[Seers]

Hi,

At the moment 95% of our work is commercial, all types of external cleaning.

This year we have decided to develop domestic window cleaning in a big way for the first time. With a budget of £10,000 how would you develop a large domestic round from scratch?

Within 12 months we want two or three vans out day in day out purely on domestic windows and would welcome any help from the guys who have done this.

Options as I see them are for us to either employ our own leaflet and canvasser or outsource to a roundbuilder or buy an established round.

Cheers,

Huw

[Taylor & Taylor WC Services]

£10,000 won't allow you to buy a big enough round in the time you want so I reckon your best bet is build your own canvassing team?

[Londoner]

There is no soft option, forget it thats for the sort of people who buy franchises and believe that because you have paid someone a lot of money its all going to land in your lap.

This is how it works in the real world.

1) you start at the first house in a road, knock on door, "do you want a window cleaner?" yes / no

2) go next door, "do you want a window cleaner? yes/no

3) repeat until you have finished the street

4) go to next street, start again as before.

5) Keep going till you have a round.

No easy way, only one way, the rest is bollox. Winners never quit, quitters never win.    

[ronaldo]

There is no soft option, forget it thats for the sort of people who buy franchises and believe that because you have paid someone a lot of money its all going to land in your lap.

This is how it works in the real world.

1) you start at the first house in a road, knock on door, "do you want a window cleaner?" yes / no

2) go next door, "do you want a window cleaner? yes/no

3) repeat until you have finished the street

4) go to next street, start again as before.

5) Keep going till you have a round.

No easy way, only one way, the rest is bollox. Winners never quit, quitters never win.    

And there endeth that post 

[Londoner]

There is no soft option, forget it thats for the sort of people who buy franchises and believe that because you have paid someone a lot of money its all going to land in your lap.

This is how it works in the real world.

1) you start at the first house in a road, knock on door, "do you want a window cleaner?" yes / no

2) go next door, "do you want a window cleaner? yes/no

3) repeat until you have finished the street

4) go to next street, start again as before.

5) Keep going till you have a round.

No easy way, only one way, the rest is bollox. Winners never quit, quitters never win.    

And there endeth that post 

Yeah, but its what I believe

[Seers]

Hi,

A full time canvasser(s) is what we are leaning to and as Vince says get them knocking on every door.

Now to find the right type of people...all our commercial work has always come to us so this will be a new challenge.

Cheers,

Huw

[ronaldo]

There is no soft option, forget it thats for the sort of people who buy franchises and believe that because you have paid someone a lot of money its all going to land in your lap.

This is how it works in the real world.

1) you start at the first house in a road, knock on door, "do you want a window cleaner?" yes / no

2) go next door, "do you want a window cleaner? yes/no

3) repeat until you have finished the street

4) go to next street, start again as before.

5) Keep going till you have a round.

No easy way, only one way, the rest is bollox. Winners never quit, quitters never win.    

And there endeth that post 

Yeah, but its what I believe

Me too mate,

[George P]

if you have 2 - 3 vans out youll need to be vat registed so will take out 20% of turnover, that said you probably already are if you do lots of commercial,

[Danny Guest]

Hi,

A full time canvasser(s) is what we are leaning to and as Vince says get them knocking on every door.

Now to find the right type of people...all our commercial work has always come to us so this will be a new challenge.

Cheers,

Huw

Huw

Canvassing is the best option. I have canvassed over 120 customers since the start of 2011!
I have had a few lucky breaks with estates where the window cleaner has been hit and miss with cleans or has disappeared but i have worked hard to build up the round. I should have another 50 or so customers this month but its a tiring process so good luck.

Gary Player a world champion golfer once said "The harder i work the luckier i get"
A great quote from a great guy.....

Good Luck
Daniel Guest

[Leeroy]

Hi Huw,
I've always worried that someone like you would come along- a pro outfit.It makes sence that with commercial falling away domestic should be targeted.It's quite humble that you should ask on here, and also quite astute

I think domestic can be a bit harder to manage, and you'll need good people, but if you have that sorted the rest is just strategy.Firstly, think your systems through.If you do any domestic at the moment think through very carefully what you do.Don't launch your product untill you have it right.When you have something in the way of a customer experience to offer give it a go.This is a numbers game as i'm sure you know, but it's also about quality, and if you can drive the quality customers towards yourself as you seem to have done with commercial then things will be more fruitfull.

It should be like your website, frictionless.I don't think you need the 10k budget, you already have a van/vans that can spare one day and later two etc etc, so no cost there.You will need  maybe10k leaflets to start this is £200, you will need 5k A6 'proper' customer visit cards £100.(to do this you will have to get seperate bank acc and payment details sorted) And you will need the smarts to know what to put on these and how to present them.You will need to target advertise probably £300-£400 pa.

That's just how i would  approach it .Door knocking and the winners never quit stuff does have a place but i never liked doing it so i never went too far down that road.I agree it's not easy and the 20% is a problem for you.

Where can I get 10,000 leaflets for £200 and A6 Cards for £100 ? I am interested in some and these prices look good. Thanks.

[Seers]

Hi,

VAT is not an issue, that will be factored into the domestic pricing.

What I was trying to get at was that if you had a blank canvass and in hindsight, how would you go about building a substantial round from scratch?

Cheers,

Huw.

[bobby p]

id be suprised if a big company with 2 or 3 vans plus employee wages could get a toehold in the current market . lacking the personal touch is a big no-no

[Seers]

Hi Bobby,

I would disagree...

I think if someone was to put together a brand and roll it out nationally across the UK subbing the work to local window cleaning companies working on their behalf it would actually be quite easy to establish.

All it would take is some mass marketing and a webstite to catch the enquiries and then push them back out to the subbies...a route we went down before for all kinds of cleaning. It would just need a bit of time and patience to carry out.

Cheers,

Huw

[Clive McDonald]

If that someone was anglian, or tesco, or british gas, or the AA.They would, as i pointed out still need to get their offer sorted out, which is what you need to do.

[bobby p]

huw-  be interesting to hear how you get along, and i hope you succeed .  i was glad to see your on the opposite side of the country from me  as you most likely would cause a bit of a flap , much like tesco do when they open a shop near to the little shops

 might take you a decade or more  to reach over to the east coast and thats fine by me

[richywilts]

huw if you have the time yaself to canvass i think going out everyday for 6 months you coud easily have enuf of a round for 2 vans as long as ya have workers in place to carryout the cleaning the problem a lot of smaller firms find is canvasing and carrying out the work at the same time its hard to juggle and expand on large scale quickly btu 6 months solid canvassing at reasonable prices shudnt be a problem

richy

[mci services]

Worrying as it is to the small one bands it is very easy to build a round and I can sense a bit of dread from the replies on here in case all commercial firms start doing it.

I can see more coming to this way of doing business

[james44]

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   Harder for newbies
« on: May 20, 2010, 11:14:57 PM »    Reply with quote Modify message Remove message
With more and more window cleaners losing commercial contracts to the so called big companies, i have noticed and increase on the domestic side of things, and i dont mean your summer crew, dont know about peeps on here but i have been talking to some local cleaners and they have said the same more and more sign written van are popping up everywere,

had a long disscusion with a former builder today as well who does not see himself going back into building and was thinking of starting up window cleaning as he said it seams to be a more secure business and is good for cash flow wich is true!

now the bit that will concern some is the way that the commercial side of things is going with rates being cut and those cleaners who are losing commercial work are looking back to domestics to make this back up, now with what is happening in commercial how long is it going to take before it happens on domestics as well

i mean people have lost jobs and will do anything to earn a living and a lot are turning to window cleaning and dont know how much to price and are doing work for far less than some other cleaners, i know peeps will say they will learn to price right but the builder i was talking to said that he has targeted an area where the houses are normally in the £10 range said his plan is to employ workers pay them £10hr and price those houses at £8 now one man i know does 4 houses a hour so that will be 4x8=£32-£10 for worker leaves him with £22 per each man hr now i know his plan is to have 3 men plus himself working  which will give him an hourly rate of £98 and hey it can be done!

Now with so many coming into window cleaning it is going to be hard for newbie startups and i predict some will have to start lowering their prices or lose out, so far my prices have stayed the same but i can see all this price cutting entering into domestics in the very near future!
   

Agree stu this was a post i did last year!

The warning signs are there!

[zimzam]

There is no soft option, forget it thats for the sort of people who buy franchises and believe that because you have paid someone a lot of money its all going to land in your lap.

This is how it works in the real world.

1) you start at the first house in a road, knock on door, "do you want a window cleaner?" yes / no

2) go next door, "do you want a window cleaner? yes/no

3) repeat until you have finished the street

4) go to next street, start again as before.

5) Keep going till you have a round.

No easy way, only one way, the rest is bollox. Winners never quit, quitters never win.    

this is all you need to know.nice one.

[zimzam]

Hi Bobby,

I would disagree...

I think if someone was to put together a brand and roll it out nationally across the UK subbing the work to local window cleaning companies working on their behalf it would actually be quite easy to establish.

All it would take is some mass marketing and a webstite to catch the enquiries and then push them back out to the subbies...a route we went down before for all kinds of cleaning. It would just need a bit of time and patience to carry out.

Cheers,

Huw

shame no one else thought of that.