[lee_dewing]

hi did a post awhile back on this subject.

Thanks luke johnson and others for your ideas.

decided to go down this route to basically earn more money.

been wfp 13 months now, finding customers are saying windows are staying cleaner longer.

average getting around 4.5 weeks.

Question: How much extra do you charge for 8 week cleans 50%?

On all new quotes i will price higher giving the option of 4 or 8 week clean expecting them to go for 8 weeks.

Question: how do I get existing customers to swap when i am ready to (once got extra work)
i.e how do you sell a 50% price increase to them, I understand the maths but does the take the bait or do they just see the increase.

I want to go down this road because i am simply not earning enough to much under pricing whwn i went on my own, i reckon i'm on average 25% under this was'nt intentional just naive.

treating everything now as strarting again(refining process)

any tips anyone.

sorry very similar to last post just missed a couple of points.

uh yeh i'm sure there's less problems with weather as well as if customer turns you away it will be a total of 16 weeks when windows are cleaned again, so the customer would be more likely to except  rain guarantee.
cheers all
lee

[supernova77]

All my domestic customers are x8 weeks. Apart from 4 very big houses that I do every 12 weeks.

I don't understand how you can work with some customers being 4 weeks and some being 8 weeks if you have a full time round, or are building a full time round?

Let's just say you have a full round... One day in October you clean 10 customers who are all 4 weekly... November comes round and you have the same 10 cusomters to do + 5 extra customers that are 8 weekly on the same day... How do you fit the extra 5 customers in?

Andy

[nat]

try to even out your 8 weekly cleans so that you have around the same amount every 4 weeks

[lee_dewing]

see the point your making andy.

have you always been 8 weeks or did this occur after changing to wfp and did yoy then bump the customers prices?

[lee_dewing]

thanks nat also.

just basically want to earn more money!

weather it 4 6 or 8 weeks
any one else got opions on this?

[supernova77]

see the point your making andy.

have you always been 8 weeks or did this occur after changing to wfp and did yoy then bump the customers prices?

It all stems from when I first setup. I would take on anyone on their terms just to get the work... So I ended up with a handful of 4 weekly cleans, a lot of 6 weekly cleans, loads of 8 weekly cleans and a few 12 weekly cleans.

After a while it became a headache as I had all kinds of work falling on the same day on different months and have work thats as far as 30 miles away from where I live etc...

Now I am in a situation where I have everyone on 8 weeks (apart from the few big ones I have)... So every other month I have the same days work as 8 weeks previous... Then I just fit my few 12 weekly cleans in when they crop up.

Andy

[windowwashers]

see the point your making andy.

have you always been 8 weeks or did this occur after changing to wfp and did yoy then bump the customers prices?

It all stems from when I first setup. I would take on anyone on their terms just to get the work... So I ended up with a handful of 4 weekly cleans, a lot of 6 weekly cleans, loads of 8 weekly cleans and a few 12 weekly cleans.

After a while it became a headache as I had all kinds of work falling on the same day on different months and have work thats as far as 30 miles away from where I live etc...

Now I am in a situation where I have everyone on 8 weeks (apart from the few big ones I have)... So every other month I have the same days work as 8 weeks previous... Then I just fit my few 12 weekly cleans in when they crop up.

Andy

Andy how did you convert all from 4 weekly to 8 weekly and up the price? surely you would lose money if you had say everyone on 4 weeks then changed to 8 weeks with 50% increase in price??? I start wfp on friday 

[Moderator David@stives]

Stick to 4 weekly , you will make more in the long run.

You will need less customers, also customers have a fixed price in there head they are prepared to pay whatever the frequency, i guarantee whatever you can get for an 8 weekly clean i can get the same for a 4 weekly barring say 5 % of the customers.

wfp or squeegie the windows get dirty the same, dont be fooled with the cleaner for longer myth, maybe stay cleaner for an extra day or 2 , not an extra month.

Dave

[windowwashers]

Stick to 4 weekly , you will make more in the long run.

You will need less customers, also customers have a fixed price in there head they are prepared to pay whatever the frequency, i guarantee whatever you can get for an 8 weekly clean i can get the same for a 4 weekly barring say 5 % of the customers.

wfp or squeegie the windows get dirty the same, dont be fooled with the cleaner for longer myth, maybe stay cleaner for an extra day or 2 , not an extra month.

Dave

im so glad you said that, some of the things you hear or here are confusing, I will stick with the 4 weekly. (did you put up price when you went wfp or keep it the same?)

[supernova77]

Stick to 4 weekly , you will make more in the long run.

You will need less customers, also customers have a fixed price in there head they are prepared to pay whatever the frequency, i guarantee whatever you can get for an 8 weekly clean i can get the same for a 4 weekly barring say 5 % of the customers.

wfp or squeegie the windows get dirty the same, dont be fooled with the cleaner for longer myth, maybe stay cleaner for an extra day or 2 , not an extra month.

Dave

I agree! If 4 weekly is working for you at the moment then there is no reason to change?

As I said above the only reason I changed everyone to 8 weekly is because I had more 8 weekly cleans from the outset then any other frequency + I only target the larger houses which obviously cost more money for the customer.

Andy how did you convert all from 4 weekly to 8 weekly and up the price? surely you would lose money if you had say everyone on 4 weeks then changed to 8 weeks with 50% increase in price??? I start wfp on friday  Huh

I just told them that I was consolidating my work and they were fine with it... I didn't increase their prices at all, I didn't think there was any need to... There isn't really that much more dirt on a window if you leave it a month longer I don't think.

Andy

[Moderator David@stives]

Ian keep the prices the same for about 6 months you dont want your customers to have to get used to a new system and a price rise at the same time, and give them extra ammo to shoot you.

once they have got used to it and trust you know what you are doing , then hit them with the price rise.

I moved from monthly to 4 weekly and that by itself gave me an 8 % price rice , i know get 13 cleans a year instead of 12 , if you play it the 8 weekly way you will only get 6+1/2 cleans a year

[Moderator David@stives]

my average domestic job is a £500'000 house and i never get asked for 8 weekly apart from the odd miser, what most of them want is clean windows all of the time.
8 weeks near me is way to long

[supernova77]

my average domestic job is a £500'000 house and i never get asked for 8 weekly apart from the odd miser, what most of them want is clean windows all of the time.
8 weeks near me is way to long

It's funny how it differs from location to location... When I was starting out most seemed to want 8 weekly cleans.

It's worked well for me in the long run though... I have been able to charge a little bit more per house + if any new window cleaners start up in the area they could find it hard to nick my work because my customers are all used to 8 weekly and wouldn't want anyone doing it 4 weekly 

Andy

[nat]

we try to stick to a 4 weekly cycle, but we probably have around 10-20% on 8 weeklys, it isn't that much of a pain, we also up the price so there good earners as well, i wouldn't entertain 6 weekly or 12 weekly as it would knock my cycles out of sync. we use to be just 4 weekly but then i realised that i was missing out on money by not offering the service. works for us and its no big deal just try to even them out through your schedules and they work fine!

[john tomkins]

Lee , if you say your work is underpriced then how about upping your prices on those to an acceptable level but giving the option of a 6 week clean to justify the increase, saves you going down the 8 weeks route (too long for me and needs double the amount of 4 weekly customers).
I think the folks that do 6 weeks hardly ever get the "not this month" customer so could be an option to you.

[NWH]

I don`t agree with Dave on this one at all,£500.000 i would say is the minimum priced house i clean on a 6-8 weekly basis,and to say that i would get the same money by doing them 4 weekly is wrong.If i do a house and charge £100-150 theres no way there going to want that every 4 weeks no matter who they are and how much money they`ve got people arn`t stupid,if i wanted to be more regular on these types of houses i would have to lower the price per clean and in effect over the course of the year i`d be doing more work for the same money.You don`t need to get many more customers you just need to make sure that it`s good work,if someone tells you they only cleans 60-70 jobs per month they`ve got a good round.

[windowwashers]

I don`t agree with Dave on this one at all,£500.000 i would say is the minimum priced house i clean on a 6-8 weekly basis,and to say that i would get the same money by doing them 4 weekly is wrong.If i do a house and charge £100-150 theres no way there going to want that every 4 weeks no matter who they are and how much money they`ve got people arn`t stupid,if i wanted to be more regular on these types of houses i would have to lower the price per clean and in effect over the course of the year i`d be doing more work for the same money.You don`t need to get many more customers you just need to make sure that it`s good work,if someone tells you they only cleans 60-70 jobs per month they`ve got a good round.

On my biggest houses they are 6 weeks, have to agree with NHW, none every asked for them to be done any sooner, most of them are never in the UK in the first place

[NWH]

Loads of my customers are either like you say out of the country or at least the husband is or both working in the city,i charge top prices and give it a breather between cleans.If they got my bill every 4 weeks i`d be for the chop.

[Moderator David@stives]

NWH

Wrong for you , not for me.

All my work is 4 weekly bar the odd few, all paying top whack, also I never get any "not today thank you's" neither, i have in the past and they got scrubbed off immediately.

one or 2 begged me back soon but now we both know where we stand.

8 weekly really is the exception, all the guys who i know are either 4 weekly or monthly, while some of the older guys are 2 weekly

Dave

[windowwashers]

NWH

Wrong for you , not for me.

All my work is 4 weekly bar the odd few, all paying top whack, also I never get any "not today thank you's" neither, i have in the past and they got scrubbed off immediately.

one or 2 begged me back soon but now we both know where we stand.

8 weekly really is the exception, all the guys who i know are either 4 weekly or monthly, while some of the older guys are 2 weekly

Dave

we clean every 4 weeks, it is only the very big houses that are 6 this option is not available for normal houses