What storefront manager/owner's want

Your appearance when you solicit their business will get the job. Walk through the door looking neat and professional, make eye contact and tell them you want their business and you will keep it if you get a chance. My route people can almost set their watches by me. I show up at the same time every day I am supposed to be there.

I keep my truck and tools washed and looking good. I wear clean uniforms and I always speak to them. If the owner/manager isn’t there when you are, if they see your invoice and ask about it, I want someone to say that yes, the window cleaner was there and I spoke to him. You are selling as much your image as your service. People do business with people they like more than price.

I will give you the most important thing I have learned about storefront cleaning. Show up when you are supposed to be there and wash all the windows every time you are there. Many times with weekly accounts it is tempting to spot clean and move on…don’t.

Your customer is paying you to clean their windows. When I walk in with my invoice and that customer asks me if I cleaned his windows, I look them in the eye and say, “Yes, I cleaned them all.” I don’t give my customers a reason to change. Most of my customers won’t talk to another company, and they will usually tell me or give me the card of the person who solicited them. They know what they have with me

Same here

giving the first cleaning of a job under 40 bucks for free has worked for me. over 40, i do for half price first time.
show you love what you do, and you should keep most accounts. if they still complain bout the price…f@!k em, tell em to get a crackhead on a bike to do it. just kidding. i tell em “sorry we couldn’t come to an agreement on the price, but if you need me on call, i’ll be here” then spit a louggy on the glass door on the way out.

I be more go F yourself and then the go use the local bum to do them but I like your free approach for the first clean idea, might have to use that, try that one out here.

I recently had two of my route customers show me a direct mail piece they received from a competitor of mine. Both basically said they thought I might want to see it and they have no intention of changing service providers as long as they keep receiving the same level of service from me. I was happy to realize their loyalty and I got to see my competitor’s mail piece. It made no offer or discount just gave info about his company and was just OK looking in my opinion. So, I agree, price isn’t everything and consistency is very important. I can’t get the local McDonald’s guy to even talk to me (employees do the windows) but I do have all the local Wendy’s, BK, Subway, and Bob Evans so no complaints here.

Can we see the piece? Did you keep it?

I’ll take a look, Kevin, I might still have it.

that is unusual for storefront, hope you still have it around

I have to admit I’m guilty of this in the past. Not so much a louggy but just a light spray. I used to do a lot of face to face marketing - Rude people suck!!

So you did the first cleaning for free or a reduced price to show them how much you want the job but you expected them to think price doesn’t matter afterwards? Price was how you got the first cleaning. The second one had better be cheap also.

Larry, I really enjoy all your questions.

own a store front and you might understand. after the the first cleaning, if your not almost friends w/ the owner, the crackhead will get the job later anyway. relationships keep my route work, not price. EVERY store owner wants a deal @ first. the deal gets me in. then my character keeps the job. if they keep asking for a better price, i let em go to my lil friend on the bike. and before you ask…yes he stays busy from the ****ty jobs i’m forced to give him. he left a 6 pack and my brand of smokes on my door step one time. at least he’s thankful.

You can always decrease a price but its pretty hard to increase it

Think about it!

For me, and certainly around here, we get almost all of our work due to neglect. One thing I drum into my guys is at the end of the window/job, you take 3 seconds and Look at the window and see if it’s clean. You can quite easily miss things as your in a trance but look?

and I agree - price is completely irrelative in my books. I offer a premium service and a premium device costs more money. If you want cheap, go talk to someone else. All the paper work I have to do costs time and that equals money.

As for the free cleans, I haven’t ever done that - I’d rather stay home and go broke. All they’ll do is hang around till the end of the time and then give you the flick. There are plenty of other people out there with money - go find them!

As for that shop flyer, I would love to see it too as I have been giving this thought process a good workout. Not selling anything or offering - just a note to say, hey, I’m here, if you don’t like your current guy, here’s an alternative… Something like that. But to be honest, I’ve been so busy lately that I haven’t had much time to bring it to fruition…