Scaling a window cleaning company

[savefox]

What kind of floor did you do?

 

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[Subsonic]

What kind of floor did you do?

Hard tile floor but it was a massive area with lots of stuff standing around

 

[Spenny]

Hard tile floor but it was a massive area with lots of stuff standing around

Perhaps there is a way you could estimate the cost/square footage? Eyeballing it of course. Its good you're taking this into consideration.

 

[Subsonic]

So I have 2 potential employees right now.
I also got a job as a copywriter for a friend of my dad. He runs a online company and needs someone to write bolg articles that are seo optimized. I get 3ct per word and it's a great thing to do while there is nothing else to do.

I am going to pay some more money this month for ads.
The local newspapers are a great channel to reach my ideal customers. It's also pretty cheap to get a ad there.

The goal is to make 1k this month.
Last month it was 300 and I made ~700.

 

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[piano]

So I have 2 potential employees right now.
I also got a job as a copywriter for a friend of my dad. He runs a online company and needs someone to write bolg articles that are seo optimized. I get 3ct per word and it's a great thing to do while there is nothing else to do.

I am going to pay some more money this month for ads.
The local newspapers are a great channel to reach my ideal customers. It's also pretty cheap to get a ad there.

The goal is to make 1k this month.
Last month it was 300 and I made ~700.

Man, you're hiring people? I'm excited to hear how it's gonna go.
Btw, what happened to your 1k € Gewerbe Handwerksbetrieb fee?

 

[Subsonic]

Man, you're hiring people? I'm excited to hear how it's gonna go.
Btw, what happened to your 1k € Gewerbe Handwerksbetrieb

Checked some legal stuff and now it's only 130. It's also just plain necessary to scale from here as I risk going to court and possibly jail if I get caught running a business without the needed handwerkskarte.

 

[piano]

Checked some legal stuff and now it's only 130. It's also just plain necessary to scale from here as I risk going to court and possibly jail if I get caught running a business without the needed handwerkskarte.

Wait, so did you pay the 1k now or later, or won't at all? I don't really understand.

 

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[Subsonic]

Wait, so did you pay the 1k now or later, or won't at all? I don't really understand.

It's only 130 I have to pay.
The 1k is only if I was a bigger company.

 

[Spenny]

Superb man, well done on grabbing the copywriting job. Keep hustling!

 

[Subsonic]

Alright tomorrow I got a meeting with the advertising guy from a decently sized newspaper.
Prices start at 100 a month and contracts are typically 6 months to a year.
The guy has been doing newspaper ads for 30 years now and claims that many companies that started small could scale massively thanks to the ads on there. Safe to say they know how to advertise for smaller local companies.

Thanks to the copywriting job I can easily afford 100 to 200 a month in ads without cutting into my savings.
Also I really just want to have some more jobs to do and money coming in.
@piano is getting close to making more money than me.


As a side note, I know that newspaper is a dying medium and only read by old people. But guess who my best customers are? Old people.
The ad will also hopefully give me some more credibility with the local stores so I can contract them for regular cleaning jobs.

 

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[constant]

Would you say fliers are effective to advertise window cleaning services when starting out?

Also how do you deal with windows that are too high to reach with an extension pole?

 

[Subsonic]

Would you say fliers are effective to advertise window cleaning services when starting out?

Also how do you deal with windows that are too high to reach with an extension pole?

Read through page 1 and 2, there I have the answers for both questions.

 

[piano]

Also how do you deal with windows that are too high to reach with an extension pole?

Lol that's exactly what I asked myself once.
In short, you'll think that you're gonna need to do all exterior windows from the outside, but you can really just do them from the inside (if residential and both sides, at least with European windows).
Oh and many people also have ladders.
Worst case scenario is you ask their neighbours for a ladder. Absolute worst case scenario, you still don't find one and simply apologise to your customer, although I'd always check before if I'd be able to do them.
(Keep in mind store fronts pretty much always only need an extension pole, unless it's a big shop)
My extension pole size is 4 meters btw, the same as my d-

 

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[Happyheart]

L

Alright tomorrow I got a meeting with the advertising guy from a decently sized newspaper.
Prices start at 100 a month and contracts are typically 6 months to a year.
The guy has been doing newspaper ads for 30 years now and claims that many companies that started small could scale massively thanks to the ads on there. Safe to say they know how to advertise for smaller local companies.

Thanks to the copywriting job I can easily afford 100 to 200 a month in ads without cutting into my savings.
Also I really just want to have some more jobs to do and money coming in.
@piano is getting close to making more money than me.


As a side note, I know that newspaper is a dying medium and only read by old people. But guess who my best customers are? Old people.
The ad will also hopefully give me some more credibility with the local stores so I can contract them for regular cleaning jobs.

Local Newspapers in Germany, especially the ones with many advertisements and little new, are always looking for interesting copy. If you ask, they just may want to write an article on a young and ambitious person, looking to make his way washing windows. If they are not interested, they are often willing to publish an advertorial if you pay for an advert.

 

[Subsonic]

In 2 hours I'll be meeting the guy from the newspaper to talk about a advertising deal. Full authenticity here, I am pretty nervous that this will be disappointing or that I get sold on something I regret later.

Any last minute advice ?

 

[EthanH]

In 2 hours I'll be meeting the guy from the newspaper to talk about a advertising deal. Full authenticity here, I am pretty nervous that this will be disappointing or that I get sold on something I regret later.

Any last minute advice ?

How did it go?

 

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[Subsonic]

How did it go?

Went pretty well. I'll do a test run of 3k flyers with the newspaper since they are working pretty well right now.
If this works out well I might pull the trigger on a 170 a month ad contract with them.

 

[Subsonic]

While waiting for the flyers to arrive I set up a bing ads account.
Why not google ad words? Because they dont let me advertise because of some regulation bs. I need to get a insurance and send out a letter to a chamber of crafts.

So I while my real website is in the works I set up a quick google sites website with my domain. The campaign is set to 5€ a day for now so ill see how that goes. Since there isnt exactly competition for my keywords the bids (if that even is a thing there lol) should be pretty low. Following @Andy Black 's google ads advice I focused on taking keywords with a good search intent.
But because its bing I cant see how many people search for these. I just hope that one of the three keywords they offered me has more than 5 monthly searches.

 

[Andy Black]

While waiting for the flyers to arrive I set up a bing ads account.
Why not google ad words? Because they dont let me advertise because of some regulation bs. I need to get a insurance and send out a letter to a chamber of crafts.

So I while my real website is in the works I set up a quick google sites website with my domain. The campaign is set to 5€ a day for now so ill see how that goes. Since there isnt exactly competition for my keywords the bids (if that even is a thing there lol) should be pretty low. Following @Andy Black 's google ads advice I focused on taking keywords with a good search intent.
But because its bing I cant see how many people search for these. I just hope that one of the three keywords they offered me has more than 5 monthly searches.

Google Ads needs insurance?

 

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[Subsonic]

Google Ads needs insurance?

Yep they want me to send them a image of a insurance contract that covers at least up to 500k in damages.

 

[savefox]

Yep they want me to send them a image of a insurance contract that covers at least up to 500k in damages.

Are you trying to do local services ads or Google ads? You don't need insurance to run google ads. It's required for lsa

 

[Subsonic]

Are you trying to do local services ads or Google ads? You don't need insurance to run google ads. It's required for lsa

Oh yeah I was trying to do that.

Ill check the actual google ads out once google accepts my payment methode.

 

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[savefox]

Oh yeah I was trying to do that.

Ill check the actual google ads out once google accepts my payment methode.

You should be running LSA as well. It takes like 20 minutes to set up and you only pay for calls. You can get insurance for like $30 a month and you'll need it anyway at some point.

 

[Subsonic]

You should be running LSA as well. It takes like 20 minutes to set up and you only pay for calls. You can get insurance for like $30 a month and you'll need it anyway at some point.

Got it for 6 a month.
Insurance is cheap af in Germany.

Also this

These are 20x 250 Flyers. 5000 flyers.
Every 250 flyers bring me one customer on average. This means (even at half of that) this box will bring me 10 customers or more than 1k in profit.
This was my first leap of zeros. I bought this and then made a contract with the local newspaper that they hand out 3k Flyers in their newspapers for me. In total I spent about 300€ on this deal.
While little money for many, this is a pretty big chunk of money for my standards.

 

[Subsonic]

Small update

I managed to fix google ads but my worst fear came true:

People went to the website.

The website has the problem that its a "to check the box" website (its terrible) and I thought people would just call me. Sadly not so I am pausing the ads untill I have the good website up. However the ctr seems to be decent (180 impressions, 16 clicks).

I am also going to change the campaign from smart campaign to a real one since I saw andy saying that smart campaigns cant be trusted.

 

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[savefox]

Small update

I managed to fix google ads but my worst fear came true:

People went to the website.

The website has the problem that its a "to check the box" website (its terrible) and I thought people would just call me. Sadly not so I am pausing the ads untill I have the good website up. However the ctr seems to be decent (180 impressions, 16 clicks).

I am also going to change the campaign from smart campaign to a real one since I saw andy saying that smart campaigns cant be trusted.

Don't spend any more money on google ads. Buy @Andy Black course first. All those people that clicked weren't even looking for window cleaning most likely

 

[Subsonic]

To copy @piano

I MADE 500 € TODAY !

I sent out 2 articles for my writing job, 150 each and then also booked in 2 jobs for 100 each.

The 1k month is getting closer. Getting cut off from students/children healthcare insurance is also getting closer haha.
The writing is somewhat tedious but with the help of chatgpt its pretty doable (no I cant just tell it to write for me). For the actual business, I am almost done with the website (just need to wait for the photographer to respond and then do the photos) and I am talking to the big city gym tomorrow if I can hang flyers on their black board. Since lots of rich people go there, I assume I will be able to get a few customers from there.

I took the time and went through most of andys stuff on google ads and specifically ads for local businesses.


Moreover I also found a new motivation to work harder: The dodge viper and nitro boosts. It will take a while untill I can afford a Viper (its gonna be my treat for hitting 500k profit) but a nitro Kit could be fun in a few months. Nothing better than a god damm vw caddy going 0 to 100 in 5 seconds haha.

 

[piano]

To copy @piano

I MADE 500 € TODAY !

I sent out 2 articles for my writing job, 150 each and then also booked in 2 jobs for 100 each.

The 1k month is getting closer. Getting cut off from students/children healthcare insurance is also getting closer haha.
The writing is somewhat tedious but with the help of chatgpt its pretty doable (no I cant just tell it to write for me). For the actual business, I am almost done with the website (just need to wait for the photographer to respond and then do the photos) and I am talking to the big city gym tomorrow if I can hang flyers on their black board. Since lots of rich people go there, I assume I will be able to get a few customers from there.

I took the time and went through most of andys stuff on google ads and specifically ads for local businesses.


Moreover I also found a new motivation to work harder: The dodge viper and nitro boosts. It will take a while untill I can afford a Viper (its gonna be my treat for hitting 500k profit) but a nitro Kit could be fun in a few months. Nothing better than a god damm vw caddy going 0 to 100 in 5 seconds haha.

Holy shit!
That's awesome (for you.)!
But were all the 500€ from the copywriting job or your window cleaning biz?

Also, it's "annoying" me kinda that you're getting so far right now haha. My business registration process right now is even more frustrating than supposed to and I might take a "shortcut" to get something registered, but I'll see more about that...

Good luck, "Subsonic".

edit: why does reply sound so god damn edgy

 

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[savefox]

Nice job. Profit margin for a window cleaning business ranges between 10% to 20%. Let's say it's 15%. You need to be making about 3.500.000 per year or 290.000 per month. That's 966 jobs per month if you make about $300 per job. How many $300 jobs can you do per day? Let's say 5. So one crew brings in $1500 per day. That means you need 193 trucks working full time doing 5 $300 jobs per day each. You will have to be spending about $58.000 on marketing per month (online and offline) to get to that number and grow aggressively (20% of revenue). Double all the numbers if you want to hit $500k after tax. Now set goals and execute!

 

[Subsonic]

Holy shit!
That's awesome (for you.)!
But were all the 500€ from the copywriting job or your window cleaning biz?

Also, it's "annoying" me kinda that you're getting so far right now haha. My business registration process right now is even more frustrating than supposed to and I might take a "shortcut" to get something registered, but I'll see more about that...

Good luck, "Subsonic".

edit: why does reply sound so god damn edgy

Like I said, 300 from writing and 200 from the biz.

If I was you, I'd just work for me You'd get paid more than you get now and also avoid taxes and paperwork.