have storm windows if it’s a house that looks like it might, or if we can’t tell if it’s divided panes, but none of it is a complete dealbreaker as rare as that is for us to encounter. An estimate is good enough, you can be high or low of the exact answer…and as long as you’re not always low you’ll be fine.
I never quote like this customer describing there windows and counting, their window count is 15 my pane count is 52 quite a discrepancy.
Customers don’t count by the pane but I do.
