Whats the best way to aquire new monthly accounts?

Storefront
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Hey everybody. I need to secure more monthly window accounts. What is the best way to do this? I have been in business for a little over a year and have had no problem getting the residential jobs, but I only have 2 monthly and 1 quarterly window accounts. My plan for the end of summer is to visit those stores with window art (paintings) and offer to remove it for free if they sign up for a year of cleaning. Any other ideas? I’m in the Pacific Northwest so I think the awareness for window cleaning isn’t very high. What ideas can I pitch business owners? How will it benefit them? I am a sponge for knowledge right now and I would definately appreciate any advice or direction.
Thank you,

Justin Burner

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my name is Justin, can I clean your windows?

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:smiley:

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Personally because I do mostly residential myself and wanting to get more into commercial for the regular monthly income reasons. I was thinking of advertising on craigslist for a sales person to cold call commercial businesses and allow them to let me go give them an estimate - I’m training right now plus working jobs most days. I thought about offering the sales person 50% of the first month job and then long as that business/s continues with their monthly clean they will continue to be paid 20% of the job each month, making pretty easy money for them and allowing me to continue doing what I do but also have a great sales person on the phone securing interested commercial accounts that want window cleaning done rather than simply a walk in, walk out numbers game. They make good money and even paying them 20% each month afterwards I’m still making 80% of the job minus help if need be.

My minimum charge on commercial is $30 upwards and a couple of months ago secured myself a golf club (exterior only) at $640 so even if were the one that got me the estimate the first time and I continued to pay them 20% because of it (so they have an income and continue to work for me) I still make good money, takes me 5 hours due to them being french windows but none the less I work away with over $120 an hour each month just need to build the commercial side of things up more though.

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I really think you have a great idea! I doubt you will find a winner on craigslist tho…but the concept I think is great. I have never cold called before and I dont like it when people cold call me at all, so your message has to be PHENOMINAL to keep them on the phone.
I just got a call on thursday from a company that of course asked me “can you handle more customers right now?” question has to be answered by an of course, or hang up on them right? Well I asked him what he is selling and he tells me he just wants to make sure that he has the facts of my company down so he can match me to some customers…bull…I asked him the name of his company and he actually said he would get to that…found out its these internet hustlers called “local listings.com” or “relevant ads.com” and told them to never call me again.

My point is, they began the whole conversation wrong, by asking me a stupid question that was designed for me to continue the conversation…and then deliberately trying to decieve me…

Everyone is put off be cold calling…if you do it, make the message good.
Please post updates too, I am interested in how this works.

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Well actually to be honest with you its an idea that came to me late this week about a different way to bring in commercial accounts, an easier way! Having a good sales person who enjoys phone sales could work, also doesnt cost them anything on their phone bill because its all local work. Basically if they have no job right now what do they have to lose…

In regards to not using craigslist, a lot of people these days do hunt on there, especially disabled people who find it really hard to find work and stay at home mums who this would really work well for too. I doubt paying to advertise it on Monster.com or something would be cost effective although I guess if they were real good might pay for itself because they would secure the appointment ahead of time that they were highly interested in receiving a bid.

I will keep you updated and certainly have nothing to lose in giving it a go. I would imagine someone that enjoy saleswork and is given 50% of the first month job plus 20% each month long as they continue to have their windows done by us should be able to see the benefits… get 20 commercial fairly good income! get 100 accounts, sit on your a%% most the day, however, would have to create a minimum they did per week in terms of what they bought me because once they reached a monthly income from the jobs they might simply give up calling places and insist on their cut each month.

Few things to iron out here but yeah think i might have a good idea, thanks.

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I promise that I am not trying to burst the bubble here, but…

Give a little more time for this post to be seen by some of the heavily experienced guys/gals here on WCR. Most, including me will tell you that hiring a sales guy won’t be as productive as you’d think. Let the heavy hitters comment on this issue.

Regarding hiring an outside salesperson, first of all, where are they gonna work? from your office? their home? on the side with a cell phone? All of these have been proven to be no-so-effective regarding obtaining new customers. You’d have very little control over them. Most wouldn’t last long even if you did.

Another thing is, if they are window cleaning virgins, they won’t have a clue about what to say when asked a technical question. Customers get really mad when you cold call them and then can’t answer their questions, especially about prices. And, even if you do get super lucky and find someone that does well on the phone for you, what if they give a price for a job and turns out they totally under-bid the job. Now you’re stuck with a low paying job that you need to do because your hungry or no job at all because the customer won’t allow you to do it for the higher price you present when you discover the problem.

If your work is all close to home, hit the streets and deliver some fliers. Right now, my guys are a little slow, and we have a full day of passing out fliers/brochures tomorrow. We can hand deliver, on foot, over 500 marketing materials, to businesses or homes, in one 8 hour period. That is with only two or three people. You can’t call that many folks in one eight hour day over the phone. Get some nice fliers made, printed up nicely, and wear your tennis shoes for all the walking. I promise you that it will yield more results for the amount of time and money spent. Besides, then when you get the work, you won’t have to pay anyone but your employees and yourself.

Stark had the best idea, IMHO. Walk in, tell them your name, and tell them you’d like to clean their windows. They’ll ask for a price. Give it to them, and offer them the service right then. Don’t wait til tomorrow unless they ask you to come back. They may not be there or they might change their mind. Hell, maybe another WC’er might offer them a better price later that day.

Make the deal juicy for them without low-balling you or others. Tell them you’ll do something for free if they use you. Ceiling fans, A/C vents, signs, lights are all great cleaning freebies for new customers. That way also, you still get the most money out of the deal but not offering them such a low price that you can’t afford to eat lunch that day.

I also have a little incentive for my guys that do route or residential work. For routes, if they hustle (I use that word loosely) new business, and the new business signs on with us for at least a monthly cleaning, my guys get the dollar value of that first job right then. Either I give them the cash, or write a check if one is written to me. MY guys love it and they get me new business all the time. The cost of me giving them the first pay is small compared to the benefits of receiving the monthly business from now on. If my guys get houses, I give them 5% of the value of the job, too. Same deal, just different way of paying.

Try it out before you hire someone to make cold calls to businesses.

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Hi Justin,

I work in the North West also. From my experience, a lot of store front commercial account go through national cleaning services. These cleaning services then call local companies (us) and ask you to do an estimate. Whoever has the lowest estimate gets the account. You can definitely find find them by going out personally and doing the “meet and greet” or go out night and post fliers.
I believe the northwest is definitely aware of window cleaning services. It’s vary competitive where I live.

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Justin,

I think cold calling is a great idea. As a matter of fact we have done it and it works. I was informed by one of my customers who is a marketing consultant that although telemarketing gets a bad rap it still yeilds a higher return than direct mail. We have used it and it works.

You can cover more ground using the phone than you can going door to door. Although door to door may yeild a more personal touch you can cover more ground on the phone.
You can make 100 phone calls by your self in 1- 2 hours. One guy can’t do that on foot.

If you are going to hire someone make sure the person you hire knows what he or she is doing or you will waste money on lists and you may end up misrepresenting your business, ruining your name. If you do it yourself Read a few books on phone sales and they will give you some great pointers. Your success will increase when you know the right techniques. We have jobs that have been on our books on a regular schedule for the last three years that we got off of cold calling. Commercial and residential!

You have to registar with the national do not call list for residential. They will give you a SAN number. You can purchase call lists generated with your choice of demographics.

Hate it all you want but it works.

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Marketing, selling, and personality are 90% of this business. The other 10% is the actual work of window cleaning. Those percentages aren’t exact, but you get my idea…

If you train a good salesman to sell window accounts for you - you’ve potentially just trained a window cleaning machine!

I try to think of my business as more of a marketing business. I market window cleaning.

Find out how to get in contact with the decision maker, learn the triggers to use in your conversation, and be persistent. Commercial cold calling - and by cold calling I mean stopping by in person without an appointment - usually takes 3 attempts before something happens. Learn how to adapt your sells pitch to the future client, and don’t get burned out. “No just means Not Now”

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I started out cleaning windows in College 25 years ago. I miss cleaning windows, I now pressure wash.

I like to go after multi unit accounts, sell 40 or 100 units at a time.

Start with something like a food place or a Walgreens. Retail strip centers are great but the larger establisments will likly tell you they are done thru Corp.

Like alot of these guys have said, find the guy who inks the contract. Thats important.

Dont be affraid to ask for the business, it will take more visits than one.

Also help yourself by developing a mailing list of those you contacted. keep contacting them no matter what. Being persistant is the key.

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Thanks for the tips so far. I’ve got extra time so I’ll probably do a little of both. Telemarketing and flyers. My dad taught me the ropes and he’s always suggested what he calls 5 a side. Knock the two places next door to your current customer and the 3 across the street. I’m working on some flyers now. Anybody have any pitch lines? How is a business seriously going to benefit from clean windows? Obviously it will maintain their professional image and encourage more customers, any veterans have any more ideas?

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I clean 5 locations for a fast food business owner. He told me he has me clean the windows every week for two reasons. Of course it keeps the windows looking great, but the other reason is one I hadn’t really thought of until then.

He stated that having me come and clean the windows every week is the cheapest way he can help motivate his employee’s to keep the rest of the building clean. If they see dirty windows all day, why should they mop the floor? Why should they wipe off tables?

But when they start looking out clean windows, and see that the owner cares enough about the image to hire a window cleaner to come out ever week, they start to clean! A dirty floor or a dirty table fit in with dirty windows. But if you have dirty windows you REALLY notice the floor and table as being dirty.

Since then I’ve used that line of reasoning when selling and it’s worked really well.

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Another idea I’ll use with general managers of car dealerships is this:

A person planning to buy a car wants to buy a car from a dealership that is doing well. They know that a dealership moving cars can offer a lower discount due to volume. Your showroom windows are the first thing your customer sees. In fact they have to look at them BEFORE they look at your beautiful cars. Don’t you want your windows to reflect that you’re the busiest dealership in town?

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Great advice, but you can usually cold call a large business (over 50 employees) and ask to speak to the decision maker before you go see them. If you walk into a corporate office and expect to see the man in charge, he’d better see you walk in and want to see you or you’ll be asked to leave.

I would be more than happy to help you out. I design fliers to WC’ers.

Thats great Micah!

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My experience with cold calling commercial is different I guess. I have not figured the percentage but it seems to be affective for us.

My point exactly. You spent 7 man hours and only covered 85 homes per hour a peice. I can make 100 calls in 1 hour. When I said you could not go door to door and cover 100 in 1- 2 hours I was speaking of door to door sales. With door to door sales you also have to talk to people, and you have to walk from house to house or business to business. You were only passing out fliers and you only did 85 per hour. Considering it that way you could not cover as many sales on foot that you can on the phone. Plus by phone you can also use online phone sales software that allows you to place more calls per hour, by eliminating hangup and dialing time. they can also allows you to choose specific notes to click instead of taking notes. Cold calling is way faster. With this software you can double or triple your calls.

In some situations showing up in person is better. From what
I have been reading the best approach though is to use the phone sales to set sales appts. rather than trying to land the sale over the phone. I am reading a book to sharpen our phone sales skills to improve our affectiveness with phone sales. I would love to hear more about the books you have read as well.

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Glad to be here

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I’ve also been thinking of marketing a “free window cleaning fridays” as a way to get some “face time” with business owners. The idea is simple, absolutely free window cleaning. 10 minutes worth of cleaning no higher than my 6 foot pole. I think that would be effecient to get a business entry way inside and out, maybe a resi living room window. The main goal is to make the left over dirty windows really stand out then offer 10% off to finish the job right then (with service agreement of course). Maybe post that offer on craigslist so I can control how long the ad is up and my call volume. Any thoughts on that? Has anyone tried it?

Inside the mall is where i’d like to be. Tons of exposure there. Anyone had success marketing to mall business? I’m interested in your approach

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definitely agree with that a person has to buy into you before they buy into getting their windows down. I’m starting here in Las Vegas have worked in PA before. The market here is cheap, cheap. but we’re only taking the customers we want then. No low balling. At first we started to just go to every business give them a quote. Now we’re taking in a short letterhead with estimate attached and it seems to be working alot better. Most of the people are not licensed and insured and a few homeless actually so we’re using that to our advantage. If they have a wc just basically walk away because we know that they aren’t going to likely change. If they are they will followup with a strange face or something then I know I can folloup with a are you happy with him. About have aren’t happy with their cleaners here because of customer service or baaaad window cleaning. But yea the more professional you show your self I think impresses the customer and that seems to help.

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I like your last line in that reply. I’m huge on image. After my equipment I bought all blue t shirts with my logo. Since I’ve upgraded to polo shirts for estimates and jobs. Quite a few people have agreed to my quote, even though it was the highest, just because I looked professional. I think our industry has a very high awareness of this which is great! The more professional the better.