First Job need some Guidance (update)

I posted a couple days ago about our first window cleaning job. 45 windows, screens, tracks, sills, for $450. Yeah so we nailed it. But dropped the ball at the same time. So we get to the house, or I should say Estate. Go through the outside looking for scratches, and screen tear. Go through the inside for the same thing. Find scratches, torn screens, broken screens in the owners kids rooms from sneaking out at night.

Make notes, have owner sign waiver. All that good stuff. We were so nervous to look, and act professional that we didn’t all do our jobs as owners of a small business. Every damn window was a panel window. Most panels being 4-6 sometimes 8. So needles to say we cleaned about 200 panels/sheets of glass. 200. In 90 degree weather. Hard water stains as well. Took 7 and a half hours. Made that money, and the owners were happy about the quality. I’m sure the time bugged them though. So I am a little pissy I didn’t count windows before we started. My wife is happy we made good money.

So advice for newb’s like me. Don’t be an asshat and overlook something like that. I am happy for the experiance, we are both getting really fast but DAMN.

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Yup, a few more of those and you’ll learn to stick to your price when someone tries to low ball you. It also gives you confidence in your pricing because doing it for less than its worth sucks.

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Good job completing in a day tho. You expected longer,with less windows. Happy customer and wife is a win. But yeah be careful next time. That couldve been a few hundred more had you caught it, or brought it to customer attention before too late. Be leary of thumbtack. Customers doing the counting usually backfires.

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I agree. All bids are estimates…not quotes. Subject to change until I start work. I once change the price, because when I started taking the storm windows apart they started falling apart and taking forever to clean and put back. It wasn’t my fault they were doing that and I wasn’t going to eat the cost.

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That is a tough lesson, but it could have been worse. Look at it like this, it panned out to $64 hr., not bad out of the starting gate; the other $36 hr was a training lesson. :wink:
A window with 12 panes of glass is more work than a window with two panes of glass - we all get that - the customer has to understand that too, and you have to deliver so they get a “Wow, they look great” reaction.

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This morning it feels different. I got paid to work with my wife all day. I got some great training. Like I said first job, so all the pole work I did yesterday was all new to me. All in all I am happy. Left way to much money on the table, but lesson learned. Thank you to everyone for the advice it helped more then you can know. Also thank you for the perspective about the job afterwards as well.

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Did you remove the hard water stains as part of the price?

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hows that 2 people at 7.5hrs /$450 =$30/hr, painful training imo

BTW what is a panel window?

He means true divides/french panes window.

He is new to the industry and terminology.

Gotcha’…total.