How to Start a Window Cleaning
Business
| I am creating a series of short
videos on how to start a business and how to do the jobs. I already a
several videos hosted on REVVER.COM, but I am going to put most of my
stuff on YOUTUBE.COM because it gets insane traffic. If you are
interested in starting a business full time, or are just trying to run
it as a sideline, I am the expert in this field. I have been cleaning
windows for 26 years, and I came up the hard way. I have made a lot of
mistakes, and I believe I can help you to avoid them. All I ask is that
you consider getting your equipment from me at
squeegeesbymail.com!
Find all my videos here:
http://www.youtube.com/dontwc
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(Spare rubber and pole not shown) |
"Problem Solver" Kit $210.00
Don says: "Buy all you need to get
started at once! You will be able to start cleaning windows the same day
you get this kit. Almost all one story houses and some two-story houses
will be in range, and that is a large part of your market!"
Includes:
- Blue bucket w/sieve
- Pro-handle
- 18" channel w/rubber
- 14" channel w/rubber
- 10" channel w/rubber
- 6" channel w/rubber
- 14" strip washer
- ErgoTec Scraper
- 10-pack razor blades
- FixiClamp
- 0 degree SwiveLoc squeegee handle
- 30 degree SwiveLoc squeegee handle
- 8 foot OptiLoc telescoping pole
|
Don's Tri-Fold Brochure
This will make a huge difference. This is the brochure
that I have use to get jobs, and it is very effective. You can purchase
the template for this brochure, and then edit it with
Publish_iT, a free
download, to reflect your own contact information. Print it to use
as a master for future copying, make as many copies as you want, and
start using it instead of a business card. Or mail them to homes in
upscale neighborhoods. |
Click this button and then you may choose to see a preview of the
brochure.
Publish_iT is shareware, which means that the software you download
is usable for 21 days. This is certainly long enough to change the
brochure's contact information. If you think you may periodically have
to change the information, I recommend buying the full version for $36. |
This is a collection of the email I have received and sent concerning how to
start a business like mine. I present them in the order I found them in my old
sent mail file...
1. In your opinion. does a window washer need to
be insured and bonded? (you do go into people's
homes). Also, how much do you think this would
cost? Do you know of any agency that offers it
real cheap?
When I got started, I was desperate and hungry. I
had nothing but a squeegee I bought with a check that I had to chase to the
bank. Consequently, I started with no license, no insurance, no business
cards. I literally went from shop to shop on University Ave. After awhile, I
just kept doing business, started paying taxes, and looked into what I needed
to do legally. What I discovered was that I had almost no requirements. Since
I lived out of town and commuted, I didn't even need an occupational license
from Gainesville or anywhere else in Alachua County. I tried to purchase one
and they returned the money.
2. What are all the things you need to buy, how
much does it cost, and where can I buy them at?
Alert! Soon you
will be able to get your equipment from me, Don Marsh, an actual window
cleaner who will never steer you wrong! The site for the store is
SqueegeesByMail.Com,
and it will be open soon! In the meantime, go there and bookmark it!!
And that's not all! I will be giving every
window cleaner a free web page that he or she
can edit with little help from anyone! It will be at a new site that you
will be able to advertise with a FREE vinyl
sign in your window that you will get with ANY
purchase! Is this great, or what!?!?!?!
You can get most of what you need at Ace Supply in
Ocala. I used to order from them and I got a delivery about once a month or
so. Sometimes I get things from one of the National Vacuum stores here in
town. Sometimes I order online, and I like that because they have
everything. I like Windows101.com
best. I like Unger equipment best. Get a good
extension pole, some
squeegees with extra channels and extra rubber blades. Get a
washer, a
scraper, and a gizmo called a
fixi-clamp. I know it's an investment, but most of this stuff lasts a long
time. Get a bucket anywhere you like.
3. How do you advertise? How do you get
residential clients? Did you print out fliers and walk thru every
neighborhood and put them on door to door?
(that would take a long, long time to do, but if it works...)
When I've passed out fliers, they have always
worked. It's just that by the time I got around to using them they were
largely unnecessary. I started just going up and down the street asking shop
owners if I could do their windows. A poor living, but after awhile they asked
if I would consider doing their homes. Word of mouth took over from there.
More ideas later.
4. Do you also do commercial, corporate accounts?
How do you get those? (some of those business's.
like car dealerships, have second story
windows, so I imagine you would need a real high
ladder. Convenience stores, however, seem to
use their own people to wash their windows)
I almost never get on a ladder. Extension poles
are the way. That, and good window cleaning equipment. Frankly, I stay away
from businesses. It can take forever to get paid, and they drop you in a heart
beat when some bright new cost-cutter gets on board.
5. Around how much should a window washer charge
per account, both residential and commercial, and
how do you do it? By window or by hour? Or
what? And how, when do you get paid?
I charge between 3 and 5 dollars per window inside
and out. French windows are on the high end of the scale. I can do 10 windows
per hour when I get started.
6. Should I concentrate on middle class or rich
neighborhoods, or both? How do get inside these very weathy housing
communities
that have a guard and a gate (or at least a
gate or sign that says "no soliciting"????????
A couple of tricks: approach full service cleaning
services. They hate to do windows and tehy get asked all the time. I used to
sub-contract for a few services. I don't do it anymore (they found out how
fast I was and didn't like paying 20-30 dollars per hour to anyone) but I
still get referrals from other cleaning services.
7. I'm also interested in getting into power
washing, but probably won't be able to do that until I make
some money from window washing.
That IS quite a money maker. And, it creates
window cleaning! It makes a mess of windows for sure.
8. And the number one question is - HOW DO I LEARN
TO CLEAN WINDOWS? (:+0)
there are so many different types and kinds -
some that look very difficult such as those large windows
that have lots of little one foot square
windows inside them. You've got tempered glass, filmed glass,
tinted glass, screens, drapes, blinds (do you
clean blinds?).
Practice on your own. Glass is glass. I use
dishwashing liquid because it's so harmless. Don't use alcohol or ammonia on
film. OR razor blades, for that matter. The small French windows are a
nuisance, but it pays to get several extra channels and a hack saw. Once I got
a job that had 500 of those individual little panes. I noticed that they were
mostly the same exact size. I didn't have a squeegee that was the right size,
but I did have a hack saw. I created the size I needed. Each window got
cleaned with one stroke. This cut the time down considerably.
How do you handle screens, drapes, blinds? Do
you have the customer take everything down before
you get there, to save time? Do you have them
remove everything from in front of the window to save
time?
Sometimes they do this just because they are so
paranoid. But you cannot count on it. I just learned to work around the things
I can work around. Use common sense. Move that delicate crystal figurine.
I hope I haven't asked you too many questions,
but I feel I need to know this if I'm going to get into this
business. Not that I'm going to be an expert
anytime soon.
And, if you don't mind, I'd be available for a
quick demonstration by you on how to clean a window(s).
I'm usually available every day from about 9am
to 3pm amd I'm up in Gainesville all day Thursday. Just
name the time and place if you're interested.
If not, that's ok too, I know you're probably very busy.
I want to really thank you for any help you
can give me. Anything at all. From everything I've read,
window washers make from $20 to $25 an hour,
and since I am in potentialy dire financial straits, I
need something like this to become solvent
again.
My only question now is, how long will it
take me to get up and running and to be making money at
this?
I'll have to think about that business about
letting you follow me around. I don't know how my customers will feel about
that.
Being desperate is good motivation to go out every
day. I don't know what you would be letting go of to try this business, but I
sure am glad I was unemployed when I started. I watch a lot of guys who never
let go of that $6/hour job and not have time to fing the business they really
need to do. They usually quit. :(
Richard,
I don't know how to break this to you, but I
didn't take any courses or read any books. I went to a place that rented
pressure washers, asked them how to do it, and went out and did a few jobs. It
was trial and error. I didn't hurt anything. I was careful. I rented a machine
every time I got a PW job until it was happening often enough that I knew I
could buy a machine for less. I bought a used one from the rental place and
learned as I went. I got beat up pretty godd on a few jobs, and slowly learned
how much to charge.
Now, if you can get tapes or booklets, I'm not
saying to ignore them. I did a lot of things that I didn't know any better
than to do. Tennis courts are tricky. It's real easy to remove the paint.
Yikes! Chlorine savages metal fixtures, so cover them with plastic bags or
Saran Wrap. Make sure the tip is locked on all the way before pulling the
trigger. They are projectiles, otherwise. Make sure windows and doors seal
well when doing houses. It's worth checking out in advance. When doing pool
screens, do it from inside out AND outside in. Bleach it to death one section
at a time and then blast it off. LET THE CHLORINE DO THE CLEANING IN MOST
CASES. The machine is just a delivery system.
I've worked without insurrance for years. I didn't
mean to, but I was so poor when I got started that I learned to be very
careful. After I became really competent, I priced it and didn't want to get
it. You don't HAVE to, but it's your risk to take.
Start out by looking for moldy houses, offering to
bleach em and rinse em off. Use pool chlorine from Pinch a Penny. Cover
valuable ornamentals before bleaching the house. For plants that are hardy and
too big to cover, soak them down with soapy water first. It will create a
barrier against the chlorine. Rinse bushes off with soapy water again
afterward. Keep a big bucket of soapy water handy to put the siphon hose into
when you need it. Don't get too close to wood surfaces with high pressure.
Rinse at a distance. Re-bleach again what doesn't clean off the first time.
Don't be tempted to muscle things off if you don't want to pay for
resurfacing. Clean out pressure hoses with soapy water when you are finished.
Your hoses will last longer, and at $80 each to replace them, this is a good
habit to form.
Good luck!
DM
PS. Buy Dickies work pants. Bleach will not fade
em. Kiss jeans good-bye.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2004 9:29 PM
Subject: hi!
January 13, 2004
This is Richard in Ocala again. Just wanted to
know how you got into power washing. What courses did you take, what books
read or who taught you? It seems there's a awful lot of web sites out there
about power washing. Which ones are the best? What would you say is the
minimum psi and total cost to get started in this? I want to find a
course or book or tapes that really tells me all about it and then I can
rock and roll!
Thanks so very much
I've talked to a company and the guy was
obviously trying to sell me pressure washers in the $8,000 to $10,000 and
above range. That's probably for the biggest jobs. I'll be starting out
small. But the point is, he made it seem like only hot water cleaners were
really the thing you had to get, and something like a Honda 13 hp cold water
with a PSI of 4,000 was the equilvilent of using a push mower. You could
save a lot of time by using the bigger machines. That you need a 20 hp
minimum. And that bleach would just ruin stuff. I mean he just went on and
on about corrosian. So, the questions.
Wow. I'm glad I never ran into this guy when
I got a machine. I would have just said, "forget it", and stayed out of the
PW business.
To be fair to him, though, if I were going
into pressure washing as my primary business, and I was thinking of getting
enough employees to do all the jobs it would take to support all that
infrastructure, I might go that route. Yeah, get all the best, most
productive equipment that money can buy. It would be expensive, and I would
have to do a lot of advertising to maintain the neccessary flow of new jobs,
but I guess it could work. Of course, I would then have to compete, dollar
for dollar, with guys like me, who keeps his $800 Honda in the back of his
Mercury Tracer. It's a tall order, and I see guys every year who buy a new
truck, have a big ad in the Yellow Pages, get all the PW toys, and then I
find out they are in Chapter 11. Don't let yourself get overextended. Start
small and learn the basics out in the field, not on the equipment sales
floor.
What say you?
1. hot water or cold, does it make a difference?
I don't know anyone in the business who uses
a hot water machine.BTW, how hot are we talking? Did they say what effect
this has on double pane windows? How about swelling wooden doors? How bad a
scalding will you get when you bust a hose? And it will happen. I bust a
hose now and then and it's pretty painful to have it happen in your hand
with cold water.
2. bleach is ok? (obviously since you use it -
he probably doesn't know your techniques for protecting stuff)
Bleach is one of many things that wear on
your machines. It's a fact of life. As far as protecting plants and
fixtures, etc., there are precautions to take, just as there are a whole
different set of precautions to take when using hot water. Can bad things
happen with bleach? Sure. But you can ruin wood siding with no cleaning
agent at all if you aren't careful.
3. minimum horsepower needed
I honestly don't know off-hand. I think mine
is 8HP.
4. minimum psi needed.
Mine is 2500. The machines have been getting
smaller and stronger over the years. It used to be that a 1200-1500psi
mahine was all I could afford or carry. My basic rule of thumb is, "Can I
lift it in and out of my car without getting a hernia?" Remember, my PW
business is just an add-on service for my window cleaning customers.
5. where did you go to rent your machine? (still
in business - or where else you recommend?)
I go to Gator Paint on NW 34th St. just
North of Pinch a Penny. They rent em, sell em, fix em. I like that.
6. since I have a car, I would need to buy a
small tow trailer to tow it, right? (anything else I would need to buy?)
I've never had a trailer. I usually get an
old minivan or station wagon. Right now I have a Merc Tracer, a four banger
with 135,000 miles. I carry my machine everywhere, along with 5 refillable
2.5 gal chlorine jugs, extra hoses, extra gun 2 buckets of window cleaning
equipment, and a 3 story extension pole. All that fits inside with room for
a passenger. I also have a 24ft extension ladder, which I only take if I
absoutely have to, and that gets fastened to the luggage rack.
7. in your opinion, total cost I would
need to get started. (cost of pressure washer, trailer, etc.)
I really don't know what to tell you. I
started with almost nothing. I've kept life simple. I would never recommend
someone to start out by borrowing money, buying all the stuff that makes an
impression, and generally putting himself behind the eight ball.
Later on, when you are consistently working,
and PW is all you really want to do, look at getting a truck and trailer so
you could get one of those hovercraft concrete cleaners. You can clean
concrete drives in about 1/4 the time. It's unreal. I just don't do enough
PW to justify the outlay, and I don't care to. I'm happy to upsell PW to my
existing WC customers, a ready-made market for me.
Whatever you do, don't go whip out your Visa
Card and start charging all kinds of goodies. I bought my first macine, a
used one from a rental place, AFTER I went out and sold enough jobs to pay
for it. Make some good flyers and simple cards and include your website.
(It's so ridiculously cheap to have one that it's crazy not to.) It greatly
extends your advertising dollars. You put people at ease by giving them a
lot of information. Get a cell phone and use that number for your business
so you can be accessible. I need mine most when I am the hungiest.
Good luck,
DM
Hi again,
Don
February 10, 2004
Your website looks great. I'll have to
read thru it next time when I have more time. I guess I have just one basic
question - I think!
When you first started out window washing doing it
that very first time, were you nervous or worried that somehow you wouldn't do
it right or mess it up somehow? That the store owner wouldn't like what you
did. Were you unsure of your technique? That you were doing it right?
This is what I'm wondering as I'm getting closer
to start to advertise and hopefully do my first job.
What mistakes could I make? Maybe I'm just
worried about nothing.
Hey, Richard. The day before I went out to clean
windows for the first time, I did ours. It was how my wife found out what I
was doing. She wondered where I go thte squeegee.
Well, my first jobs were shop windows, where it's
kind of hard to screw up. All the work was outside, and all the water I
spilled just ended up on the sidewalk. So, before I did my first house, I was
already pretty proficient at the basics...
Oh, I guess one more question..
When you do residential, do you tell the customer
to remove all the items around the window before you get there? To take down
the blinds, curtains, perhaps even the blinds? Or do you do everything? (some
window washers I know say to not do anything but the windows cause it will
take you too much time.)
Also, do you take in some type of sheet or
covering to put on the floor inside their house to prevent any water dripping.
Or is that necessary?
Finally, All these newer homes have these anywhere
from a foot to smaller square windows so the thing is to get a real small
squeegee to handle any of the different sizes. Any problems doing these
squares?
How's that for one question?
Then they all get one answer. :)
I only tell them to move the things they are not
comfortable letting me handle, like tinkly crystal and pricey figurines.
Otherwise, I tell them that getting around things is just part of the service.
More on that in a minute.
In regard to dripping, I don't cover much. If
there's a lamp with a highly stainable shade nearby, I move it. If It cannot
be moved, I cover it. If a drip gets on the rug, I take some dry paper towels
and press it down into the carpet and it all gets wicked up.
It's best to use the cleanest water possible when
you come inside. Most of the dirt is outside, as a rule, so if you do the
outside first and come in with water that is heavy laden with dirt and pollen,
it is harder to wick that dirt up without adding some clean water to the
dripped area.
Because the windows are usually less dirty inside,
I use less water on the inside than outside. I dip lightly and soap down the
window. Then when I remove the mater with a squeegee, I make sure I channel
the water somewhere harmless, like to a rag I've laid across the widow sill.
In the case of sliding doors in a carpetted area, it is impossible to keep
from bringing a lot of water to the bottom. I usually unroll enough towels to
make a barrier between the falling water and the rug. At least whatever water
gets through will be filtered.
I do have a drop cloth for immoveable furniture.
The best is one that is absorbant paper on one side and plastic on the other.
It catches drips on the paper side without letting them run down the surface
to the rug. THe plastic side keeps the covered object dry. It's like using
Pampers, only bigger and very thin. Go to the paint store.
Back to getting around things. It's amazing how
much stuff you can get around with a stick and a swivel squeegee. I reach
behind things all the time that I would really rather not move, like
computers. (By all means don't get those wet!) And it's amazing how many times
I can just get one of the panes to slide up or over for easier cleaning.
I do have many sizes of squeegee. I used to carry
a hack saw with me so I could actually make the channel the size I needed!
Then I trimmed the rubber blade with a razor. It's amazing how much faster a
job goes when each pane only takes 1 stroke!
When I start window cleaning (need to get license,
and advertising set up), I will will let you know of my success! (:+)} or
(:+<}
Thanks, Don
Richard
I'm sure you'll do fine. Finding jobs in the
scariest part. After all these years I still look a week ahead and see only
unemployment. (Only during the holidays do I get booked up in advance.) Still,
I almost never have a day when I don't wake up with things to do. And even if
I do have an open day, my job that day is to find work. Yesterday I tripped
over a $285 job only because I was available to go looking for it.
Good luck indeed!
DM
Don, I hope I'm not being a pest with asking
questions
Not at all. Actually, I am compiling a lot of this
stuff to create an ebook on the business. It does me good to have to think
about these things.
It's my fault, my bad that I didn't ask the
question specifically about removing stuff around the windows to clean them.
What I really meant was, specifically...
1. the actual stuff on the windows - the blinds,
the curtains, drapes, screens (and the things that hold them up), do you ask
your customers to remove these, do you do it, or do you not remove them but
just work around. A loty of windows I see there are screens that cover maybe
either half or the whole windows. Do the customers expect you to remove all
this (screens, windows, curtyains, etc) or do you tell them to? (seems to me
it would take a lot of time to remove, clean and put all this stuff back on
the windows - be an all day job on a two story house with many windows?
I tell them only to remove the things they don't
want me to touch (fragile figurines, etc.). Otherwise, I work around
obstacles. It's just a part of the job. I mean, carpet cleaners don't tell you
to remove all the furniture from the house...
2. speaking of 2 story houses - when you're
cleaning 2 story homes, how do you clean those 2 story homes? Use a ladder to
get up to the little porches under them (in older homes), Some of those little
windows are so recessed back it would take a crane to get to them!
Most windows can be disassembled in some way
(check my website for instructions) so you can clean them from the inside.
Otherwise, I use a long extension pole if I have to. A ladder is a last
resort.
I've also learned my limitations. I recently
walked away from a $1,000 job because I didn't feel like risking my life to do
it.
(as a side note, do your customers, when you're
cleaning all the inside windows, do your customers follow you all around,
watching you? That wouldn't bother me any. I think that would be the smart
thing for them to do. But if they don't, then do they ask you if you're
bonded?
If people ask me about a bond, I usually remind
them that they called me on referral; that is, their friends trust me. If they
don't, a bond won't make me honest. If people insist on me having a bond, I
tell them they need to call someone else.
Now, if their following me around is actually
interfering with me getting the job done, I leave. I've only had to do it
once, about 18 years ago. She begged me not to go and left me alone.
3. Do you take checks and credit cards in addition
to cash? Checks I can see, but did you ever have any bounce? Did ypu go after
them or not? And credit cards?
I take checks, but not credit cards. Taking those
cards will not get you any more work, and your customers who used to pay cash
or check will suddenly use the cards to get frequent flyer miles and you will
lose 2 or 3% for the card fee. Fagetaboutit.
Thanks again. see, if you didn't answer questions,
you wouldn't have anything else to do... I better just shut up!
I am curious, though. Did you buy the gawdawful
expensive steam cleaner?? And are you actually doing any jobs yet? I am
curious...
Don Marsh
Here's an email I sent in response to someone
who wanted to know about starting a website for his window cleaning and
pressure washing business. You might find it helpful:
Thanks! I always enjoy hearing from my "audience".
Yes, I am an early riser, and I do almost all my Internet work in the
early am. I got in the habit back in the late 90s, when I wrote a novel
in the early morning hours over a 10 month period. It never got
published, but I may release it as a podcast audio book yet.
I do most of what I do because I enjoy writing. It's all a part of who I
am, and I am pretty much out-there with my opinions. I have been asked
if it has affected my buisness, since I live in such a liberal
environment, A couple of times it has cost me a job, but mostly it keeps
people from engaging me who would otherwise lure me into arguments when
I am trying to work. But they do read me!
Of course, it has helped my business. It's enhanced my reputation as
someone who knows what he is doing: people actually quote my stuff back
to me. It also does some of the pre-selling that I used to have to do
while giving estimates. I'm pretty much finished with having to get them
over their fear of pressure washing over time before I can finally do it
for them.
Originally, I put up the site as a place to keep an online calendar. I
set it up, then put instructions on my voicemail for how to get to it.
This was to keep people from bothering me while I was working, and to
save me from playing phone tag while we left messages back and forth:
"No, that one is not open, how about the 7th? etc...
If you are not as obsessed about writing as I am, then a blog would
work fine. Use
Blogger,
Google's offering (the new version is awesome!) and embed a Google
calendar. Both of those things are free. And make sure your put your URL
on everything, and that it's on your voicemail message.
Of course, there's a lot to be had by getting your own domain (10/yr)
and getting a good web host ($5-8/month) and using forms to collect
information. My provider gives me a couple hundred email boxes, and I
set up one just for forms that is accessed by my wireless Palm T/X. I
use Microsoft Frontpage to make my site, which is a $120 program, but it
makes life simpler. I try to extend my tech capabilities too far
sometime and end up wasting a lot of time on stuff I just don't get. I
guess that's the "hobby" part of it.
I don't do specials. I don't need to. The demand is HUGE and the supply
of me is small. I work cheap enough already. That's why I have also
ended up doing very little with my email database. I'm so busy I can
afford to let them contact me when they feel like it. My only concession
is that I send out an email to my list every August to warn them not to
put off choosing a date to get done before the holidays. And 95% of them
ignore me, and get mad when I am booked up past Thanksgiving by October
1.
And I am very interested in water fed poles. But I am very busy already.
And I might have to use a bigger vehicle (I work out of a Ford Escort,
cheap to keep) and it doesn't enhance my current business.
If I am going to change directions as I get older (I am now 48), it will
be in the area of internet media consulting for local candidates. Most
of them are clueless about politics and the Internet. I have been a
candidate, remain politically active, and I stay on top of Internet
media developments. I have something to offer, and it's easier on my
legs. :)
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Window Cleaning