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How long is a piece of string?

A.W. Cleaning

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Hey guys,

First time poster, long time lurker. Really respect the attitude you guys show to newcomers, giving plenty of advice rather than chasing them off. I'm currently stuck in a cr*p job that paid the bills too well for me to seriously consider leaving. Recently the place is really starting to fall apart and I'm finally serious about jumping ship. Having read practically every thread on here, I bought all the gear and have been practising during every free minute of daylight. I'm playing on starting part time (I currently work a condensed 4 day week) and building up from there. My question is, how long were you going before you started seeing the kind of returns you could make a living from?

Apologies for the long message and cheers in advance.

Jon

 
its how much time you put in, truth is i left college and had a family member ask me if i wanted to start window cleaning and i have been for the past 8 years, its only this year im going solo to earn more, but like any business its going to take time, you can simply buy the trad stuff and start that way or go WFP and go that way, ive been a traddy for 8 years but just bought all the stuff to go WFP and building the trolley has cost me around about £600. but in the long run its well worth it.

but i reckon within 12 months you could easily make £200 a week. i know some windys on here can make £200 a day but it all various. if you sit around doing council estate's you might be lucky to pull £60 a week. but if you do bigger houses you can make £60 in an hour. it all depends where you go, how you quote and also how much of a good relationship you have with a custy and that does not mean bedding them lol "jk jk"

truth is i actually make very little due to my partner being old but going it alone can see me net £70 a day easily and if you decide to work 4 days and also pay tax and liability insurance thats £280 a week and based on tax you would take home about £250 a week which is more than £8 an hour. so honestly it won't be to hard. but just like any business you have to work hard, have a friendly attitude and come christmas oh man them tips sure do get you some nice prezzie /emoticons/biggrin.png

 
if you sit around doing council estate's you might be lucky to pull £60 a week. but if you do bigger houses you can make £60 in an hour
I'm pleased I don't live where you live. I work council estates (with some ex council houses) and make that in less than a couple of hours.

I've been working for myself for about eighteen months now. I was part time (and employed elsewhere) for six months before that.

I started Window cleaning around my old job and reduced my hours there as I got busier.

I don't want to give exact figures but I've gone from earning not much more than minimum wage to days where I've made not much less than a whole weeks wage in my old job.

 
I'm pleased I don't live where you live. I work council estates (with some ex council houses) and make that in less than a couple of hours.
I've been working for myself for about eighteen months now. I was part time (and employed elsewhere) for six months before that.

I started Window cleaning around my old job and reduced my hours there as I got busier.

I don't want to give exact figures but I've gone from earning not much more than minimum wage to days where I've made not much less than a whole weeks wage in my old job.
First of all you need to pay the bills, then perhaps a holiday, then perhaps something else! As long as you get the first bit and you are doing a good job, then the rest will come with time. Best of luck.

 
I'm pleased I don't live where you live. I work council estates (with some ex council houses) and make that in less than a couple of hours.
I've been working for myself for about eighteen months now. I was part time (and employed elsewhere) for six months before that.

I started Window cleaning around my old job and reduced my hours there as I got busier.

I don't want to give exact figures but I've gone from earning not much more than minimum wage to days where I've made not much less than a whole weeks wage in my old job.
Easy to earn good money round here ain't it Neil?

I can do a £150 day easily and still have time to stand round talking to @Adams0211 without putting myself out

Start around 0830 and finish around 1400 including having a few breaks and talking to customers etc

Easy to earn more but i choose to take it easy and have consistent days and also bump my money up with a few 1 off jobs during the week

It has been a long time since i started again from scratch but with dedication and being slightly obsessed by it you can build up a good paying round extremely quickly....the hard part is weeding out the bad payers and **** jobs and replacing with new jobs while continously compacting your round which can take a couple of years or more to get it spot on

 
If you start part time your sitting on the fence, you have a safety net and you won't try as hard to make your business a success. Your sub conscious will stop you doing the things that you might not like so much (possible door knocking) because you have that safety net that pays the bills.

Nothing concentrates the mind more than knowing that there's not enough money coming in to pay the bills.

I started by placing an ad in local rag to coincide with a weeks hols it brought in two enquires.

I quoted them and got the jobs on the Monday arranged to clean them on the Wednesday

Went out canvassing on the Tuesday with the intention of finding a few more customers for Wednesday

I found ten but only managed to clean seven out of the twelve, moved the rest to the Friday went out canvassing again on Thursday and got another twelve.

Rang the company I worked for on Friday afternoon and told them I wouldn't be coming back

Nineteen months on I very rarely bring in less than £1000 a week.

My advice believe in yourself, belive in your business and go for it

 
Easy to earn good money round here ain't it Neil?I can do a £150 day easily and still have time to stand round talking to @Adams0211 without putting myself out

Start around 0830 and finish around 1400 including having a few breaks and talking to customers etc

Easy to earn more but i choose to take it easy and have consistent days and also bump my money up with a few 1 off jobs during the week

It has been a long time since i started again from scratch but with dedication and being slightly obsessed by it you can build up a good paying round extremely quickly....the hard part is weeding out the bad payers and **** jobs and replacing with new jobs while continously compacting your round which can take a couple of years or more to get it spot on
Totally agree mate. And one of the best things about this job is that a 'day' for me is usually only five or six hours long. That gives me plenty of time with the kids or looking after my dad. I couldn't imagine doing anything else now.

 
In my first year I worked two jobs, 30 hours a week in one, then window cleaning every other hour. For me I would say within maybe 18 months. I didn't take a wage from the window cleaning until I was in my second year. Just living of my wage from my other job. I was working 12 hours a day, 6/7 days a week. Then the company I worked for went bust.

To take a wage your can live on, your need to earn IMO twice that amount in sales. E.g. £250 a week wage - aim for £500 in sales. That's 50 customers at £10, every week. If you knock doors and flyer like that's your sole purpose in life, then You could find that amount of work in a few weeks.

If you need 250/300 customers, you just have to put the time in. If it takes 1 hour of putting out flyers to find one customer, you have to do 250/300 hours, or 3 months. At 60 flyers an hour that is at least 15,000 flyers.

My biggest piece of advice for you is this, get your prices right before you do anything. Once that price runs off your tongue that is it for at least a year, and you wont be able to knock them up much more that £1 without losing the job if you get it wrong. Going £2 less than what you could have charged, will be the same as losing £600 every month with 300 customers.

Its hard to say what you should charge when prices will vary so much across the country. But for me I aim for between £15-£20 per hour, and plan for only getting out 46 weeks of the year, to account for holidays and down time. You may loss something like £500 - £1000 a year in unpaid accounts, again depends on your area, but your first load of customers, will likely be ones other window cleaners have dropped.

 
6 hours a day can earn you £150+

But that's trad

Wfp you can earn more

BUT

It takes a lot of dedication & knock backs to get that far.

And remember the weather plays a big part but if your willing to really go at it it's rewarding. It's not as easy as people think

 
Cheers for the responses! I'd love to jump in the deep end, Rosewood, unfortunately the missus disagrees (verbally and often!) on that front lol.

I've had a good read through the threads on pricing (just going to have to call round for quotes) and working weather. Up here in sunny Belfast, it's hard to judge how much of a loss it'll cause as I'm guessing these hardy folk are used to things carrying on the 360 days it's not sunny!

Maybe I'll end up sending the boss a text after a few too many tins either way :whistle:

 
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