I’m new to the business I’ve been doing flyers to residential areas. It started slow now it’s keeping me busy for the 2 to 3 days of work I do. I am doing mostly a special 20 windows in and out for 199.00 and having success.
I started out trying to get storefront accounts with little to no success like 2 weeks of leaving 30 cards a day to make 100 dollars.
So I was wonder how many window cleaners are mostly residential? What percentage residential or storefront are you?
Also I do 2 houses in and out 20 windows or more a day. How many houses are u guys doing with a helper inside and out?
20 in/out for $199 might be good as a special or if you are only cleaning the glass and not the tracks and screens. But, as a normal residential price, that is too low. What happens when you charge that price and the tracks are full of dirt and slime and it takes you 15 mins to clean it right? Then you still have to clean the screen and that is covered with mildew and dirt and pieces of tumbleweed? Five hours into the job and your kicking yourself for not charging $299. Trust me, been there.
As for your approach to commercial, what is it that you offer the customer? Is this a one-off clean or do you get them on a schedule. Although 300 stops in a 2 week period does seem high for turn downs, that $100 should be per month from those that you did get. Now do that again next month and the month after that and you are now getting $300 per month from storefronts.
commercial is a good place to start and gain experience. Residential is where the money is
[COLOR=#ff0000]NOTICE:[/COLOR] Will you all PLEASE add the “Storefron/Retail” category to your analytics
I’m not trying to sound like a dick… you can call a ‘customer’ a ‘client’ all you want. :rolleyes:
(this isn’t about verbiage)
but you are doing yourselves a disservice when you don’t separate “Storefront” with “Commercial.”
Last time…
Yes good advice on the screens and sills I charge extra for that.
I have a few bi weekly accounts that are small and some monthly. 4 or 5 want want every 3 months and some just wanted the one time clean.There’s a ton of local window cleaners that clean for hardly nothing.
But it makes since Id love to have more percentage of storefronts. I was thinking of leaning toward restaurants and stuff bigger other than the little minimum jobs
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I’m becoming a believer:) thanks!
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Don’t worry jfromthed sounding like a dick comes naturally for some people. Thanks tho clarifying the terms for me… My bad
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I get what your saying. But I lump them all in together. I will have to change that.
What happens when you do a deli and next to it in the strip mall is a Dr. office and then an insurance company? Is that SF/R or is that commercial? All the facades are the same. Do I price each different? What if they talk to each other?
This is why I price based on what I feel I need to get for the job. None of this $1 a pane stuff like somebody who is no longer on here.
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For us
Store front is store fronts
A stand alone building is commercial
Both priced differently
Don’t matter who occupies them
I am racially insensitive. I am culturally controversial .
I am not politically correct and I wear this with pride. I can give a fat babies dick if you don’t like me (r.m.)
Cleaning Windows is Just My Job, Not My Life…
If you invoice the three jobs separately, I would count each as Storefront. The insurance company might be on the fence, but that’s kind of semantics that might blur the line a bit.
If you were working for a property manager, located in an office bldg that you clean, down the street- Commercial.
Example:
If you are doing an office bldg, that happens to have a restaurant on the first floor- Commercial
If you are doing strictly that restaurant, and not the building- Storefront.
Pricing is none of my business, sorry if I came across that way. My point is knowing where our business is truly coming from.
I just like to know that… let’s say… 10% of my business is Storefront, and 30% is commercial buildings.
- and not look at my charts for the year thinking "wow, 40% of my business is coming shopping centers and retail stores."
Or vice-versa.
Because it’s not.
Maybe THAT could have something to do with pricing, now that I think about it.
-but I wasn’t trying to tell anyone to connect the two.
[U][B]Incidentally[/B][/U]: I would charge the same for your three customers examples 
I always record two story jobs that get done with ladders as commercial work and one story jobs that get done with a pole as storefronts. That’s just my way of categorizing businesses customers. In my mind commercial work is kinda the same as residential, it’s a building not a storefront.
Storefront are nice if you can get enough work to make it worth your time. Windshield time will KILL your profits in the storefront game. Definitely more money per hour in residential.
$1 a pane for a store front is crazy. After all the resi I do I can’t bring myself to go that low for anyone. Let Fish and bucket Bob fight over those. I’m going for the wealthy large homes.
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In my area $1/pane is, apparently “expensive” for storefronts, but that is what I charge and I also have a minimum flat rate, and I don’t lower it for ANYONE. It doesn’t sound like much, but lot’s of times I make more per hour at my storefronts than I do on resi work. It’s faster, cleaner, etc, without having to work around a thousand knicknacks, grandma’s ashes, ect.
Yes, there is much more money in resi, but the recurring storefront work has it’s place, in my opinion.
Jesse
Atlas Window Cleaning
North Carolina
1 dollar a pane here is what some of the guys charge! One is a homeless guy tho who has cleaned windows for 20 years
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At that price you are living to work, not working to live. Raise that up!!!
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Storefronts are a catch 22. If you can keep busy with resi all year long than don’t even bother with storefronts .
If your in the storefront game its great in the winter when things are dead. Sux in the spring when things start picking up . All In all you still have to maintain a certain profit Margin for yourself while doing storefronts . what that is is up to you it won’t be like resi for the most part .
Some people arnt cut out for the storefront game you can not treat storefront like resi to different mind sets so to speak .
[MENTION=37356]Atlas[/MENTION] a dollar a plate for storefronts as long as it’s a weekly clean is not um heard of . 1x a month no way .
Think about it 4 plates you can do in 30 -60 seconds depending on how you work , as long as everything is tight ,an your not driving all over it can be a. $60-$70 pmh. Type of day . You need lots of stores though to make it work
Btw I’m talking mom an pops not high end Storefronts high end you should an can get more
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I have to say that I disagree,
I don’t think any pane of glass should be done for $1 per side. That’s ridiculous and the only reason it’s happening is because we ( speaking in general as in window cleaners) let in happen. You don’t see plumbers working for pennies, what about heating and cooling guys? Nope.
We are a specialized service which some people may argue, but ask your plumber to climb a 24’ to clean a window. Heck no!!! He ain’t climbing that. Let him clean a store front window, it will look worse when he is done then when he started. The point is that WE as a community are the ones who set the standard. And there will always be underbidders feeding off the scraps. Let them feed. Stay above that tho by keeping your work at a fair respectable standard.
Now I will say this. I make the same pmh on my commercial and storefront as I do with resi.
I charge $3 minimum per plate of glass per side. And I have two solid days of route every 2 weeks 2 guys doing it.
Also we have 2 full days of commercial jobs per month as well.
In winter my crew is 2-guys. In Summer 4 guys.
There are companies charging less in my area. But they don’t affect me. My customers like the fact that they can rely on us to be there every time! And we do good work. If you keep a high standard of work it doesn’t matter where u work. Good clients will find you!!!
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$3 per side is that 1x per month ?
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A handful are once a month, but majority are done Every two weeks. And $3 per pane per side is my absolute minimum on storefront glass. Also we have started a $20 storefront minimum. So if they have two windows and a door $20
Implementing this pricing structure has helped us to keep storefront as a sustainable part of our business.
We used to charge $2.50 per pane per side but have since raised the price and the owners either say nothing at all or they say “I was wondering how long you were going to do it so cheap”.
They say that even when the next door store is paying half what we charge because we offer reliability and thorough work. We add value to our service. And the cheap guys offer one thing…cheap pricing.
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