I just wanted to take a second and give my definitions of 2 services that most people on the forum offer. Storefront window cleaning and commercial window cleaning.
Store Front window cleaning is usually one story (maybe 2 stories, like a car dealership or entrance to a establishment) work that goes on a frequency of at least once a month.
Commercial work is usually 2+ stories (can be one story, example would be a professional office like a dentist, office building, etc.) that goes on a frequency of no more then 4 times per year.
Cost does not matter. So you could have a store front account that pays $1200 a month, then a commercial building that only pays $150 bi annually.
My objective with storefront was to establish a route. High volume of work in a given area.
Commercial work is any “one time” job that we either get inbound from a website or advertisement, or that we generate outbound by doing unsolicited proposals or touching base with warmed up leads.
Makes sense to me. I see stand alone bldgs or sections of a building as commercial. Storefronts as the strip plaza places where one has a Little Caesars, nail salon, coffee shop. ins agency etc… All in a row or within a shopping area. Like you said these are on a route of some type and frequent more. I do a bank in a strip mall but consider it commercial. Do doors every few days touch up others as needed but not on a WC route. It is in a strip but a stand alone since it is part of my commercial/janitorial route. I sometimes picture storefronts as easy quick knock it out move to the next and commercial as, this may take a while.
More just trying to get the point across that even if an account was to pay $1200.00 a month, as long as the frequency was monthly, bi weekly, weekly, or more then once a week, I would consider it part of our “store front” route.
Even if its just a verbal agreement where the client says they want service at least once a month, it gives you something to build off of.
My objective was always to get one job in an area where you could set a goal to build an entire days work within a reasonable amount of driving.
I would agree with J From the D. I think his definition is right on. I might put a small office building that gets done once a month on a route with route work but I would still consider it low rise commercial and not Route work. What makes them different is the point of sale issue. If a business is point of sale the look of the front of the building is crucial to there customers experience, as customers are coming to there business on a regular basis. If a company is not point of sale the look of the building is not as crucial. They still want to maintain it and may have some clients come to their a offices but it is not a regular so not as crucial.
I think Lsmain has brought up a important distinction along with J’s definition. When we consider the difference it becomes more clear that a different approach for each is needed. From selling the job to the service provided a tailored approach would yield greater customer acquisition, satisfaction, and retention, which all translates into a successful business.
I guess for us it really breaks down to market pricing.
If a business goes monthly or more, it’s .$50 per pane/ per side, and that’s high end. The last thing I wanna do is turn this into a price thread, but it might help clarify my companies definitions.
For Anything that goes 1-4 times a year, it’s safe to say pricing will be correct for what the market can handle. Roughly $70-100 per man hour or $4 per pane exterior.
Storefront has gotten to the point where(without being redundant)… It’s pointless. That is unless you have a nice, geographically planned route. There can be great money in it, but the plan of attack has to be very calculated.
I sold old my route last December. Was up to about $4200 a month. I did pretty well with the sale. Do I miss it? Yes, I do. The monthly income from any type of window cleaning is great, but I just allowed it to get too spread out. We had every party city in the state, then I would just take a week or two and build each individual are until I reached my goal.
[MENTION=1736]JfromtheD[/MENTION]
would you say frequency effects the way you look at work in regards to commercial vs storefront?
Like a large clothing retail store that only goes bi annually, would you still consider that storefront?
The way you route yourself makes me curious: How important is the definition and delineation between Job Types in your day-to-day operations? Are the definitions just words or do they have a profound impact on how you work? What I mean is, do you just go through your schedule and see what jobs you can fit in based on your time estimation for each individual job or does the classification actually determine how you work? For some people, they might have a day set aside just for “Residential” and then another day just for “Commercial” and “Storefront”.
Obviously your above posts makes it clear that you set your route with several types of jobs in a day, so is there any other way it affects you? Maybe clerically, like in the back office? Or maybe on your bid sheet/invoice (price, of course, but anything else)?
I’m just curious to see if these definitions affect your business in other ways I haven’t thought of, since the definitions only affect me in two ways:
Yeah, I could call a Residential job a “Boony Tune Romp” and charge whatever makes me profitable - I’m still going to approach the job as an individual job, taking the tools I need and a few extras as insurance for the improbable. Assuming that it’s going to be difficult or easy, solely based on the moniker/title/definition is a pretty bad idea, of course. Just wondering if the definitions make any substantial difference to others? To illustrate, I could see somebody organizing their tools into 4 separate bins/buckets/boxes like so*:
Storefront (Lean Tool Belt)
Commercial (Lean Tool Belt + WFP Backup)
Residential (Medium Tool Belt + WFP)
CCU (Heavy Tool Belt + GlassRenu + ???)
So it could be that the definitions are just words to clarify so that it’s easier to discuss these topics on the forums or maybe they have a heavier impact on how somebody operates. Just looking to see if there’s anything else that I could learn from.
*List isn’t representative of what I’m using or what anybody would use - just put something arbitrary out there for illustrative purposes
For me the issue of categorizing jobs is not for the sake of just giving it a name but rather recognizing that certain job types have common character trates that make them different and therefor my approach with that job might be different. For instance with route work (assuming we are going with J’s definition) when I sell an account I would just walk in and I have a good chance of meeting the decision maker and giving a bid and closing the deal. With Commercial I will probably have to have an appointment to meet with the decision maker. When cleaning the same jobs the route job I can give them a hand bill on job completion and get payed on the spot. With commercial I will probably bill the accounting department and might have to wait on a check.
For me I would tailor my service for each category to suite the needs of the customer which makes me more pleasing to them. That is just my approach. Not saying there aren’t other approaches that might work well but this is just what seems to work for me.
Mike, your post has intrigued me. I am impressed that your business is 98% commercial. Mine is 50% residential and 50% commercial, but I am wanting to raise the percentage more heavily on the commercial side (not route work to be clear). What has been your approach to landing so much commercial? If you would rather respond in private to keep your secrets safe send me a PM, but I would love to get some feed back from you.
