End of tenancy chancers

[spruce]

Nice tip.. in theory..

But when we moved here the missus decided to find a window cleaner. How do you think she found them? - Google. We still have that windy 4 years later (and were one of their first custys). That windy has had a cull of clients lately getting rid of the rotten apples.. we survived that lol.

We have heard of a few windies who have kept their old windie on even although they have gone into the same business later.

The wife fired ours when I started. Now she wants to fire her current window cleaner as he is getting to old and isn't reliable any longer - honest but not reliable. He also keeps promising to clean the insides but still hasn't.  ?

 

[Tango]

We have heard of a few windies who have kept their old windie on even although they have gone into the same business later.

The wife fired ours when I started. Now she wants to fire her current window cleaner as he is getting to old and isn't reliable any longer - honest but not reliable. He also keeps promising to clean the insides but still hasn't.  ?

My missus wanted to be done with ours too on the grounds that i could do them instead. Thing with my missus though is that she'd expect me to do them every week / every time a bird manages a direct hit etc so i took over paying for the windy and kept them on myself. I'm reluctant to lose our windy as they're a great person who is very pleasant to have a chat with but they've made it clear that they're not taking on anymore work (I suspect that means they are but only valuable jobs) so if we let go we won't get them back and that'll open up a tin of worms for me lol

 

[Part Timer]

who is very pleasant to have a chat with but they've made it clear that they're not taking on anymore work

Why not ask him to pass them on to you? Tell him you'll give him a drink for every reliable customer he gets you

 

[A.K WINDOWS]

To be honest we dont lose 1% but we do lose about 06.- 0.7% percent but i have a budget for 1% if that makes sense ?

1% is £10.00 out of every £1,000 which is pretty good considering the type of business we are in.

What u got to understand is when you build a round you get 1/10 messers , these 1/10 messers can be messers for all types of reasons and one of the reasons is not paying up!

Last year we picked up 1,000 customers and kept 900, i dropped a lot of people for various reasons and half of the people dropped was due to late payments/not paying at all etc.

If i wasnt building up and just worked off the customers that we have then my 0.6% - .0.7% would be down to under 0.2% EASY ?

So to be honest with u things are more right ... then more wrong as u say ? ?

How did you pick up 1000 custys in a year ?? 

 

[Tango]

Why not ask him to pass them on to you? Tell him you'll give him a drink for every reliable customer he gets you

They have already passed me a couple of jobs but like i said, i got the impression they're not taking low paid jobs like us anymore. Besides i know they've been helping another windy who started up just before me.. and i suspect there may be others too... like i said this area is saturated..

 

[Shammy Davis Senior]

To be honest we dont lose 1% but we do lose about 06.- 0.7% percent but i have a budget for 1% if that makes sense ?

1% is £10.00 out of every £1,000 which is pretty good considering the type of business we are in.

What u got to understand is when you build a round you get 1/10 messers , these 1/10 messers can be messers for all types of reasons and one of the reasons is not paying up!

Last year we picked up 1,000 customers and kept 900, i dropped a lot of people for various reasons and half of the people dropped was due to late payments/not paying at all etc.

If i wasnt building up and just worked off the customers that we have then my 0.6% - .0.7% would be down to under 0.2% EASY ?

So to be honest with u things are more right ... then more wrong as u say ? ?

How do you get your customers?. We added 700 last year but I doubt we wrote off more than £300 for the whole year. We had quite a few messers that said, but they paid. 

 

[harunh]

How did you pick up 1000 custys in a year ?? 

How do you get your customers?. We added 700 last year but I doubt we wrote off more than £300 for the whole year. We had quite a few messers that said, but they paid. 

We pick up customers from all angles except canvassing, have not door knocked for 4-5 years now. When i first started out i did door knock but after 3-4 years we did not need to knock anymore, there is also a lot of window cleaners in my area, there has been over 10 new start ups in the past 12 months but there is plenty of work out there

We pick up customers through word of mouth, walk ups(last year we had a lot of walk ups but this helps when you have 4+ vans on the road) we also pick up customers through leaflets and a lot of customers were also picked up via Facebook.

Put yourself out there and u can easily achieve 1,000 customers per year - this year we aim to get 1200/1300 customers on board.

 

[A.K WINDOWS]

We pick up customers from all angles except canvassing, have not door knocked for 4-5 years now. When i first started out i did door knock but after 3-4 years we did not need to knock anymore, there is also a lot of window cleaners in my area, there has been over 10 new start ups in the past 12 months but there is plenty of work out there

We pick up customers through word of mouth, walk ups(last year we had a lot of walk ups but this helps when you have 4+ vans on the road) we also pick up customers through leaflets and a lot of customers were also picked up via Facebook.

Put yourself out there and u can easily achieve 1,000 customers per year - this year we aim to get 1200/1300 customers on board.

That’s good mate , I’m all over but don’t get anything near that . I’m not into social media never worked in the past for us , walk ups are about the best thing going , and card drops I don’t do door knocks not for me ... keep up the good work ?

 

[Neil.. Lancashire]

They have already passed me a couple of jobs but like i said, i got the impression they're not taking low paid jobs like us anymore. Besides i know they've been helping another windy who started up just before me.. and i suspect there may be others too... like i said this area is saturated..

Offer the guy £100 for every 10 customers he puts your way. Everybody like's extra bonus money, especially when they don't want the customer ? 

 

[spruce]

We pick up customers from all angles except canvassing, have not door knocked for 4-5 years now. When i first started out i did door knock but after 3-4 years we did not need to knock anymore, there is also a lot of window cleaners in my area, there has been over 10 new start ups in the past 12 months but there is plenty of work out there

We pick up customers through word of mouth, walk ups(last year we had a lot of walk ups but this helps when you have 4+ vans on the road) we also pick up customers through leaflets and a lot of customers were also picked up via Facebook.

Put yourself out there and u can easily achieve 1,000 customers per year - this year we aim to get 1200/1300 customers on board.

Now I'm confused!

(Interpreting statistics played a very big part of my life when I worked as National After Sales Service Manager for Bosch Power Tools in South Africa.)

Last year (2019) you gained 1000 customers. 300 were via Facebook and 15 were from your website which hasn't been updated for years. Then you had walk-ups but many of which you discontinued because of payment issues. Yet you only wrote off £10 (1%) in every £1000 of business that you budget for - actual 0.5 - 0.6% bad debt. If they pay you, why dump them?

Here you say you have 4+ vans (I'm confused as its either 5 vans or 6 vans) but on the other forum you said this morning that you only have one van. Your post of the other forum this morning; I have just the 1 van 

plus no staff yet but hopefully i will be in a position to take staff on soon.

You have also stated that your website is top of the Google search. On your home page you show a photo of 2 vans logo'd with your name - a Vivaro or Trafic and a Ford Custom. I could have the wrong window cleaner but the gallery on this website shows just I photo. Its a photo of a Berlingo Van with the logo on it I remember seeing many years ago. So I'm pretty sure the TWC is your business name.

You also say you are planning to gain 1200 to 1300 new customers this year which imho shouldn't be a too difficult a task as that's just 25 - 30% more than you achieved this last year.

Somewhere along the line you also mentioned the unit you had and I posted a response of RESPECT because you have come along way in 7 years.

In my experience when I was younger and fitter I could manage between 16 and 18 x 3 bed semis a day, some with conservatories, in a compact area. (There was another window cleaner who had 2 operators with him working whose target was 36 houses a day which they found challenging to achieve sometimes.Those 2 operators where much younger than I was then.)

On a 6 weekly cycle a single operator should be able to service around 400 customers  and 510 on an 8 weekly cycle. (That's worked out on a 4 day week. This doesn't consider extra work such as conservatory roof cleans etc that will 'throttle' back your cleaning schedule.

Since we computerised our round back in 2004 we have added a total of 1100 customers including the ones we had prior. In the last 16 years we have lost around 300 through natural wastage - death, moving, dumped by customers, customers we've dumped etc.

Another 350 were given to a husband and wife team to clean as we couldn't manage them all after son in law left us.

We are struggling to service the rest on a regular schedule, especially now with the weather and my inability work as I did at one time "when I wore a younger man's clothes" (Billy Joel - Piano Man.).

We have regularly grown our round since the financial crash of 2008. If we have, you must have done so as well. How did you manage to service these new customers over the years?

Then you started a survey post asking how many leaflets windies are planning to send out this year.

Sorry, but I'm confused.

 

[harunh]

Yes, we had a lot of walk ups last year which helped us a lot, the walk up customers are the best customers to be honest ? I like to drop alot of customers off who take the ****.... the ones u have to keep chasing for payment etc. we picked up 300 on Facebook last year and about 450ish through leaflets and the rest walk walk ups and word of mouth etc.
 

We currently have 5 vans @spruce and on the other forum people are total different compared to the people on  here, so i have no need to tell them how many vans etc i got lol ,  if they want to post negative comments then i will just play my own little game, i dont like negativity lol.... Yes i did tell them that im still a 1 man band after 7 years just to see the response i get ? that forum is actually funny.... i was just waiting to be grilled to be honest lmaoooo
 

And to be honest like i say i gained 1,000 customers last year and kept 900/100 i can also tell you that around 12-15 of my customers passed away last year as well so yes it happens to all of us, a few people moved house aswell etc,
 

I started my business in 2012 when i was 21 years old and the first 12-18 months i was only part time  ,  the first 1-2 years of starting up in my little van i was only part time and the 3/4 years after i was not fully committed.... i was more like 60% committed. But for a few years i had to keep under the VAT threshold which held me back with my business i could not grow my business becuase i had to stay under 80k per year turnover ..... My father was telling me do not go VAT registered etc... but to grow i had to take the plunge and its only been 9 months and i can tell u its the best decision i have ever made, i wish i had done it sooner! If i did it sooner i would easily have 8 vans on the road by now but its all been a learning curve and i can now class myself as an expert in this trade :d it is tough for me but once i get through this year things will start looking up for me hopefully and since the start of 2019  i have decided that this is now my future so i have started actually giving the business 100% input instead of giving it 60-70% input.

We find servicing the customers fine we work in all weathers and all my customers are used to it,
I put that post on CIU and i knew i was going to get grilled mate but i actually did it for a laugh just see the response ? ? I know that forum is full of idiots but this forum is my home Spruce  

One local window cleaner claims that i am single handedly killing the trade which i take as a compliment ? he told me my prices are cheap... but my response was that i am not cheap because i know wfp cleaners doing 3bedroom houses for £5.00 - £6.00 , i would love to increase my prices but i can not afford to because there is a lot of 1 man bands out there doing it for dirt cheap prices, if i put my prices up i would lose a lot of customers as they are getting offered cheaper prices by other window cleaners but they stick by me as we do a good job. but they would think it is unfair if i put the price up by £1.00 when another window cleaner is offering to do it for a few kwid cheaper.

The North is dirt cheap for window cleaning prices i know a window cleaner in Newcatle his average price is £8.00 and he has a very good round with good profit but he wants out and wants to move down South as he will earn better money. I dont blame him.

You shouldnt be struggling to service the customers, that is the easy part of the job ! The hard part is getting the money in and organising the worksheets and filling the tanks up and mainting equipment etc.





 

 

[spruce]

Yes, we had a lot of walk ups last year which helped us a lot, the walk up customers are the best customers to be honest ? I like to drop alot of customers off who take the ****.... the ones u have to keep chasing for payment etc. we picked up 300 on Facebook last year and about 450ish through leaflets and the rest walk walk ups and word of mouth etc.
 

We currently have 5 vans @spruce and on the other forum people are total different compared to the people on  here, so i have no need to tell them how many vans etc i got lol ,  if they want to post negative comments then i will just play my own little game, i dont like negativity lol.... Yes i did tell them that im still a 1 man band after 7 years just to see the response i get ? that forum is actually funny.... i was just waiting to be grilled to be honest lmaoooo
 

And to be honest like i say i gained 1,000 customers last year and kept 900/100 i can also tell you that around 12-15 of my customers passed away last year as well so yes it happens to all of us, a few people moved house aswell etc,
 

I started my business in 2012 when i was 21 years old and the first 12-18 months i was only part time  ,  the first 1-2 years of starting up in my little van i was only part time and the 3/4 years after i was not fully committed.... i was more like 60% committed. But for a few years i had to keep under the VAT threshold which held me back with my business i could not grow my business becuase i had to stay under 80k per year turnover ..... My father was telling me do not go VAT registered etc... but to grow i had to take the plunge and its only been 9 months and i can tell u its the best decision i have ever made, i wish i had done it sooner! If i did it sooner i would easily have 8 vans on the road by now but its all been a learning curve and i can now class myself as an expert in this trade :d it is tough for me but once i get through this year things will start looking up for me hopefully and since the start of 2019  i have decided that this is now my future so i have started actually giving the business 100% input instead of giving it 60-70% input.

We find servicing the customers fine we work in all weathers and all my customers are used to it,
I put that post on CIU and i knew i was going to get grilled mate but i actually did it for a laugh just see the response ? ? I know that forum is full of idiots but this forum is my home Spruce  

One local window cleaner claims that i am single handedly killing the trade which i take as a compliment ? he told me my prices are cheap... but my response was that i am not cheap because i know wfp cleaners doing 3bedroom houses for £5.00 - £6.00 , i would love to increase my prices but i can not afford to because there is a lot of 1 man bands out there doing it for dirt cheap prices, if i put my prices up i would lose a lot of customers as they are getting offered cheaper prices by other window cleaners but they stick by me as we do a good job. but they would think it is unfair if i put the price up by £1.00 when another window cleaner is offering to do it for a few kwid cheaper.

The North is dirt cheap for window cleaning prices i know a window cleaner in Newcatle his average price is £8.00 and he has a very good round with good profit but he wants out and wants to move down South as he will earn better money. I dont blame him.

You shouldnt be struggling to service the customers, that is the easy part of the job ! The hard part is getting the money in and organising the worksheets and filling the tanks up and mainting equipment etc.





 

Unfortunately there are also a large number of newbies on both forums who take comments seriously as I did.  (I wonder how many believe my Metro car story I started last night.)

There are so may new starters who look at this occupation through the proverbial rose coloured glasses. Many, if not most, will find the reality is totally the opposite and their business plans will crumble.

Most aren't prepared to do the initial legwork as they get the impression that finding customers is easy. Those that do start will quickly get discouraged when they find it takes a long time and hard graft to build a business with plenty of knock backs on the way.

As you said it takes a long time before your enquiries become self generating and you don't need to canvass much.

Some of the younger generation just believe that a post on Facebook will get shared millions of times and the customer enquiries will just come rolling in.

We have had some interesting self made DIY leaflets come through the letter box with spelling mistakes and a hand written quote on piece of paper torn from a lined note pad with a quote to clean our windows for £4. (How he knew what the back of our property was I don't know as the only way into the back is through the garage and that was locked.

So I believe that whilst there are plenty of opportunities to wind the keyboard warriors up, a small handful of genuine newbies will be drawn along taking it seriously. I took you seriously, hence the clarification post as what you said didn't make sense to me. ?

 

[Iron Giant]

Unfortunately there are also a large number of newbies on both forums who take comments seriously as I did.  (I wonder how many believe my Metro car story I started last night.)

There are so may new starters who look at this occupation through the proverbial rose coloured glasses. Many, if not most, will find the reality is totally the opposite and their business plans will crumble.

Most aren't prepared to do the initial legwork as they get the impression that finding customers is easy. Those that do start will quickly get discouraged when they find it takes a long time and hard graft to build a business with plenty of knock backs on the way.

As you said it takes a long time before your enquiries become self generating and you don't need to canvass much.

Some of the younger generation just believe that a post on Facebook will get shared millions of times and the customer enquiries will just come rolling in.

We have had some interesting self made DIY leaflets come through the letter box with spelling mistakes and a hand written quote on piece of paper torn from a lined note pad with a quote to clean our windows for £4. (How he knew what the back of our property was I don't know as the only way into the back is through the garage and that was locked.

So I believe that whilst there are plenty of opportunities to wind the keyboard warriors up, a small handful of genuine newbies will be drawn along taking it seriously. I took you seriously, hence the clarification post as what you said didn't make sense to me. ?

I have my doubts about your car story as far as I know you have a citoren car and boxer van you have never mentioned any other vehicle previously in all the years I have been on here other than motors you had back in South Africa. 

 

[harunh]

Unfortunately there are also a large number of newbies on both forums who take comments seriously as I did.  (I wonder how many believe my Metro car story I started last night.)

There are so may new starters who look at this occupation through the proverbial rose coloured glasses. Many, if not most, will find the reality is totally the opposite and their business plans will crumble.

Most aren't prepared to do the initial legwork as they get the impression that finding customers is easy. Those that do start will quickly get discouraged when they find it takes a long time and hard graft to build a business with plenty of knock backs on the way.

As you said it takes a long time before your enquiries become self generating and you don't need to canvass much.

Some of the younger generation just believe that a post on Facebook will get shared millions of times and the customer enquiries will just come rolling in.

We have had some interesting self made DIY leaflets come through the letter box with spelling mistakes and a hand written quote on piece of paper torn from a lined note pad with a quote to clean our windows for £4. (How he knew what the back of our property was I don't know as the only way into the back is through the garage and that was locked.

So I believe that whilst there are plenty of opportunities to wind the keyboard warriors up, a small handful of genuine newbies will be drawn along taking it seriously. I took you seriously, hence the clarification post as what you said didn't make sense to me. ?

Yes there is plenty of people who have gave window cleaning a go and packed in within 12 months, its a tough business to be in, but anyone who is driven , motivated , eager and determined has the recipe to succeed in this game , a lot of people see window cleaners  using a pole and think its very simple etc they think to themselves oh... thats easy money i can do that but they dont know the energy it takes out of you after you done a shifft from 8-4 on the windows 6 days per week. then on top of that u got to collect the money u got to organise next days worksheets deal with customer enquiries, invoice certain customers then on top of that u got to get your own customers because the customers do not come to you, you have to put yourself out there !  theres a lot more to it then they think.

U get all sorts of window cleaners from DIY leaflets to professional leaflets but this is the window cleaning game for u lol.

The CIU forum is terrible haha

 

[CMcB]

Unfortunately there are also a large number of newbies on both forums who take comments seriously as I did.  (I wonder how many believe my Metro car story I started last night.)

There are so may new starters who look at this occupation through the proverbial rose coloured glasses. Many, if not most, will find the reality is totally the opposite and their business plans will crumble.

Most aren't prepared to do the initial legwork as they get the impression that finding customers is easy. Those that do start will quickly get discouraged when they find it takes a long time and hard graft to build a business with plenty of knock backs on the way.

As you said it takes a long time before your enquiries become self generating and you don't need to canvass much.

Some of the younger generation just believe that a post on Facebook will get shared millions of times and the customer enquiries will just come rolling in.

We have had some interesting self made DIY leaflets come through the letter box with spelling mistakes and a hand written quote on piece of paper torn from a lined note pad with a quote to clean our windows for £4. (How he knew what the back of our property was I don't know as the only way into the back is through the garage and that was locked.

So I believe that whilst there are plenty of opportunities to wind the keyboard warriors up, a small handful of genuine newbies will be drawn along taking it seriously. I took you seriously, hence the clarification post as what you said didn't make sense to me. ?

I believed your car comment  @spruce  ?

My world is shattered!

 

[spruce]

I believed your car comment  @spruce  ?

My world is shattered!

Sorry!

 

[dmw]

Sorry!

I'm glad you were fibbing about the Metro Spruce, other wise I would have had to 'fess up about owning an Orange Allegro with chocolate brown vinyl seats.

I wouldn't want people knowing that!

 

[Tango]

Yes, we had a lot of walk ups last year which helped us a lot, the walk up customers are the best customers to be honest ? I like to drop alot of customers off who take the ****.... the ones u have to keep chasing for payment etc. we picked up 300 on Facebook last year and about 450ish through leaflets and the rest walk walk ups and word of mouth etc.
 

We currently have 5 vans @spruce and on the other forum people are total different compared to the people on  here, so i have no need to tell them how many vans etc i got lol ,  if they want to post negative comments then i will just play my own little game, i dont like negativity lol.... Yes i did tell them that im still a 1 man band after 7 years just to see the response i get ? that forum is actually funny.... i was just waiting to be grilled to be honest lmaoooo

Hang on a minute..

So you're Haz.. but now Haychh. You're on the other forum spinning a web of white lies and also here telling us a different tale (okay i accept anyone on the internet can be anything lol). Whats to say you're not telling us porkies too?

 

[harunh]

Hang on a minute..

So you're Haz.. but now Haychh. You're on the other forum spinning a web of white lies and also here telling us a different tale (okay i accept anyone on the internet can be anything lol). Whats to say you're not telling us porkies too?

haha this forum is my home mate I was literally born on here , this forum gave me wings to fly ?

Everything ive said on this forum is 100% accurate , the other forum is full of noobs and negativity so i thought just lie to them if they cant talk witj respect ? they seem to think they know it all but i know that i know more than them all ??  hence the reason i will have a fleet of 20+ Vans before i hit the age of 40 ?? 0% play and 100% work

 

[P4dstar]

Realistically it doesn’t matter if you’ve got 10 vans or 1. It doesn’t matter if you’re a millionaire or struggling to pay the bills. Your grave will be the same size... except @Part Timer, he is like 7ft tall so his might be a little bigger ???

I genuinely take everything that everyone says with a pinch of salt. I make a conscious effort not to talk about the figures of my business, I also steer clear of social media. People can be whatever they like on the internet. Because people primarily post happy posts showing they’re successful or happy it’s difficult for normal people to post actual truths as they feel like failures. There is another end to the scale where people post depressing ? all the time for attention.

 

[Part Timer]

Your grave will be the same size... except @Part Timer, he is like 7ft tall so his might be a little bigger ???

And 4' square ?