I’m getting rid of buckets for residential jobs this year and will start using premade soap solution bottles for each guy .I like the idea of having more freedom when you work and no need to move bucket all the time. it seems such a small change but I feel that will save me couple hours of payroll a day .
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I bought the same set-up, no need to waste time practicing. Make sure you hit the frames first and thoroughly (if they “bleed” white keep cleaning) , then the pane twice, rinse the top line well and sheet the rest. You will be faster with the wfp, so any learning curves will put you back to your original time anyway. And leave the tank ready but turned off when you go inside, so if you see any mistakes you simply turn it back on and touch up.
Customers also have no idea what a wfp should look like. They won’t know how slow or bad you’re doing. Practice while getting paid. Go kill it my friend!
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I was actually pretty happy with the result today. I did 38 panes and only 4 had water spots or a little dirty water run on it. Took me about 2 1/2 hours in and out on a 2 story house. It had also been a year and a half since these windows had been cleaned so I was thinking of it as a first clean. Can’t say I’m real big on taking screens out from the inside but like everything I’ll get a rhythm down. With a single hung window do you find its a must to do the top then move on and come back for bottom? I’ve heard you do and I’ve heard residential doesn’t need drip time also so I’m just wondering what most people are doing?
If I have resi windows that aren’t to far away from each other, I clean those to allow drip time, and return. If not I rinse a little longer to ensure the water left is clean. The style of window doesn’t matter, gravity does. All windows need to be cleaned at the top so nothing is coming down later.
With screens I still am terrible. I charge to remove them something like $.25-.50 per. You can run into 30-50 minutes of removing screens. It affects your time, get compensated. And thats just a fee you tack on, its not to be shared with customers (look at it as labor cost). $8-12 extra bucks can take a bit of frustration out.
And remember there are big pro’s on here, Im giving you my humble take on my experiences
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dogeared wagtails or liquidators 
And like what was already posted since you have plenty of repeat jobs & you know how long they take you…you could count how many panes per job & how much time they take you. That will tell you your average per pane price currently. Then you could increase that to meet your new goal such as $60/$70 per hr etc…(if that made sense) Do you already have a per pane price in mind?
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So far I was charging 3.00 in and out but I will be experimenting with bids at $4 to see if it goes well. I raised it to 3.50 a couple weeks ago and still have gotten good results so I think I’d be safe. Which if I work at the same pace it will bring my hourly wage to about 66. Then with some tricks to speed up my time I should be up to $75 here soon
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Just saw that you are doing mostly resi. When I 1st started, I remember reading here on the forum that the average double hung price ranges from $8-$15. So I used that as a starting point on the low end, then now I’m toward the higher end for residential. But Im a o/o too. My commercial though is near $2-$2.50 per pane (but so far my brother who is in a larger city has had a tough time getting those commercial/storefront jobs at that price because big companies/others do it for half that or less). My 1st car dealership when I was starting out, took 4 hrs at $200 (bid for $2 per pane). Now with liquidator/dogeared wagtail and a bit larger squeegee it can take 2-3 depending on how fast I want to go. But I feel that the job should be bid for cleaning like you would be detailing it, because of knowing & having the tools to speed you up thats extra per hr not discounted. Like WFP taking half the time of trad doesnt mean you charge half as much because you can get it done quicker. You charge as if it was being completed traditionally. Some might feel differently & still drop the price but there is also maintenance to WFP & costs of filter etc that have to be factored in too. 
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What we are working with at Reach-iT and CONSTRUCTOR, and ACCELR8 right now, is the maths of EFFICIENCY.
As our customers are paid to achieve a RESULT - we can simply call it ‘CLEAN, to the customers expectations and satisfaction’, we need to think of the amount of time it takes us to deliver each service.
How we can increase efficiency is :
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to reduce ‘time-between-jobs’ - we can call that ROUTE Management.
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to reduce the time packing-out and packing-up - this is HOSE MANAGEMENT and we are addressing that with a entirely new type of hose we are calling RHINO HOSE.
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to reduce the number of strokes and movements in AGITATION phase (getting the dirt into solution) - this can be done by -
a) using a larger width brush so you need less strokes to cover the glass area
b) pre-wetting the glass with a rinse bar, so the ‘wetting up’ set of strokes become redundant
c) increasing the efficiency of the bristle choice combination so you can complete the agitation phase with one or two passes, and no more …
- reducing the number of RINSE ACTIONS … in particular with hydrophobic glass. This can be done by -
a) having several jets responsible for a smaller area of rinse. With CONSTRUCTOR current design, we have 11 jets in a 12" brush - each jet is responsible for 1" of area. Instead of looking at the ‘rinse depth’ on each job, EVERY job has a 12" , 16" , 20" rinse width. The issues of Hydrophobic Glass are OVER. Rinse movements can be reduced by as much as 90%.
c) making the 'down stroke of the agitation phase, into a ‘RINSE STROKE’ - this is the most radical development. Because CONSTRUCTOR has ‘bristle blades’ , the water above the brush does not run through the brush, and the water flowing down the glass below the brush can be 'pulled off the glass with the bottom bristle blade. By pulling down faster than gravity would make water flow, the BLADE turbulates the dirty water and effectively removes it from the glass DURING AGITATION strokes.
d) effecting rinse as a ‘fanning action’ or a straight pull for a final ‘polishing’ of the window. Because most of the dirty water has already been removed during the Agitation phase, the operator can leave the CONSTRUCTOR on the window, and either ‘fan’ or ‘straight pull’ the final movement to ensure the last thing on the glass is the pure water.
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reducing the total amount of EFFORT required by the operator to deliver the CLEAN. Whilst other manufacturers have focused on making poles and brushes marginally lighter (less carbonfibre in a pole, smaller brushes with less bristles), these marginal differences have little effect on the actual effort - the efficiency of calories. Scientifically, ‘WORK’ is measured in calories, with the formula ‘Force through Distance’ (F x D). Focusing on reducing the required amount of force, and the distance, delivers savings from 30% to 70% over the use of traditional ‘Broom-Style brushes with Pencil or Fan jets’
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reducing the risk of injury so the operator has a longer working life, and a more pleasant retirement. There is no denying that Water Fed Poles are potentially injurious, affecting us after several years of use, not in the ‘here-and-now’. Chest beating young operators and guys who have been cleaning windows over a couple of years telling me that they have no injury is not an argument. There are WAY TOO MANY of us who can detail injured muscle groups that are injured by, or inflamed by the use of a bi-manual, overhead, linear tool that we call the Water Fed Pole. To offset these risks, we are now adding POWER & CONTROL Ergonomic Handles and Reach-iT PRISMS safety glasses to every new Reach-iT Pole.
We started Reach-iT to be for PROFESSIONALS - for those that understand that the cost justification of a quality Water Fed Pole is from the efficiency that it delivers compared to other pole systems, not the price. We are not finished yet … but we have certainly delivered an amazing advantage to those who can tolerate our ‘learn together’ philosophy of Rapid Product Development.
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When your “NEW”. How are you going to know how long something Takes. if you price it by the window it will take X amount of time when you gain more experience that time will decrease hence more money in less time.
I understand you could raise the price per window also , but that is not the point.
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I agree that you should stop billing by the hour and start charging for the amount of work you’re actually doing. You should also consider adding some unique value to your services, something that will make you stand out from the rest of the local cleaners. Some businesses provide discounts, other special membership cards, stuff like that. People like to know that they are appreciated and taken care of.
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What Majestic said but also, once you get better and you know that you used to do a job in 4 hours ($260) and now you can do it in 3… you would be cheating the client of $65. You would be inflating the price for a job and it would actually get confusing for you.
Say you get to a new client. You know you can do the job in 2 hours but you tell yourself that you’ll charge 3,5 hours just for kicks? You would not be charging per hour that way, just a random number.
The per pane or per window pricing scheme is much more convenient and if you hire someone, the price will still be consistent and unrelated to their ability.
Use a garden sprayer works even better
saves solution too because it always stays clean (one bottle does the entire inside of a house, customers are impressed when you tell them you use fresh clean water for each window.
also because it’s on your belt you don’t have to bend down.
Great question. Asking this question in the first few years of your business and getting good answers along with applying them will help you save a ton of learning the hard way.
Simply put apply the 80/20 rule to every aspect of your business. 20% of the effort produces 80% of the results. I would start with these areas:
First narrow down your market. Examine your customers and see which type of job or customer you tend to make the most money on with the least amount of effort and start focusing on attracting those customers and focus your energy on that niche market.
Second narrowing your market allows you to cater your marketing and approach to cater to that niche market branding yourself (making yourself a specialist at servicing their jobs). Branding your service is not so complicated. It simply means you try to focus on delivering the key elements that your niche market seems important or valuable to them and it doing it better than anyone else. This allows you to separate yourself from the competition and makes you more desirable to the target market that makes you the most money. Because you are now more desirable this allows you to raise your pricing without it seeming unreasonable to the customer.
Third I would identify the components of your service that don’t make as much money and either nix them or charge more for them. For example if you make $50 an hour cleaning windows but find that when you clean a chandelier your drop to $35 an hour the cleaning chandeliers is restricting your maximum profit per hr. You have 2 choices. Either stop doing chandeliers or charge more them.
Fourth, consider raising pricing on add on services and charge too dollar for them. Again let’s use chandeliers as an example. Not everyone has one or wants them done. This allows you to charge too dollar on these items and still remain competitive with your pricing. Rarely does someone call you up asking for an estimate on a chandelier only (it does happen but rarely). Ussaully they want pricing on Windows and also want their chandelier done or they want a price on windows and wait until you are there and ask about the chandelier. The point is most customers are comparing your pricing on window cleaning with other companies. Rarely are they comparing your pricing on chandeliers. This allows you to get away with having maximum pricing on add on services without hindering your competitiveness.
Fifth narrow down your geographic location or geographic market. Time is money. If all your kind were in the same neighborhood or city (if you live in a metro area) them you can get more jobs done in a day with less drive time. It also increase your presence in that area which increases your exposure. This builds your reputation quicker in that area and increase refferrals and decreased need for marketing. It also increases response rate on marketing. Of people see you in their neighborhood all the time and then see your ad they are more likely to use you vs an ad of someone they never see in the neighborhood.
These are just a few examples of how you can use the 80/20 rule to minimize profit killers and maximize profit makers and your over all $'s. Go over every aspect of your business with a fine tooth comb and narrow down the focus on what is working and what is not. Think of it like a race car. The lighter the better. Strip off every nut and luxury item that adds no speed but is a weight and drag to your performance. Afterwords you will have a fine tuned well liked machine of a business. Then you keep tweaking it all the time.
I hope that helps.
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This was a great post. I have been trying to do just what you are saying here but this helps put it into specific points to work on. Since I started this thread if been able to raise what I make in a hour to about $65 by doing a couple of the points that have been suggested. The targeting a market is what I really am shooting for and making myself branded as the guy to call for up scale houses(as we all probably are) which will come in time. Knowledge is valuable so I greatly appreciate all that is shared on here, thank you.
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Thank you for sharing. Do you have some of this info in YouTube videos? I would love to learn more about the efficiencies that you are developing. @Perry_Tait
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