Tony is spot on there. Most of the work is only outside, very regular, though I tend to do mine every month, and you would work an area. There may be another window cleaner or even two in that area but your work will be together. So,if you drive onto a street with 20 houses, you would want to be cleaning 7 or 8… Its a bit like route work really, but the residenatial still pays better than shops and office work.
10bucks would be about £7 and that is cheap. I have this problem all the time, most other window cleaners are within a couple of pounds or so ($5) say, but often there is someone cutting the price in half. Its the same old old…I sell my service on quality, if you dont want to pay for that then go for the cheap guy. But I would not have to charge what you are in the U.S. because the work is very regular and only outside (which cuts the price in half by itself).
I think due to the culture of window cleaning here it would be difficult to set yourself up cleaning houses once a year and charging a lot more money. Most people I see dont want to pay extra for a first time clean when their windows have not been cleaned for years! There is an English guy on the forum who works in the U.S. and he says the money is much better over there, but I wonder how much better. I have no advertising costs, no mailers, no cold calling, no need for a website and relatively little worry…I am not waiting for the phone to ring because my business is set up and the work is there. Although it might be less than what you make, there is a lot to be said for security. Obviously, in times of recession we all worry about losing customers a bit.
Just as a matter of interest. I have picked up a few inside jobs recently. Twice yearly or on the quarterly. I am thinking of letting people know that this is a service I offer. As Tony said, its a maintenance clean and most people see the window cleaner as only doing the outsides and they are quite surprised when you tell them you can clean the inside windows… Obviously, with the way we work here, scheduling could be tricky and with all the work I have to do before Christmas already I dont think I shall be saying anything just yet, but maybe something for the New Year…
