Window Washing | Progress Thread

[constant]

I've wasted too much time action faking. Time to get to work.

Current plans:
1.Start window washing to get some money rolling in.
2.Once I have some funds, get into E-commerce. (or other opportunities)

Current funds: 200€ + 100€/month from parents

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[constant]

Since starting this thread, I have:

• Read through @Subsonic's and @piano's threads
• Learned how the window cleaning procedure looks like
• Made a list of equipment I need

The list of equipment I'm planning to buy:

• A blue bucket
• An under 18 inch squeegee
• A scrubber
• Microfiber towels
• Cleaning solution
• An extension pole

I wonder if I need anything else?

After I have the equipment, I'm going to practice a little by cleaning my house's windows.
I also need to think about how I will get my customers (d2d? fliers? word-of-mouth? google ads? facebook groups?).

There's still plenty of questions in my mind about this, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. I'm currently only focusing on what I can act on.

 

[Subsonic]

Since starting this thread, I have:

• Read through @Subsonic's and @piano's threads
• Learned how the window cleaning procedure looks like
• Made a list of equipment I need

The list of equipment I'm planning to buy:

• A blue bucket
• An under 18 inch squeegee
• A scrubber
• Microfiber towels
• Cleaning solution
• An extension pole

I wonder if I need anything else?

After I have the equipment, I'm going to practice a little by cleaning my house's windows.
I also need to think about how I will get my customers (d2d? fliers? word-of-mouth? google ads? facebook groups?).

There's still plenty of questions in my mind about this, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. I'm currently only focusing on what I can act on.

Nice to see that your taking action.
I got started with flyers and it's a great way to advertise on a budget. My conversion has been 1 customer per 250 flyers. That leads to a roas of about 10x if you don't work for free.

 

[constant]

Update

Today I bought the required equipment, and got my first client. This client is a relative, but she still insists that she wants to pay for my services. I also found great spots where small businesses are that can be sold window cleaning.

One of my family members is friends with a cleaning service business owner (dozens of employees). Thinking that maybe I should ask her for advice and tips.

I also found out about another window cleaner in my area. I'm in two minds whether I should contact him or not. On one hand, maybe he could give me gigs that he doesn't want to do. On the other, he might see me as a competitor.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[constant]

Update

Today was my first day washing windows. I made 40 €.

I was washing my grandma's windows and then a neighbor asked me to wash her windows too. I set the price too low though, next time I'll be smarter and ask more.

For some reason, when I used the cleaning solution, there was always some residue left on the windows. I decide to start washing with water only, as that way I got windows washed alot quicker and it looked better too. The previous cleaner used only water too.

Also the cleaning company I mentioned in a previous post, the owner agreed to get me a part-time job there. I'll be learning from actual professionals and getting paid for it.

 

[heavy_industry]

@piano This is what happens when you advertise cleaning windows as a viable dating strategy.

Soon we will have a sub-forum in the men's locker room section dedicated to cleaning windows.

---

Good luck @constant
Congratulations for taking action! I hope that you will achieve your goals.

 

[piano]

Update

Today was my first day washing windows. I made 40 €.

I was washing my grandma's windows and then a neighbor asked me to wash her windows too. I set the price too low though, next time I'll be smarter and ask more.

For some reason, when I used the cleaning solution, there was always some residue left on the windows. I decide to start washing with water only, as that way I got windows washed alot quicker and it looked better too. The previous cleaner used only water too.

Also the cleaning company I mentioned in a previous post, the owner agreed to get me a part-time job there. I'll be learning from actual professionals and getting paid for it.

That's awesome!
How much soap did you put in btw? And did you use dish soap or regular soap?

@piano This is what happens when you advertise cleaning windows as a viable dating strategy.

WAIT, MAYBE I CAN TURN THAT INTO A PAID COURSE-

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[constant]

How much soap did you put in btw? And did you use dish soap or regular soap?

I used a professional cleaning liquid (a blue bottle from the cleaning supply store). It was concentrated and had to be mixed with water (ratio 1:30).

 

[piano]

I used a professional cleaning liquid (a blue bottle from the cleaning supply store). It was concentrated and had to be mixed with water (ratio 1:30).

Ahhhhhhhh, do you mean rainbow streaks by any chance? They are relatively normal and can be slightly prevented, will most of the time be there tho.
Here's a guide:

View: https://youtu.be/IN_F50hYSg4

 

[constant]

Ahhhhhhhh, do you mean rainbow streaks by any chance? They are relatively normal and can be slightly prevented, will most of the time be there tho.
Here's a guide:

View: https://youtu.be/IN_F50hYSg4

I have never seen rainbow streaks before. I've only seen small white lines, streaks, smudges etc.
It probably means that I need to improve my cleaning skills. Direct sunlight makes washing a lot harder haha.

SteveO makes great videos, thanks for the link.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[fridge]

Good luck with your journey! You're going to learn a lot through offering a local service.

One thing I actually recommend when starting out is to test a few different services.. maybe you can do weed pulling, window cleaning, and another service and see what sells best in your area and something that can scale. Once you've got the "best" service down, go all in on that. Last summer when I was only making about 40-45k from my day job, I did weed pulling and had a buddy tag along.. Was charging $100+ an hour just for pulling weeds.

 

[Subsonic]

Man this is becoming the new dropshipping.

Idk what to say lol.

 

[perchboy]

Nice to see that your taking action.
I got started with flyers and it's a great way to advertise on a budget. My conversion has been 1 customer per 250 flyers. That leads to a roas of about 10x if you don't work for free.

How is that a 10x roi for you? When I do the math I’m getting a 0.5x roi factoring in delivery to the homes. Without delivery service, I’m getting a 4x ROI but then I’m spending a lot of time handing them out

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Subsonic]

How is that a 10x roi for you? When I do the math I’m getting a 0.5x roi factoring in delivery to the homes. Without delivery service, I’m getting a 4x ROI but then I’m spending a lot of time handing them out

Well I spent 27€ on Flyers and got 300€ worth of jobs from them.

Since I used cleaning equipment I got in as a gift and the jobs were in my village I had no other costs.

Numbers are probably a bit different and roas could be lower if I remembered smth wrong but in essence, hand out your flyers and you make money.

Also if using a delivery service kills your margins, you need to charge more. I stopped doing jobs for less than 100 and nobody cares.

 

[constant]

Since Saturday, I sadly haven't gotten much done. However:

1.I got a new client through word-of-mouth. She's also a businesswoman so maybe I could learn something from her.
2.My relative suggested that she'd recommend my services on Facebook because she has a lot of contacts & local groups there and I could get plenty of free exposure.

I'm currently a bit hesitant on whether my cleaning is high quality enough, so I'm going to invest some time into practice and learning.

After some time perhaps I can expand into other local services, like pressure washing, weed pulling, oven cleaning, etc. (Thank you @fridge for the recommendation)

My end goal of offering local services is to get money for scalable businesses. I intend to quickly test ideas, pick the winners and discard the failures, and then rapidly scale.

 

[savefox]

Local Services can be scalable. There's plenty of service companies that are making millions every year

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[constant]

Local Services can be scalable. There's plenty of service companies that are making millions every year

Depends where you're located. It's definitely scalable in bigger European countries and in the US, but my country is very small, and the scalability is limited. I could expand to other countries, but I don't know if it pays off (language barriers, different laws, managing foreign country employees etc.)

 

[Cameraman]

Since Saturday, I sadly haven't gotten much done. However:

1.I got a new client through word-of-mouth. She's also a businesswoman so maybe I could learn something from her.
2.My relative suggested that she'd recommend my services on Facebook because she has a lot of contacts & local groups there and I could get plenty of free exposure.

I'm currently a bit hesitant on whether my cleaning is high quality enough, so I'm going to invest some time into practice and learning.

After some time perhaps I can expand into other local services, like pressure washing, weed pulling, oven cleaning, etc. (Thank you @fridge for the recommendation)

My end goal of offering local services is to get money for scalable businesses. I intend to quickly test ideas, pick the winners and discard the failures, and then rapidly scale.

I'm going to respectfully suggest that you don't expand your services if you want to earn good money.

I know someone who pulls good money by being expert at window cleaning. He's fast, efficient and expert at cleaning. But that's not what earns him the money, it only gets him recommendations and new clients. Here's how he operates:

1. His focus is on retail businesses in busy town centres which need to keep their shop fronts spotless on a monthly basis. He also offers to clean inside (at a higher rate). He won't touch domestic or large contract work because it isn't as profitable.
2. He runs an "aprentice" scheme where he trains new window cleaners - and I mean trains. He also get rid of slackers and anyone who isn't good enough.
3. People who make it through his "scheme" are set up with a portfolio of his clients. Because he's good and trusted he has more clients than he can handle. He also guarantees that if the work isn't up to his standards that he will put it right at no cost.
4. His apprentices pay him 20% of the income from his clients during the first 2 years during which they can find additional clients of their own (he doesn't take a share of those earnings). He also helps them with their tax and running their business. At the end of 2 years they hand back his clients (so he can pass them on to the next apprentice, or they can continue with him at a newly negotiated rate.

I don't know his exact monly earnings but he has around 30 people working for him and there's a waiting list to join.

In short, don't build a job, build a business system.

 

[constant]

I'm going to respectfully suggest that you don't expand your services if you want to earn good money.

I know someone who pulls good money by being expert at window cleaning. He's fast, efficient and expert at cleaning. But that's not what earns him the money, it only gets him recommendations and new clients. Here's how he operates:

1. His focus is on retail businesses in busy town centres which need to keep their shop fronts spotless on a monthly basis. He also offers to clean inside (at a higher rate). He won't touch domestic or large contract work because it isn't as profitable.
2. He runs an "aprentice" scheme where he trains new window cleaners - and I mean trains. He also get rid of slackers and anyone who isn't good enough.
3. People who make it through his "scheme" are set up with a portfolio of his clients. Because he's good and trusted he has more clients than he can handle. He also guarantees that if the work isn't up to his standards that he will put it right at no cost.
4. His apprentices pay him 20% of the income from his clients during the first 2 years during which they can find additional clients of their own (he doesn't take a share of those earnings). He also helps them with their tax and running their business. At the end of 2 years they hand back his clients (so he can pass them on to the next apprentice, or they can continue with him at a newly negotiated rate.

I don't know his exact monly earnings but he has around 30 people working for him and there's a waiting list to join.

In short, don't build a job, build a business system.

Wow, that's a very interesting business model, thank you for posting it.

Do you think this can be scaled enough in a city of 100k or 400k people?

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Cameraman]

Wow, that's a very interesting business model, thank you for posting it.

Do you think this can be scaled enough in a city of 100k or 400k people?

I won't name locations but checking the figures this city has a population of 300k. I actually thought it was larger because there are a lot of retail locations. I suspect that's the key. He identified the need and demand and found a way to fill it without trying to do all the work himself.

It's a similar story with Pimlico plumbing in the UK. Most plumbers I know trade hours for cash. Chalie Mullins worked out a business system to serve more customers without doing all the work himself and turned it into millions. Incidentally, I also know joiners who are doing the same kind of thing. I even have a friend who built a sizable business specialising in dealing with problem drains. Don't let people tell you that there's no money in local services. Done right it can be a gold mine.

It's what @MJ DeMarco teaches in his books. Get out of the trap of trading time for money. Use it to gain experience and then focus on building a system that will scale.

 

[constant]

On the weekend, I went out door-to-door advertising my services. Most places were closed, but in one store, an employee gave me their manager's number to call.

Any tips for selling window cleaning on the phone?

 

[fridge]

On the weekend, I went out door-to-door advertising my services. Most places were closed, but in one store, an employee gave me their manager's number to call.

Any tips for selling window cleaning on the phone?

Have you thought about scraping or hiring someone to scrape you some businesses in the area, then you could voicemail drop them? This would save a lot of time having to manually gather the info which would take ages.. are you encountering any objections yet or just still in the trying to make contact phase?

Johnny boy has a good thread/few posts on voicemail dropping you can check out.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[piano]

On the weekend, I went out door-to-door advertising my services. Most places were closed, but in one store, an employee gave me their manager's number to call.

Any tips for selling window cleaning on the phone?

Here's what I learned:

You aren't there in person, so you gotta convey as much as you can.
In other words:
-Speak confidently and clearly!
-Be certain in stuff (aka confident), don't be like "Oh, I'm not exactly sure if I can do this... Can you send me a pic?" And that brings us to the next point...
-Make it EASY for them! Don't say "Oh, please send me a picture of all your windows, and do that and that" but say "I'll take a look around myself later and tell you" or say, "4 bucks for each window" I don't know. These aren't perfect examples, but you get the idea.
-Perhaps try to make yourself look trusted/known. "Oh yeah, I was talking to Miranda and she went out of her way to find me your contact information haha"

What do others think?
I haven't had many calls yet, but I always lacked in confidence and made it seem awkward/hard. And I don't think I ever got anything back from calls yet lol.

Good luck! Just remember that you'll get many other opportunities after that.

 

[constant]

Have you thought about scraping or hiring someone to scrape you some businesses in the area, then you could voicemail drop them? This would save a lot of time having to manually gather the info which would take ages.. are you encountering any objections yet or just still in the trying to make contact phase?

Johnny boy has a good thread/few posts on voicemail dropping you can check out.

Hmm.. do you think it will look untrustworthy if I don't have a registered company and I'm advertising as an individual?

Here's what I learned:

You aren't there in person, so you gotta convey as much as you can.
In other words:
-Speak confidently and clearly!
-Be certain in stuff (aka confident), don't be like "Oh, I'm not exactly sure if I can do this... Can you send me a pic?" And that brings us to the next point...
-Make it EASY for them! Don't say "Oh, please send me a picture of all your windows, and do that and that" but say "I'll take a look around myself later and tell you" or say, "4 bucks for each window" I don't know. These aren't perfect examples, but you get the idea.
-Perhaps try to make yourself look trusted/known. "Oh yeah, I was talking to Miranda and she went out of her way to find me your contact information haha"

What do others think?
I haven't had many calls yet, but I always lacked in confidence and made it seem awkward/hard. And I don't think I ever got anything back from calls yet lol.

Good luck! Just remember that you'll get many other opportunities after that.

Thanks for the tips. I can already see the amount of windows from google maps and they're easy to reach so I just need to sell this well. Btw if you don't mind, do you have any tips for selling/pitching door-to-door?

 

[Subsonic]

On the weekend, I went out door-to-door advertising my services. Most places were closed, but in one store, an employee gave me their manager's number to call.

Any tips for selling window cleaning on the phone?

My experience has been pretty easy since I am always the one getting called. Because of that I have a to date 100% conversion rate.

For your situation id say dont overthink it. Go something like "Hey you employee gave me your number to call you. (If you are rather young use this)I wanted to ask if I could clean your stores windows in exchange for a bit of money. (If your above the age of 16) I offer to clean windows here and wanted to ask if you would be interested in that.


Door to Door is that big one I cant bring myself to do either haha. The fact that I am not doing it probably costs me a few hundred each week, when looking at the profits the others here are making from that.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[BizyDad]

The fact that I am not doing it probably costs me a few hundred each week, when looking at the profits the others here are making from that.

I'll just leave this here...

 

[Stargazer]

Door to Door is that big one I cant bring myself to do either haha. The fact that I am not doing it probably costs me a few hundred each week, when looking at the profits the others here are making from that.

Take a handful of the flyers you have had printed and knock on peoples doors.

If someone answers say you just wanted to hand them this and give it to them. Point to something on it, then your number. If no one is in put it through the door as you would anyway.

This will ease you into door to door.

Dan

 

[Subsonic]

I'll just leave this here...

View attachment 48370

Man why do you have to expose me like this all the time haha.
Now I have to overcome my aproach anxeity.

For real though, thanks for calling me out on my shortcomings. Its always better to hear what I need to hear and not what I want to hear.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[constant]

Today I learned something the hard way. DONT PROCRASTINATE!

So the store manager number I got on the weekend right? If I had called it yesterday like planned then I probably would have closed the sale. The phone call went very well since I spoke clearly and confidently, but turns out today she ordered a window washing robot. No sale. This lesson costed me 70 eur, but it will serve me for life.

 

[BizyDad]

Today I learned something the hard way. DONT PROCRASTINATE!

So the store manager number I got on the weekend right? If I had called it yesterday like planned then I probably would have closed the sale. The phone call went very well since I spoke clearly and confidently, but turns out today she ordered a window washing robot. No sale. This lesson costed me 70 eur, but it will serve me for life.

But did you learn the lesson of buying a window cleaning robot?

Everybody's looking for employees. You could be value skew your company to "The window cleaning of the future is here today". Imagine saying that when you answer the phone. Or walk door to door.

I'm not saying it's a good idea. Just some food for thought.