This is my fifth year in business under my LLC,
I was long mowing pane window cleaning. Decided to drop the lawns and go full-on Windows this year.
I have made some money but it’s not consistent I need advice on how to gain more customers badly…
I’m a very smart man I’ve even found a way to get around solicitation so they are not inoid by me.
Ive dumped hundred in this for advertising Marquis door tags Mailers you name it I’ve tried it!
My work is very exceptional yet still no customers…
Hey @NateH you chasing storefront, commercial or residential?
What kinda of marketing pieces are you using? Pics would helpful.
That information will start to help us help you.
It may just be a small tweak that is needed or you might need to over haul everything.
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I have a nice letter i explain wat i do and mail that to certain houses, i hang door hangers that match my cards, i rent multiple carwash marques, i run 2x2 adds in 6 papers a month. Im so confused why new windows dont make people jump at my low cost…my meetings with company directors go very well, after estimates they disapear…Heres my card, it matchs the hanger.And im focusing on both commercial and residencial atm
door hangers are the best advertising… they are actually All I do for marketing.
I also use yard signs, I’ve started using one side yard signs that I can leave at a customers property and not worry about losing the sign to the trash.
I use a “5 around” door hanger as well, who doesn’t have time to leave a few door hangers on neighbors doors after a residential job?
I offer 10% off for referrals, both for the referral and the customer that referred them.
I have a website, I’m rebuilding it at the moment, but it’s pretty much just a landing place to describe services to clients and potential clients. Go check it out, pretty simple and not an SEO gold mine but it’s also on all marketing pieces so people can quickly go to it and request information.
So far this year I’ve spent about $500 on marketing/branding, that’s just some door hangers and my website/domain name/custom email addresses.
Just get door hangers, hit the pavement over and over and over for that residential income. Low rise commercial is great for quarterly cleanings and I’ve noticed most of those jobs like getting the windows done when residential is slower (probably just luck, but after 9 years it hasn’t changed)
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Nate have you tried an EDDM campaign? Many have found those very effective.
Here’s a few thoughts:
People probably don’t feel like reading a letter.
Your company name doesn’t imply window cleaning.
You say window cleaning specialist, but then you also throw in lawn care, which seems random.
Nothing stands out on your card. With all due respect, it needs a complete overhaul. If your door hangers match, they probably do to.
Noone reads the paper anymore.
The car wash marquees are likely a waste of money.
Many here have said that low costs actually scare people away because that makes it feel like low quality.
Also how many hangers are you hanging? How many letters are you sending? (Ditch the letters anyway and switch to post cards.)
Oh, and why did you drop lawn care and do just windows if windows wasn’t going well?
Hope none of that sounded harsh, just throwing some ideas out there for ya.
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Hmm… Maybe you could have one professionally made? It’s a bit… rough, no offense.
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Agreed, the only “letters” I use are reminder flyers to my current customer list and a similar one to my email list.
Staying on top of your current customers with reminders, phone calls to schedule jobs, and incentives to save some $ are never bad.
I’ve also been selling new services to old customers, I know that may sound like its obvious but the first year or two I completely overlooked it.
How do you organize your customer list? Do you use something like Jobber for the organization? I feel like I’m able to do everything from that one program.
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None of this is meant in a harsh way - you need a make over.
- Drop the letters; people do not have time to read unsolicited letters. Save that for when that form of communication is needed.
- Drop the newspaper ads.
- The dark backgrounds are fighting with the non contrasting text of you card and website. The quicker a persons eye can process things the better for you.
- Go back and correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation!
- The website has “Never any equipment in your home!” You may know what that means but the person reading that does not. How does he clean windows with no equipment, comes to my mind. Then, “There’s an estimated cost per window $1.00 screens” and that is underlined like there is a link to it? It doesn’t work and leaves that line open ended as to ??? in the customers mind.
- You spell tracks, tracs.
Okay, the website is dark and uninformative. People are busy and have limited time to mess with things they do not understand. Simple and to the point and inviting.
Identify well to do neighborhoods and drop door hangers there. Your vehicle with signage or magnets is seen often in these neighborhoods, right? 
You say you have mailers, send them to well to do neighborhoods that are gated, or have No Soliciting signs at the entrance.
Talk to Realtors, neighborhood associations, ask if you can leave one of those acrylic brochure holders at the counter of quality nail spas (well to do women visit these places); quality hair salons (well to do women visit these places); luxury clothing shop (well to do women visit these places). Well to do women are the decision makers on spending for the home - see a pattern there?
You can fix this.
Also, some times you just run into dry periods, get out there and saturate with exposure.
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Hey @NateH you got a lot of great advice from the guys above!
I would redo those cards… (way to wordy for storefronts)
Here’s a link for business card ideas… (it will help)
Here’s the card i currently use for storefronts…
This may help your approach to storefront accounts
Make sure you “FOLLOW” up with warm customers, you’ll close a lot more accounts if you do.
Hope this information help bud!
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Everything screams cheap to me… no offence. The stolen logo’s on the website to the wording. Your proclaiming features (business card) which is great if established but not if your starting out & just following the herd. Tier structures of gold, silver & bronze work for some people, but I’m just seeing tin. Nothing in what I’m seeing shows “professional.”
With the lowest pricing to highest pricing, people generally pick the middle service, so I’m guessing you are low-balling so much that people don’t have the “trust.”
You either have to offer value or be unique. Value doesn’t always mean price (cheap). The idea is that the customer perceives the increased worth of what you are offering them, in the guise of excellent customer service or quality of your product’s features, all of which goes towards gaining customer loyalty and repeated business.
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business cards dont work these days, in my opinion. over the years iv had cheapos and expensive plastic cards that i gave out to anybody who asked-not a single job followed thru !
what worked for me is posting daily on the Facebook buy and sell local pages . DAILY not weekly . post up an image of you you you cleaning a window and some blurb about how you are feeling. make the connection with your feelings-if youre feeling low,mention this
youll get the sympathy vote from some sucker and next thing youre round there doing their windows. get a foto of that sucker smiling and handing over the money and use that in tomoros post /blog
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Well, seems i just got my arse handed to me…lol
Seriously though I do appreciate all of the criticism good and bad that’s why I came on here and asked.
The mailers I use are simply asking them if they would like to invite me to their home if interested.
My cards are being remade as I have dropped lawn care completely I just still have thousands of them
Again thanks everyone for their input.
Also, I run a program called MobileBiz Pro, in conjunction with Google Calendar
Also I did go look at a few of those cards ideas they are exactly like mine sum better
Keep your business cards simple. The less wording the better.
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OK guys and gals,
I do really appreciate all of the criticism good and bad, that’s why I like people like you and that’s why I’m on this forum.
But I’ve tried hard to make everything professional and perfect my business cards do you need adjusted your right, but my work and professional quote/invoice/ yearly statements/aftercare packs i send out and being myself im proud of. I thought id show a small taste of my quotes, trust that they get alot more info when not a test… still need adjust few things, but i coded and created this quote…
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It looks very nice.
Along with everything else, though, I would say it could be simplified. Prolly a bit of info overload. Jmo.
How does business cards not work anymore? I gotten multiple jobs and leads off them and this is my fourth week out?
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well done !
The service charge ? You charge them cause you showed up ?
That would never float here. Maybe just add a extra Quarter to the window pane and remove that.
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