The same net hourly rate could be used as one comparison.
To me, $500 at one location at one time is of greater value than $500 at one location over one year’s time (and one year’s travel, etc.)
There is the possible added benefit of high ROI of residential referrals and immediate neighborhood canvassing above and beyond that of a commercial setting (but I don’t have data nor have I researched.)
I agree w/ you Larry. If we do a little math it shows you’re right on target. For instance if you say 15 minutes on a $10 (setup to tear down) over 26 weeks (most of my commercial is done every 2 weeks) you’ve spent 6.5 hrs not counting travel time. I can do at least $600 of work at the same location in that time. That’s more than the $260 from the commercial job. Even if you think my time frame is off by 5 minutes each cleaning then you’ll still be at it for over 4hrs for $260. Now add the exposure in the neighborhood and the referrals and you begin to see the snowball rolling down the hill. Don’t get me wrong I have some commercial to keep a regular income in the slow months but I’d rather just do residential.
What do you charge for residential, $100 an hour! I thought that the going rate was $50-$70 an hr, at least in Cali. $260 seems just right for 4 hrs of residential work.
No I make it a point not to count chickens before they hatch. Sales leads are just that leads. I try to stay positive about all aspects of my business but I know some leads will come to fruition and some will not.
I see where you are coming from though. A customer that seems like it will generate 500 a year might not.
However, I don’t do any work until a schedule is agreed upon by the manager/owner. I rarely lose jobs once the schedule is agreed upon. I rarely lose jobs due to lowballers either.
The most common thing that happens is work that starts as once a week, might decide to go to every other week.
However after about a month or so they stick to the same schedule for months or years.
Yes but there is also a good roi on commercial. Once you get your first commercial job in an area, and if it is a once a week job especially. You can keep an eye on an area bidding on new stores that open up. People will see you working there and will ask for you to do their windows. Once you get one job in a thriving commercial area, you can eventually dominate it.
I have started in an area with one job, or just a few and have eventually got dozens of jobs spending a day or two just covering one very small area. Keep in mind though I live in a big city. 2.5 million in the core area.
Initially having one job in an area is costly in terms of travel and gas, but as you begin to dominate an area, that is minimized and you can make good money per hour.
You have a point on the travel time bit. However focusing on commercial can be quite lucrative too. Commercial route is all I do. The benefits are having steady income all year round, without sweating the winter. Simple work and easier windows to clean, less ladder work. I enjoy doing commercial route, and I’m looking to diversify by adding some residential later as well. Although the points about travel are valid, we shouldn’t look negatively on commercial route.
[B]mikep:[/B]
The point that you just made is what I was driving at…
I have seen it happen MANY times with commercial that the client’s window cleaning schedule shifts and changes based on the arrival and departure of managers, the profitability of the business, etc.
And using your example above, if a weekly $10 job is reduced to twice/mth, its now worth [I]less than half [/I]of what it was worth.
And to agree with you, sometimes commercial can be just as good, with ZERO tear down and set up time, since you were walking by the job between your other existing jobs anyway.
(I actually sense a little bit of an ‘attachment’ to your commercial work, which I can understand, since I make half of my money from Commercial too, and 3 years ago, I made 99% of it from Commercial)
That being said, Mike, maybe its more useful to use a slightly different analogy for you:
Which would you prefer :
[I][INDENT]a) A sweet $15 commercial job that is beside your existing client, that promises to use you every week, and that takes you 15 minutes to do,
or
b) A twice/yr commercial job that takes 6.5 hours and that earns $390 each time.[/INDENT][/I]
These 2 options have the same hourly rate + same yearly rate.
Do you have a preference between the two jobs?
And more importantly, if you were paying for leads (which is what we’re talking about here, right), would you consider both of those jobs to be worth the same amount of commission?
It is apparent that you have been successful in your commercial route work endeavors.
What would happen if I got ONE job in an area that YOU are currently dominating?
Would I end up dominating it? Could I? I don’t think so, based on your commitment to work ethic, and intelligent business practices, as expressed on this forum.
And this is the ‘don’t bank on domination’ point that I was making earlier.
Unless of course, by “thriving”, you actually mean “currently being built as new construction”, in which case I am wrong, but I don’t think that’s what you mean.
The area dominating thing only becomes definitive in areas where serious mistakes are being made in the strategies of your competitors - like gross overcharging, horrible workmanship or major customer service mismanagement.
I estimated $600 for about 6.5 hrs of work. My wife works w/ me so it works out to 13 man hrs which translates into $48 per hr. That’s in line w/ the $50-75 per hr you’re talking about.
Yes I agree that schedules change, in my experience they usually change in the beginning when the customer is getting used to getting their windows cleaned by you. Usually the schedule remains through many managers. The window cleaners job is more secure than the managers job I find.
And to agree with you, sometimes commercial can be just as good, with ZERO tear down and set up time, since you were walking by the job between your other existing jobs anyway.
(I actually sense a little bit of an ‘attachment’ to your commercial work, which I can understand, since I make half of my money from Commercial too, and 3 years ago, I made 99% of it from Commercial)
That being said, Mike, maybe its more useful to use a slightly different analogy for you:
Which would you prefer :
[I][INDENT]a) A sweet $15 commercial job that is beside your existing client, that promises to use you every week, and that takes you 15 minutes to do,
Not to argue about semantics, but my pricing strategy is set so that I wouldn’t take 15 minutes to do a $15 dollars job, For a very small job, I usually make about $90/hour while working on the job. So for a job I priced at $15, I would be done in 10 minutes. I’m even going to price higher next year for small jobs I’m going to price at $1.25 a window with a 10 dollar minimum.
or
b) A twice/yr commercial job that takes 6.5 hours and that earns $390 each time.[/INDENT][/I]
These 2 options have the same hourly rate + same yearly rate.
Do you have a preference between the two jobs?
I’m not stupid, the big commercial is where it is at. I have gotten 2 big commercial jobs one yearly, one monthly where I can charge double what I get for storefront.
I’m looking in the future to target big commercial and get more of it, I’m sure I can make at least $100 an hour in some property management companies.
To clarify though, when I say I make at least $55/hour in storefront this is what I mean. That 55/hour includes arriving at my first job to working my last job, it includes coffee breaks, and lunch. For example I might start my first job at 8AM, and finish my last at 4PM. I will have a couple coffee breaks, have lunch, maybe walk a bit and canvass a couple jobs, and make in those 8 hours $440. When working at small jobs, I usually make $90/hour, and because of transportation in between jobs, walking or driving, that settles to 55, or $60 bucks an hour.
Kevin, I think we understand each other much better. I agree with your points about commercial route schedule changing. I’m not ignorant that there is money in residential and good money in big commercial. I’m just trying to draw people’s attention to the fact that storefront is a money maker too and should never be underestimated.
In regards to dominating an area. I don’t think I could sweep the rug from you. However you and I are two window cleaners. There are some professional window cleaners, but many more horrid ones. You are a good quality window cleaner. Where I grow and get new jobs in an area is from several things that happen much more often than you think. old stroes closing, and new stores opening up, customer abandonment from window cleaners, window cleaners retiring, window cleaners “going on vacation”. Also from window cleaners that don’t show up for a few weeks in the winter when it’s too cold for them, from window cleaners that do shoddy work, and treat their customers badly. There are many reasons why this happens.
Storefront window cleaners are presently some of the worst window cleaners around, they are unreliable, shoddy looking, they frequently abandon their customers, or “get a real job”, they also are unkind, or rude to their customers. So that is why over time and patience many areas can be quickly “dominated”, and a profitable, dense route can be developed.
Interesting musings, Mike.
It definitely sounds like you are working in commercial areas with mostly hackers, in which case, you have a substantial opportunity, and I feel a little jealous, I’ll be honest!
My commercial route that I maintained and grew for 4 years (as a franchisee) consisted of mostly downtown stuff, which was very well done by my competitors, and nobody fooled around with letting quality slip or reliability. There was no chance of dominating, because nearly everyone was fighting hard, with few exceptions.
Serious professionals only, for a major downtown core radius.
Perhaps out of the Toronto core there is more opportunity with commercial, i.e. the “suburb” communities…Vaughan, Miss, Brampton, etc
I have found the opposite of your comments to be true, and maybe its because of the geographic thing.
And it’s good to average out pricing over a day period for honest comparison. Without that, numbers get a little silly.
One of my $50 storefronts takes 4 minutes. Does that mean that I can say I earn $750/hr ? Of course not. (Except during those 4 minutes though!)
The ONLY fair way to evaluate and compare (in my opinion) is how you explained:
From putting the applicator to the first window in the morning to squeegeeing the water off your last window at night, INCLUDING lunch, breaks, driving, etc, and then dividing THAT number by the actual hours it took.
Try this: I actually use a much stricter method, counting from when I climb into my vehicle in my driveway to climbing out when I arrive home, and factoring in travel time, too (and I subtract the $$ I spent on lunch, breaks, etc) for a [I]seriously, pure-profit distillation[/I].
Kevin, I actually work downtown, I don’t do Missisauga, Brampton etc. You can develop a good route in any affleuent area. With patience, persistence, and keeping my eyes open to new opportunites I have been quite successful at developing lucrative routes.
I’m realitively new to focusing on the downtown area, but I am developing some fine routes. There are some areas that are hard to cut it, but usually that is due to socio-economic factors, like Queen St W is hard to get, and not generally worth it.
I have developed two very vibrant areas, two of them in midtown Toronto. One route took up to a day and a half to do about 6 blocks of work.
I’m very good at developing commercial routes. There is much involved in it, and I’m not going to go into great detail since we are both competing in the same area, but suffice to say it’s a mixture of out of the box thinking, persistence, patience, and timing.
One of my $50 storefronts takes 4 minutes. Does that mean that I can say I earn $750/hr ? Of course not. (Except during those 4 minutes though!)
The ONLY fair way to evaluate and compare (in my opinion) is how you explained:
From putting the applicator to the first window in the morning to squeegeeing the water off your last window at night, INCLUDING lunch, breaks, driving, etc, and then dividing THAT number by the actual hours it took.
Yes, I only use the how much time it takes me to do one job, to figure out if I’m underpricing. I never brag that I make $90/hour just because I can make that much while working on one job. I look at how much I make in the whole day, and how many hours I work. I don’t work like a slave, unless I’m totally bogged down with work.
I have to agree with Kevin on the quality of some of the downtown Toronto window cleaning. I took a job down on King Street hoping to build a route from there. Out of 3 days canvassing I only picked up a couple of jobs and those places hadn’t been done by anyone in quite some time. The rest already have someone and the job is top notch. If that’s you Mike then I tip my hat. I won’t ever ask what they are currently paying because I don’t want to start playing that game. If they want a quote I give them my price, other than that I move on. One day I passed 2 window cleaners in less than 5 mins. Maybe I’ll lurk in the back alleys. LOL
Hey Kevin, it’s sweet that you landed a gig making $50 for 4 mins work. Do you ever feel like you have to put on a show to justify the price? I have one store that I do where I charge $10. The initial clean took a 1/2 hour because of all the scraping but now the jobs takes less than 10 mins. The client is already complaining that I’m not taking the time and effort like I did the first time. I explained to him about all the scraping I had to do the first time but I don’t think it will get through to him. I’m sure in his eyes he sees me as his employee or something.
[B]mikep:[/B]
That’s cool, Mike.
I know that you’ve picked up some good stuff where you’ve worked in the past, and I applaud your progress.
I guess here’s what I’m saying:
If you have lets say, 6 stores in a block (out of a possible 15 stores), and if you are up against some less-than-committed competitors, then seeing your smiling, friendly face saying “Hi there, its me again, I’m here every week, let me know if I can ever help you out”, can make a solid impression [I]on their clients[/I] that can result in a future switch.
And to use YOU as an example, again, if I scored a job in the middle of your thick, locked-up commercial storefront route, it would be next to impossible to build a route out of that one key job, in a lucrative, affluent area, simply because YOU are so industrious, skilled, and implementing intelligent marketing strategies.
Not impossible, but NEXT TO impossible.
And it would be arrogant of me to dispute your success to date, and I respect your ability to make things happen with your business.
The reason you’ve been so successful though - [I]at the heart of the issue [/I]- is that your competitors are simply not caring for, and/or catering to their clients as well as you do for yours.
Only with competitors like this can anyone (including [I]me [/I]and you and anyone else) dominate an area.
All I would have to do is canvass your route clients week in/week out, for 52 weeks in a row, to demonstrate the reality of this point.
[B]Beautiful View:[/B]
It sounds like you have a jealous client, who resents that you make such good money. If you feel like it, try and reason with them about the things they sell. Ask them what they earn in profit on a particular item and then ask them if you should be mad that they are making money by selling it to you.
(this isn’t really coming out of my brain totally clear right now, but I think you know what I mean)
If you’re not up for that, tell them “Hey, if I spent more time, I’d have to charge you more…”, or if you don’t like that,
you could play the ‘pretend to work’ game, but I don’t recommend it, for several reasons (I can’t tell you all of my business building psychology!)
That’s cool Kevin. I think we finally understand each other. You make some good points. Although I don’t agree with all of them.
I’m always willing to look at things at a different angle, and I’m not set in my ways. I listen to people’s success and viewpoints, and if It seems reasonable, I try it out. I appreciate people challenging my views, it makes me reexamine things in a different light.
For the record, I admire your success. You seem to be running a good company. You have a well designed website, and your coming up with new ideas all the time like the IPod thing. That’s not flattery, I mean it. You have very good marketing and business development skill.
There is one avenue where I can build route regardless of how my competitors are doing. And that’s by targeting the turnover, and the new development. There are some parts of Toronto that are charging such high rent, that within a couple years or less, half the business move (a slight exaggeration) and new ones come in, which can be targeted. So that’s where success could be obtained. But yes, I see your point. Thank goodness for the shoddy cleaners.
Absolutely!
That is a good point about the turnover. It can be substantial if properly tapped.
Out of this whole thread, this sticks out for me… musings? lol
I love it!
I am so glad to not have been a part of this (I am the one with the can of gas and a match) 
hey ive got stacks of window cleaning leads in all states for sale and am looking for reliable businesses to work with.
Hey
I’ve just started a lead gen business and I’m doing a lead gen site for a friend in window cleaning hence how I wound up here. Personally my policy is that you prove that you have something of worth before you start charging.
I’ve got an agreement with the guy I’m working with at the moment that a site will be built and only once there’s leads coming in that justify being charged for that you start paying.
I’ve got another lead gen service for another industry which operates on pay per result. My advice if you’re going to go down the lead gen route is to make them put their money where their mouths are. Upfront payment for no guarantees atleast in my eyes is a no go. If they were any good they’d be showing proof of what they can do before they ask you for a penny. Everyone I know in this trade does it that way.
ive used google adwords. the only thing that really helps with is putting your name at the top of google to make sure more people click on your ad and nobody else’s. google wasnt great for me. i basically made back the money that i spent. Im testing Yelp right now only because when i signed up i had $300 of free ad revenue. so im dipping my toes in the water with that.
i wont do home advisor, i wont do thumbtack, and i wont do facebook. YP was way too expensive for me. I dont really think they work. the trick that i see is to update all of your social media like once a week and just make sure that when you do jobs you insist on a review. that will help your organic growth and you will eventually just need to keep working to promote yourself without spending anything other than the time you put in.
when you are a small business, money is everything. until you have the money to start advertising its probably not best to do it. if you have throw away money and you are looking to grow your business, id say google and yelp are probably the best ways to go. other than that, find yourself a small guy who wants to help other business like Rus who just posted and pay them rather than throwing your money away.
