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Help me gain some direction please chaps!

ECLM
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P4dstar said:
Not really got any money behind me but i'll be working a 6 week notice period and paid in April and May. Im picking up the 500 a month plus any extras in between too. I believe in the statement 'if you don't risk anything, you risk everything'. I'm not working the PAYE job today so I made the decision to resign tomorrow which will mean I get a full wage for both months as they pay us on the 15th.

I've worked in finance for the last few years and the FCA strangled the company I work for. My hopes of progression were seriously put back. The company may not even survive. I figure, i'm 33 years old and I've spent the last ten years in sales making a living and getting by. One year you're top dog and then they throw your targets up and squeeze the life out of you. I want to retire when i'm 55 and my current situation while a safe wage is not driving me towards that goal!
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@P4dstar love the goal of early retirement 55. My goal is to retire youngish with a residual income though it took a major blow a few years ago that I’m still financially recovering from that lead me to sell my second property that was going to be a major part of my retired income. My goal is to travel and live. Until then it’s flat out saving, investing and working my nuts off. Nice goal!

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Goodluck with your jump full time I did exactly that june 2017 gave up a full time job , salary , company car etc and took the leap with nothing but a £200 van .... I financed my wfp system took out insurance and knocked doors day in day out and 9 months later I'm here with around £1200 worth of regular customers on the windows , building on my wheelie bin cleaning customer numbers , a new office cleaning contract and branching into builders cleans full scale...

Sent using the Window Cleaning Forums mobile app

 
Go for it mate, plenty have been there and done it. There’s definitely the work out there if you’re offering upvc cleaning etc, so it’s up to you how well it works out, which is a nice self feeling actually! Perfect time of year to canvass & build.

I’ve done maybe 5/6hrs (hardly anything really) of posting&canvassing in the last 3 weeks, picked up five 8x weeklys & a 6x weekly. All well priced and quoted for 2 more which I’m expecting to get 1 of them. Then doing a gutter clear & clean ‘one off’ this Saturday. Stay positive, work hard and remember... “Stay off my patch” haha

 
P4dstar said:
Thats some serious brass balls you got there dude. If I had the cash I would come to you guys for canvassing for that very reason haha.

Seriously 10 years in sales and I wouldn't be able to bring myself to do it  :1f602:
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Mate if you dont "cross that line" you are missing out big style.

Most people are given them signs and told to put them up by someone and then forget they are there.

I once got stopped by a police liaison officer and she took my details, a few weeks late she sent me a letter saying I was allowed to canvass in an area where the no cold calling zones were If I already had work in that area.

I still have the letter somewhere.

If I didn't canvass the no cold call zones I would not have the volume of custom I have now.

 
[email protected] said:
Stay positive, work hard and remember... “Stay off my patch” haha
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Already run into the 'stay off my patch' issue. One of my customers kindly put a review of the service I gave her on a local towns facebook page. The first comment was all about a local window cleaner who lives in the town where I live in a village on the outskirts. People were commenting asking for details and the local chap started responding. It screamed desperation to me so I just put up a link to my page and stayed off the post.

 
BigFoot said:
@P4dstar love the goal of early retirement 55. My goal is to retire youngish with a residual income though it took a major blow a few years ago that I’m still financially recovering from that lead me to sell my second property that was going to be a major part of my retired income. My goal is to travel and live. Until then it’s flat out saving, investing and working my nuts off. Nice goal!
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You know what they say, aim for the moon and if you miss you will land amongst the stars. Imagine if you had only ever planned to retire at 65 and that happened to you at 64.... I reckon something will get in my way and set me back but if not then happy days. I bet my biggest hurdle will be stopping work, as in I probably won't want to haha.

 
Good luck to you.

Hopefully, we'll have a week of sunshine soon and that should get the ball rolling a bit more.

If you're doing Google ads, then in my opinion:

1. Wait until the sun starts shining before you run your ads.

2. Get the text correct in your ads, short, friendly and to the point, with a phone number. Make sure every word has a purpose; don't waste words. When I run my Google Ad a couple of years ago, most people would phone me straight from the ad without even visiting my website. 

3. Get your target area correct and set it up properly on Google Ads; this is extremely important! If you don't set it up properly Google will give you a massive wide area and you will burn up money like no tomorrow. When I did mine I 'selected' the areas I wanted from the map. I still got calls outside this area. So then I 'deselected' areas I didn't want. You can tell Google areas that you specifically don't want. I kind of built a defensive wall around my area (if that makes sense). 

Having said that, I set mine up a few years ago, so it may have changed.

Get your van sign written (even a magnetic sign would be good) and try and work Saturdays (I get more walk ups on Saturdays than any other day). Leave your van in the street so people can see it (not on the drive). Always park respectfully. 

Talk to everyone, just friendly chat, most people talk about the weather and how the they wouldn't want my job in this weather. My reply would be 'I wish the weather would get better, so I could get some more customers'.

When you've cleaned a house, put the pole away, leave the back doors open and go and knock 2 doors either side and across the road. I also leave a large microfibre hanging from my belt. People will know you are there, you won't surprise anyone. 'Hi sorry to trouble you, i've just been cleaning your neighbours windows and I wondered if you'd like a quote to clean yours?'

Most of all keep at it. 

 
Robbo said:
Good luck to you.

Hopefully, we'll have a week of sunshine soon and that should get the ball rolling a bit more.

If you're doing Google ads, then in my opinion:

1. Wait until the sun starts shining before you run your ads.

2. Get the text correct in your ads, short, friendly and to the point, with a phone number. Make sure every word has a purpose; don't waste words. When I run my Google Ad a couple of years ago, most people would phone me straight from the ad without even visiting my website. 

3. Get your target area correct and set it up properly on Google Ads; this is extremely important! If you don't set it up properly Google will give you a massive wide area and you will burn up money like no tomorrow. When I did mine I 'selected' the areas I wanted from the map. I still got calls outside this area. So then I 'deselected' areas I didn't want. You can tell Google areas that you specifically don't want. I kind of built a defensive wall around my area (if that makes sense). 

Having said that, I set mine up a few years ago, so it may have changed.

Get your van sign written (even a magnetic sign would be good) and try and work Saturdays (I get more walk ups on Saturdays than any other day). Leave your van in the street so people can see it (not on the drive). Always park respectfully. 

Talk to everyone, just friendly chat, most people talk about the weather and how the they wouldn't want my job in this weather. My reply would be 'I wish the weather would get better, so I could get some more customers'.

When you've cleaned a house, put the pole away, leave the back doors open and go and knock 2 doors either side and across the road. I also leave a large microfibre hanging from my belt. People will know you are there, you won't surprise anyone. 'Hi sorry to trouble you, i've just been cleaning your neighbours windows and I wondered if you'd like a quote to clean yours?'

Most of all keep at it. 
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Yeah this Google Ad thing ain't doing anything yet... In the same respect it ain't cost me anything either. Its had 109 views and 0 clicks. It seems pretty good in that I chose postcodes and it highlighted the map for me.

The van is all sign written, I took ideas from window cleaners all over the country and got a guy to put together what I wanted.

I like the other bits for canvassing though. I'm gonna give them a go!

 
Right so.... Canvassing. I have read some posts where people swear by it and others where people say you get messed around more than normal customers and think leaflet dropping is better. Obviously on this everyone has been an avid supporter of canvassing.

What is your average return on canvassing. How many doors do you knock before you get a customer and how long does it take you?

 
P4dstar said:
Right so.... Canvassing. I have read some posts where people swear by it and others where people say you get messed around more than normal customers and think leaflet dropping is better. Obviously on this everyone has been an avid supporter of canvassing.
 
What is your average return on canvassing. How many doors do you knock before you get a customer and how long does it take you?
Click to expand...

No one on here can give you an answer that applies to you because they don’t know you


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If I go out canasing I usually pick up. When it was cold last month did an hour picked up three

when I had a free afternoon I canvassed and first cleaned six. I have been out and drawn a blank on a few  occasions but it is by far the best method for me. The added bonuses is I chose the area and the type of property, I want a round full of easy jobs and canvassing is the best method for this. 

 
P4dstar said:
Well I am only really set to spend £50 as I had a £75 free voucher for Adwords. The ad has a link directly to call so we shall see. Realistically if it doesn't bring in any customers in the first fortnight I would drop it as soon as the free money is spent and only be £25 down.... I will let you know how this works but I appreciate the advice, I'll stay safe with it. I guess I would expect 10-15 customers a month for it to be sustainable.

I have GoCardless but I need to work on my pitch. Have had a lot of people wrinkle their nose at direct debit. I let them pay by PayPal for the first clean and then offer direct debit for future cleans but I have had a few say 'the link isn't working'.... like sure, so it works for every other customer but not you..... On the other hand the ones who do use it love it!
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First of all good luck! I did the same as you four years ago & it is and was as others on here have said.

you seem to be doing all the right things, I’ve use Google and found it fruitless (it took several ad campaigns to work that out...).

i’ll second the canvassing method & also sometimes ‘missing’ the no cold callers sign. Once they see you a simple ‘Oh sorry to have knocked as I see you have the cold caller sticker’ make to walk off...they often call you back as they’re intrigued?.

I’ve had the same response to GC with regulars but eventually they’re moving over.

New customers don’t get to choose. GC cash on the day, no other method offered or implied.

All the best.??

 
Rome wasn't built in a day the saying goes.

In the same way, it will take time to build and sift your round. You will initially pick up some messers that other cleaners have dropped. Despite the work situation, you need to be ruthless with these or you will end up with a round full of them.

Even if you play their game for a while you should identify them and plan to get shot of them as soon as you can afford to. There was a moto on the other forum of the three C's - Canvass, Clean, Cull.

 
Yep as said above, canvassing overall generates more leads & work. But leaflets can & will pick up some work. All a numbers game, more people you speak to and the more leaflets you post the more work you’ll get obviously. When canvassing take note of ‘not homes’ then call back either 5-7pm or on a Saturday morning etc. Even if people on a street where I’ve got just 1 job or so where people say “no we’ve got a window cleaner” I still post my leaflet through every 6-9months.

Any ‘one off clean’ I always post at least 5 houses one side of the job, 5 houses the other side of the house and a few houses opposite etc

 
Well I took your advice last night chaps. I went to clean one. Knocked about 5 doors, got 2 answers and one customer!! I liked Robbo's idea and I did the ones in view of where I was working. The one I picked up said ''oh yeah, Emma said she was getting a window cleaner'' and went from there.

I've still got 6 weeks left here on my full time job but the customers are trickling through in other fashions too. I've decided I am gonna offer a cheaper price for 4 weekly than 8 weekly. I priced last nights job up well but didn't rip the lady off (In my opinion). I am gonna stop every night on my way home and put some leaflets through doors on the way to my house. I plan to canvass in the streets I clean only and if they have a leaflet now I can start canvassing in 6 weeks time saying 'I dropped a leaflet through your door a while ago' **Show the leaflet** 'I clean Dave's windows down the road, would you like a quote for yours to be cleaned?'

 
yep sharing to groups works the only issue is if you do it a lot you will get banned.

The beauty of fb ads is you set them up and they work away whilst you are doing other things.

I spent 50 quid over weekend, 8 new customers, well worth it.

 

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