ISSUE #2
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pg. 36
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A Special Thanks To all of our contributors to this issue of Window Cleaning Business Owner Magazine. Starting from the top left, going left to right. Thad Eckhoff, Brett Bailey, Karl Robinson, Stacey Jack, Bruce Ferguson, Doug MacDonald, John Webb, Joseph Stellwag, Tony Evans, Paul McQuillan, Kevin Dubrosky, Steve Stevens, Bill Labadie, Editor and Chief Chris Lambrinides, Brian Birch, and Copy Editor Lowell Stevens. Not pictured: Stephanie Testa, Layout and Design.
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largest window cleaning company on the north shore in Louisiana. I have five full time employees and we have a ton of work.
Google Talk Interview 10 A.M.
WCR: That’s awesome! How big is your service area? How far will you travel in any direction?
Charlie Laurie of A-1 Window Washers
Charlie: We’ll go up to about three hours away for real big customers, but generally we stay within an hour in any direction.
WCR: So how long have you been in the window cleaning business? Charlie: I got started in February 1998, so it’s been about thirteen years. WCR: How’d you get in to the business? Charlie: Well I was working in another business, a perfume manufacturing operation with some partners. My wife and I were about to have our first baby, and I wanted to spend more time with the family. I sold my portion off to my partners, it wasn’t a whole lot, but it was enough. A buddy of mine had been in the window cleaning business for a couple of years, and he showed me the basics, a couple of little tricks. I decided to give it a go. I went out to all of the really nice neighborhoods and wrote down the names of real-estate agents from the yard signs. I started making calls to put bids on all the houses they had listed. One called me back and said she wanted a price on her home. It was a one story house, about twenty-five windows, and I did it for a hundred and fifty dollars. I remember driving away, I looked at my watch and thought “Wow, I made a hundred and fifty dollars in three and a half hours. That’s about forty-two bucks an hour.” And at that moment I knew this is what I was going to do. I called my wife and said “Hey baby, I’m going to start a window cleaning business,” and of course, like everyone else I told, she said “Are you crazy?” WCR: [Laughs] That’s exactly what I thought after my very first window cleaning job. Charlie: My oldest sister called me and said “Who’s going to pay you to wash glass?” I said “Anybody that’s got glass!” Thirteen years later it’s worked out great, we are the 6
WCR: So what do you do more of, residential or commercial? Charlie: We do a good mix of both: lots of residential, lots of commercial. We will do up to six stories with the water-fed pole. WCR: What other services do you offer your clients?
it won’t work in every situation, but it’s a tool and it has its place. I think if anyone is not utilizing them they are leaving a lot of money on the table for sure. WCR: So does each of your trucks have a pure water set up? Charlie: I own about ten water-fed poles, I have a big RO/DI cart and three regular DI tanks. What we carry on the truck depends on what type of jobs we have lined up for the day. WCR: I saw this great picture of you waterfed poling from a boat. Can you tell me a little bit about the back story on that? Charlie: Well, this building owner had really wanted to get this section of glass cleaned and they just couldn’t find someone to get it done because of the height and the fact that there was a lake on one side of the building. The roof didn’t have a proper place to tie off, so we came in with a boat and got it done. The property manager gave me ten different reasons why it couldn’t be done, but we made it happen safely. We tied two hundred feet of rope to the front of the boat and two hundred to the back, then tied that off real tight to keep the boat from wobbling as much as we could. Now, what we do is get a guy to jump in the water and press the boat against the building to stabilize it for the guys in the boat. The only thing we need to watch out for is the five foot alligator that lives in the there. WCR: [Laughs] that’s funny.
Charlie: Pressure cleaning, cement cleaning, gutter cleaning and whitening, roof cleaning and we just added in parking lot line striping. WCR: What’s your most profitable service? Charlie: Nothing beats window cleaning with a water-fed pole. It’s hands down our most profitable method. My guys, with minimal training, can pick up a water-fed pole and start making me a hundred and fifty dollars an hour, minimum. Most of my crews are two man crews, so if we get both of them running poles we’re grossing three hundred dollars an hour between the two of them. Of course,
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Charlie: I told that manger I’m gonna catch him and we’re gonna have alligator sausages this weekend. We’re Cajuns down here, bayou boys, so we eat that stuff. The manager said that’s fine. WCR: That’s a great story, next time you do that job you gotta take a little video of that and get it up on [Window Cleaning Resource.com] Charlie: I will for sure. WCR: You mentioned line striping, that’s pretty unique. I haven’t heard of too many window cleaners getting into that. What type of investment was needed for that? Charlie: I found a brand new demo unit at a local paint store for three thousand, then I had to get a bunch of different stencils. www.windowcleaningbusinessowner.com
That’s the really tricky part because every parking lot has different stencils and fonts. Stencils are like squeegees, you’ll constantly be buying them. But for about three or four grand you can get into line striping game. It looks like it’s going to be pretty profitable. WCR: Do you do any type of storefront route work? Charlie: Yeah, I have one guy that dedicates three days per week to just our storefronts, and the rest of the week he comes out with our other crews. WCR: What do you think about storefront route work? Charlie: It has its ups and downs. I’ve had a pretty good route for thirteen years, and recently with the economy we have had some stores drop and few bucket bobs show up and undercut us. But we still have enough to keep busy those three days a week. I think it’s the least profitable form of window cleaning and we don’t actively try to acquire new accounts. If a customer calls we’ll look at it for them, but we’re not out there seeking it out like I did when I first got into the business. WCR: So in thirteen years what has been your biggest challenge? Charlie: I guess like a lot of other companies, it’s been finding the right workers. Not to take anything away from the one man shows, because I was one for a long time when I first started. But if you’re the only one doing the work you own a job, not a business. If you can’t work your not making any money. So you need to have people in place generating revenue. WCR: So once you have the right guys in place, what is your retention strategy? Charlie: Most of my guys I’ve had for about five years, so once I find the right ones I keep them. I train them right, pay them right and treat them right. They’re all on salary, so if we get rained out one week, they still get their full pay. They get paid vacation and sick days as well. Other little perks; I buy them breakfast and lunch when I can. This works very well for me and keeps them happy. It also lights a little fire under me, because I know they’re going to get paid if we slow down. So it keeps me hustling and filling up the schedule with work for them. WCR: So what do you do say in the spring when there could easily be sixty-five hours worth of work a week? How do they feel about the overtime hours with out the overwww.windowcleaningbusinessowner.com
time pay?
cleaning companies to help out.
Charlie: Well, that’s not a problem because we don’t work sixty-five hours a week. My guys are all family men and I try to treat it accordingly. We may work two weekends a year at most. We rarely work any nights, and even in the busy time I don’t want them to work more than forty-five hours a week. If we get too busy we just put it to the next week. I don’t want to burn my guys out. As I said they are family men and they should be home by dinner time. If we get super busy, I coordinate with a few other local window
WCR: That’s a pretty good philosophy, and I’d be willing to bet that’s exactly why your employee retention is so high. It’s very impressive. WCR: So how do you get all your work, how do you keep your schedule so full? Charlie: Well I have a website, I’m in three different phone books, and I do some direct mail a few times a year. My main way of getting work is just being proactive. If I see
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a building I want to do I go meet the property manager, the maintenance supervisor or whoever’s in charge. Get them a business card and a nice follow up letter. If I’m in a nice neighborhood, I’ll put out a few fliers, especially if we’re in there working, we’ll try to put fliers out in a little circle of houses around the one we just worked at. The trucks are nicely lettered up; I have these little magnets on the gate of my truck people can take. And of course word of mouth, I’ve been around a long time and people always say they see my trucks all over the place. WCR: How many trucks do you have on the road? Charlie: Three trucks, two are the main work trucks, the other is mine for bidding and light work. WCR: I love the magnets you have on the side of your truck, brilliant idea! Charlie: Thanks, it works very well in acquiring new jobs. WCR: So how hands-on are you in the business? How often do you pick up the squeegee or water-fed pole? Charlie: Well actually a while ago I read something you wrote on the forum about taking yourself out of the cleaning equation. So I used you as a model, and about two and a half years ago I took myself out of it. I put it in the hands of my foreman and it’s worked great. Now I put on my window cleaning belt once or twice a month. That will usually be on really big jobs. I do physically check in on all the crews a couple of times a week, but generally my time is spent bidding, getting new jobs, PR work, customer relations and paperwork. WCR: That’s awesome, glad it’s working out for you. WCR: Before you mentioned property managers, if we can touch on that again for a minute. What’s your approach do you just pop in drop a phone call? Charlie: Man, I’m one of these guys that has the gift of gab, I don’t mind talking to anybody so I just pop in with my big head and say “Hey, I’m Charlie Laurie.” and hand them a card. My two biggest accounts, a hospital job, and another place with three thousand plus windows, I got just by popping in and asking for the maintenance supervisor. If I can’t get past the gate keeper I’ll get the name of the decision maker, go home, and type up a little introduction letter and send it
8
to the person. Follow up with them via phone in a couple of days. WCR: So with the economy lately, have you seen a lot of new companies pop up? Charlie: Oh yeah, quite a few, as well as some franchise companies that came into the area. As the economy slowly declined I started losing route work to them. I had customers call me up and say “whatever A-1 does it for, I’ll do it for half” – They would ask me if I could match the price, but I just politely decline. Most of my homeowners that didn’t lose their homes are still with me. Matching prices that low doesn’t make sense, we have to remain profitable. I tell my guys we have to take care of the company first so it can take care of us. WCR: How badly was your business and personal life affected by Hurricane Katrina?
tend to procrastinate a bit, so I’m working on that. My wife laughs at me in the morning because everyday I get up in the morning shower, shave and talk to my self in the mirror. I stand there talk to myself and get motivated for the day. I’m actively working towards preventing myself from getting complacent. That’s easy to do when things are going well, so I want to prevent that because you never know when a building is going to shut down or you’re going to lose a real good customer. WCR: Charlie, we are mainly talking to window cleaning business owners that for the most part have aspirations to be where you’re at, can you give them one tip or one suggestion on how to get there? Charlie: I’ll tell you what, I’ll give you three. WCR: Great.
Charlie: It was major: my house had about two feet of water. We had to evacuate to about three hours away. For three weeks straight we would travel six hours a day back and forth between the house and where we were staying to fix up the house. We ripped up a lot of sheet rock and fought a lot of mold. We then stayed with a friend for about three months and another three months in a FEMA trailer. All in all, it took us about six months to get back in our house. I took four months off work to rebuild. At the time I had hundreds of customers calling me for pressure washing that I just had to turn away so I could rebuild my home. My guys kept working though.
Charlie: Number one: I tell a lot of new guys I’ve met, just do it. If you don’t have work, go get some. If you don’t have a job scheduled, go out in the morning and go and get it. Work eight hours, meeting people and handing out business cards, fliers whatever. Be proactive!
WCR: That’s crazy, it’s great you were able to rebuild; lots of people were permanently displaced.
Number three: Get on Window Cleaning Resource, it’s the Google of the window cleaning world. Anything you want to know has probably already been covered. Go to WCR and click on that search box, and if you don’t find an answer, post a question and you’ll have dozens of great replies by day’s end.
Charlie: Yeah, I was really lucky; a lot of places are still completely abandoned. WCR: So what’s in store for A-1 Window Cleaning over the next couple of years? Charlie: I want to get the company more automated, beef up our website a bit. I’ve sold a lot of jobs with the little pictures on my iPhone, so I’ll be getting an iPad and using that as a selling tool. I want to add a few more guys and expand the line painting part of the company. Keep the company lean and profitable.
Number two: You have got to act and look professional. I tell people all the time perception is reality, whatever the customer perceives you to be, you are. It’s their reality. I tell my guys when they’re new: “Don’t come to work looking like you already worked eight hours.” We are a cleaning company, so we should look super clean. Clean trucks, clean clothes and clean shaven.
WCR: That’s awesome, thanks so much Charlie, it was great talking to you today. Charlie: Take care Chris, have a good one. By Chris Lambrinides & Charlie Laurie A-1 Window Washers www.a-1windowwashers.com/
WCR: So what’s one difficult thing you deal with on a daily basis you haven’t been able to master yet? Charlie: Well, I guess that would be me. I
January - February 2011
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word. As you expected, Mary decides to give Gary’s company a try. Good for Gary.
Squeegeenomics: The Unicorn and the Brain Transplant Mary is in the market for a window cleaner. She does a Google search and quickly finds the website for a local company: Bobs Window Cleaning. She checks out their website for a few minutes and then picks up the phone and dials Bob’s number. It goes directly to voice mail. She leaves a brief message, explaining that her home is around 2,800 square feet, 2 stories high, and has 19 casement windows, and requests an estimate for the cleaning of her exterior windows only. Bob’s website seems to indicate that her home will cost around $179 for what she wants. She’ll have to wait for Bob to call her back to confirm that price. She hangs up and resumes her Google search. The next company listed online is Gary’s Window Cleaning. Mary picks up the phone and calls their number, and the owner – Gary - answers the phone after one ring. Gary is a skilled conversationalist, and he listens attentively as Mary describes her home in detail. After noting her address, Gary gently mentions that he has a very satisfied client just two blocks away from Mary’s place. Gary points out that the client’s full name, street address, and glowing comments are posted on Angie’s List and embedded onto Gary’s website. He invites Mary to click on a particular link on his website right then and there, and within 5 seconds, Mary is reading the review that her neighbor had left. Mary is impressed. So far, so good. As the conversation winds down, Gary gives Mary a quick overview of her home’s details to show that he’s been listening carefully and fully understands the scope of work requested. He explains that his company would be pleased to complete the exterior window cleaning of Mary’s home for only $329. Gary 10
offers to upgrade her to the $124.99 RUSH SERVICE Package at no extra charge, since they are running it as an unadvertised special this week for all jobs over $325. Gary assures Mary that he can get it done for her within 24 hours.
Let’s switch gears though, and ask a big, fat, important question: Did Gary rip off Mary because he’s charging twice as much as Bob? What would you say? The answer is no. The truth is, Gary understands something about pricing that 99% of window cleaning business owners do not: The correct price for your window cleaning services is a unicorn. I’m going to repeat that: The correct price for your window cleaning services is a unicorn. It doesn’t exist. It is imaginary. So stop letting it tell you what to do.
Mary hesitates, and Gary hears it. “Ma’am, I can tell that you don’t want to make a mistake, and end up hiring the wrong company,” he reassures her.
Kill the Unicorn
“I completely understand”, he continues. “That’s why we’re the only local window cleaning contractor to offer a 107% money-back guarantee. What that means is that if you aren’t completely satisfied with the results once you’ve hired us, not only will we give you all your money back, but we’ll also give you an additional 7% free credit toward your next service. That way we assume all the risk for you, making it impossible for you to lose. And based on the 17 positive reviews from homeowners like you that are posted on Angie’s List, you can be confident that you’ll be pleased with your decision to hire us.” Gary pauses for 3 seconds to let those words sink in a bit, and then concludes: “We can get this done for you tomorrow at 1pm. Does that time work for you Mary? Or would 10am be better?” Gary bites his lip, disciplining himself to wait for Mary to say the next
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There is no such thing as the correct price for your window cleaning services. None whatsoever. Some window cleaning contractors will clean a window for $4 a piece, others for $12. Some will clean all the windows on a small home for $85 and others won’t touch it for less than $200. Pricing can vary wildly. And successfully so. Do you believe that? Seriously, do you?
If not, then here are a few more questions to chew on: What is the “correct price” for a bottle of wine? An automobile? A haircut? A cell phone? A diamond ring? A necktie? A dog-walking service? A watch? A car wash? Answer: A unicorn. It doesn’t exist. Same goes with your services. Play your cards right, and you can successfully charge 2-5 times as much as your competition does, while preserving your business reputation intact, and building a clientele of raving fans. Now, you might feel inclined to remind me that window cleaning is not rocket science, and that at the end of the day, a window is either clean or not clean. Of course, you’re right. On the other hand, Dom Perignon is also “just” fermented grape juice. A Lamborghini is “just” a car. A Prada handbag is “just” a purse. And for a little under $400, Paul Podlucky will “just” cut your hair in Manhattan. Google him. www.windowcleaningbusinessowner.com
Believe it: The correct price for your services is a unicorn. It does not exist. You get to make it up. Completely make it up. Just remember that your customers aren’t stupid. In fact, they are savvier every passing year of this interwebvolution we’re living through, and they will hate on you if you fail to deliver genuine value. Value is the whole game. The window cleaner who delivers
the most value is the one who can charge the highest prices, and achieve the greatest profitability. But there is a twist: Value is subjective. Value is a perception. Value can not be measured in absolute terms like a thermometer can measure temperature. We don’t have an internal value meter. Instead, it’s very much a personal, explorative process, subject to our unique and highly irrational personal preferences. In short, value is in the eye of the beholder. And yet value determines and supports price tags. So where does that leave you and your window cleaning business?
How can you deliver more value?
How can you deliver more value? It all depends on who’s buying your stuff. You need to step inside the lives and heads of the people who live behind those doors that you’re knocking on and those mailboxes that you’re delivering to. I call this giving yourself a “Brain Transplant”. Only when you define your target demographic
can you figure out how your window cleaning services fit into their lives, and then communicate and craft your best value proposition for them. Hunt them a little bit. Study them. Figure out what makes them tick. Take note of what they’re currently buying and how they’re buying it. Try to figure out why. As Kevin Roberts, CEO Worldwide of Saatchi & Saatchi put it, “If you want to learn how the lion hunts, you need to go to the jungle, not the zoo.” The retail electronics giant Best Buy is also a great believer in this Brain Transplant approach. The Best Buy marketing team has sat down and defined their target demographic as being one of four possible customer profiles. There’s “Buzz”, the young, technology-obsessed buyer, “Ray”, the wellmeaning father who is looking to maintain the technology lifestyle, “Barry”, the affluent professional, and “Jill”, the mom who is looking to enrich her kids lives with techno stuff. Having established and defined their target market, now every single piece of communi-
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cations that the Best Buy marketing department comes up with has a singular focus: Would Buzz/Ray/Barry/Jill like this? That’s it. If the answer is yes, then they test the marketing campaign. If it’s no, then they don’t bother. Think about it. Do you like baseball? If so, then I’d be a smart guy to try and design a baseball-themed marketing piece for someone like you. But if you hate baseball, then it would be a colossal waste of time at best, and damage my brand’s relationship with you at worst. Similarly, if I was trying to sell the Squeegeenomics Marketing Training System to you, I’d have to create a target profile of you this very same way, and I would need to answer the same kinds of questions: How old are you? How long have you been in the business? Why are you in the window cleaning industry? What do you wish you could change about your business? What do you love? What do you hate? What gets you out of bed in the morning? What do you close your eyes and dream about? In short, “Who are you, exactly?”
Only when I can answer that question, can I communicate effectively with you. Thus the beauty and importance of the Brain Transplant. Of course, you know this already. Every time you meet someone new, you ask them questions, right? You ask them for their name, you ask where they’re from, what they do for work, where they live, and so on. Why? Because your instincts tell you that before you can effectively communicate with anyone, it helps to have a big picture overview of who they are and what makes them tick. Same goes for your marketing. In fact, more so. In real life social settings, people will cut you some slack if it takes you a while to put your finger on who they really are. However, when you’re trying to sell to them, they expect you to have done your research already - and understand them - before you interact. So don’t skip this crucial preliminary step. Take the Brain Transplant seriously. Realize that in your city or town, chances are that different kinds of people live in different neighborhoods, too. Is that true of your local market? Do you have upscale neighborhoods and downscale neighborhoods? Do you have trendy neighborhoods and nerdy, not-so-cool-anymore neighborhoods? Do
you have concentrations of various cultures in different areas? Probably. We live in a cosmopolitan world now, and the larger the city, the more variation you will encounter, so pay attention to localized fluctuations in the brains you are seeking to transplant into your own head. My suggestion is to take it one neighborhood at a time. Of course, if you are running a large company, with 10 or more cleaning technicians, than likely you will have to broaden your targeting efforts to larger areas, like entire towns or hamlets within your target market, but in principle the strategy remains the same. You need to paint a picture of the person you’re looking to do business with. And you need to build a two-dimensional picture of them, including both demographic and psycho graphic characteristics. What exactly does this include? Build a psycho graphic and demographic profile A demographic profile includes details about the fundamental nature of the person. Are they a man or a woman? Are they tall or short? Are they 30-something or 70-something? Do they have kids? Are they married?
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impression will probably stick for the rest of your life. Same goes for their first impression of you. Dating has a lot in common with selling, in fact. Let’s take this a step further.
What color is their skin? What languages do they speak? Do they have a distinctive cultural background? What’s their financial situation? These kinds of things comprise the demographic profile of the prospects you are targeting as future clients for your business. A psycho graphic profile includes the warmer and fuzzier details about the person. What do they care about in life? What are their goals? What do they do for fun? What are their dreams? What’s important to them? Who are their friends? What could they care less about? What do they hate? What do they adore? What do they close their eyes and wish for at night? What would they do if money was no object? Are they sports fans? What team are they loyal to? What team do they hate? Both demographic and psycho graphic details are valuable in creating a clear picture of who it is that you’re communicating with. Imagine that you’ve sat across from them in a coffee shop, and asked them to tell you about themselves. It’s not unlike a first date, in fact. You’re looking for verbal and nonverbal cues, and constantly evaluating and redefining on the fly. You’re making decisions about whether or not you like this person, and whether or not you experience some ethereal ‘chemistry’. And of course, that first www.windowcleaningbusinessowner.com
Now imagine that this “blind date” had somehow got the goods on you before they met you for the first time. Imagine that they found out you liked Italian food, Tim McGraw, and DobermanCollie mixes. Imagine that they knew you were a Packers fan, that you hated Volkswagens, and that you were of Irish-Romanian descent. Do you think they would have the upper hand in manipulating that first impression? Of course they would. Well, do the same thing when it comes to your target demographic. Figure out who they are before you decide what to say, how to say it, or even which version of yourself will show up on that first date. Be a chameleon. If possible, build a separate, detailed profile for each target market that you are pursuing, especially if you are aware of wild variations from neighborhood to neighborhood. If you need to go bigger, create a demographic profile for each little town that you are targeting, or each major city.
profile based on those things. All of this is part of successfully completing your “Brain Transplant”. Putting it all together So, remember, there is no such thing as the “correct price” for your professional window cleaning services. Some companies charge twice what you currently charge, and others charge half as much as you do. Whether or not you get away with whatever you charge depends on the whether or not you’re delivering a commensurate amount of value. And value is subjective. Value is a perception. Creating value requires you to step into the life of your target market, and successfully see the world – and your professional services – through their eyes. All of this requires a Brain Transplant. Once your Brain Transplant is complete, you’re ready for the next step in creating powerful, effective marketing communication. I call that next crucial step “Baiting the Koi”. Your next issue of Window Cleaning Business Owner magazine will tell you all about it. By Kevin Dubrosky Kevin Dubrosky is the creator of the brand-new “Squeegeenomics Marketing Training System”, and host of the Window Cleaning Industry’s firstever Marketing Conference, called “Squeegeenomics 2011”, being held at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, January 14-15, 2011. He is also the author of the brand-new 255page hardcover book “$600/hr – The Ultimate Window Cleaning Marketing Guide”. Please Google him to learn more.
And be reasonable. Do the best you can without losing your mind or spending too much time on it. Spend hours on it, for sure, but don’t spend more than two days. And don’t expect a global description to fit perfectly. Play the odds instead. The truth is, no two people are alike. Not even identical twins. We all care about different stuff, and have different priorities and hopes and dreams. So don’t focus on the differences, focus on the commonalities, instead. Look for the things they have in common with other people in the neighborhood, and try to build your demographic and psycho graphic
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Inside Marketing Even though I have had a lot of success writing ads like postcards, fliers and sales letters, I never really focused on internal marketing. External marketing is what you put out there to get new customers (postcards, fliers, space ads, website). While I believe these to be important, they are the hardest and most expensive ways to get new customers. Inside marketing is how you sell to your current customers. Sadly most times we fall flat when trying to get more from our customers… yet they are the most likely to give you something. This month we will focus on referrals and how most businesses are doing it wrong. Three Referral mistakes most businesses make Mistake 1: You think doing a good job is how you get referrals. Mistake 2: You assume your service/company will be remembered. Mistake 3: You sit and wait for the word to spread. What are causing these mistakes? Reason 1: Doing a good job is not going to stimulate referrals. Sure you need to do a good job but that’s not enough. This may sound weird to you but referring is an unnatural act. To prove my point I would like you to write down any businesses you referred to anyone in the last three months. Let’s only talk about businesses where you are only a happy customer and you get no compensation/reward for referrals. How many did you come up with? I came up with none. If we know how valuable referrals are, why don’t we refer? Customers do not think about how valuable a referral is and they may not
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know if you need/want them. Why don’t you refer? Don’t assume your customers will think of it either. Reason 2: We live in our own bubble when it comes to our business. We tend to look at everything from the inside out, and that is why we are usually so screwed up. Your new customers will very likely forget your business name within 48 hours. Even if they loved the work you did. Have you ever heard a great joke and could not tell it the next day because you forgot it? Same problem here. Your customers are leading busy lives and once you complete the service, they have something to do, probably lots. They may love the clean windows but that task is done; now they move on to one of the other dozen tasks that need doing. Reason 3: You wait for referrals…. And wait… and wait. Most times we have insecurities about asking for referrals so we don’t get many. We also assume the customer is marching parades of people into her home to see what you’ve done, when in fact she may not even remember your company name. Customers also may not know how to refer your business. I just had a long time customer tell me she wanted to give my card to someone at work but she did not know if I serviced that area… the friend was only eight miles from her house! There is a solution to every single obstacle holding you back from getting lots of referrals. You just need to address them one by one. The referral mirage Not too long ago I was writing my guide on
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getting referrals: “Referral Avalanche”. As I was researching it I had a horrible realization. I had all of my customers on an Excel spreadsheet and I printed it out to find out how many of my customers send referrals. I got a red pen and made a check mark next to every person that gave a referral. If you ever want to be slapped up-side the head by reality, try this. I had so many white spaces I was embarrassed. I thought I was getting a lot of referrals when in fact it was nothing. I have had several businesses tell me they are ‘killing it’ with referrals… until we do the spreadsheet test. Then we both discover the truth and it is never good. What is good is now we can start to fix it. If you are not getting one out of every five customers to give you a referral, you’re doing poorly. If you are getting one out of twenty you are in trouble. You will also need to spend a lot more money to get new customers. If you spend most of your focus on getting new customers through external advertising, you’re in for a long and slow growth. I feel you need to focus at least 50% of your attention on Inside Marketing. Not only for referrals but also for up-sells, cross-selling and continuity sales. Nobody is easier to sell to than a customer. Nobody is harder to sell than someone who is not a customer. What are you focusing on? By Paul McQuillan If you would like some great ideas to help grow your business fast, check out my blog: www.TheGoodLifeWindowCleaning.com
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The Secret to Overcoming Attendance Realities Do you want to stretch out into a second truck or more operation? Or do you want to run at maximum efficiency as a solo operator? Then I would like to share some things that can dramatically help you increase your ability to run more efficiently and profitably with some simple number crunching. I hear the groans out there. Don’t worry, no algebra, no calculus, no long boring equations. Just some simple math can go a very, very long way. If you don’t like this stuff, fine, at least understand what’s going on “behind the curtain” to be a more profitable business owner and then pass off the details to whoever thinks it’s fun stuff in your business. You will enjoy this article if you are serious about profit.
You’re busy everyday, where is the money? You know how much $ you can do in a day. You multiply it out for the month and figure you’ll have a great amount leftover. But somehow you end up short instead. If you have a couple of employees, why do they never seem to bring in what you thought they would? That’s ok, you think to yourself. Next week will be better. But then there’s a holiday, there’s a day gone. Then the next week someone calls in sick and another wants a vacation day. Then comes a week that days are lost from a forest fire in your area (ash dropping), rainstorm, high winds, or whatever else, the list goes on and on as to what could cut into your job $ that week. How are you supposed to ever make any consistent money? What is going on here? The reality, as I’ve tracked it for my business of 3-5 employees recently, is that there is only about 35-40% of the 52 weeks of the year that will end up fully staffed! Basing your budgeting on full weeks will leave you in the poorhouse. How is this possible that so few weeks can be at 100%? Well the more employees you have the less likely you are to have a fully staffed week, since the odds are higher one of them will have or need a day off. Look at UPS, they have a whole ‘standby’ staff to cover for the full timers that aren’t there each day!
The beauty of numbers is that they don’t lie, no matter how much it may hurt or help. They are the best navigational guide for anything in your business. The most important thing is without some tracking and statistics, it’s impossible to know:
Think about it, what is there that can affect production of completed jobs? Let’s review some things that just have to be accepted as no $ production days for you and your employees:
• Where you are • Where you want to be or should be • Which way you are going right now
Holidays - These mini vacations will take up 6 days a year at the least and a lot more depending how much emphasis you put on making them part of a bigger vacation.
Getting your house in order To run more efficiently and profitably, you must get your house in order! If you want to add an employee soon, how can you run employees on a business foundation that hasn’t been built or optimized? If you are solo, the more you do now to get your house in order, the faster you will be able to grow and soar to profits. In this article we are going to discuss attendance and its impact on your bank account and then how to overcome it. The frustration www.windowcleaningbusinessowner.com
Sick days - We all know we can’t get around them, they happen and in many cases it can be a safety issue. If you’re pushing yourself to get on a ladder with all those aches and pains and perhaps almost being ready to ‘hurl’ 20 feet up, that’s a safety issue for you or someone you push to work anyway. You may be tempted to get irritated at your employees any time they call in, but what good does that do? They are human like you. Give them the day off and let them get back almost 100%. They will probably recover faster if you aren’t an ogre forcing them to come in anyway with guilt or anger. Ahhh, but how do you know if someone is calling in excessively?
Personal - Life happens. Out of town weddings, family reunions, the wife having a baby, a parent unexpectedly in the hospital, the list goes on. Personal days are just as much a fact of life that must be accepted as well. Weather - Rain, snow. What’s acceptable will vary across the nation, but no doubt there are a certain number of days a year that are just going to be dead $ days with no way around it, safety or otherwise. If you’re thinking of hiring or already have a few employees, then you have a benefit package assembled for them. Do you wonder if it’s enough or too little or too generous? Plus you kind of have one laid out for yourself too, right? Why not look at it that way? Besides, if you’re working 80 hours a week with no day off right now, you just know something’s out of balance already. Now, let’s look at what’s going outside our company: Your friends You talk to your friend working at Huge Corporate Giant, Inc. and you hear his benefit package and think to yourself, “I wish I had that kind of time off!” He seems to always be taking time off for this and that and getting paid for it. Are you irritated listening to him tell you about it? Here’s two corporate packages I’ve heard recently: 1) Company one offers 8 weeks a year off to use for everything: Holidays, Sick, vacation and or personal. That’s 45 days off a year! 2) Company 2 gives 6 weeks a year with 5 of those set aside for personal days, plus holidays. That’s 36 days days a year! Now let’s research some national information: National Averages Over the years, I’ve come across these statistics and averages from various sources: • “The average American works 1,777 hours per year.” That’s 38 days OFF a year. • “The average adult gets 2-4 colds a year”
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Ahh, here’s a gauge for you to measure against. • “Average vacation days in US is 12. The French take 39; the Germans, 27; the Dutch 25, the British 23.” Wow I feel overworked already. • “Europeans on average take 4-6 weeks of vacation - often including the WHOLE MONTH of August when factories shut down for the month.” Emphasis of mine is on the whole month. Ok, it feels like this is getting out of control. How is a business supposed to make any money if no one ever seems to be working? Let’s put this information together now: Utilization What we’re looking at here is called utilization. Your operations department and all of
5 days a week X 52 weeks a year = 260 (This is the maximum Monday thru Friday 8-5 work days in a year. You may work all kinds of different hours, long weeks and more than 8 hours in a day, but, let’s start with the standard employee structure. Besides, overtime and working till your arms fall off doesn’t count. If you want to grow and have happy employees, think in terms of ultimate efficiency with that 40 hour block. If you do more that will be gravy on top.) This is 100% of the work days, the maximum. Now let’s start subtracting from this 260 day, 100% number using the corporate packages described: Example - Corporate benefit package 1: 260 maximum work days - 45 days off = 215 actual worked days. What type of utilization is that? Divide it into the max of 260, so 215 actual worked days / 260 maximum work days = 82.7% That’s a pretty good deal! Real close to that low threshold of 80%. No doubt this is a long time employee about maxed out on benefits. Example - Corporate benefit package 2:
your employees and trucks etc combined and viewed as a whole is actually like a manufacturing plant, a factory, if you will. You feed it jobs and it spits out cash for your business. In the manufacturing world 80% is a pretty customary standard of uptime or utilization of a machine over a given time span. There will always be downtime for repairs, breakdowns and maintenance, not just for the lost time itself but also add the downtime it takes to get someone out there to fix it. Anything approaching 90% utilization is phenomenal. Think of all those oil refineries that “are closed for routine maintenance” and then gas prices go up shortly after. So with all this talk of all these days off, where do we end up? (Warning: easy math ahead, grab your calculator if you want to follow along) Let’s multiply it out: 16
260 maximum work days - 36 days off = 224 Divide it out: 224 actual worked days / 260 maximum work days = 86.2% Not as good a package for the employee as the first one, but clearly above the 80% line. Your “benefit” package How about you? Have you ever added up all the time you take off? Half days to leave on a trip early? Full days? Try it right now. Do you have a calendar you can at least do a rough total with? Try it now, add it all up. Now divide it into 260. Where did you come out at? You may find you already are taking 30-50 days off a year! If you’re a one man operation you can do what you want and/or feel. So you may be surprised to learn where you come in at.
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What’s a high threshold for a window cleaner? Ages ago when I worked solo, I had one year with exceptionally good weather and minimal vacations that came in at 91%. I never did that again! That 91% was brutal as a solo self employed person doing all the other tasks of a business too. Now what does this percent mean for the work week? Let’s take a look: 5 work days is a 100% week. That means that 4 work days is an 80% week: 4 worked days / 5 maximum work week days = .8 (or 80%) This means that any utilization of over 4 days a week (that 80% standard) is good. This is why a 4 day week with Friday off every week can be more elusive for window cleaners than lawn or pool guys. Their work routes are definitely more rigid, while a window cleaners schedule is more flexible, the customers change things and the weather plays a role too. Yet, totaled up for the year, you may find you actually are at the equivalent of one day off a week! Most lawn and pool guys I talk to schedule 4 maxed out days with Fridays open for overflow, extra, makeup work or that coveted Friday off. So there’s that 80%, the 4 days a week. Even if you are starting out right now, have brutal winters with 6 months of no possible work or whatever and are at 40%, then at least you know where you are at and can track your progress as you set some goals. Headroom This is capacity over 100% that is available when needed, (think of being underwater, yet the ceiling is high enough that you have enough space to get your nose above water to breathe, see, headroom). For example, if you work 4, 10 hour days a week, that’s 40 hours already. That leaves the 5th day as headroom to work more than 100% of the 40 hours in a week. You no doubt are doing this already in the summer months, working more than 100% of a 40 hour week. UPS operates at 100% all the time as discussed earlier. 100% IS their starting base, not 80%. So they need the headroom of 10-15% more staff on standby to fill in so everything stays 100%. If you plan on hiring a lot of employees, you www.windowcleaningbusinessowner.com
will need a plan for this. Will you accept the standard ‘loss’ of work days, or will you have a plan to maintain 100%? By having part timers on standby? Or 15-20% overtime from the others? Constructing an employee benefit package So if you can take time off, why shouldn’t your employees? A benefit package that is fair and equitable. It’s clear no one works 100% of the work days. I liked the corporate example that just gave a set number of days to be used for anything. This relieves you as the employer of having to judge whether someone is “sick” or is really sick. They get dinged for a day off either way. We also have that stat about 2-4 colds a year, so if a newbie is getting into 5+ colds a year you may have other issues to address. I have tracked individual employees attendance in an easy at a glance type chart and the ‘wrong fit’ employees stick out like a sore thumb with lots of Mondays and Fridays off too, naturally. However you structure it, you can see now the range you are compensating for, that 15-20% that will be missed. So you are essentially telling the employee you will pay for 5,10, 15% of those annual work days you both know right now that he’s going to miss. Whew, isn’t that a lot easier to work with, acknowledging those missing work days from the start? Number crunching is a good thing. Practical application: This “problem” can be worked around, budgeted for, and used to more accurately forecast either your own income or what your employees are most likely to generate for the business. • Count your days off or forecast how many you want to take off • Divide it into 260 to get your utilization percentage • Use that percentage to modify revenue numbers Using the easy to work with number of $100,000 a year and an 85% utilization from 39 days off a year: To find out what you or your employees need to make in a day to reach an annual revenue point, divide by the utilization percent:
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If you think you, your employee or an employee team only needs to make $385 a day every day ($100,000 year revenue/260 maximum work days), you really need to make $453 a day ($385 / .85) ($100,000 annual revenue point / 260 max work days) / .85 utilization This leads back into your pricing, uh oh. Are your prices based on what you can make in a 100% work week every week? Hmm. . . If you can’t physically average this higher modified daily amount (after dividing by .85) then you might re-examine your pricing to adjust it. To find out what revenue your employees, or team, are most likely to generate on average every day over the course of a year, take the average daily $ amount and multiply it by the utilization percent: $600 daily average x .85 = $510 a day yearly average. Understanding this can help you immensely with your second truck and first solo employee. It also can help to see when to add other trucks and predict and forecast more accurately the capacity of the trucks and the anticipated revenue from that truck.
Lessons for us: • Nobody works 100% of the time • 80-90% is what you can expect • That’s 4+ work days a week on avg • This is looking at your Utilization • Plan for this fact • Available Headroom can help you go above 100% • Forecast and predict more accurately • Increase profits by re-examining your pricing It is my desire that this helps you make big improvements to what you’ve been doing, what to expect with employees and how to plan and work around this reality much better. Can days in the field be predicted with more accuracy and reliability $ and time wise, even with employees when planning for growth? See how tracking key indicators unlocks the secret to consistent profits in my next article. Get your 3 work centers and an attendance grid already set up for you to use right now in your business at the WCR forms center “Utilization Tools”.
Chart
By Bruce “number crunch” Ferguson
Here is how it looks visually for a 12 month period I pulled up. See how little 100%, the top of blue area (above average), is reached? The top of the red is the year average. See how much lower it is than 100%? Can you see the dip from being closed at the end of the year? Can you see the affect of winter with the red areas (below year average)? See the areas of over 100% in the white (headroom provided by longer days in summer)?
Is there anything window cleaning business related you are trying to understand better or solve that a formula, calculation or chart could help with? Did you like this article? Did it help you out in some way? Please e-mail me at numbercrunch@verizon.net. Download your Utilization Tools spreadsheet free (a $40 value) until 1/09/11. Visit www.shopwindowcleaningresource.com & Search “Utilization Tools.” Use the code freeforms to get yours!
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Expense Tracking As a business owner, it’s crucial to be up to date with your company’s financial situation. Being organized financially will help you budget, forecast expenses and track revenue. Know where your money goes. Like most of us you are working out in the field all day and the last thing you want to do is sit down and give your books some attention. Unfortunately, this is something that needs to be done every day. Try spending a maximum of five to ten minutes a day on recording new income, expenses, and getting invoices out. Eventually after keeping track of these expenses you will be able to chart and track what is working best for your business. Over time you will have these expenses so well charted you can make reports that will show your decrease and increase in expenses that show you what works best for your company’s sales. Log your expenses daily in excel, on paper, or in an accounting program. Whatever you choose, make it simple or you won’t want to do it. Using a separate checking account or credit card from your personal account is one of the biggest time-savers of keeping track of just your business expenses. Once you are ready to track your expenses, always keep in mind you can never over label your expenses. Each expense gets a label. Let’s start with how to do your accounts to keep track of your expenses.
Office (sub accounts) Electric Computers Software Phone Basically, every single expense, no matter how small, must be tracked one way or another. It will help you significantly when doing your next year’s budget. Some tips on tracking expenses: Keep a couple of different credit cards with specific purposes. For example: get one to pay for just fuel. You can have another that you just pay for advertising expenses. You get the idea, just be cautious with your cards and only use them for their intended purposes. This will allow you to track how much you are spending in each category. Write everything down religiously; take note of every single expense. Set aside five minutes each day to get those notes into a financial program like QuickBooks or Peachtree.
The basics are Utilities (sub accounts) Business Telephone Gas/oil Electric
There is an app for that! – All of the new smart phones have little free expense tracking apps you can download. Blackberry, Windows Phone, iPhone, Android, Palm Pre. They all have them, and it would be a good idea to use these.
Advertising (sub accounts) Internet newspaper (you can even break that down for each newspaper) fliers e-mail
It’s not important what method you decide to use for expense tracking, the important thing is that you just do it. Record your expenses, reconcile them and make smarter decisions for your company in the coming year, based off the real data you’ve collected from your business.
Office supplies (sub accounts) copier paper toner/ink
By Stacey Jack CFO of All County Window Cleaning
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Here is a story about three great people who were destined to achieve great things in their lives.
Charles I once knew a guy named Charles. He was a big guy, in great shape and full of enthusiasm. He had always wanted to be a cop, and one day, his dream became a reality. He was hired by the sheriff’s department and was living his dream. Even though he had made his childhood dream a reality, he still wanted more in life. After two short years with the sheriff’s department, that chapter in his life came to an end and before long he was homeless and living out of his car. Charles was an artist who loved to draw. He got together with a friend of his and used his artistic talents to design T-shirts. He loved the sport of ultimate fighting and would travel to fights to promote his clothing. He would give away clothes to the fighters and sold shirts to others to make just enough money to buy more shirts and have gas money to travel to the next fight where he would sell his clothes out of the back of his car. He had a vision of being successful and would not let anything stop him from achieving those goals. He was the kind of guy who refused to settle for second best. Here is a quote from him: “Life is full of influences, It’s your application that sets you apart. That’s something I wrote to myself and completely believe in. You can’t be scared to set out to do something in life because you believe it may be similar to something, or because you don’t know the clear cut path on how you’re going to accomplish your goal or dream! Just take a step towards your belief daily - fearlessly, wholeheartedly, www.windowcleaningbusinessowner.com
digging and dreaming within yourself, believing that as you push on through sacrifice, you will one day stand alone on top of a hill that you created that now encourages and inspires others to chase their dream. Knowing that through tenacity and patience anything can be achieved.” He received a trademark for his brand “Tapout” in 1999. That year he grossed $30,000 in revenue. Last year, Tapout did $225 Million in sales and is one of the most recognized brand names. Unfortunately Charles died in a tragic car accident 2 years ago, but his legend lives on. Richard Another guy I know of is named Richard. Richard grew up in a fairly decent family and had three siblings. All through school, Richard was the underachiever, the black sheep of the family. His father wanted him to follow in his footsteps and become a statesman, but that just wasn’t Richard’s cup of tea. Instead, he decided to buy records wholesale and sell them out of the back of his car to record stores near his home. He was pretty successful at what he did, but he wanted so much more. He dreamed of one day owning his own record store. He was so passionate about his goals that he would stop at nothing to achieve them. Here is a quote from Richard: “My interest in life comes from setting myself huge, apparently unachievable challenges and trying to rise above them...from the perspective of wanting to live life to the full, I felt that I had to attempt it.” January - February 2011
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Eventually he opened his first record store with a friend, and they decided to call it “Virgin”, Because they were both new to the business. Today, Virgin now operates a record label, airline, fuel company, health exchange, entertainment company and more. Wayne Finally, let me tell you about Wayne. Wayne was born in Chicago, Illinois. In his early teens, Wayne and his family moved to Florida, but he soon realized that his father was not the male figure he should look up to. Wayne’s father abused his wife, but the move to Florida was made in hopes to keep them from divorce. However, Wayne’s father did not change, and he continued to abuse his family. Wayne went to high school, afterward moving back to Chicago to go to college, but he soon dropped out. He then signed up to be part of the Army reserves and trained, after training he moved back to Florida, bought a truck, and began taking garbage out of his county. Eventually, the one garbage truck he had purchased grew into a highly successful business running all throughout Southern Florida, and soon became the company known today as Waste Management Inc.
You should do the same. Each one of you has your own set of goals in life and each one of you is capable of achieving those goals. Nothing is holding you back but you. You are a window cleaning business owner who is destined for great things. Now go out and do them. By Brett Bailey Bailey’s Window Cleaning www.cthruwin.com
You These are three stories about people who rose up to achieve great things. But why would I be telling these stories to window cleaners? Because they all have the same story as you do. You took a risk and started a window cleaning company. Why you started it is your own personal story. Maybe it was out of pure desperation to feed your family. Maybe you were a young kid straight out of school and wanted to do something besides flip burgers. Maybe you did it as an add-on to an existing business. Either way, you had a vision and pursued it. You started with nothing more than a dream and turned that dream into success. So many times in our businesses, we have the tendency to become complacent. Your schedules are filled up for the next several weeks, the money is coming in regularly, your bills are paid and you have enough left over to take that vacation you want every year. But you are not a complacent person. You are a business owner. Complacent people are ones who work for someone else, who show up to work 40 hours a week to collect a paycheck and go home with no other thought in their heads about work once they turn the TV on. That’s not you. You want more in life for yourself and your family: You want to be independent and achieve great things. The one thing that the three people above have in common is that they never forgot where they came from, and never stopped reflecting on the journey that they have taken. They swore to themselves that they would never get back to that place again and were motivated to keep moving forward and reaching for seemingly unattainable goals.
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The New Sim 440 RO/DI in a Box 1 Gallon a Minute Use This RO/DI instead of the old traditional method!
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The Fundamentals
“An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” “Give us this day our daily bread.” How many times have we heard sayings like that? That’s because those who are successful at business, sports, or life are usually those who can consistently practice the fundamentals. As the great motivational speaker Jim Rohm once said, “Some things you have to do every day. Eating seven apples on Saturday night, instead of one a day, just isn’t going to get the job done.” Truth is that in order to be a successful window cleaning business owner, you need to consistently practice the fundamentals of business. Just about any part of our business, marketing, hiring, production, sales, administration, could be improved with more consistency. Consistency is the oil that lubricates the gears of progress. It’s not good enough to be good sometimes; you have to be good all the time. The house I live in was formerly owned by the family of a 2010 NFL rookie. Tim Masthay, the punter for the Green bay packers and former University of Kentucky standout, grew up running down the same stairs and raiding the same kitchen pantry that my own kids now do. Just six months ago Tim was working as a tutor for $10 per hour, after being cut from the Indianapolis Colts team because of a lack of consistency in his punting. Although I’m a pretty dedicated Redskins fan, I was saddened to read in our local paper that Masthay’s coaches at Green Bay were already thinking of cutting Tim after only four games because of a lack of consistency. Last week after the Packer’s handed the NY Jets their helmets on a platter, head coach Mike McCarthy Talked about Tim’s punting and said “I can’t tell you how good this feels to say this, this is the finest punting performance I’ve — I’m not exaggerating, I’m not dramatic — the finest performance of that I’ve ever been a part of in all my years on both sides of the ball.” Wow! Way to go Tim! His spectacular, almost flawless game was called “the finest performance” a NFL Head Coach had ever seen. Pretty impressive stuff, if you ask me. The coach actually said that Tim’s performance made him want to cry, until he added “He just needs to do it every week now and we’ll be fine.” What!? Every week? The coach wants his rookie punter to give the
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finest punting performance he’s ever seen, every week, every game, every time? The answer to that, my friend, is YES. Your customers (and employees) want your best performance every day, every job, every week, no matter what. That’s what peak performance is all about. For most of us the thought of consistently performing at a Hall of Fame level is overwhelming. It’s easy to get into the crisis management mode of returning calls, fixing trucks, paying bills, training people, ordering supplies, and countless other last minute “crisis” that prevent us from reaching that high level of performance that we all desire in our window cleaning operation. Probably the one thing that we can all do to improve the bottom line of our window cleaning business more than any other is to improve consistency. Think about an inconsistent person. You know the one; he or she gets out of bed at a different time every day, doesn’t have any concrete plans for the month, week, or day, and refuses to commit to any because their life is “too chaotic.” They fly by the seat of their pants, spending every day putting out fires that would not even have flared up if they had taken care of them sooner rather than later. They start a new diet every month; join the latest multilevel-marketing craze every year, attend the best marketing seminars money can buy, purchase the latest technology, and on and on the list goes, but they progress very slowly if at all. What’s missing from these highly energetic, motivated business owners? Consistency. That’s right; simple and old school: grind it out every day, and practice the fundamentals, consistency. Our customers don’t like it when our prices, processes, or personnel change all the time, and neither do our employees. In my recent round of hiring for the fall season I asked each prospective employee what was important to them in a company and without fail every one of them at least mentioned that they wanted a consistent workplace. So how’s your consistency? If you are the Rolex watch, Swiss chronometer of accuracy and bejeweled movement of business consistency, accurate to 1/100th of an operational second every year, go ahead and turn the page now, this won’t help you. But, if you could use some improvement here’s a few practical tips: 1. Don’t forget the fundamentals. Remember when you started your business and you placed a yard sign at every house that you did? Or how you presented every new customer with a refrigerator magnet? Now you look over in the corner of the garage or shop and the signs are sitting there with so much dust on them you can grow corn in it. People stop you and ask if you’re still cleaning windows, because never see your sign anymore, and you can’t remember where you ordered those magnets from but customers sure did like them. You probably still have a few in the glove box under the McDonalds condiments but you never give any out anymore. What happened? Well, like a lot of us, you got busy and neglected the very thing that got you busy: consistently applying the basics of business. If you think you might benefit from a immediate boost in business, go back and start doing those things you haven’t done in a while, you might find a gold mine right under your nose. 2. Narrow your focus. Problems in our business often arise from a lack of focus. When I started out, I was a window cleaner, that’s
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it. I then took on power washing at the request of a customer. A few months later, the city I live in solicited me for some building maintenance that included spraying weed killer, blowing off parking lots, and mowing the downtown area landscaping. Heck, they even contracted me once to clean up candy and paper along a parade route once. I found myself doing painting, changing light bulbs, fixing weather vanes, patching roofs and I was even asked to detail a few cars. Whoa, Nellie! I had to step back and remember why I called my business “window cleaning.” Yes, we still do power washing and gutter cleaning and, of course, sell Rain Flow leaf protection, but that’s it. It was, and still is, impossible to be consistent when offering every service under the sun. Truth is, you cannot hit your stride in business trying to be a “Jack of all Trades, master of none.” You just can’t deliver consistent quality by constantly expanding your list of things you are willing to do. 3. Use checklists and a calendar. This one seems simple, right? If it is, then why aren’t more business owners doing it? I was in business several years before I put together a checklist for my employees to use every morning before leaving the shop. The list includes things that seem obvious, but are easily overlooked, like “Is there enough gas in the truck?” We also now have one that has to filled out at the job site to cover quality issues. We also use checklists for employee hiring and training. We ask the same 10 questions to every prospective employee, fill out the same paperwork for every employee and train everybody with the same DVD’s and books. If you aren’t using checklists in your business give it a try, you might be surprised at how much less stress you have in your daily operation. You can also use the calendar to help with running a consistent operation.
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You can also start eliminating crisis management with your calendar. Business is hard enough for the small to medium operator without adding to the stress by letting time just happen to you. In our business there are so many variables that we need to take control of those things we can. One way to do that is to plan ahead for every non-variable item on your to- do list. Do you pay bills every month? Plan one day and do all of them at the same time each month. Put a reminder on your calendar each month, quarter, or year and order your supplies. If you know that you will be ordering every quarter, you also know how much to buy. Plan your marketing campaign, service of your equipment, do your safety training, and plan for growth all by using the calendar. When you bring this kind of consistency to your organization, you make room for future growth. So, as the New York Mets pitching great Tom Seaver said: “In baseball, my theory is to strive for consistency, not to worry about the numbers. If you dwell on statistics you get shortsighted, if you aim for consistency, the numbers will be there at the end.” Tom’s lesson is one that every window cleaning business owner could use: strive for consistency and the numbers will be there in the end. By Steve Stevens Sonlight Window Cleaning www.sonlightwc.homestead.com
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Interview with Tim Meester from
Screen Magic solves an age old problem for window cleaning professionals, the dreaded window screens. Scrubbing screens has always been the bane of residential window washers. Properly cleaning window screens is a labor intensive task that exponentially increases the time it takes to complete a job. Screen Magic organically cleans screens with no rinsing or scrubbing. You just spray it on and you’re done, no scrubbing. A screen can be cleaned to look like new in about 1 minute. The UV inhibitors extend the life of the screen, and dust repellents keep it looking like new for about 4 to 6 months. I interviewed Tim Meester, the founder and inventor of Screen Magic, and asked him some questions about it to better know the product. WCR: How did you originally come up with the idea for Screen Magic? Tim: I owned a company called CAB Covers, and I was working on a couple of different formulas with UV inhibitors. Basically trying to get covers to last longer in the strong Phoenix sun. Fabric deteriorates really quickly here, so I had been working with a couple of different products to protect the covers and make them last longer. I ended up accidently spilling some on some window screens I was trying to
www.windowcleaningbusinessowner.com
January - February 2011
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clean. I noticed instantly it made this screen look brand new. The problem was the UV inhibitors I was working with cost about $99 an ounce. WCR: Ouch! Tim: Yeah, it would have been way too pricey. WCR: What year was that?
WCR: If Screen Magic gets on the window, does it make the window hard to clean the next time? In other words, does it make glass hydrophobic? Tim: Screen Magic does not make glass hydrophobic. WCR: Who was the first supplier to carry the product?
Tim: About 2001. WCR: What did you do in that time between the products released? Tim: I tested the product over and over. The testing really took the longest time. After you apply the product you need to wait 8-10 months to see what effect it will have on the screen. I tested quite a few screens in the years to follow and the formula is just right now. WCR: When did the product officially launch and hit the shelves? Tim: I started working with local window cleaners here in Phoenix in 2009 just getting some real in the field testing. Our phones started ringing off the hook from window cleaning professionals wanting to get Screen Magic. We realized what a huge market there was with the window cleaning professionals. Shortly after that I was showing Screen Magic to Curt Kempton, owner of 5 Star Window, and he was so jazzed about Screen Magic he called up Window Cleaning Resource from a job site saying “You have got to check this Screen Magic,” WCR: How does Screen Magic work, where does the dust go? Tim: Our special formula of emulsions, UV inhibitors, glossing agents, and dust repellents don’t just cover the dust, it destroys it. The dust particles are organically dissolved making the screens look like new and the dust repellents help to keep them looking that way. WCR: Does Screen Magic contain any harsh chemicals? Tim: Screen Magic is completely green. Screen Magic contains no solvents, no phosphorus or petroleum distillates that can cause ozone-depletion. Screen Magic is nontoxic, inflammable, inert and non-reactive. WCR: Will Screen Magic transfer to the window if it rains?
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Tim: Twenty to thirty minutes of drying time should prevent that.
Tim: Window Cleaning Resource. WCR: Awesome, that makes me feel warm and fuzzy.
Tim- It works the best on the screens that are the hardest to clean, the 90% black solar sun screens..that are just impossible to clean well. Solar screens you would almost need to lightly pressure wash to get remotely clean. We shine there WCR: Where does Screen Magic suck? Tim: Metal screens, and also the fiberglass mesh screens. WCR: Do you see your self coming out with more products from window cleaners or are you going to concentrate on other areas?
Tim: Let’s see 5 in the Unites States, 1 in Canada and Acorn in Australia
Tim: I don’t think we will be coming out with any other window cleaning specific products but I do think we will alter the general formula and use it in other industries. Products that will allow window cleaners to up sell new services to homeowners, like the silk plant cleaner, and possibly a blind cleaner in the future. Curt from 5star has been testing that for us actually.
WCR: Damn, that must cost a fortune to ship over there
WCR: The window blind cleaner would be amazing! It would be the perfect add on.
Tim: Well it did but that’s how and why we developed the concentrate version
Tim: Yeah, that looks very promising for us.
Tim: [laughs] WCR: So how many distributors do you have?
WCR: I like the concentrate: it makes it way more affordable for the end user and us. Tim: Yes, we wouldn’t be able to have it in Australia without it. WCR: So was the concentrate developed because of Australia or was it already in the works? Tim: Well we had been slowly developing it, but the situation just forced us to speed it along. WCR: Cool, it just makes sense. Everybody saves.
WCR: Cool. So is there anything you would like to add, Tim? Keeping in mind we are speaking today to small to midsize window cleaning business owners? Tim: The most important thing about screen magic now is we’ve really brought the price down for everyone in the past year. It can now be used affordably, the cost is now down to 12 cents per screen. WCR: Thanks so much for your time Tim, we love your product! Tim: Take care Chris, have a good day.
Tim: Yeah, it does. WCR: So what else can Screen Magic clean? Tim: Well we have a formula that’s extremely similar coming out called Silk Plant Magic, for silk plants. Then we have something coming soon called “golf green magic” Again a similar formula but not exactly, at this point its still very pricey so we are working on that pretty hard.
Search “Screen Magic” today at shopwindowcleaningresource.com for the latest from Tim and the crew at Screen Magic.
WCR: Ok so where does Screen Magic work best?
January - February 2011
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Winter is here. Don’t get caught in the cold without a pair of one of these great gloves.
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24 Fall 2010 www.shopwindowcleaningresource.com/gloves
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Good Communication
The Key to Customer Service
About two years ago I decided to change my television service provider. The company I was switching to was offering a much better package that included more channels at a lower price. Upon ordering this new service I was given an installation date and a four hour window that I would need to be available, between twelve and four in the afternoon. After rearranging my work schedule for the day, I waited, and waited, and waited until five o’clock rolled around. I was fuming. There was no call to say the technician would be late. Was anyone going to show at all? Was my time not valuable? To make a long story short, after numerous phone calls, an eternity on hold, and a rescheduled installation date, my new cable service was finally delivered. Truth be told, it was awesome! There were three times as many high definition channels at a cheaper price. I loved it. However, when I told friends and neighbors about my switch to this company, I always ranted about my bad experience with them, rather than my satisfaction with the product. I am afraid this total disregard for people’s time is rampant in today’s society. I remember my eldest son’s first year of playing baseball. The coach asked that we would have our children at practice at six thirty on Mondays, and a half an hour before any scheduled games. I figured that this was the time parents taught their children to show up on time and be prepared to play. I felt that this man was volunteering his time to instruct my son, and because of that, this was the least I could do. Boy, was I wrong. To this day, when I take either of my sons to a practice for one of their sports teams, I find the same small group of kids showing up at the scheduled time. Most of today’s parents feel that they have more pressing matters to attend to. They feel that the coach should be thankful when they decide to arrive with their little superstars! There are clocks on those cell phones they have stuck to their ears, why not utilize them? I’m sure you’ve all experienced this lack of respect for other people’s time in your daily business operations. We’ve all shown up at a client’s residence, only to ring the doorbell and discover that no one is home. We call their cellular and home phones but there is no answer. Now we have a dilemma. How long should we wait, fifteen minutes or a half an hour? Why didn’t they contact us to reschedule? Did they forget that we were coming? This situation can be very frustrating. No one likes to be left in limbo. Good communication is the key to customer service. You can be the best window cleaner in the world, but if you lack the people skills it takes to deal with your clients, your hard earned business will wind up in the hands of your competitors. I am always amazed by how often one of my residential customers compliments me for just being on time. The stories they tell of other service contractors showing up an hour or two late, or not showing up at all, simply blows my mind. When you make an appointment, you are not the only one who commits to the time it takes to complete the windows. Your customer has made time for the service call as well. If you are running behind for a scheduled job, even if it’s only ten minutes, always give a courtesy call. I guarantee your action will be met with the response of “No problem, thanks for calling.” When you arrive at the home, apologize again for being late. Not only will the client appreciate the fact that you value their time, you will receive high marks for just being polite. This gets your service off on the right foot and makes them feel comfortable with the type of person they’re dealing with. Your interaction with the customer is just as important as the sparkling results that you deliver to their glass. Your competition can provide equally clean windows, but if they show up twenty minutes late with a bad attitude, chances are they won’t be getting a return call. In my many years of window cleaning, I’ve found that common courtesy goes a long way in satisfying and retaining clients. You’re not just selling a service to the homeowner, you’re selling yourself. Being easy to deal with makes a huge impression on their overall window cleaning experience. Be prompt, friendly, and polite, and they will be singing your praises to all of their neighbors. In the meantime, if you want a lesson on how not to treat a client, schedule a service call with your local cable company. Then, when they don’t show up on time and you have to place a call to the office, please be patient and hold for the next available representative.
By Joseph A. Stellwag Prizm Window Specialists www.prizmwindowcleaning.com
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The MiFi Today we are previewing a cool little gadget, the Mifi. I got my hands on one of these little suckers last year and my life has been easier ever since. The Mifi is basically both a portable Internet hot spot and a portable wireless router. Specs: Broadcasts high speed Internet to up to 5 devices simultaneously. Comes with a 30-day refundable guarantee. Availability: They are available in most countries through out the world, In the United States and in Canada you can get them through Sprint / Verizon / Virgin Mobile / Rogers and Bell All Stream. Costs: From Verizon: Hardware Free with a 2-year contract Monthly packages range from $39.99 - $59.99 a month depending on how much data you consume. Ease of use: This thing is insanely easy to use. There is one button, you press it and your immediately broadcasting Internet. In your wireless device manager you will see “Mifi” pop up in the display. Simply type in the password that’s stuck to the back of the device and you are connected to the Internet. My Case: I’m an iPhone owner, and with that comes AT&T. With that comes horrible service everywhere I go, but I love the phone, so I live with it. Having the Mifi allows me to still make calls and work when AT&T isn’t working. The calls and the data are all being funneled through Verizon’s network. I also travel for work at least once a month so its nice to be able to fire up the Mifi and get my work done. Increasingly, everything I do has gone to the cloud, so a computer without Internet is pretty useless to me.
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The Window Cleaners use case: The mobile office! Lets say…. you go to estimate a job. Wouldn’t it be nice to sit in their drive way for five minutes after you took a look and immediately have the homeowner receive their professional estimate? Lets say…. You get a call for an estimate while you’re at another job. Wouldn’t it be nice to just flip your computer open and check out the house on Google or Bing maps? You could estimate the job right over the phone then or just give yourself a better idea of what your getting into before you go over and take a peek at it. Back to the cloud – If you use one of the popular window cleaning CRM products you’ll notice they have moved to the cloud as well. The new version of Service CEO, Shine Software, or the Customer Factor connect to a cloud database. If you want to book jobs, close work out, or juggle your schedule you will need some type of Internet access. Even if you don’t use one of those scheduling systems, you most likely use something like Zoho, or Google calendar. They both rely on Internet access to function. Even the Microsoft suite of products, excel, outlook and word are becoming increasingly reliant on dedicated Internet access. The Mifi gives you the ability to run a mobile office with out having to hunt around for a free wifi hotspot. If you are going to invest in a Mifi, remember they are available on multiple carriers so investigate a little and pick the one that has the absolute best data coverage in your area. By Chris Lambrinides
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Winterizing Your RO/DI Machine The RO/DI and water fed pole can be the most useful and profitable tool a window cleaner can own. The RO/DI can also be the biggest investment you make, next to a truck. To protect this investment over the winter months could save you hundreds even thousands of dollars in repairs and lost income. There are many different RO/DI’s on the market today all have the same thing in common: they won’t survive the cold weather without a little preparation. In a cold climate, a sudden temperature drop can happen without warning. The best way to keep an RO/DI safe in the winter months would be to store it in a warm place (heated shop, basement, a room at the office ) , but not everyone has this option. The other option is to winterize your unit. RO/DI’s have 4 main parts, an RO membrane, pre filtration (sediment filter and carbon filter) pump & motor, and DI sock. The first step to winterizing your RO/DI unit is removing the pre filters. Unscrew the pumps and remove the filters from the housings. If the filters are in good shape and can still be used let them drain into a sink until all the water is out. Then wrap the filters in a plastic bag and store for next season. Remove all the water from the pumps and return them to the housings. The second step is to remove RO membrane. An RO membrane housing encloses the membrane, and is normally white or stainless steel. The membrane is made of
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a plastic tube, open on the ends and has holes down the side. The tube has a thin plastic bag attached to it. The bag is sprayed with a membrane if this membrane freezes it could crack making the membrane useless. To remove the membrane housing you need to disconnect the lines on either side and unbolt from the RO unit. (There is no need to remove the membrane from the housing) You can’t remove all the water from a membrane so it will need to be stored in a warm spot for the winter. The third step is to drain the pump. The pump is the brass piece at the end of the pump. The motor is air cooled so as long as it is dry it needs no other attention. The best way to drain the pump is to remove the lines going to and coming from the pump and blowing air out, or just let it drain. The last step is removing the DI from your system. Depending on the RO you have this can be tricky. Some RO’s have a DI sock some have a removable cartridge and some have nothing at all. If your RO didn’t come with a DI and you are using a tank after the RO you still will need to winterize the tank. DI is made up of small hard plastic beads of different sizes. When the water freezes in the tank it will expand, putting pressure on the beads and causing small cracks to appear in the beads. If the beads crack they will no longer hold a charge and will need to be replaced. You also cannot let your DI dry out: if DI are left out in the air they will dry out and become useless. DI socks and cartridges should be wrapped in plastic and sealed to stay useful in warmer weather. By taking the right steps you can keep you RO/DI system in good working order for many years to come. By Bill Labadie The Original Pure Water Expert
www.windowcleaningbusinessowner.com
Introducing Ettore’s new AquaClean ‘Caddy’ System By Reach Higher Ground, Inc. Well they’ve done it, Reach Higher Ground has managed to make the smallest pure water system the window cleaning industry has ever known. The ‘Caddy’, as it is known, weighs in at only 45 pounds and is only slightly larger than a regular window cleaning bucket. It utilizes 4 stages of filtration: carbon/sediment filter, 2 reverse osmosis membranes, and a de-ionization filter. All four filters are 4”x 21” long making the system 11” Wide x 11” Tall x 24” Long. When asked about its capabilities, Shawn Gavin, the inventor and owner of the company had this to say: “The system was designed to operate on tap water pressure. We have tested the system at 60 psi and under those conditions it produces 1 gallon of zero TDS water per minute. This is ideal for a single operator working up to 40’. We have also tested the system with an inexpensive electric pump option that will boost the inlet pressure by 40 psi and that test yielded enough water to run 2 poles at 40’ or 1 pole up to 60.” The system’s design lends itself to being the easiest to use on the market. Simply connect your tap water supply to the inlet of the system, close the bypass valve, and connect your waterfed pole to the outlet of the system. Its that simple! With all of these features one would expect the system to sell for a premium, but the price is the lowest of any RO/DI system on the market today: currently Only $1595.00 This is just another reason why Reach Higher Ground continues to prove they are the “Leaders in Waterfed Innovation.”
NOLA 2010
comes. This format and the exotic setting make the NOLA Networking Event delightfully unique and satisfying.
Ah, New Orleans! Often called “the northernmost Caribbean city”, New Orleans lingers on the threshold between the Old World and the New, between history and legend. History, architecture, culture, revelry, and oh! the FOOD will make your NOLA (New Orleans LA) adventure unforgettable. If you have never experienced The Big Easy you don’t know what you’re missing- and if you have been there before you can’t wait to get back.
NOLA 2011 will be held on April 22,23 2011 at the beautiful Hotel Provincial in the French Quarter. Excitement is high and reservations are going quickly. Every event has been better than the last and this one is going to be the best one yet! This is a by-contractors forcontractors event and we will be kicking up the awesome for 2011. Registration will be up soon at www.nolanetworkingevent.com and reservations at the Hotel Provincial are available now. Use the Apex Services discount link at www.hotelprovincial.com/groups/apex to save $30 on the cost of your room.
The City That Care Forgot has been home to the New Orleans Contractor Networking Event since 2008. Service business owners and employees from 28 states and Puerto Rico have gathered together since then to network, learn, and make lasting friendships. Several lucrative business deals and referrals have come directly from personal relationships forged at the NOLA Event. The mix of new and experienced contractors at all different stages of building their businesses creates a synergistic blend that has to be experienced to be believed. Everyone is encouraged to join in and be a part of the show!
Spring is a wonderful time to visit the Crescent City and there is no better time to jump start your 2011 season. We’ll see you in The Quarter and laissez les bon temps rouler! By Thad Eckhoff To sign up for next years NOLA event visit: www.shopwindowcleaningresource.com/nola
Previous speakers have included Daryl Mirza of Facilitec, Don Phelps of All Seasons Exteriors and RoofCleaningForums.com, Micah Kommers of We Wash Windows, Trey Posey of Sentinel Cleaning, Chris Lambrinides of WindowCleaningResource.com, Robert Hinderliter of Delco/ Delux Cleaning Systems, and Ron Musgraves of the Pressure Washing Institute. Speakers have addressed such topics as running your business with systems, writing and following a business plan, getting the most from direct marketing, selling large commercial accounts, guerrilla marketing, and SEO domination as well as how-to topics. The program has evolved over the course of time, becoming more and more interactive and free-flowing, breaking away from the lecture format most commonly seen in industry meetings. It has been observed that the more the audience and speaker/ moderator work together the more enjoyable and informative the whole process be-
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Websites 101 Domain Name Building a website is a big step for any company, including a window cleaning company. Window cleaning business owners usually have a lot of questions when they start to design their website for the first time. While I’m no expert when it comes to the topic of websites, I do know a thing or two about website design and how to set up your first website. 1. What’s the first thing I should do to set up my site? You could really do several things first. There’s no right or wrong first step. But I would recommend choosing and buying your domain name first. I purchase my domains from http://www.godaddy.com. If you cruise on over there you can see if your preferred domain name is available. Just because you purchase your domain name from Godaddy, or another provider of your choice, doesn’t mean you have to buy your hosting from them too. We’ll get to that in a minute. But choosing a domain name could be a little daunting. So… 2. What domain name should I choose? This may seem like a tough decision, especially when you try to buy windowcleaning.com and see that it’s already taken. Unfortunately, a lot of the good descriptive names have been taken. Sometimes it calls for some creativity to help pick the right domain name.
website with the full name, including the .net or .org part, you will probably be okay. That means even when you tell someone verbally what your domain name is you must say .net or .org. If you don’t, once again, your customer will end up on a different website. 4. Should I use a hyphen (-) in my domain name? So you couldn’t buy smalltown.com but you did find that small-town. com is available, should you get it? In my opinion, no. Why? Because most people type in a domain name without thinking about hyphens. So, again, they would probably type in smalltown.com instead of small-town.com. Granted, it may be easier for search engines to distinguish your keywords, but the search engines are getting pretty smart. They can probably already figure out your keywords.
Of course you can always use your company name as your domain name. If your company was named “Small Town Window Cleaning” it may be pretty easy to buy the domain name smalltown.com, smalltownwc.com or even smalltownwindowcleaning.com. However, if you live in a larger city, say, San Diego, CA, those domain names are more than likely already taken. So if you can’t, or don’t want, to buy a domain name that matches your company name what else can you do?
Another reason you probably don’t want to use hyphens is because it’s a pain to try to tell others what your domain name is. You could say ‘smalltown.com’ or ‘small dash town.com’. Now that doesn’t sound so bad when you only have the one hyphen, but what if you were getting a domain name that was small-town-window-cleaning. com. Now when a customer asks what your domain name is you have to say ‘small dash town dash window dash cleaning.com’. That’s a mouthful, plus they probably won’t remember all the dashes.
You can always buy a descriptive name. Something that defines your company. Something that includes your keywords. If you can include your keywords, it will help to some degree with your SEO (search engine optimization). If you choose a domain name that is different from your company name make sure that you promote it that way. Otherwise customers may type in a domain name that will lead them to your competitor’s site.
5. Should my domain name be short or long?
3. The .com domain name that I want is unavailable, should I get the .net or .org? The answer is, maybe. Most people’s first inclination is to type in .com. So if smalltown.com is already taken and you purchase smalltown.net your customers could accidently find themselves at some other website. But, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you shouldn’t get the .net or .org domain name. If you make sure that you always promote your 32
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I’m always a fan of shorter domain names. The reason being is, they are far easy to type in. Some argue that it’s easier to remember longer domain names because they’re closer to the way we actually think. I feel like a shorter domain name is easier to remember. There are no rules on this one. You should try to get a domain that is as short as possible as well as easy to remember. What is the next step? Again, you could do a few different things but for me the next step is choosing your hosting plan, which we can get into a little next time. By John Webb Purus Windows www.puruswindows.com www.windowcleaningbusinessowner.com
Google Places At the end of October, Google made a huge change in the way it displays search results. Google local listings used to show up on a map with up to 10 businesses listed under or next that. Prior to the change this would show up above the organic listings. Now, the map is off to the right, and the business info (phone number, address, etc) is incorporated into the organic listing for a much cleaner look, and more efficient use of space. This change also makes it more important than ever for your Google Places info is up to date an accurate. Whether you’ve already optimized your Google local listing (the map area, now called Google Places) or you have not even set up your business on Google Places yet these tips are important to youGoogle has changed things up again, and you need to be up to date in order to dominate. For the sake of the article we’ll assume you already have a Google Places listing, and it just needs to be updated to take advantage of some new features that will help your search engine rankings. But if you have not already created a local listing do so at: http://google. com/places (this is also where you update your settings) Most of this settings and boxes are pretty obvious and you probably don’t need anyone to explain to you how to fill them out, but I would like to stress the importance of actually taking the time to fill out all of the boxes as accurately as possible: Here we go: 1) Fill out your business name, address, phone number etc. Tip: if you service more than one area code, include an additional phone number for each area code; this can be helpful for search engine optimization 2) Fill in your website, and description. In the description make sure to include all of the cities you service, this will help when people search for those city names. 3) Make sure to choose the correct categories, don’t leave this blank. Tip: you can include more than one category; I chose window cleaning, pressure washing and gutter cleaning.
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4) The next option is a little bit newer, and pretty cool because we as window cleaners go to our customers, they don’t come to us. It asks you: “Does your business provide services, such as delivery or home repair, to locations in a certain area?” You can set it to a certain mile radius from your base, or you can select specific cities. I recommend selecting specific cities. If you already did steps 1-3 when you first set up your listing years ago, go back and make sure you do number 4 as well, this is really important for our type of business. 5) Fill in hours of operation, payment options etc. 6) You can include an image or a video, an image at minimum is highly recommended, as it can show up in the search results, and get you more clicks. Optimizing your “Google Places” is vital in order in maintain top listings in Google, so make sure you do this ASAP! By Doug MacDonald For more tips from Doug visit him at: www.getonpage1ofgoogle.com.
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Working Safely with Chemicals that Prevent Frozen Solutions Here in the Midwest we are getting ready to face another winter season, and that means cold temperatures and window cleaning. No doubt many of you have come out to the vehicle one morning only to remember that you forgot to bring in the bucket, and now have a block of ice instead of a bucket of solution. Fortunately we have a variety of chemicals that will keep our solution liquid and flowing freely so we can do our job. Unfortunately they can cause other issues so this article will give you the options and precautions to keep you working safely this winter. Our Chemical Options When it comes to chemicals we have several to choose from but I’ve found a few that are the best when it comes to economy and performance. Some choose to go with windshield washer fluid (WWF) but I opted not to include it simply because one of the chemicals I use is the base component. I’ve also included a MSDS link at the end of the article for each chemical suggested. Methanol– this is the antifreeze chemical that’s found in windshield washer fluid, and the one I use the most of in my business. Around here I buy it from a local dirt track race team supplier as methanol is their fuel. It cost me about $3 -3.50 a gallon. Now you may say you can get a gallon of WWF cheaper but keep in mind about 75% of that gallon is water, cheap soap, and blue dye. That means you are getting (at best) 25% methanol per gallon. That actually makes it a far more expensive option and the blue dye looks horrible as it freezes up on the side of a home or storefront. Ethanol– I’ve bought this as denatured alcohol at my local hardware store and it worked well. It was more expensive, and the smell was closely akin to model airplane glue, so ventilation is vital. I’d use it only if I had no other option. Isopropyl– this is my second most used form of antifreeze. I add a few quarts of it to each 5 gallons of methanol to eliminate the smell of the fuel additive they use. I also include it in my pure water back pack when the temps will be below freezing for part of the day to keep me water fed poling as long as I can. While there are other chemicals out there these are the most easily obtained and do the job efficiently. While these are useful, there are several things to be aware of when dealing with these chemicals.
freezing temperature and so if we were to expose our hands to the water the temp could be as low as -10°F or more depending on our working conditions. Chemical Exposure– while exposure to a small amount of any of these chemicals isn’t really dangerous we are working with them for hours every day. Make sure to completely limit skin exposure by wearing gloves (preferably chemically resistant) while mixing or working with these chemicals. Flammability– all of these chemicals are flammable so you need to be aware of any ignition sources you may be working near. Remember the flame from alcohol burns a blue/white so the solution can be on fire and you won’t be able to see it. Evaporation– while not necessarily a serious hazard one additional concern when working with these chemicals is that they will eventually evaporate from your solution. To reduce this I recommend that you buy and use a lid for your solution. There are several that can be purchased at shopwindowcleaningresource.com/window-cleaningtools/buckets-accessories.html Final thoughts As with any chemical you may use in your business, education and proper personal protective equipment (PPE) are the most important aspect. Make sure that whichever of these chemicals you are using you read and carry with you the MSDS sheet. This will make sure that if the worst happens you have the information needed to administer the proper first aid or other safety concerns. By Tony Evans A New View Window Cleaning www.anewviewia.com www.tonywcr.com
Colder temperatures– since we are trying to keep the water from freezing at 32°F by adding a chemical, we are artificially reducing its 34
January - February 2011
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CRYING FRENCHIES LOW BALLER ROUTE ROT SLOSH FOOT WEEPING
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DOG EARING GRILLS PANES RUNNERS SNAKE WINDOW BLEED
FANNING L LACZKO POLLING SCRUBBER STORMS
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What is Window Cleaning News? For some, it’s the newest product that comes on the market. For others it could be ladder safety, or maybe a funny video that can be relayed to their colleagues at work. I try to encompass a wide spectrum of news from window cleaning add-ons to even household window cleaning products. Why you ask? Well, the more you know, the more you realize the spectrum of the window cleaning world as a whole and lead in your game. That newest product aimed at the house owner to clean their windows is as important as the latest gutter scoop. Once you know what the home owner uses on his windows, the more you realize the intimidating experience they have trying to clean their own windows and hence the more reasons they need to hire a pro’ like you and me. That gutter scoop could be an absolute dud as well, but hey – at least you know what the mugs in competition to yourselves are buying. It’s been a strange last few years in the window cleaning sector. The water fed pole market has been flooded with an array of new species and for that, we are better window cleaners. The water fed pole choice we are getting today has never been greater. I hear one market leader will be bringing out a water fed pole that goes higher than 80 feet very soon. A new water fed pole that is a cheaper lighter version will be available in our hands within a few months and with a deadly name! The water fed pole market has improved in the US over the last couple of years. Window cleaners in the UK have leaned more to water fed pole work, with health and safety regulation making it more difficult to obtain commercial work as well. A lot have learned that there is a skill to the actual doing, but with the various videos on YouTube it has made more window cleaners out of us than ever before. Let’s just say the window cleaning market has been flooded with more “shiners” trying to make a go of it on their own. Is this a bad thing? Not really. If you take window cleaning seriously, you will either be an avid window cleaning forum member or even have covered your back by being a member of a window cleaning trade body.
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The economic downturn has also lead to most window cleaners suffering as a consequence. We still can dictate our prices in certain conditions, but the commercial market seems to have us by the danglers, I often see those fatal words in contract clauses – “the most economic tender.” Can this be countered upon? Most definitely yes, depending on how you present your services and how you translate the articles I present to you in the blog. The small business owner has a harder time than ever before. The media doesn’t help with the constant reminder of the price of onions and clients are more skeptical in the long run. Navigating through a negative economy is never an easy path but attitude and motivation will also get you through this low ebb. Just look for the links within the blog and start listening to some of the marketing gurus within on how to combat those “low ballers” if that is your problem, or change the market you are targeting completely. Traditional window cleaners with their buckets and scrim also still have a place in the window cleaning sector. Will this ever phase out? I don’t think so. For those who still believe the ladder will be banned – not in my lifetime. With the focus of new technology leaning towards nanotechnology and new films and coatings being brought out by the bucket load, even in today’s market the technology will never exist to work as meticulously as the human brain or hand could manage in such coordination. Sure there will be machines that may come close, but never will they be able to replicate that customer bonding of cleaning a four windowed shop front in the same time as a human. Sure, high-rise work may suffer, and quality at that, but a life is a life. Most of all, information is the currency of today’s world. Those who receive and control information are the most powerful people on the planet and are the ones with the most bulging bank accounts. Having the most up-to-date access to the latest information can only help and not hinder. Information is power, and it is fast becoming the true competitive advantage of any company. Some athletes train for years just to be a split second faster than a competitor, it’s the difference between coming first or second. It could save your life, one snippet of information could change your outlook or one product could change the way you work, be it faster or safer. “For also knowledge itself is power” -Sir Francis Bacon By Karl Robinson Visit: www.robinson-solutions.blogspot.com for the latest in window cleaning news.
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To Plow or Not to Plow? Adding Snow Management to Your Repertoire
In this economy many people are looking for additional sources of income, and some are turning to the challenging profession of snow and ice management. There are many different things to consider when thinking of adding snow and ice services, including some basics: Bidding First and foremost, building a price for snow and ice services is most likely going to be very challenging if you don’t have any experience. Simply going with the ‘market’ rate can get you in trouble, as there are really no standard ways to price, and there is a wide array of equipment used to service snow. To begin building a price, consider the 4 most basic elements of bidding: 1) Know your numbers: Understand and know how to utilize the true cost of conducting the business of snow and ice management, including equipment (and associated costs), manpower, backup equipment, extra snow-specific insurance, and all overhead. 2) Know production rates: Understand how much time it takes to do X amount of work in X time. Establishing production rates for all your equipment is the only way to take time and translate it into true profit. 3) Know the weather: Understanding weather patterns in your area can help prepare you for an upcoming season, including average numbers of events. Signing various types of contracts can also help protect you, for example some seasonal, some per inch, etc.
your efficiency in order to protect your margins. Equipment knowledge and proper technique is necessary for safety and efficiency. Additionally, you always need to be prepared for equipment failure; there is nothing worse than being stuck in the middle of a large storm and losing one or more of the tools you need to get the job done. Having good equipment knowledge and a backup plan will help you avoid this. The following is a list of common equipment used for snow services, and some general tips on how to operate them: Straight Plows When you have a straight plow, angle the blade away from the building as you make your first pass. Subsequent passes should be made away from the building and toward the outer perimeter. The general rule is to never angle your blade towards a building. The goal is to get the snow as far away from the buildings as possible. V-Plows • Use a V-position to make an initial break through. This position is also effective for hard packed snow, ice and deep drifts. • Set the blade in the straight position or angled position for general, wide path plowing or stacking. • Use the scoop position for clean-up and carrying snow with minimum spillage.
4) Know your customers: Understanding and clarifying a Scope of Work document, which outlines all of the details of service, will be crucial in building your price. If you don’t establish a clear Scope of Work, you will open yourself up to tremendous liability and financial risk.
Pushers/Box/Containment Plows
Equipment
• A snow pusher on a loader, backhoe, skid-steer or compact utility tractor can quickly and efficiently move large volumes of snow.
Once you have a sustainable bidding process, you need to maximize
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• When using a snow pusher, be sure it’s attached according to the manufacturer’s specifications. These specs are designed to provide the best performance, wear, tolerance and safety.
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• Snow pushers contain snow and don’t create as much of a windrow, which eliminates the need for repeated plowing of the same area to clean up spillage. • By utilizing the loader’s lifting capabilities, snow pushers can be used to stack huge piles of snow. And, by removing the snow pusher attachment you’re left with a loader capable of loading trucks in case the snow must be hauled away. Snow and ice management services can be a tremendous boon to your company’s offerings, but you must be extremely diligent when
considering adding these services for the first time. Starting and maintaining a snow and ice management business is a lot more than just attaching a plow to a truck, but being prepared and doing research are the best ways to help you succeed. The Snow & Ice Management Association Inc. (SIMA) is a trade association for those who manage snow and ice. SIMA ensures professionalism and safer communities by helping those who manage snow and ice master essential skills and practices. By Brian Birch, SIMA Assistant Executive Director Visit: www.sima.org for more information.
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January - February 2011
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