Why Your Window Cleaning Prices Are Too Low And How To Fix It

Marketing
21

You’re new here, which is fine. This forum is an awesome place to learn.

I’ve been around for a few years, if you were honestly wondering, and I own my own window cleaning company, too. I’ve been in the window cleaning biz for around 10 years now.

You can check my company out here: Toronto Window Cleaning

Not that I have to defend myself, but I don’t mind showing you.

2 years ago (Nov 2007), I had someone approach me and ask me how much it would cost to teach him how I built my business quickly and profitably, and my consulting business was born.

Thus, the window cleaning marketing blog articles, private members-only forum, 218-page book, marketing videos, convention seminars, etc.

That being said, you certainly don’t have to agree with me, I just sounded like you were wondering who I was.

22

Kevin,

I appreciate your work. You help me to get back outside the box. It’s easy to fall in sometimes.

I cleaned a restaurant just this morning in 90 minutes (monthly account) and billed them $265 for it. They are a very happy customer, too. And they pull down probably a couple to a few hundred thousand dollars a month.

Everything is more expensive in Canada you know. Its this possible…I have a clothing store 2.5 hrs. $470.00 Easy money.

23

Hmmm…

FIRST

Start by walking for a moment in your clients shoes.

Who are they? Moms? Business men? Seniors?

Now, ask yourself: “If I was in their shoes, what emotions would motivate them to get their windows cleaned?” Pride? Conscientiousness? Self-interest? Fear? Pleasing a mate? (love, connection)

Get what I mean?

Now, ask what the top three criteria would likely be for choosing a window cleaning company if you were this person, based on their buying behavior with other products/services.

Lowest Price?
Speedy Responsiveness?
Guarantee?
Easy to understand packages?
Friendly?
Insured?
Experienced?
Normal looking?
Bonded?
Young?
Cool?
Shiny Trucks?
Nice website?

See what I mean?

Different people need different things.

Figure out who in your area would likely pay the most, and then start writing down all the ways you can communicate to them in their “language”.

Then you can start making fliers that don’t just say “Window Cleaning” but that say “Your wife will love you” or “DO NOT HIRE PANELESS PERFECTION” or “Trust” as the headline, and capture more peoples attention and interest, stir up some emotions, and drive them to make buying decisions with the support of persuasive reasoning, and let them give you their $$.

The easiest way is to also go where people are looking for a window cleaner - online - and putting up a website that tells them all the ways you’re gonna help them and make their lives easier, happier, better, etc.

And when you meet a price buyer, politely dismiss yourself from the transaction, if they refuse your price.

And when you are in front of someone who doesn’t make decisions primarily on price, remember the stuff I mentioned above.

“Bob, it sure seems that you’re a man that demands the best from the services you’re looking for. Do I have you pegged right?”

“Nancy, your kids are adorable! Wow, how old is the little one?..Man, I can see why as a homeowner it would be freaky having some of those other window cleaning companies come into your home, what, with their employees being ex-cons and everything. I think that would terrify me as a Mom, and I would insist on only using a company that cross-checked and background checked all their workers, and provided proof of such!..Oh, by the way, here is our crew’s information, if you were wondering. No ex-cons, just hard-working college grads and family people from the local neighbourhood…”

Are you starting to see what I mean Jesse?

SECOND

If you really want to set yourself straight on pricing, realize this: There is no such thing as the “correct” price for anything on this planet.

Not band t-shirts.
Not skate boards.
Not running shoes.
Not haircuts.
Not pens.
Not cars.
Not Spa treatments.
Not dog walking.
Not window cleaning.

It’s all about building tremendous value instead, and assigning (fabricating out of thin air) prices according to the value you’ve created.

Of course, one mans value is another mans trash, so it’s an ongoing objective, but one that will end up creating a profitable and fascinating journey for you and your business.

Hope that helps :slight_smile:

24

True and true. I love how you said they don’t want to “feel” taken. That’s dead on, Matt. As long as we can help them avoid that feeling, we win.

The blog post under discussion was focused on dealing with affluent clients/prospects.

As for the taken part…man, this is a HUGE thing…if we believe that charging $400 for half an hours work is ripping people off, then we’ll never earn it, charge it, or deserve it.

Value is in the eye of the beholder.

Is the new limited edition Lamborghini Reventon Convertible really worth $1.4 million? Isn’t that a giant ripoff if it only costs Lamborghini $90,000 to make it?

Answer: to me, yes.

To the 100 who will buy them up in about a nanosecond: absolutely not.

Is a $1800 bottle of Louis XIII cognac “worth it”?

Is Brittany Spears hairdresser “worth” $350/hr?

Anyway…I digress!

This pricing stuff is fascinating, and essential, to figure out and then - far more importantly - leverage.

25

Bingo.

If you trapped yourself in the hourly rate box, you would have blown that one, and completed it for $250 MAXIMUM if you were really feeling good about yourself.

Great example of pricing according to perceived value. (assuming the client is happy)

26

Kevin,
Thank you very much for the advice. Now I’m going to go out there and try to land some work.

Thank’s to everyone…

    ****Jack of all trades, Master of the squeegee****
27

Kevin, A lot of what your saying makes sense to me now… I guess ive had a auto defense against my past experience with people that have videos/advice/books or what not that is just a bunch of rubbish and typical MLM on the internet that takes everyones money that is gullible and wants to be successful… anyways, my bad on my quick judgements.

28

I thought Kevin’s ideas were a little out there myself - at first. But I decided that I would follow his line of thinking on the next 3 estimates I gave out. It worked! I found that by giving a higher price then I was familiar with I was strangely more confident when giving the price. My pricing has been totally different since then, and I’ve earned more money. And this is all from advice Kevin has given for free. I haven’t read his book - I haven’t paid him a penny (although I probably should).

Jesse, you would be surprised at what will happen when you stick to your guns on pricing. You will find that some people love to “test” you - just to see how low you’ll go. Try to sell on quality and personality rather then price. There’s always gonna be somebody cheaper.

29

Pleasure. Hope it goes well for you…

30

No worries at all, its good to have a filter up, and I understand your gut reaction.

All the best.

31

Thanks Micah!

Would you mind if I used you as a testimonial? That sounds pretty good!

32

I think this is the first time I have seen a blog post have so many responses! Not bad at all!

33

Tory -

Everyone gets lucky sometimes…right? :slight_smile:

34

Not in my world. I got buzzard luck! Trust me, when I look out my wind shield I see sunny skies, and I dont know why its raining on me!!!:stuck_out_tongue:

35

Sunroof is probably open brother!:smiley:

36

we raised our prices a couple months ago and we’ve been landing more jobs than ever. When we had average prices people figured we were an average service. Now people understand that we have premium marketing, premium equipment,premium service and premium prices. I think we can even raise our prices again and still probably get those jobs.

37

I have been adjusting my pricing towards my demographic, and am landing way more jobs because of it. When I first started I was all about “flat rate pricing” but it didn’t work out like I intended. But by all means if you can get the extra $$$ - then go for it.

38

Remember to take into account your market, the strategies that work for large markets do not always work for small markets, you can shoot yourself in the foot real fast.

I relocated from Telluride (the real Aspen :D), so we were used to Ralph Lauren paying guys to lay planks in the dips in the road so he could get his Lamborghini into town. But Angel Fire is a much more subtle town with money but not flashy money, and five years ago the “$80/hr” guy retired and the surrounding townsies thought they could swoop in and figured these people are made of money and bumped 30-50% thinking they were the only game in town, the game withered up and blew away. So when I moved in to town instead of charging Telluride prices I went to the retiree and adjusted my prices to alot closer to what his prices were when he retired. So my customers now get Telluride quality at “the lowest price”, but its the Walmart principle, give the people a fair price and you gain enough market share that you can control the market for as long as you don’t get greedy, at the same time business grew so fast I had to take on employees to keep up, so now I am making money without doing all of the work, and we have diversified into the staining business simply because people asked me to, and we offer the top of the line product at the same price other guys are charging for mediocre material, but we have work and the other guys don’t.

So you can look at yourself as a lowballer, or you can look at yourself as building a future, just like monopoly, do you want Park avenue or do you want to grab up every other piece of property and nickel and dime yourself to the top, because you can nickel and dime yourself to the top, sometimes faster than you would think. You can’t be an idiot about the whole thing, don’t underprice yourself just to keep yourself busy, but if someone tried to undercut me they couldn’t do it for long, and our quality is still top notch so if a customer does stray they will probably be back next time. Like was said find a price you know your work is worth, don’t back off of it, but don’t think you can jack it up because a guy has money, we treat every home as if it was a million dollar home, so everyone gets the same highly detailed clean windows, some houses have tricky ladder placements but that comes with the territory, what the guy drives has nothing to do with how difficult his house is, and he knows this.

So my points for a small town are:

  1. The people will talk, and Sue will want to know why her house cost more than Betty (and you better not tell her its because she drives an Aston, flat rate does make this a much simpler conversation)

  2. The people with real money won’t show it off, there are levels of richness, and some of the richest are the least flashy, (one consistently on Forbes, drives a Toyota FJ) these people want to be treated as friends, and should be, they are your neighbors and they moved to a small town to get away from it all.

  3. Rarely but sometimes Sue will be so grateful that you treat her as a friend that she will take you and your family on vacation to Switzerland or to Baja, (hasn’t happened to me but did happen to my old boss several times) and that will probably outweigh the $400 you were going to tack on to her bill.

  4. Sue might not take you if your an ex-con, but Sue also doesn’t want to hear you bad mouth the competition, because that ex-con might be Sue’s best friends dead beat son, she might not admit she doesn’t want him in her house but she doesn’t want it reiterated from you, so watch what you say.

Again these are small town insights, large markets can afford to close 1 in 10 deals, but small town those 9 people tell 9 of their friends your overpriced and you may not even get the opportunity to sell 10 deals next week. I’m not arguing against the business plans previously presented, just letting the new guys know that the same clientele in different markets can have different results, so knowing your market can be more important than just adopting a business plan that works somewhere else.

39

Interesting post, Maverick.

The challenging twist is that people with money never care about everything equally, anymore than people with less wealth do.

The guy driving the FJ might spend $30,000 on golf tutoring over the course of the year and simultaneously be very responsible about his vehicle choice.

He might even hate the idea of eating out, viewing it as a ripoff.

And the guy with the Lamborghini may look at the FJ guy as a schmuck who doesn’t belong.

There is no way of knowing what someone cares about, and values, until they learn about it…

If someone approaches us for an estimate, it’s a shorthand indication at least, that they assign some value to window cleaning, and maybe even a higher than average value, which of course, is in our favor.

The point I’m making: We can never know if a wealthy person will care about window cleaning enough to pay a lot for it. All we can do is try to help them understand and assign value to our services. Some of them will laugh us out the door and it might be the Lamborghini guy, while the FJ guy gladly pays us more than any other local neighbor.

We just never know.