Don’t lose hope, take a couple days to regroup. Post an ad on Craigslist, stay with the straight pulls for now. If you do horizontal pulling rather than vertical you will see less streaking. Watch tutorial video’s on window cleaning. It takes a good six months to a year to master the basics. Go slow, it’s not a race. Once you have mastered the technique your speed will improve. It’s a good living, and an honest one. Stay in the more affluent neighborhoods, just don’t encroach on any one else’s territory. Keep in a good frame of mind, whistle while you work, whatever it takes to stay focused. Set realistic goals, write out a plan, build on the plan as you gain experience, do a little more each week, you’ll get there!
You made a good decision getting into window cleaning. You should stick with it, though I think you can improve the way you are going about it.
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Maybe it would have been better to go down to part time with your former job and give your window cleaning time to build? Maybe you can return to that job part time so as not to put so much pressure on yourself to bring in window cleaning income starting out.
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It would have been better to focus on getting some work going before putting out too much money. I’ve made this mistake in the past. Focus on advertising and getting steady work and slowly make purchases when you are ready for them.
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Your purchase of moerman and wagtail as some of your first tools was a good way to get discouraged. I have been in the business for 15 years. I recently tried to switch over to moerman tools and have had serious problems making it work. Other guys are more advanced than me and I know they do great with them. But I found the endclips on the liquidator, while doing great with the border of the glass, created so much drag that water kept getting left on the rest of the glass. Eventually, I gave it up and returned to my Steconnee feather weights. The point is that you need basic or mid range professional tools to begin, not advanced equipment.
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Fanning is not necessary. I know a guy who never fanned on residential and was up to $400,000 yearly (with a crew) over 5 years ago. This guy worked like a dog to advertise and get jobs knocked out. Do what is simple and what works for now; worry about more advanced stuff later.
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Don’t expect so much so quickly. Every worthwhile endeavor requires patience and steady application of yourself. Keep going. When you get past the initial learning curve it will be well worthwhile. Good luck, friend.
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Hi. Today you losing hope, tomorrow you will be back again full of hope and then next day life will throw you another challenge.
Who said it will be easy job, easy money or easy life? Of course it is easier to flip burgers and after 2 weeks getting a paycheck and not sweat about not getting customers, damaging glass, working your ass off.
You need to toughen up and keep going or you need to go back to your old job flipping burgers.
Again no one said it will be easy.
You decide…
Also buy unger ninja. It works like charm.
I just started doing windows as well and first job I had I scratched the shi$ out of glass. Then I bough ninja and now it’s all good.
It gets better with time you just really have to be persistent. I was in the same position starting out having one window cleaning job every other week thinking this was the wrong decision. I watched a lot of youtube videos that helped especially Keith khalfas!
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I’m on the same page man.
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burnt out?
everything optimized at it’s absolute possible peak awhile back and now just routine or not meeting up to what the optimized peak was?
no new challenging angles of approach seen?
the upward curve of building and optimizing is way more fun than ‘maintaining’ the status quo
I wish this industry had more depth, it’s pretty 1 dimensional unfortunately (businesswise) in the long term
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Lack of motivation. However…I had a nice phone call with a sales rep (I think thats what her title really is, doubt if thats what she calls it) from Tony Robbins. I gotta say, I feel different about it right now. Before I start running my jibs, lemme put it to work and if it works I’ll talk about it.
Speaking to her, and being familiar with some of Mr. Robbins’ seminars (watching them), felt like when I first started this thing. I have a bunch of things to do, but I’ll update in a few months or so…
There is help out there in the form of - new perspective, renewed vision, or just refocusing on your dream - someone else can do that for you, or you can dig within and do it for yourself; seek and learn, implement and adjust.
Yes, sometimes for some folks it didn’t start out as a dream but rather a necessity of income.
Either way find a way to be passionate about your endeavors and you will find ways to be rewarded.
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I’ve skimmed through the posts by other guys and a number of them have very helpful tips. Others will tell you to “suck it up butter cup” and others will remember being in your exact shoes at some point in the past.
I won’t tell you about the hard things you’ll come across because what your experiencing now is hard enough, when some tells you how much harder it’ll be down the road, if possible let it pass in one ear and out the other. Starting out the number one thing that helped me was relying on my relationship with Jesus to counsel me and help me through the difficult situations.
However the practical side of things take it one day, one hour, one moment at a time. Slow down and don’t think about the failures or how you aren’t “progressing” just focus your best efforts in that moment and look for the slightest bit of improvement and focus on that. If you dig up a planted seed every day to see if it’s growing, you won’t see growth. It takes a bit of time, just keep watering and fertilizing it and it’ll soon flourish. I’ve been in your position before. Keep your head up bud.
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Yep, know what you mean. I have other ventures in addition to window cleaning and vise-versa. My son and a helper do majority of labor. I help occasionally for therapy, yes window cleaning is therapeutic for me; everyone appreciates my/our work, - they like the results, -they like they didn’t have to clean the glass themselves, -they like how we cleaned their mirrors, -they pay at the end of the job, my younger guys make really nice tips at some of their jobs. ($550 cleaning the other day they each received $100. tip -God is shining on us!)
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