Seriously, I am out of work. Been out for almost 18 months. Working PT for $8 an hour. BARELY surviving.
Seriously, H0W MUCH could a 1st year 1st TIMER expect to earn doing storefronts and residentials?
If I don’t do something, I’ll be living out of my van real soon.
Just an idea would be nice.
I guess it all depends on how much you market yourself. I made about 35 grand the first year just passing out crappy flyers and having a mag ad in the summer. BTW we passed out a ton of flyers!
We didnt even work all that much though!
Im doing almost 1500 mo in commercial route workright now. That’s not even close to what I want to be making, but I only ‘clean’ windows 6 days a month. Those 6 days are brutal but I get lots of time to play golf!
Every single one of them is on a 2 week routine window washing plan. I got all these even before I had a website up.
You should expect to get out as much as you put into it. As long as you appoach your window washing business with integrity and enthusiasm, and focus your 6-8 working hours each day, you will succeed.
It also would not hurt to find a good mentor. I bought the program from Steve Write. He’s a class act dude and has picked up the phone everytime I called.
I think his program was 99 bucks and his consulting alone is worth every penny.
Good Luck on your venture!
You will get what you give.
I would concentrate on residential. Much more money in it. Commercial is priced a lot lower, harder to get an account and harder to keep as an account. In your first spring season you should be able to gross at least $1000 per week if you follow up on all your leads and do a lot of advertising.
From the sounds of it Wade911, you don’t have a lot of money to set yourself up, and while window cleaning doesn’t require a lot of money to get started , you do need some
Why not look around your area for a window cleaner who needs help
As spring comes around most window cleaners will be looking for help, Im not sure of the pay scale out in Chicago, but im sure it’s a lot more than $8 an hour
When you have a spring under your belt, you will be a lot more ready to start up by yourself
It depends on how much you want it, where you are, how well established your competition is and how much you have to spend on marketing correctly.
The key is to roll every dollar you can back into your business to make it grow. If you have no money for start up you are waging an uphill battle which means you will have to pound the pavement every day 7 days a week to keep any income coming in.
Can you even clean glass? :eek: or are you one of them guys that think, huh…window cleaning… that cant be hard!
Have you looked into ITT Tech, you could train to be healthcare transcriptionist in just few months. You know those jobs are in demand and there is financial aid if you qualify and job placement assistance!
If you’re looking to get into wcing and have a job already (part-time right?) then start out w/ storefronts. It’s about getting some more income. Make up some biz cards and hit the pavement. Right now you need to concentrate on building a customer base. Once you have all the work you can handle then quit your job and fill that time w/ more customers. Once that is done then replace your current customers w/ better paying ones. As soon as you feel confident in your skills and attention to detail then tackle residential as those customers are more concerned w/ a quality job whereas storefront is about price for the most part.
You could make $0 or you could make millions. Only you set your limits.
You know my first experience with cleaning windows was about 8yrs ago when a friend of mine ask me to help him with a window job, i made great money but wow i worked my butt off! I worked with him for about 4 months then he found some one that would party with him as he cleaned. Sometimes I hated the work but when he gave that cash, I loved it and how u saw the smile on peoples face or when you saw your first costumer run into the slider and they say I thought it was open!!!:D:D LOL I cant wait till I can get out and start CLEANING!!! Im still getting all my ducks lined up in a row!! Fliers are ready and im checking on getting insured. This is a great forum!!
I wish you good luck YoMike! I believe you will be fine with hard work. I also believe in the idea of “Plenty”. There is plenty of work to be done for those willing to get after it!
Thats awesome. I hope the best for ya. Stick around here and you will learn A LOT for these guys.
Not sure how much you need to survive but if $8 per hour is letting scrape by then you should be ok. Your asking about how much someone can make from this their 1st time out. Well as stated here it’s hard to say. It always how much you put in. But realisticly at the very least you need a flyer or something to leave a customers house. If you can get someone to help with get those printed out then you are on your way. Of course I’m not talking tool overhead or anything.
But if you concentrate on res work, you should be able to complete a 20 window home in one day. As time goes on you should have no problems completing a 20 window home in 1/2 your day. All this is based on you working alone. So what I would do is door to door. You can walk in the mornings, 8 to 12 or whatever and schedule your first bite for that afternoon. This time of the year might be hard to land someone. But if you can average knocking on 10 doors per hour I see no reason why you should not be able to pick up one afternoon job and another for the next day. The day after that go knock again. It takes time but your accounts will build up.
I charge $10 per window $2 per screen and $50 per level. So with a 20 window home (which in most cases will be 2 floors) so you would be looking at $290 for the job. Of course you don’t have to follow my pricing I’m just trying to give you an example. You can make $1000 per week in this business but it requires motovation like anything else. If I walked everyday or went out for sales every day $1000 per week is easy. Much more then the $8 per hour you are making now.
i moved to CO on a saturday, my girlfriends brother showed me how to clean windows on sunday, went to my first job on monday and only cleaned screens and got the feel for the job. tuesday i was cleaning windows and been doin it since. i worked april to about november and i made about 18k. good luck!
Good luck!! 
There definitely is good money to be made washing windows & you can always add on services. If you do the jobs well, keep the customers happy youll get more & more jobs. I think its worth it. But like all the guys have said, its all in what you make it & like jugg said itll be more than what your making now…way more. 
I made $1,600 my 3rd week in the business almost 6 years ago! All from some nice fliers. In Michigan. Near Flint… If I can do that here, you’re golden if you work hard… lol
I started between 7 and 8 years go. My number after one year of marketing, managing, and working the business was $900 a month residual monthly income from storefront. I double/tripled the next couple years. With the economy the way it is these numbers would be misconsrued and shouldn’t be compared with today. We have grown every year besides the last year and a half. Our number today is between 7k and 8k a month which matches fall 2006 numbers 
