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Work drying up over winter?

Hopefully you'll manage to get through the winter ok and then things will kick off for you in the spring. I'm trying to think of there's anything else you could be doing but it sounds like you've got it all covered what with facebook, website, leaflets etc.

It really is bizarre how different it is in different places (saying that, I can't remember where you are but I know it's not near me) and makes me thankful that everything is going ok for me at the moment. Ive got enough going on in my life without having to worry about work.

 
I have enough window work to be comfortable

The add ons are a bonus but i deliberately don't have a full day every day of the week

Then i have time for any add ons (will be gutters again soon once the leaves have fallen and it starts raining)

If it goes real quiet that will correspond with the real short days in winter so i will still be able to keep up with my round

 
Hopefully you'll manage to get through the winter ok and then things will kick off for you in the spring. I'm trying to think of there's anything else you could be doing but it sounds like you've got it all covered what with facebook, website, leaflets etc.
It really is bizarre how different it is in different places (saying that, I can't remember where you are but I know it's not near me) and makes me thankful that everything is going ok for me at the moment. Ive got enough going on in my life without having to worry about work.
There is so much work round here Neil it is unbelievably busy still

 
I was the same as you, my daughter has cancer and was in hospital for 2 years ,that was very hard juggling work and hospital, she sadly passed away when she was only 4 /emoticons/sad.png so business been at a little bit of a standstill , really need to get it built up my aim is to earn 6 to 7 hundred a week which is a easy target
Sorry to hear that mate

 
Yeah it's that time of year - quoted a car park , a drive and a roof / drive and all 3 said price ok but next spring please

Just need to concentrate on Windows through winter anyway as I lost 4 or 5 customers as I didn't turn up for 3 month

 
tommorrows schedule, 9am first clean, then drive 20 mins away to another area for 1 windo clean and a first clean at 11, then maybe do another clean on the way to 1pm car valet, then a gutter clean at 4pm. A full day of ******* about for less money than i could earn on the glass in 4-5 hours. its all work and all money but life will be so much easier if i just did windows,
I know what you mean adamangler lately the the same was happening to me. Spent more time driving around than cleaning windows, but I know now it was worth it as all those customers are coming back now for repeated cleans and if in that location I have another repeated cleans coming up soon I just put them on the same day and then after cleans I am out there canvasing. My target is at least 10 houses per estate/town and later it will save me time I am spending on driving around.

 
To be honest and I contradict myself when saying this there is still plenty of work out there it just depends where your at with your business and what you want.

I speak regularly with another window cleaner who is picking up loads of houses but his not fussy on what he takes on bad access,call a head,no parking,can only clean on certain day and time,dog **** gardens,etc.

his fairly cheap dosen't charge a first clean price will travel to an area for one house but because he wants the work and for the above reasons his picking plenty up but in my opinion if you work for yourself you want to build on quality not quantity .

I turn away around 70% of new jobs the main reason is I don't want anymore residential but even if I did they wouldn't fit in with what I want and the direction I want to go in ,its the quality of work which is hard to find.

 
I can relate to the original poster. My round has gone a bit quiet at the minute, although I am picking up work all the time. I've had a couple of jokers who were only one timers, plus I lost a car showroom I was doing up until a few weeks back. Basically their head office sorted a cleaning contractors and didn't inform the staff. I turned up, started cleaning the windows like normal, next thing I know Im being told they were done yesterday. They still paid me for the clean thou, but that was a nice reg job that is now gone. Plus I culled a few from my round who were underpriced and difficult to arrange with - oh and several have moved houses which I bloody hate cos with all the unheaval they go through with moving it can be tough to arrange the next clean without pestering them.

I am just hoping that winter work rolls in to top me up. Im on fb advertising, my website, plus leaflets are going through doors when I am free.

Today for example was very quiet - only 2 jobs! one was a first clean at a good price which helped.

 
This is my first winter coming up. (Well it's my 2nd but last year I was part time so didn't really notice)
Last couple of weeks have been noticeably colder on a morning. It's been windy and rainy, this week's forecast is shite...

Anyhow looking at my goggle calendar where I enter all my extra jobs booked in. (Valets,gutters and conny mainly) it's been pretty much blank this last month. Which is the first time since around Feb-March I've not been busy everyday, I'm ticking over but not really making much profit lately It's obvious I either need more windows or more add ons...

Anyways just wondered what the general trend is amongst everyone for add on work thru the winter? Do you notice a large drop off? I'm just wondering whether it's a marketting thing so I can look at maybe adwords or leafletting or is it just to be expected?

Cheers
Every year for us has been different. Last year we were busy window washing till the first week of November but this year we are already booked till the third week of November. We have only been in business for 4 years, this could have a lot to do with the area we live as there's more demand for the service cuz our work load seems to grow bigger with each year......

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 
Every year for us has been different. Last year we were busy window washing till the first week of November but this year we are already booked till the third week of November. We have only been in business for 4 years, this could have a lot to do with the area we live as there's more demand for the service cuz our work load seems to grow bigger with each year......

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Where you from @Mony?

 
To be honest and I contradict myself when saying this there is still plenty of work out there it just depends where your at with your business and what you want.I speak regularly with another window cleaner who is picking up loads of houses but his not fussy on what he takes on bad access,call a head,no parking,can only clean on certain day and time,dog **** gardens,etc.

his fairly cheap dosen't charge a first clean price will travel to an area for one house but because he wants the work and for the above reasons his picking plenty up but in my opinion if you work for yourself you want to build on quality not quantity .

I turn away around 70% of new jobs the main reason is I don't want anymore residential but even if I did they wouldn't fit in with what I want and the direction I want to go in ,its the quality of work which is hard to find.
That's a good point I soon get rid of those that won't pay online or want a certain day or time.

The main problem I have is prices, my conversion rate is about 30% of quotes. Which in the long run will be worth it but just means it's slow picking up work

Managed to pick up a couple today at decent price so that was good.

I suppose if I get desperate I can lower prices.

 
To be honest and I contradict myself when saying this there is still plenty of work out there it just depends where your at with your business and what you want.I speak regularly with another window cleaner who is picking up loads of houses but his not fussy on what he takes on bad access,call a head,no parking,can only clean on certain day and time,dog **** gardens,etc.

his fairly cheap dosen't charge a first clean price will travel to an area for one house but because he wants the work and for the above reasons his picking plenty up but in my opinion if you work for yourself you want to build on quality not quantity .

I turn away around 70% of new jobs the main reason is I don't want anymore residential but even if I did they wouldn't fit in with what I want and the direction I want to go in ,its the quality of work which is hard to find.
Some people don't have the luxury of taking this elitist attitude and have to take what work they can get to pay the bills

Once you have built up to a certain point then you can afford to be more picky but to turn away 70% of work doesn't make sense to me

I would rather take it and sub it to someone for a percentage than lose it

 
Some people don't have the luxury of taking this elitist attitude and have to take what work they can get to pay the billsOnce you have built up to a certain point then you can afford to be more picky but to turn away 70% of work doesn't make sense to me

I would rather take it and sub it to someone for a percentage than lose it
I'm not sure how I've got an elitist attitude?

The beauty of working for yourself is doing what you want taking on the work you want.

Some customers will just slow you down and ruin the earning potential of your round it's not being elitist it just makes sense.

in reference to turning so much away as you know I was passing on jobs to various window cleaners locally for no fee or nothing in return but when people can't be bothed to go and look at the job or turn up ,the customer comes back to me asking "where's the window cleaner you said that would call me"it just creates agro which in all honesty I don't need.

I definitely don't think I'm better than anyone I help plenty out .

I have lent at trad guy a gardiner pole and 10 barrels to get started,some one else is borrowing my Pf trolley and I sub a day a week to another window cleaner who dosn't have enough work I've sold two bits of work to window cleaners struggling with no upfront payment.

With subbing it out I have some work still that I may sub out but the reason I don't is it is very,very hard to find good reliable people it's no good me booking in a 2 man job like a care home and the subby not turning up it makes me look stupid but by all means if you know some one good and reliable and in need of a bit of work then tell them to call or email me.

I give advise on hear through my experience and mistakes to help others to me there is not point working for yourself and running a business to put up with grief or to make ends meet you may as well get a job paye for one of the Nationals tickling shops.

 
Apologies if i misconstrued what you were saying but that's how I read it

I get what you are saying and i have the luxury of being able to pick and choose and ask what i want for a job not what i think I will get away with like a small local school i am cleaning monday for £450 where I would have gone in a lot cheaper if i wasn't busy to guarantee the job

But there are a lot of guys who just can't afford to be choosy until they get to the point they are sitting pretty and can be more choosy

 
Where we live is basically a huge industrial area at both ends of town and many retail units in between

Commercial round here would make perfect sense for CGH where he is based

I do a couple and am happy as I am doing houses though

 
You live in the same town? Theres a fair bit of industrial around my way too, but its getting into it. My guess would be that when a company wants their industrial unit cleaned, they go online and look?

 
@Cghwindowcleaning I was looking at your site, and your fb/twitter - how did you get into the commercial market? Do you pay for adwords?
To be honest I'm not exactly old (36)but I,ve been window cleaning for 20years when I first started I worked for various commercial companies and it's what I know best.

Over the years I have at some point tried most canversing,tele sales,Google Adwords,print adverts and so on and they can all have there place but for me a major help was not what you know but who you know .

I am lucky I'm in with a couple of big companies who give me the window cleaning side of there work and over the years I have built up a good reliable name with the ability to deal with big jobs the most recent job I won was through recommendation the customer wasn't shopping around.

 
@Cghwindowcleaning I was looking at your site, and your fb/twitter - how did you get into the commercial market? Do you pay for adwords?
To be honest I'm not exactly old (36)but I,ve been window cleaning for 20years when I first started I worked for various commercial companies and it's what I know best.

Over the years I have at some point tried most canversing,tele sales,Google Adwords,print adverts and so on and they can all have there place but for me a major help was not what you know but who you know .

I am lucky I'm in with a couple of big companies who give me the window cleaning side of there work and over the years I have built up a good reliable name with the ability to deal with big jobs the most recent job I won was through recommendation the customer wasn't shopping around.

 
It works differently in your neck of the woods

In the uk we have regular monthly/2 monthly customers so have work all year and it is just the extra add on jobs that suffer in winter

I wouldn't want to have to find new contracts constantly like in the states

 
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