Clean It Up
UK Window Cleaning Forum => Window Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: Cliff perkins on March 02, 2012, 05:21:02 pm
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This might be a bit of a willy waver topic but ive been doing window cleaning for just over a year now and im not earning what i was in my last job driving a low loader hgv.i was wanting to ask roughly what you sole traders earn a year after costs to see if its worth my while carrying on.there are lots of costs involved all the time with wfp work and to be honest i aint earning alot really when you do the maths so im just curious i guess.
Please realistic answers only.
Thankyou.
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Tell us how much you are earning and we will tell you if that's good or not.
I would say that with window cleaning you have the potentional to earn as much as you want, depending on how much effort you are prepared to put in getting the work.
A lot will come down to how good your round is, a good round can take a little with to build, but once you have a good round you can earn very good money.
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None of your Business ;D ;D ;D
But I do put 35% of what ever i earn away for tax, accountant, bad weather pay ect.
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Ok i will put it in simple terms.
How much should a window cleaner earn a week working 9am to 5pm.
Regards
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£400 a week once u have took petrol and other exsp out ...
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Cliff how much do you earn?
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£400 a week once u have took petrol and other exsp out ...
If that's all I took home after a week, I wouldn't be window cleaning.
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A nice wage tony,how often and what hours you work?
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Ok i will put it in simple terms.
How much should a window cleaner earn a week working 9am to 5pm.
Regards
Try telling us what you were taking home as a low loader driver per month and what shifts and hours you had to put in to get that.
There was no need to put "simple terms" as each to his own and your earnings as a one man band should be based on what you want to earn, not what others are :)
Maybe your expectations were too high for the first year of trading, it can take years to get a good round working well for you :)
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A nice wage tony,how often and what hours you work?
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You won't get a straight answer because it's really nobody elses business what anyone earns. A sole trader could just be doing it for beer money, working three hours a day or he could be 07:30 to 18:00 six days a week so even if people told you it wouldn't be much use.
As Lee said, you get out what you put in.
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How much did you earn as a driver and what have you turned over in your first year window cleaning?
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I earned 35k a year as a low loader driver doing on average 10 hours a day.mon to fri.my 1st year of trading was about 20k and im willing to work very hard in window cleaning but hardly any of my work is compact at the moment.
The exspenses in my 1st year was alot and still are .
I think i see £50 out of £100 after deductions.
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it takes 3 years to really have a strong business, and it will be imo a lot more than you were earning and for less hours... go out tommorow knock for three hours you should pick up about £50 ish in new work theres a 500 a year pay rise ish, do this a couple of times a week, shouldnt be long, when your halfway there a large round has regular recommendation work comeing in as well
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the reason you saw all those expenses in your first year is all that wicked kit you are using, nice van nice pole gutter vac etc etc, very nice stuff, you should see a massive improvement over the next few months concentrate on the progress of the round
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I went door knocking today and got 1 . ::) ;D
I do try very hard to build my company.But there are alot of windies around here.
My mrs keeps telling me im not earning enough and i do see the potential is there but i was just wondering how much potential.
Anyway thanks for replies and have a good weekend windies.
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I went door knocking today and got 1 . ::) ;D
I do try very hard to build my company.But there are alot of windies around here.
My mrs keeps telling me im not earning enough and i do see the potential is there but i was just wondering how much potential.
Anyway thanks for replies and have a good weekend windies.
Don't want to be rude but if my partner said that to me she would be given a load of leaflets to deliver ;D ;D
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Put a poll up cliff, make it easier to answer.
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Cliff,
Youre in the South, so you should be earning more per hour than me. If youre comparing earnings with your old job of 50 hours a week, lets look at what you could do in 40 hours (8 a day). After all, you also have to run the business and you didnt start doing it to work harder for less than as an employee.
With not very compact work (guessing on your definition) I think you should be doing a minimum of 15 houses a day in eight hours. There is no reason at all why in Newbury you shouldnt be averaging, £18 a house (based on what I read on here), which is £270 a day. Multiply by 40 weeks (allows 10 days bank hols, 5 weeks holiday a year and another five weeks lost to illness/bad weather so all worst case) and you're looking at turnover of £54,000 a year.
You went doorknocking today and got one. If thats a 4-weeker at £18, youve just added £234 to your annual income. In your old job that would have been a 2/3% pay increase. How often did you get one of those.? Rejoice! Also, how long were you out to get one customer? Five minutes? Eight hours? How many people did you actually talk to? Your result could be excellent or awful depending on that.
But - this is the difficult bit - it's not like a job where work comes to you. You need to go out and win customers. We can all say there are lots of other windys in our area. Well, you need to convince yourself and your customers that you are better than them. They wont come all winter, you will. They wont come back every time, you will. they wont guarantee their work, you will. If you want to earn more the only person who can do it is you.
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I earned 35k a year as a low loader driver doing on average 10 hours a day.mon to fri.my 1st year of trading was about 20k and im willing to work very hard in window cleaning but hardly any of my work is compact at the moment.
The exspenses in my 1st year was alot and still are .
I think i see £50 out of £100 after deductions.
20k in your first year is not bad!
If your expenses are all business expenses then remember this will keep your tax bill lower anyway. :)
Have you started offering the extra services such as insides, gutters, con roofs to your exisiting custies?
If not them get these rolling in. Scheduling in with your normal cleans should then start to pull you in some better money.
To get more compact work.....try doing an odd Saturday morning here and there in areas you want more business, sometimes neighbours will just come out and ask and there you go 2 more custies or so for that area. :) In 3 to 4 years time you will wonder why you asked this question ;)
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it takes 3 years to really have a strong business, and it will be imo a lot more than you were earning and for less hours... go out tommorow knock for three hours you should pick up about £50 ish in new work theres a 500 a year pay rise ish, do this a couple of times a week, shouldnt be long, when your halfway there a large round has regular recommendation work comeing in as well
Bang on mate.
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Based on Dave's figures I would say it would take 3 years to get there if you canvass and do the work yourself.
If you hire a canvasser then alot quicker.
What many forget when they spent several £1000's on vans and equipment is the one thing that produces money, customers.
Why did you leave your driving job?
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To get more compact work.....try doing an odd Saturday morning here and there in areas you want more business, sometimes neighbours will just come out and ask and there you go 2 more custies or so for that area.
This is a key one. If you dont have kids, try working Tuesday to Saturday. If you do have kids, do it all summer holiday at least. You get Sunday and Monday off when things are quieter everywhere and you get more customers seeing you on a Saturday.
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Thanks helen and dave just guess im having a bad day.dave my 1 customer today was a bi monthly at £15.
I knocked a dropped as they say for around 3 hours.
Regards
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Thanks helen and dave just guess im having a bad day.dave my 1 customer today was a bi monthly at £15.
I knocked a dropped as they say for around 3 hours.
Regards
So a £90 pay rise!
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Based on Dave's figures I would say it would take 3 years to get there if you canvass and do the work yourself.
If you hire a canvasser then alot quicker.
What many forget when they spent several £1000's on vans and equipment is the one thing that produces money, customers.
Why did you leave your driving job?
I moved from hertfordshire to berkshire and didnt want to drive on motorways anymore they are a nightmare ;D
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Hi cliff
You are on a winning roll, Did you know that there are lots new business will usually go bust in their 1st year?
Specially in hard times like now, so you are making money even if you don’t make any profit for the first 5 years.
So you are still winning, be positive and you will be making good money in time, maybe earlier than you thought.
:)
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You need to think about costs - I normally spend in the region of £5000 a year running my business. That's me on my own with absolutely no advertising costs, no leafleting nothing. I earn a good wage but not a figure I'm willing to put on here. You have to look at your wage per hours worked then you'll probably find you are extremely well paid.
The drawback of course are holidays/time off when you earn absolutely nothing without staff.
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takes a good 3years to get a good business going ;) ;) ;)
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what you think you can get done on a calculator doesn't work the same as in the real world where a perrcentage of your time is lost moving about.
8 hr day probably = 6hrs window cleaning.
There is a book by richard sorrell "winning at window cleaning" goes through these figures, guy that sells aeriel brush tebuk.
Think this would help you Cliff i got and it confirmed some of the things i knew, but good reference on hourly rates and how many hours a day you'l average and what that equates to a year etc.
As Lee said potential is there, i'm average in the earning stakes and need to up my game.
But for me when i read posts by others i like the way Dazmond does things, works fairly hard but doesn't kill himself and not afraid to have a day off; or a nice holiday ;)
Been 3 years since my last holiday abroad :'(
Centre parcs last year though :)
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Cliff - I don't mean any offence by this...
But a lot of people get into window cleaning thinking its quick easy money, £200+ a day etc... Whilst this is achievable it takes a few years to get close to that level day in day out.
Its tough physical work, and WFP costs can run into the £1000's per year.
Andy
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How much are you paying a year for the VW ?
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Cliff, if you've been trading for a year then watch out for the double whammy tax bill - payment on account. That's always a bundle of laughs the first time it gets you.
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you should look at working 10 months of the year 4 or 5 days a week.6 weeks holiday and 2 weeks to allow for bad weather or low motivation.
if your in the south then your earnings should be a lot higher than us in the north to reflect the cost of living.
im not sure about earning 54grand a year(gross)as a sole trader.i certainly dont know anyone who earns that much cleaning windows on their own in the north.
£25,000 a year after expenses and tax would be considered a good solid round as a sole trader up here.although i reckon there is a lot not even making £15,000 profit after all expenses and tax have been deducted.
window cleaning IS NOT really considered good money as a one man band compared to other trades but for the hours worked,flexability and general low stress its ideal for someone who wants a "lifestyle" business.
i reckon you would have to come out with more like £35,000 a year after expenses to have an equivalent income as us northern scallies!! ;) ;D ;D ;D ;D
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No your right Cliff probably not worth carrying on and maybe it's time to go back to your old job and sell you round to me..... ;D ;D ;D
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for your first year of trading your doing ok.now you have to get more work.get out canvassing and leafleting as much as possible.keep an eye out for dirty conny roofs,fascias and soffits etc while working your round and offer to clean them.
you just dont earn half decent money in one year when your building from scratch.it takes a few years to get well established.you will get lots of word of mouth and recommendations if you do a good job,reliable and have a calm relaxed friendly attitude over time.
remember there a lots of people who want a decent reliable window cleaning service but lots of people have been let down by bad window cleaners.make sure you stand out from the doleys/beer brigade and you ll go from strength to strength.never lose your temper with a custy either.be professional at all times.
best wishes
dazmond
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ive just looked at your website cliff.if i were you i would get rid of some of the lingo you use.to say you dont always get a good finish on the windows on a first clean is not very professional and making the claim you are a lot faster wfp cleaning than traditional window cleaning is not necessary.
IMO you can get a good finish every time on first cleans if you spend enough time on them.on subsequent cleans you can breeze through them.
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If it is honesty you want I would look again at the photos on your website, do others or change them.
The first picture of a cleaned window unit still has dirt in the corners of the sill unit, the pictures of the pressure washing shows me that the work has been done with a pencil jet and there are clear lines where it has been cleaned. Particularly this picture would show me that I am not going to get an exceptional job and would make me look elsewhere.
There are three extremely important things to represent your business to its best ability, a website lets people know about you and shows them visually what you can do, a uniform shows them you are smart and the vehicle you turn up in can be old but needs to be clean and have contact details on it, even if it is a car, get some magnetic signage.
Those pictures, if they are paying jobs that you have photographed need to be improved.
This is constructive criticism and is in no way meant to make you get on a downer. You are doing really well for year 1 and if you can do 20k next year and the year after you will find it compacting.
Good luck
Rob ;D
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beware of moles
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I clean 3 times a week and I drive hgvs 2 times a week, have been trading 8 months now but this is my year for transitioning to a full time window cleaning business, tho I do enjoy the mix I have big plans and this site I find excellent for motivation, it's quite heartwarming the amount of windies that offer help and support, you would not get that in other cutthroat industries and it says a lot about the quality of the people in the trade.
Graham
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Thanks for all the constructive remarks.
Daz as always realistic remarks thankyou.
Will review website over next week and amend.
Will try and do a leaflet drop on a larger scale .
Regards
Cliff
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beware of moles
What mole ?
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beware of moles
What mole ?
If you mean the taxman im completely above board and put all my work through my books.im completely honest and run my company where i dont have to worry about a tax bill as i put 30% away each month.i think if your going to suceed you have to be honest and true to yourself.
Regards
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If you are putting 30% aside this will give you plenty when your tax bill comes, but this could be a reason why you feel that you aren't earning enough, I would have though 20% would be enough for the level of earning that you are making at the moment.
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I work on the principle of paying myself aprox 50% of my turnover. The other 50% is banked for tax and business expenses.
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As a ball park, about 60% of your turn over before tax.
I.e 20 houses a day at £10, you take £120 before tax. This obviously depends on how tight your round is etc etc
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sounds like your putting more than enough away mate, but better that than not enough. if your new to windows in past year, you've done really well, it takes time to get the right mindset and technique up.
I drive a couple of days a week, it sounds like you were on very good money trucking, don't forget your prob working a lot less hours now, on 3am starts, breaking the law for your boss, working your backside off for somebody else's benefit. don't forget your 'profit' always looks worse due to expenses, expenses which you wouldn't be able to claim as a PAYE. stick with it mate, as said fact your in profit in first year is big thing in business these days. this year sure you will start to see the benefits.
oh, and as been mentioned, try to get tax return in early (get a good accountant if not got one already,) so you know where stand with payment on account. might have nice windfall there. and accountant can project next year's figures so you won't get caught out.