What's a window cleaning teenager progress?

[WJK]

I know I'm supposed to be focusing on Facebook ads or Google ads to expand my reach, but recently people are asking me for double story houses. I reckon that I can do the exterior part of the windows through the interior by taking out the glass(eg sliding windows) though I also think that using an extension pole will be better.
@piano, do you clean double story and how do you clean them?

Or an extension ladder with a hook to hold your bucket.

 

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[Chet Shen]

Or an extension ladder with a hook to hold your bucket.

My dad and my dad's friend said that I shouldn't get a ladder cause it's dangerous. I could get hurt or hurt others. Therefore, I was thinking maybe I should get a public liability insurance(protects me from the public) and a personal injury for sole traders( for my health). I was also thinking about how I'm going to bring my ladder to houses.

I just think that extension pole and some taking out windows to clean the exterior part will do just fine. Though I want to hear my fellow window cleaners opinion. Especially @piano or @Subsonic

 

[WJK]

My dad and my dad's friend said that I shouldn't get a ladder cause it's dangerous. I could get hurt or hurt others. Therefore, I was thinking maybe I should get a public liability insurance(protects me from the public) and a personal injury for sole traders( for my health). I was also thinking about how I'm going to bring my ladder to houses.

I just think that extension pole and some taking out windows to clean the exterior part will do just fine. Though I want to hear my fellow window cleaners opinion. Especially @piano or @Subsonic

Maybe, since you consider it to be a safety issue, you should limit your business to one-story buildings.

 

[Chet Shen]

Maybe, since you consider it to be a safety issue, you should limit your business to one-story buildings.

Yea that's true, I was thinking about that as well. Then I'll be scared that I'm limiting myself. Guess I'll just have to find single story houses in my area, sucks that I can't do double story.

Btw, thank you for replying to my questions, really helps out! I love it when people answer my questions

 

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[WJK]

Yea that's true, I was thinking about that as well. Then I'll be scared that I'm limiting myself. Guess I'll just have to find single story houses in my area, sucks that I can't do double story.

Btw, thank you for replying to my questions, really helps out! I love it when people answer my questions

So, find someone who does 2-story windows and get a referral fee for sending them work. Or work out a trade where they send you one-story jobs in exchange for sending them work. There are a lot of ways to skin this cat!

 

[Hunday]

Just finished the thread, man what a journey! I strongly suggest saving up for that pole to do double-stories, considering its huge advantages. Have you tried getting some of your friends to clean for you as an employee?
And if you want a website, you can always use Wix for free, or if you want to make one out of code, but without actually coding: GrapesJS or Webflow will work. Good job working hard m8

 

[Chet Shen]

Just finished the thread, man what a journey! I strongly suggest saving up for that pole to do double-stories, considering its huge advantages. Have you tried getting some of your friends to clean for you as an employee?
And if you want a website, you can always use Wix for free, or if you want to make one out of code, but without actually coding: GrapesJS or Webflow will work. Good job working hard m8

Thanks for replying to my thread! I always love people commenting my posts.

Talking about extension pole, in Bunnings(like USA home depot) a 15ft extensiom pole cost like $120 so I went to a store in Malaysia and used Shippn and now waiting for the delivery for a 6 meter extension pole for 25 USD.

Im going to buy an extension pole, brushes for tracks and potentially public liability and personal injury insurance.

About getting friends for employees, my school is 1hr away from my house cause it's a good school, but I've joined a group willing to make some friends in my area.

I also saw competition popping out in Facebook and nextdoor and honestly, I'm scared. I'm scared that my sales will go down or my clients will go to them. I'm honestly terrified of my competition. I'm going to learn Facebook ads and Google ads and do more marketing to Facebook and nextdoor. Figured that my target audience are using Facebook and nextdoor.

I'd reckon that my target audience are people who are 30-65+ and are too busy/lazy to clean windows but like cleanliness. I'm reading a book called "likeable social media" and thinking of employing much more friendly marketing that thinks like the consumers. I'm going to read Russell Brunson's books and focus on selling and marketing now, since MJ said it's about your product and marketing.

Btw got a client this Saturday doubles story house, charged him $360 in the beginning but managed to negotiate to 250 due to budget and inflation as his reason. Now interest rate raised 0.25 now 4.1%. So understand the budget reason. What do you guys think?

Feel free to say any opinions, tips and advices. I'm going to read EVERY SINGLE POST

 

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[Chet Shen]

Just finished the thread, man what a journey! I strongly suggest saving up for that pole to do double-stories, considering its huge advantages. Have you tried getting some of your friends to clean for you as an employee?
And if you want a website, you can always use Wix for free, or if you want to make one out of code, but without actually coding: GrapesJS or Webflow will work. Good job working hard m8

Yea definitely going to take the extension pole.
I want some employees, thinking of paying them 15-20 per hour or maybe more.
I'll try using Wix, my friend said that he suggests using Wix so I guess that I'll try to make one.

Btw since I'm in school, do you think that I should get as much reviews as I can from my friends in hope to boost my rank in Google map to number 1? Currently I'm in rank 4 in my area with two sponsored ads in the top 2. Should I do Google ads?

 

[Hunday]

I've never run ads for anything yet, but if your competitors are doing it, yes it'd be a good idea.
I'd also like to mention that I've studied a lot into window washing & salesmanship because of this thread. When I sell stuff at garage sales, typically posting on Facebook works the best because it shows people in your area (and old people use Facebook).

 

[Chet Shen]

I've never run ads for anything yet, but if your competitors are doing it, yes it'd be a good idea.
I'd also like to mention that I've studied a lot into window washing & salesmanship because of this thread. When I sell stuff at garage sales, typically posting on Facebook works the best because it shows people in your area (and old people use Facebook).

Definitely true, I'm using Facebook and nextdoor to market myself now, got my target audience. Reading the likeable social media book now.
I'm very glad that people are reading my thread and replying and I probably said this a million times. This fastlane app is like my social media, everytime I wake up hoping to see someone commenting on my thread.

Anyways, today i got $200 from nextdoor. Didn't see the whole windows and made the bid in the messaging app right there without even going to their house (BIG MISTAKE). Double story but I gave up and did interior upper story, both interior and exterior for lower story and tracks for all of them. I used 5 1/2 hours just to do this and I'm very annoyed and angry.

I actually wanted to try to do double story inside and outside by using the sliding windows but I suck, so I quit lol. Never doing double story again. I quoted both stories for 360 but the guy said he's budget was 250 so I accepted. In the end I did 200. I didn't bring a vaccum cleaner for tracks and forgot to bring my t bar but got bring my scrubber, so I had to use my hands for the scrubber and it tooks longer.

I was annoyed and angry of how dumb and panicked when he asked me for the price. Should have just calm the freak down and think but I came up with 200. Guess that's better than nothing.

Lesson learnt:
1)Don't do double story unless you got ladder, 6M extension pole and insurance(just in case I fall down)
2) CALM DOWN and think before deciding on a bid
3)ALWAYS double check your equipment before going out
4) Clarify EVERYTHING. Details, details and details. Ask, "Am I deep cleaning the tracks or just cleaning them?" "Are the door tracks included as well?" "What about this window here, am I cleaning this?. Sometimes they don't want to clean EVERY single window
5) Know what they want. They want to talk to you? You doing your job faster? You to stop talking? I got a feeling that he wanted me out fast, so I quickly do my job and get tf out of there.

Always be detailed about everything. Doesn't hurt to calm down and think of a price for 5 minutes than to be annoyed/angry at yourself for 4 hours.

Oh, and I'm planning to read Russell Brunson's and Facebook ads books. Going to start using social media to my advantage. Also going to hire a casual worker now, customers want it fast and efficient. Now I need to find a casual worker. Who knows? Hire my 11yr old sister $15/hr? Idk

 

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[WJK]

Definitely true, I'm using Facebook and nextdoor to market myself now, got my target audience. Reading the likeable social media book now.
I'm very glad that people are reading my thread and replying and I probably said this a million times. This fastlane app is like my social media, everytime I wake up hoping to see someone commenting on my thread.

Anyways, today i got $200 from nextdoor. Didn't see the whole windows and made the bid in the messaging app right there without even going to their house (BIG MISTAKE). Double story but I gave up and did interior upper story, both interior and exterior for lower story and tracks for all of them. I used 5 1/2 hours just to do this and I'm very annoyed and angry.

I actually wanted to try to do double story inside and outside by using the sliding windows but I suck, so I quit lol. Never doing double story again. I quoted both stories for 360 but the guy said he's budget was 250 so I accepted. In the end I did 200. I didn't bring a vaccum cleaner for tracks and forgot to bring my t bar but got bring my scrubber, so I had to use my hands for the scrubber and it tooks longer.

I was annoyed and angry of how dumb and panicked when he asked me for the price. Should have just calm the freak down and think but I came up with 200. Guess that's better than nothing.

Lesson learnt:
1)Don't do double story unless you got ladder, 6M extension pole and insurance(just in case I fall down)
2) CALM DOWN and think before deciding on a bid
3)ALWAYS double check your equipment before going out
4) Clarify EVERYTHING. Details, details and details. Ask, "Am I deep cleaning the tracks or just cleaning them?" "Are the door tracks included as well?" "What about this window here, am I cleaning this?. Sometimes they don't want to clean EVERY single window
5) Know what they want. They want to talk to you? You doing your job faster? You to stop talking? I got a feeling that he wanted me out fast, so I quickly do my job and get tf out of there.

Always be detailed about everything. Doesn't hurt to calm down and think of a price for 5 minutes than to be annoyed/angry at yourself for 4 hours.

Oh, and I'm planning to read Russell Brunson's and Facebook ads books. Going to start using social media to my advantage. Also going to hire a casual worker now, customers want it fast and efficient. Now I need to find a casual worker. Who knows? Hire my 11yr old sister $15/hr? Idk

The lessons you are learning will be useful for the rest of your life. And the steps you are taking will become second nature. You won't even think about them in time. They will become your basic habits.

The difference between a professional and beginner is how they group things. An example of this is a baseball player. The novice groups the dribbles, the basket shots, and hand-offs together as separate moves. The professional players think of a group of moves they make down the court resulting in a basket shot. It's a totally different point of view. You need to start thinking about the jobs as a series of steps that are part of the process. You need to put together tools and material kits for the different types of jobs. Changing your way of looking at the jobs will make them easier to bid out.

 

[Chet Shen]

The lessons you are learning will be useful for the rest of your life. And the steps you are taking will become second nature. You won't even think about them in time. They will become your basic habits.

The difference between a professional and beginner is how they group things. An example of this is a baseball player. The novice groups the dribbles, the basket shots, and hand-offs together as separate moves. The professional players think of a group of moves they make down the court resulting in a basket shot. It's a totally different point of view. You need to start thinking about the jobs as a series of steps that are part of the process. You need to put together tools and material kits for the different types of jobs. Changing your way of looking at the jobs will make them easier to bid out.

What do you mean at the last 2 sentences?

 

[WJK]

What do you mean at the last 2 sentences?

All window washing jobs are not the same. You can group them by the steps and procedures you must do to finish the job. Think about the differences you have found so far and how you completed the work. Then put together kits and parts of kits for the different types. If you deep clean the tracks, what do you need? If you do high windows, what do you need for that?

My life is full of kits and groups. I have big printers in both of my offices that have user boxes (built-in hard drives). The forms I use every day are all scanned and in the user boxes. And I have groups of forms ready to print. When I need the forms for a new tenant, I print that group with the touch of one button. If I need one of the forms, I print that specific one. The forms are half filled out so I don't have to do that work each time. Above my printers, I have cork boards where I pin templates of the more complicated groups of forms. I print the forms I need. Then I can thumb through the template to finish filling them out.

I have a computer bag that I carry with me all the time. It has every charging cord, my computer/tablet, pens & pencils, paper, and anything else that I need during the day. I can go anywhere at any time without worrying about getting there without something vital.

I make kits for different jobs. At home, I have cleaning kits in each bathroom and the kitchen. My kits have the brush, the rag, the cleaning soap, and everything that I need to quickly wipe down that area. I can clean up an area without having to go gather up the supplies.

My kitchens are set up with similar convenient groups of ingredients and tools. I cook at least one good meal for my husband every day, so everything must be convenient for me. I fit that chore into a very busy business day. It's usually lunch at my office. It gives us time to catch up on our day and sometimes friends join us for our meal. I just dish up some extra plates and everyone enjoys the moment. I'm known for being a great cook and making it look easy.

Does that answer your question?

 

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[Chet Shen]

All window washing jobs are not the same. You can group them by the steps and procedures you must do to finish the job. Think about the differences you have found so far and how you completed the work. Then put together kits and parts of kits for the different types. If you deep clean the tracks, what do you need? If you do high windows, what do you need for that?

My life is full of kits and groups. I have big printers in both of my offices that have user boxes (built-in hard drives). The forms I use every day are all scanned and in the user boxes. And I have groups of forms ready to print. When I need the forms for a new tenant, I print that group with the touch of one button. If I need one of the forms, I print that specific one. The forms are half filled out so I don't have to do that work each time. Above my printers, I have cork boards where I pin templates of the more complicated groups of forms. I print the forms I need. Then I can thumb through the template to finish filling them out.

I have a computer bag that I carry with me all the time. It has every charging cord, my computer/tablet, pens & pencils, paper, and anything else that I need during the day. I can go anywhere at any time without worrying about getting there without something vital.

I make kits for different jobs. At home, I have cleaning kits in each bathroom and the kitchen. My kits have the brush, the rag, the cleaning soap, and everything that I need to quickly wipe down that area. I can clean up an area without having to go gather up the supplies.

My kitchens are set up with similar convenient groups of ingredients and tools. I cook at least one good meal for my husband every day, so everything must be convenient for me. I fit that chore into a very busy business day. It's usually lunch at my office. It gives us time to catch up on our day and sometimes friends join us for our meal. I just dish up some extra plates and everyone enjoys the moment. I'm known for being a great cook and making it look easy.

Does that answer your question?

Yea, so I have to plan ahead and know the steps on how to clean the house. Picture a clean house then backtrack. This is about creating a system and knowing what to do next right?
Here's my plan:
1) Clean tracks upstairs - brush & vaccum cleaner
2)Clean windows upstairs - extension pole, other supplies
3) Clean tracks downstairs
4)Clean windows downstairs

Creating systems to make the outcome much more easier and I don't have to think about it. Grouping each actions are like creating systems. Creating a step by step guide and gruoping each one of them is better and I don't have to panic so much cuz I already know what to do.
I'll try to gruop my actions now

 

[Chet Shen]

@piano if you hire your friend for casual work.
How much would you pay? What equipment and role would you give him? How fast did it took, 2x faster?

 

[WJK]

Yea, so I have to plan ahead and know the steps on how to clean the house. Picture a clean house then backtrack. This is about creating a system and knowing what to do next right?
Here's my plan:
1) Clean tracks upstairs - brush & vaccum cleaner
2)Clean windows upstairs - extension pole, other supplies
3) Clean tracks downstairs
4)Clean windows downstairs

Creating systems to make the outcome much more easier and I don't have to think about it. Grouping each actions are like creating systems. Creating a step by step guide and gruoping each one of them is better and I don't have to panic so much cuz I already know what to do.
I'll try to gruop my actions now

And you know how much work and materials it will take. Therefore, you know what to charge for the job. You will work faster, smoother, and look professional. When you look more professional, people will be willing to pay you more.

I know a guy who started cleaning pools to work his way through college. He got his degree but continued with his pool-cleaning business in Southern California. Now he has a fleet of trucks and the employees to man them. And he's developed a whole bunch of side businesses that dovetail with his core pool-cleaning business. He's a multi-millionaire. I never saw him party or be stupid with his money. He just kept investing in his business and expanding it. When I had a RE listing with a yucky pool, I called him and he took care of it.

Here's another example. My mother-in-law needed a new garage door. She's in Idaho and I'm in Alaska - thousands of miles apart. I got on the net on a Friday afternoon and started calling contractors. I called several and then I talk to one guy that I liked. I asked how many garage doors he did. He told me about 7 per day. I asked him how much and he gave me a mid-priced number -- not too high and not too low. I asked when he could be there. He said Monday morning. And he was. My mother-in-law had her new garage door installed by early afternoon. The mess was cleaned up and they took away the old door. She was happy. I paid the contractor online before the end of the day on his very convenient web page. Let me say this again... I called Friday afternoon, and he had that new door installed the following Monday morning, the next business day. He had his money within hours of installing that door. It was a done deal. Did he have a system or what?

 

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[Jrjohnny]

Hey Lawtiti, great story man, something you can do is put “business cards” in peoples mailboxes if you have a printer, and the competition part, you can try to find skews. You got this man.

 

[WJK]

Hey Lawtiti, great story man, something you can do is put “business cards” in peoples mailboxes if you have a printer, and the competition part, you can try to find skews. You got this man.

Hold up. In the USA it is illegal to put anything in a post office box that has not been officially sent through the PO. Check your laws before you take this advice.

 

[Jrjohnny]

Hold up. In the USA it is illegal to put anything in a post office box that has not been officially sent through the PO. Check your laws before you take this advice.

Oh, I didn’t know that, I’m Canadian and I also thought Lawtiti wasn’t in America, your right though, sorry.

 

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[Chet Shen]

Got into a free Worksop from the government in Wednesday called "Planning for growth" it was about business planning and it emphasizes a lot on sales & marketing and accounting. I learnt a lot from the workshop and thought that you guys might learn a thing or two from what I've learned.

Opportunities without structure= chaos. Where structure represents processes/systems. How can you make the opportunity work without much systems/processes to reach a desired result. Every results needs to have processes/systems. It's to make the work organise and easier to do without thinking much.

Niches are much more narrow and industry are much more broader. Say e.g. window cleaning. Window cleaning is an industry while residential window cleaning/ commercial/industry window cleaning are niches as they are much more specific and narrower. You have to excel/dominate in one niche first before you go on to another niche. If you just go to any niches and don't care, you won't have the right equipment or you won't have a customer base/case studies that proves that you're an expert. Like wheres your proof?

Sales and marketing is the primary goal of every industry and the second goal is the delivery. Sales and marketing are what makes businesses known and attract prospects, if you're good, you're able to attract more and more prospects. "You cannot lead and grow at the same time as managing and controlling" where leading & growing is sales and marketing as it helps your to expand and dominate your niche while managing and controlling is the delivery part where you control and deliver the promises/perceived value that you have made to your customers.

Prospects- never dealt with you before
Customers- 1-3 transactions
Clients- Long term client

Know the difference of each stages as you have to give out different messages and you have to be specific on who you're targeting. It's a small tweak but it can come of as huge when comes to marketing and selling

There are two ends in marketing:
The front end where you try to attract new prospect from pull marketing, where they come to you & The Back End where you upsell(more value)/cross sell(different niche) your product/ services so that you create a buying frenzy which increases clients loyalty. New businesses who have customers should focus on the back end, where they convert the existing customers into clients by upselling/ cross selling.

There are strategy and tactics in business marketing/sales. Strategies are which market niche do we target? Who is our target audience? Ideal customer? And tactics are the leads/ assets like websites, email marketing, social media and so on.

3 ways to grow sales:
1)More prospects/customers/clients - where you do your prospecting/referrals/ and other marketing
2)Increase No. of frequency of transactions per customer
3)Increase average value of client/increase average life cycle where you upsell/ cross sell any other product/service to keep them buying.

Selling is all about the transfer of certainty where you have to make the prospect trust your
- product/service
- company
- person - you
You have to come across as enthusiastic, sharp and an expert. If you don't get the sales, one of them are missing.
Use your tonality/body language to seem like a trusted advisor and make them know that you're in control and you have the perfect solution for them.
When someone is shopping for prices, like " that's too expensive/ can you make it $..." It's because that you haven't added/communicate enough value. Prices doesn't matter and nobody shops for prices, people wants results, benefits, value. You can sell someone 4-10x the amount of money if you added enough value and they WILL buy it. It's either they feel that something is missing/value is missing/ you have to stack on value after value. It's all about results, what results can you give, what value? Results, benefits, value. You can ask people who decline your offer, why they didn't accept it? Did you not come across as enthusiastic, sharp and an expert?

Copy the best. If one window cleaning company dominated the industry, why not copy them? There's no reason to not copy the best. Copy their website, where do they put the ads? The pictures? Copy their lead funnel, what do they offer to their prospect? Customer?client? You can copy the top 10 best performing industry and see what you like and implement them onto your own.

You need to know your numbers as well. As you will know what levers to pull to get healthy again. You get to see problems and remove. To know your numbers, you have to learn some accounting. Balance sheet, income statement, cash flow statement and KPIs. Basics of accounting is what every entrepreneur need to know. The cash flow statement is the most important as it's all about cash and liquidity. You can work without profit, but you can't work without cash.

When delegating your tasks to expand your company, set results, roles and responsibilities. Make it clear and specific. Don't always check up on them too often, give them some space to work. Tell them to give you reports and check on them once in a while, not a lot. Or you'll be like a mother to a child. Make them responsible and accountable for what they do.

What makes your different and special from other businesses. If you don't know, you're just an average business. Find out what separates you from the others. What makes your different? The guy told me to give him a 10 sec elevator pitch that separated me apart from other window cleaning businesses and I f*cked up, words can't even come together because I know I'm average. Know what makes your different, if you don't, you're not special.

And lastly. How bad do you want it? Are you willing to go through failure after failure? Are you willing to be called all sorts of profanity? Are you willing to get frustrated and thinking that no one likes you? Are you willing to go through doors after doors and no's after no's and feeling like shit? How badly do you want it? You may not want it that badly, it's up to you.

These are some points that I've learned and my takeaways were
-Sales and marketing are primary goals of every industry.
-Learn basic accounting
-Prospects, customers, and clients are different
-Theres front end and back end of marketing
-Learnt that niches are important and much more narrow
- Selling is about transfer of certainty.
-Read Straight line system by Jordan Belfort, learn how to sell
-Im a little bitch being protected by parents and if I have kids and a wife, I would have gone 110% to get sales. Stop being a pussy being scared of looping in sales because someone might tell you to F*ck off and other sorts of bad words. Go get contracts like your life depends on it. Just do it.

What I'm going to do next:
- Brainstorm what makes me special and how I can upsell/cross sell services to be better
- Learn how to sell - Straight Line system by Jordan Belfort
- Focus on my niche and delegate my work

 

[Chet Shen]

Oh, I didn’t know that, I’m Canadian and I also thought Lawtiti wasn’t in America, your right though, sorry.

I didn't know that posting brochures or anything need to get verified. Wow, definitely checking my laws here. I'm just scared that if I put my business card in people's mailboxes, it will be thrown away. I'm thinking of giving it to storefronts only. What do you think?

 

[Andy Black]

Got into a free Worksop from the government in Wednesday called "Planning for growth" it was about business planning and it emphasizes a lot on sales & marketing and accounting. I learnt a lot from the workshop and thought that you guys might learn a thing or two from what I've learned.

Opportunities without structure= chaos. Where structure represents processes/systems. How can you make the opportunity work without much systems/processes to reach a desired result. Every results needs to have processes/systems. It's to make the work organise and easier to do without thinking much.

Niches are much more narrow and industry are much more broader. Say e.g. window cleaning. Window cleaning is an industry while residential window cleaning/ commercial/industry window cleaning are niches as they are much more specific and narrower. You have to excel/dominate in one niche first before you go on to another niche. If you just go to any niches and don't care, you won't have the right equipment or you won't have a customer base/case studies that proves that you're an expert. Like wheres your proof?

Sales and marketing is the primary goal of every industry and the second goal is the delivery. Sales and marketing are what makes businesses known and attract prospects, if you're good, you're able to attract more and more prospects. "You cannot lead and grow at the same time as managing and controlling" where leading & growing is sales and marketing as it helps your to expand and dominate your niche while managing and controlling is the delivery part where you control and deliver the promises/perceived value that you have made to your customers.

Prospects- never dealt with you before
Customers- 1-3 transactions
Clients- Long term client

Know the difference of each stages as you have to give out different messages and you have to be specific on who you're targeting. It's a small tweak but it can come of as huge when comes to marketing and selling

There are two ends in marketing:
The front end where you try to attract new prospect from pull marketing, where they come to you & The Back End where you upsell(more value)/cross sell(different niche) your product/ services so that you create a buying frenzy which increases clients loyalty. New businesses who have customers should focus on the back end, where they convert the existing customers into clients by upselling/ cross selling.

There are strategy and tactics in business marketing/sales. Strategies are which market niche do we target? Who is our target audience? Ideal customer? And tactics are the leads/ assets like websites, email marketing, social media and so on.

3 ways to grow sales:
1)More prospects/customers/clients - where you do your prospecting/referrals/ and other marketing
2)Increase No. of frequency of transactions per customer
3)Increase average value of client/increase average life cycle where you upsell/ cross sell any other product/service to keep them buying.

Selling is all about the transfer of certainty where you have to make the prospect trust your
- product/service
- company
- person - you
You have to come across as enthusiastic, sharp and an expert. If you don't get the sales, one of them are missing.
Use your tonality/body language to seem like a trusted advisor and make them know that you're in control and you have the perfect solution for them.
When someone is shopping for prices, like " that's too expensive/ can you make it $..." It's because that you haven't added/communicate enough value. Prices doesn't matter and nobody shops for prices, people wants results, benefits, value. You can sell someone 4-10x the amount of money if you added enough value and they WILL buy it. It's either they feel that something is missing/value is missing/ you have to stack on value after value. It's all about results, what results can you give, what value? Results, benefits, value. You can ask people who decline your offer, why they didn't accept it? Did you not come across as enthusiastic, sharp and an expert?

Copy the best. If one window cleaning company dominated the industry, why not copy them? There's no reason to not copy the best. Copy their website, where do they put the ads? The pictures? Copy their lead funnel, what do they offer to their prospect? Customer?client? You can copy the top 10 best performing industry and see what you like and implement them onto your own.

You need to know your numbers as well. As you will know what levers to pull to get healthy again. You get to see problems and remove. To know your numbers, you have to learn some accounting. Balance sheet, income statement, cash flow statement and KPIs. Basics of accounting is what every entrepreneur need to know. The cash flow statement is the most important as it's all about cash and liquidity. You can work without profit, but you can't work without cash.

When delegating your tasks to expand your company, set results, roles and responsibilities. Make it clear and specific. Don't always check up on them too often, give them some space to work. Tell them to give you reports and check on them once in a while, not a lot. Or you'll be like a mother to a child. Make them responsible and accountable for what they do.

What makes your different and special from other businesses. If you don't know, you're just an average business. Find out what separates you from the others. What makes your different? The guy told me to give him a 10 sec elevator pitch that separated me apart from other window cleaning businesses and I f*cked up, words can't even come together because I know I'm average. Know what makes your different, if you don't, you're not special.

And lastly. How bad do you want it? Are you willing to go through failure after failure? Are you willing to be called all sorts of profanity? Are you willing to get frustrated and thinking that no one likes you? Are you willing to go through doors after doors and no's after no's and feeling like shit? How badly do you want it? You may not want it that badly, it's up to you.

These are some points that I've learned and my takeaways were
-Sales and marketing are primary goals of every industry.
-Learn basic accounting
-Prospects, customers, and clients are different
-Theres front end and back end of marketing
-Learnt that niches are important and much more narrow
- Selling is about transfer of certainty.
-Read Straight line system by Jordan Belfort, learn how to sell
-Im a little bitch being protected by parents and if I have kids and a wife, I would have gone 110% to get sales. Stop being a pussy being scared of looping in sales because someone might tell you to F*ck off and other sorts of bad words. Go get contracts like your life depends on it. Just do it.

What I'm going to do next:
- Brainstorm what makes me special and how I can upsell/cross sell services to be better
- Learn how to sell - Straight Line system by Jordan Belfort
- Focus on my niche and delegate my work

Damn. When you said it was a Government workshop I was dreading what they took you through, but this is good stuff.

I personally think of people as being prospects (never bought from you), buyers (they bought once as a test), and customers (they've a custom of buying from you). Saying that, I prefer to think of them as clients as I then think of providing a better service.

On the selling side, I personally don't want to read any books. Some of the best sales folks I've met were tradesmen who come round our house and I doubt they've read a sales book in their life. I value relationships over transactions. Your mileage may vary of course.

 

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[Chet Shen]

Damn. When you said it was a Government workshop I was dreading what they took you through, but this is good stuff.

I personally think of people as being prospects (never bought from you), buyers (they bought once as a test), and customers (they've a custom of buying from you). Saying that, I prefer to think of them as clients as I then think of providing a better service.

On the selling side, I personally don't want to read any books. Some of the best sales folks I've met were tradesmen who come round our house and I doubt they've read a sales book in their life. I value relationships over transactions. Your mileage may vary of course.

I think the government workshops are much more better here in Australia. You get 8 hour free session with a business advisor 1 on 1, it's pretty nice and I learn a lot from the workshops.
I feel that I'm kinda stuck in between two concepts of persuasion/ selling to people and convincing them to buy VS helping out and marketing your solution to see if some people want it.
@Andy Black do you mind posting some of your sales call here? I would love to read/hear it as Idk where to find it

 

[Andy Black]

@Andy Black do you mind posting some of your sales call here? I would love to read/hear it as Idk where to find it

This is myself discussing "sales calls" with @xShepherdx

MARKETING - A chat about selling marketing services

@xShepherdx posted last week about his frustrations hiring a marketing freelancer. We've never spoken but I offered to hop on a call and chat about it. If you watch then please add your notes and I'll add them to this opening post. What's your takeaways? What will you do different going...

www.thefastlaneforum.com

Here's a podcast I did for a bit:

HOT! - EXECUTION - Let's Chat Sales

I started a podcast with Brendan McAdams who has years of experience as a sales pro. Join us in our first episode to learn how we: Figure it out as we go along. Find Product-Market-Fit, one customer at a time. Allow niches to reveal themselves as we engage the market. We also discuss, among...

www.thefastlaneforum.com

 

[Chet Shen]

This is myself discussing "sales calls" with @xShepherdx

MARKETING - A chat about selling marketing services

@xShepherdx posted last week about his frustrations hiring a marketing freelancer. We've never spoken but I offered to hop on a call and chat about it. If you watch then please add your notes and I'll add them to this opening post. What's your takeaways? What will you do different going...

www.thefastlaneforum.com

Here's a podcast I did for a bit:

HOT! - EXECUTION - Let's Chat Sales

I started a podcast with Brendan McAdams who has years of experience as a sales pro. Join us in our first episode to learn how we: Figure it out as we go along. Find Product-Market-Fit, one customer at a time. Allow niches to reveal themselves as we engage the market. We also discuss, among...

www.thefastlaneforum.com

My first video takeaways:
-People are much more comfortable talking to the worker as he knows his things and can show them the problems on the way. The worker only charges what he sees and usually talks to people what he sees, making logical sense to them. People don't trust business owners as they're first priority is about money and making them a client, not bringing value and helping them.

-"Selling" is all about helping people out. Telling them what you see and how you can help them. Its not about closing or pitching, it'd about giving value and seeing if they need it or not.

-Talk to people in details when helping them. Don't give them the price and expect payment. Expect to help and to give value. Know their struggles and why they need you for help. Understand them and treat them as a human, don't sell, just help. People are willing to refer/pay someone who are understanding and genuinely cares about helping them.

-Help people, don't sell. Don't focus on the money, focus on the value that you can add. Focus on helping more, then you will get paid more.

Is there anything I'm missing?

 

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[Chet Shen]

Sunday going to clean a double story house interior. Told the guy $300 and I will need casual workers. I need my friends to help and they argeed to help. Last Saturday I missed a very good chance to coach them as I was very panicked as I have delayed multiple times. I should have calmed the hell down and think rationally, thinking in the bigger picture, not in the moment. Still to this day, ive regret on calling my friends to help clean that house, because it was easy and good training if I called them. I'll try again in this Saturday. Any tips on managing/doing any casual workers? Or employees in general? I need help managing because idk how. Any advices will be great!

 

[Chet Shen]

Really asking myself
"I'm this is a learning experience, when should I stop?"

"This window cleaning business has the potential to outearn a minimum wage employee, should I scale and outearn a minimum wage employee?"

I just bought an extension pole for double story but I won't buy a ladder for safety reasons.(I will be able to clean some exterior upper story windows, but not all)

I'm really asking myself where I'm going with this, as I'm hiring my friends for casual workers.

My goal: Learn selling, marketing and other business owner skills.

I feel stressed about training my friends for Saturday work as it's a double story house, no extras just windows(but I'm definitely gonna clean their sills&frames)

I feel overwhelmed about the things I have to do:
-create short videos for posting valuable content in Facebook to capture their attention and hopefully make them hire me
-learn Facebook advertising
-learn how to manage my friends
-thinking about upsell/crossell for my service
-approaching storefronts

I met a kid on a bus yesterday. He was a dropout and was 16 yr old. A first year apprentice in electrical work. He went to tafe(an Australian career school that teach you trades and offers apprenticeship on jobs for free, they pay you for work. But once you do school apprenticeship, you can't go to uni). He works 4 days a week and one day learning in tafe, and other weekends does extra work. Reminds me that I should be learning and moving on to an apprenticeship.

Now I'm really asking myself, should I not scale to double story and keep learning marketing for single story house? Idk. I need some time alone thinking.

 

[Hunday]

Now I'm really asking myself, should I not scale to double story and keep learning marketing for single story house?

If you hadn't gone knock on that first door to clean windows, how much money, experience, & confidence would you have now? I've cleaned my home's windows too many times to count because I liked your approach, it introduced me and many new fastlaners to the window cleaning business. Getting the double-story is a difficult approach, I had to use a sketchy ladder, however managing your friends and solving a problem is a great opportunity in front of you.

 

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[Hunday]

Try not to overthink it

 

[Chet Shen]

Try not to overthink it

You might be right. I have gained a lot of skills, and I'm gaining even more in the future. I'm certain that I will take an apprenticeship in the future, but scaling is a different idea that I need to think about it.

Today I'm getting 2 business meeting. One with the government business consultant free 1 on 1 session and another is with my dad's friend. They both are interested on helping me out. I'm going to ask them :

Im going to explain them why I started this company and gice them background. I want to know what they think.