Just wondering how this month is for everyone? mine is a little slower then usual, I think its the pollen coming so early here this year
Hi Dave your on the east coast right?
@ WCR Here we have been very busy our season started about 6 weeks earlier than normal. Local window cleaners though just seem to be getting busy this week. ( the nice weather is finally here )
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i am planning to double my sales this year. on track so far although it’s very early for us here.
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Mine seemed to start early then slowed down for a bit, only to look like it is picking up again. I had a killer 4th Quarter last year, so that kind of buffers blips like this a wee bit.
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Already turning work down. More calls than normal
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Last year I hadn’t yet hung my first door hanger. Today, I’ll already be sending a second round of 2500 postcards.
Last year phone was dead till the end of May. This year I’m already getting calls and scheduling jobs.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m still nowhere near where i need to be, but it’s already a much better start. Nervous, but also really excited!
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Whats your plan to make that happen?
well…
much of what i knew previously re enforced by your wcmb and josh L.
right at this moment i am writing my spring letter for all customers using tcf.
i will do an email blast this week
also a voice mail blast.
i have 2 ad magazines going out in may approx 120k each but low response rate.
and 15k of my own flyers going to my home neighbourhood in 2 or 3 drops (still deciding)one of my daughters is going to help me with some phoning and 5 around bids. also transferring data from old leads that didn’t convert into prospects in tcf so we can try to convert them. she will also act as my follow up satisfaction checker and confirm cust is happy etc
i am ordering 200 lawn signs this week.
i have signed up lars at nice job to expand my reviews and social sharing (not a strength of mine).
i think that is most of it oh wait i may hire the call center again to get through the list faster.
that’s it i think and about all ican manage i think unless you have further suggestions. (which would be welcome.
i have laid out a budget i and beleive it is doable
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Doubling is huge, do you have alot already scheduled or are you just setting your goal at double?
How long you been in business?
Have employees?
my sales are still very low. started with a franchise for a year that did not work out.
waffled on my own for 2 years, last year made some changes and had much better growth, this will be 4th season on my own and i’m only trying to get to a reasonable level this year with the above strategy.
no help except as mentioned.
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Weathers has not been good (West Coast). Pressure washing has been solid, still booked out a month for it.
Keeping a crew busy with gutters and the random window jobs. Sun out today for second day in a row.
Behind 25 bids or so.
Learned this long ago on WCR, no matter the weather you do enough proper marketing you’ll get the calls.
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we’ve been getting a lot of false starts, the sun will come in and we’ll start getting a bunch of calls and then some clouds will roll in and the calls will drop off. rinse and repeat.
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that happened here last year, end of march and early april were nice but then winter came back. this year looking good.
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oh and i need vehicle signs
yes east coast
I know you folks across the pond have seasons for window cleaning.Here in ireland this is how it works for me and anyone else i know in the industry,might be the same for any guys in the UK.December is always a crazy busy month for residential as people always want clean windows for the silly season so i usually try to box off any commercial stuff i can in the first week off dec and the rest right up until the day before xmas eve is for resi (I work once on xmas eve years ago and it was the biggest mistake i ever made)i now tell anyone that asks for xmas eve it will cost 3 times the normal rate.usually turns them off!!January is normally a quiet month for both resi and commercial as most folk are broke until the end of the month but i always get by.This year was very odd though as i found a lot of resi holding off until near the end of feb early march!!I was nt the only window cleaner finding themselves im this situation but i found it very odd.Its been business as usual sice then thankfully.Last saturday done a pvc gutter and fascia clean for 2 terraced houses side by side and it turned out one of them had taken over as head of the managment company for the estate.he is a regular customer and without me saying anything he pointed out that most of the gutters and fascia boards on all the houses in the estate were green and shitty looking (his exact words).He said he ll be putting it to the committee at next weeks meeting to have them all cleaned over the summer and wants me to do it if he gets the green light so not too bad.there is roughly about 200-300 houses,terraced mixed with semi detached and also about 80 duplex houses.I saw dollar signs and just a cash register cha chinging in my head after he said that😂Monday morning went out to do a once yearly resi customer and that turned into a pvc gutter and fascia clean without me knowing,luckily i did nt clean the van out on sat evening so i had everything i needed with me.I ll stop ranting now but i think this year may just be a bleeding blinder!!
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So far I have doubled my income each month compared to last year. I am currently in the process of buying another work truck so I can send out my lead tech on his own and have him doing jobs for me full time. I am trying to get a worker at the car wash I go to to join the crew and take his place as my helper, he said he will try it for a couple days so who knows. So far so good though. Really trying to get another truck going this year!
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For those false starts maybe tell them you’ll come back if it rains in 3 days and explain that rain water is pure, it’s the dirt on the glass that shows water marks.
Of course, I’m not yet a professional and I’m just repeating what I’ve read on the internet, so it must be true 
its busy bee time here . iv noticed theres precious few newbies around this year to take care of the awkward peoples houses which is not a good sign. iv got a praticed speech if i get a call from anyone who sounds a bit on the awkward side “will call in to look when passing but not sure when exactly. bear with me”
but some of these awkward types are pros,not fooled easily … only yesterday i slowed my van only by 1 or 2 mph to casually view a house and noticed the windows were leaded mock georgian ,good god no, as my eyes lowered i realized the homeowner was outside and eagerly trying to catch my gaze… i accelerated away
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So far, staying the same or close to it.
Even though we lost a big yearly account in Feb which made up about 20% to 30% of our sales.
Read Chris’ book. Going to start incorporating his eddm stuff with facebook ads and google ads.
Been marketing more.
Craigslist, yelp, google ads, thumbtack, Amazon Services.
Talking to a local door hanger coupon booklet about getting on board with them.
Craigslist works for us, because we back it up with Yelp. We back everything up with Yelp haha
We mention our 10+ 5star reviews in all the ads.
I get one or two jobs from Yelp a month. Signed up with Yelp Ads, hopefully I get more.
Amazon Services, I get about 80% of the estimates through there.
Haven’t really passed around any flyers. So I need to get on that. Just waiting on the 1000 I got from joining.
Barely starting to call all our Spring clients from last year and from 6 months ago.
Time isn’t enough when you’re a one man show haha. Any tips?
