Sacked for being too expensive!

[Guido Possum]

...if you are pricing too high for the area then you will eventually loose customers. It will start off with the odd one or two who find a more competitive cleaner. When that cleaner proves reliable over time, then news spreads. Before long there is the possibility that you will loose more customers. By that time its too late to reevaluate the situation. Once the proverbial rot sets in, even the customers who stay with you will be in two minds if they should keep you or try the new guy. Customers in that limbo situation aren't truly happy with your service, not because you don't do a good job, but because they perceive you're charging too much for the job you do. In essence, you've lost them already.-

Not to say I don't understand the irritation @Poles Apart has.

The first customer I got - an Indian cafe owner called Harry - has been giving me $40 a clean every 2-weeks for months now.

Few weeks ago he's informed me his windows are still pretty clean after two weeks and wants to change to once monthly - but still @ $40/clean.

Last time, I cleaned em when he was due, but told him it'll be $60/month because the windows are mankier now when I get there.

He tells me I can have $40 and a free coffee, then tries to offer me another free coffee to do the windows on his car out back.

He taking the p**s.

And now, he's had the cafe completely renovated since the last clean and the windows are filthy; caked with plaster-dust and the girls who work there have simply smeared it around the glass in an attempt to clean it off.

He expects me to clean it as usual for the usual $40, but I don't much care for him or his windows anymore.

So after work today I'll be informing him that starting this weekend, it'll be $60/month or he can clean them himself.

I know he'll say no to the price increase, even though there're no other window cleaners in town who'll show-up at 6am to do his shopfront, but I don't give a toss, and if there was ever a time to bring the situation to a head, it's right now when his windows are absolutely disgusting /emoticons/smile.png

So disgusting, they make the thousands he would've spent re-vamping the cafe seem pointless. /emoticons/wink.png

The problem is that I under-priced from the start - to get the job - and because of this, he not only refuses to pay a dollar more, but he genuinely thinks I need his $40 so much he can consider me his b***h.

He's about to find out he's wrong about that, but on this occasion pride will cost me a regular $40/month; and of course, all those $20, $30 and $40 per cleans add-up.

 

[spruce]

Not to say I don't understand the irritation @Poles Apart has.
The first customer I got - an Indian cafe owner called Harry - has been giving me $40 a clean every 2-weeks for months now.

Few weeks ago he's informed me his windows are still pretty clean after two weeks and wants to change to once monthly - but still @ $40/clean.

Last time, I cleaned em when he was due, but told him it'll be $60/month because the windows are mankier now when I get there.

He tells me I can have $40 and a free coffee, then tries to offer me another free coffee to do the windows on his car out back.

He taking the p**s.

And now, he's had the cafe completely renovated since the last clean and the windows are filthy; caked with plaster-dust and the girls who work there have simply smeared it around the glass in an attempt to clean it off.

He expects me to clean it as usual for the usual $40, but I don't much care for him or his windows anymore.

So after work today I'll be informing him that staying this weekend it's $60/month or he can clean them himself.

I know he'll say no to the price increase, even though there're no other window cleaners in town who'll show-up at 6am to do his shopfront, but I don't give a toss, and if there was ever a time to bring the situation to a head, it's right now - when his windows are absolutely disgusting /emoticons/smile.png

The problem is that I under-proceed from the start - to get the job - and because of this, he not only refuses to pay a dollar more, but he genuinely thinks I need his cafe so much he can consider me his b***h.

He's about to find out he's wrong about that, but on this occasion pride will cost me a regular $40/month.

No matter where you go in the world, cleaning an Indian restaurant or home always seems to end the same way - renegotiation of both price and services. So many have found on here that they are a nation that we (non Indians) find difficult to understand and/or relate to.

We have several Indian restaurants in our seaside resort and was asked to quote one. He wanted a price that was much lower than his regular window cleaner who is a friend of mine - the same person I chatted to at the school gates after dropping grandson off this morning.

Having worked with them for many years in South Africa and knowing their bargaining attitude, I told him straight off that I wasn't interested in cleaning his shop. But he persisted. They don't take kindly to rejection.

In all honesty, the 40 dollar AU loss of a job isn't actually a loss. Its just not worth the hassle and the feeling of not being comfortable with their altered business arrangement.

I've said on here often - a business arrangement works well when its a win win situation for both parties. The moment it turns into a win loose situation and can't be negotiated quickly to the satisfaction of both parties, then its time to politely say goodbye and take your leave.

-

 

[Guido Possum]

Having worked with them for many years in South Africa and knowing their bargaining attitude, I told him straight off that I wasn't interested in cleaning his shop. But he persisted. They don't take kindly to rejection.

Funny you should mention that.

Before I found the god of cafes down the road from him - Dbl Ristretto - I used to get my coffees from Michel's Patisserie, the Indian in questions cafe.

One day he starts with the small talk, since he sees I'm in there regularly, and I tell him I clean the supermarket floor across the road mornings.

From then on, every time I'd go there for a coffee he'd ask me if I knew any window cleaners; I mean every single time I went there he'd mention he needed his shopfront cleaned.

That was when I went and bought a cheap hardware-store Oates squeegee and t-mop and started.

But now I've got a cross-section of different businesses to clean, I see that he's the only one who seems to little respect for the service.

If any of the other all owners have as little respect as him, they at least have the intelligence to act convincingly like they do have a basic respect for others.

 

[spruce]

Not to say I don't understand the irritation @Poles Apart has.
The first customer I got - an Indian cafe owner called Harry - has been giving me $40 a clean every 2-weeks for months now.

Few weeks ago he's informed me his windows are still pretty clean after two weeks and wants to change to once monthly - but still @ $40/clean.

Last time, I cleaned em when he was due, but told him it'll be $60/month because the windows are mankier now when I get there.

He tells me I can have $40 and a free coffee, then tries to offer me another free coffee to do the windows on his car out back.

He taking the p**s.

And now, he's had the cafe completely renovated since the last clean and the windows are filthy; caked with plaster-dust and the girls who work there have simply smeared it around the glass in an attempt to clean it off.

He expects me to clean it as usual for the usual $40, but I don't much care for him or his windows anymore.

So after work today I'll be informing him that starting this weekend, it'll be $60/month or he can clean them himself.

I know he'll say no to the price increase, even though there're no other window cleaners in town who'll show-up at 6am to do his shopfront, but I don't give a toss, and if there was ever a time to bring the situation to a head, it's right now when his windows are absolutely disgusting /emoticons/smile.png

So disgusting, they make the thousands he would've spent re-vamping the cafe seem pointless. /emoticons/wink.png

The problem is that I under-priced from the start - to get the job - and because of this, he not only refuses to pay a dollar more, but he genuinely thinks I need his $40 so much he can consider me his b***h.

He's about to find out he's wrong about that, but on this occasion pride will cost me a regular $40/month; and of course, all those $20, $30 and $40 per cleans add-up.

but on this occasion pride will cost me a regular $40/month;

No you have already lost the job before this, you just didn't realise it at the time it happened. The moment he extended the cleaning time for the same price was when you lost it.

In sales we were taught to ask for the order and shut up. Usually there is a deadly silence that follows. The first person to speak loses. In your situation he forced you to speak by changing the order and the price. You had to answer. You lost.

But you need to walk away from it with your head held high. He wrecked the arrangement by going back on his word, a business agreement; you didn't. He backed you into a corner and expected submission. YOU HAVE DONE NOTHING WRONG, HE HAS.

The supermarkets in the UK play the same game with their suppliers. They pay the price for goods the supplier asks and slowly the supplier puts all their eggs into one basket by agreeing an exclusivity deal. Then a little later they turn on the pricing squeeze and 'force' the supplier into better pricing. One of the big supermarket chains did the same with a few window cleaners - we really like the way you clean our windows and the attention to detail, but due to budget cuts we can only offer you so much to continue providing us with your services.

Share holders received record dividends that year.

Share holders of that supermarket chain got nothing from me that year, or any year since then.

-

 

[spruce]

Funny you should mention that.
Before I found the god of cafes down the road from him - Dbl Ristretto - I used to get my coffees from Michel's Patisserie, the Indian in questions cafe.

One day he starts with the small talk, since he sees I'm in there regularly, and I tell him I clean the supermarket floor across the road mornings.

From then on, every time I'd go there for a coffee he'd ask me if I knew any window cleaners; I mean every single time I went there he'd mention he needed his shopfront cleaned.

That was when I went and bought a cheap hardware-store Oates squeegee and t-mop and started.

But now I've got a cross-section of different businesses to clean, I see that he's the only one who seems to little respect for the service.

If any of the other all owners have as little respect as him, they at least have the intelligence to act convincingly like they do have a basic respect for others.

Just imagine what its like working for him all day every day. You only had to deal with him once a fortnight.

We were once in a Indian restaurant in another town near us. It was the favourite place of my late brother in law and his wife. The waiter got the order wrong. Because he made a mistake, the waiter had to pay for the mistake out of his wages. That's the kind of people they are. My in laws were regular customers of theirs.

Thank goodness I don't like Indian food. /emoticons/smile.png

 

[Guido Possum]

I'll still do his windows of he'll pay the $60 /emoticons/smile.png

And I don't like Indian food either; something about sultanas and meat just don't work for me. /emoticons/wink.png

 

[spruce]

I just thought I would try to get an idea of what your 40 dollar clean would buy @Guido Possum .

I found a Michels Patisserie and a DBL Ristretto fairly close to each other in Macquarie road Springfield with a supermarket nearby. Unfortunately I was unable to see Michels from the road, so I don't know how much glass is involved. I would imagine that, as part of a chain, they would all be a similar size.

I see the website lists a double choc chip muffin for 4.00 to 4.99 dollar AU. So a clean costs 8 or 9 muffins.

It always difficult to get a price correlation in different countries. Usually the price of a cafe latte is a good comparison for me.

I wonder how much @H MAN gets for his job of Ryans Bakery and Coffee Lounge in Blayney? I wouldn't blame him if he didn't respond. Mind you, with his 36" squeegee he will have that done in minutes, so they will be asking him to renegotiate his price.

-

 

[spruce]

I'll still do his windows of he'll pay the $60 /emoticons/smile.png
And I don't like Indian food either; something about sultanas and meat just don't work for me. /emoticons/wink.png

The only thing I can tolerate is a Korma. The rest attacks my stomach. So on the odd occasion we go into one, everyone knows exactly what my order will be even before the waiter passes around the menus.

 

[Guido Possum]

I just thought I would try to get an idea of what your 40 dollar clean would buy @Guido Possum .
I found a Michels Patisserie and a DBL Ristretto fairly close to each other in Macquarie road Springfield with a supermarket nearby.

View attachment 7519

The supermarket is the IGA I clean weekday mornings. I'm allocated half an hour every Sunday to do their windows.

The Priceline Pharmacy I do too, and although they're only worth $20 a fortnight, it's only a 20-minute job, just the outside (6 medium/large panes) and the girls who work there are lovely.

Also, while the IGA only nets me $20 (well $19.50), because I'm under contract as the cleaner there anyway I don't have to do all the windows every week. Somtimes I'll spend a full half hour doing them all if they need it, but most weeks I only do the sliding doors which takes me ~10 minutes .

Whether I spend 8 minutes or 30 though, I always write it up as half an hour each week.

View attachment 7520

The Pharmacy..

View attachment 7521

The IGA. There's one more single sliding door an the side of the building.

 

[Poles Apart]

I rarely increase my prices. Just the odd one now and then. I don't think it's worth the risk. I make a good living out of the windows with only a couple of hard days a week. Why chance it for a few quid more?

Because water fed pole costs are expensive and for that matter even Tradders have increasing costs to absorb, remember when fuel shot up to £1.50 a litre? I absorbed the increase and didn't put up prices as I was afraid to lose customers being battered by the recession, now it's time to get it back.

 

[spruce]

I just thought I would try to get an idea of what your 40 dollar clean would buy @Guido Possum .
I found a Michels Patisserie and a DBL Ristretto fairly close to each other in Macquarie road Springfield with a supermarket nearby. Unfortunately I was unable to see Michels from the road, so I don't know how much glass is involved. I would imagine that, as part of a chain, they would all be a similar size.

I see the website lists a double choc chip muffin for 4.00 to 4.99 dollar AU. So a clean costs 8 or 9 muffins.

It always difficult to get a price correlation in different countries. Usually the price of a cafe latte is a good comparison for me.

I wonder how much @H MAN gets for his job of Ryans Bakery and Coffee Lounge in Blayney? I wouldn't blame him if he didn't respond. Mind you, with his 36" squeegee he will have that done in minutes, so they will be asking him to renegotiate his price.

-

Sorry, not Springfield, Springwood. /emoticons/sad.png

 

[Guido Possum]

Sorry, not Springfield, Springwood. /emoticons/sad.png

I still call it Springfield myself /emoticons/wink.png

 

[Guido Possum]

Because water fed pole costs are expensive and for that matter even Tradders have increasing costs to absorb, remember when fuel shot up to £1.50 a litre? I absorbed the increase and didn't put up prices as I was afraid to lose customers being battered by the recession, now it's time to get it back.

And rubbers.

Ettore rubbers cost me $6/each online, and one manky first clean wears the rubber 3x faster.

Even clean glass wears those rubbers pretty quick. I tried a cheaper brand - "professional rubbers" I think they were called, made in italy - but they were garbage from the first stroke so it wasn't much of a saving.

 

[spruce]

And rubbers.
Ettore rubbers cost me $6/each online, and one manky first clean wears the rubber 3x faster.

Even clean glass wears those rubbers pretty quick. I tried a cheaper brand - "professional rubbers" I think they were called, made in italy - but they were garbage from the first stroke so it wasn't much of a saving.

We do very little trad work these days tbh. In the early days we only used Unger and found that was the best for us. We still do. But it is down to personal choice.

I bumped in a trad cleaner doing a pub in the Guisborough High street one rather cold crisp morning this past winter. He had been given some Red Razor rubber to try out. He said it thought it was rubbish and just looking at the results as he cleaned, he was right.

Someone mentioned on one of the forums a little after this meeting that Razor rubber doesn't work in an Unger S channel, so that may have been the answer. I don't know.

There were numerous posts on various forums on how brilliant this new rubber is by posters who you hardly ever see otherwise. The forums are a great advertising venue to do back door promotions. I often wonder how much of these recommendations are staged.

Of course, we don't have the same cleaning conditions as you guys in Australia do. Your windows will have a lot of sand and grit on them due to the hot, dry, dusty weather you experience. So your blades are going to get destroyed much quicker than they would do here in this country.

But there are trad cleaners in the UK who put a new rubber in their squeegee every second day and turn it over at the end of the first day. So each morning they start with a sharp leading edge.

A couple of years ago we were given a very old Ettore squeegee by a trad cleaner that he used to use some 20 years ago when he window cleaned. The rubber is totally round (still have it as a keep sake) so how he managed to clean windows is any one's guess.

When I lived in South Africa I worked for Bosch. The automotive side had these fancy new windscreen wiper blades that were double edged guaranteeing a perfect clean (according to the advert). They may have been perfect for European conditions, but they were useless in the heat and the occasional 'heavens opened' down pours we used to experience in Johannesburg. (Some 25 years on this design wiper blade under the Bosch label is still available for sale in the UK. Our local motor factors sells them. Its his most popular upper end market seller.)

-

 

[Guido Possum]

We do very little trad work these days tbh. In the early days we only used Unger and found that was the best for us. We still do. But it is down to personal choice.
I bumped in a trad cleaner doing a pub in the Guisborough High street one rather cold crisp morning this past winter. He had been given some Red Razor rubber to try out. He said it thought it was rubbish and just looking at the results as he cleaned, he was right.

Someone mentioned on one of the forums a little after this meeting that Razor rubber doesn't work in an Unger S channel, so that may have been the answer. I don't know.

That doesn't make sense; assuming razor has the same profile as all the other standard rubbers, why would it fail *just* in that particular channel mmm :hehehe:

I got as far as googling "buy razor red rubber australia" and saw no results pointing to online stockists here, so I haven't had a chance to try it.

If it's remotely like the soft rubber comes as standard in a wagtail I can save myself the bother - I tossed that red crap as soon as I got the last one.

Of course, we don't have the same cleaning conditions as you guys in Australia do. Your windows will have a lot of sand and grit on them due to the hot, dry, dusty weather you experience. So your blades are going to get destroyed much quicker than they would do here in this country.

Not here in the mountains; even summers are pretty cool compared to western Sydney, the air is crystal-clear and come winter it even snows on occasion.

Most of the filth I find on windows is either insect muck, fingerprints, grit from what I assume comes outta car exhausts and gummy residue from sticky-tape or similar labels, as well as dog/toddler drool at around two-feet from the ground. /emoticons/smile.png

Still the fine silt seems to act like 1200 grit sandpaper on my rubbers and they start to leave smears after 3-5 storefronts.

In summer the windows dried pretty fast, most likely due to the low moisture level in the air even when it's coolish, but now it's getting down to ~6°C at night I can soap two large panes and sluice-off the liquid before they dry.

A couple of years ago we were given a very old Ettore squeegee by a trad cleaner that he used to use some 20 years ago when he window cleaned. The rubber is totally round (still have it as a keep sake) so how he managed to clean windows is any one's guess.

Maybe it still cleans flawlessly - even rounded-over.

Hardwoods, steel and other resources were all much finer quality back then; maybe that rubber is ludicrously a-grade, like old Sheffield carbon steel?

Of course, it could just be that window cleaners weren't so prissy back then, and simply pressed harder on the rubber or learned to deal with streaking like real men.

When I lived in South Africa I worked for Bosch. The automotive side had these fancy new windscreen wiper blades that were double edged guaranteeing a perfect clean (according to the advert). They may have been perfect for European conditions, but they were useless in the heat and the occasional 'heavens opened' down pours we used to experience in Johannesburg. (Some 25 years on this design wiper blade under the Bosch label is still available for sale in the UK. Our local motor factors sells them. Its his most popular upper end market seller.)

According to Louis Theroux, Johannesburg is not a good place to go, at all, ever. I trust Louis's reviews of lawless places

 

[Pickingpaul]

I think a £2 increase is fine if it's been a long while or if you feel that's the right price now.

I've been guilty of letting certain roads get too low on price by not regularly putting the price up and then just stopping the road altogether. Thinking they won't accept a large increase or £4

But more recently I decided to let the customers decide and all accepted the £4 increase accept 1 who just went 8 weekly .

But as said above a £1 increase is smoother but simply not good enough always

 

[Dave B]

I recommend the razr and I'm not being paid to advertise it lol

It is very good rubber but is slightly longer from the bulge to the leading edge than unger etc

It just doesn't seem to like s channels

Put it in a wider channel like ettore or liquidator and it's a dream

Rubbers perform better once the sharp leading edge has worn a touch ..even if it was round it will work fine..as long as the ends are not worn as that causes the issues

As long as there are no nicks in it a round edge will still be in contact with the glass and take the water off

 

[Guido Possum]

I recommend the razr and I'm not being paid to advertise it lol

They just send you free rubbers instead? /emoticons/smile.png

 

[Pickingpaul]

Red razor lasts ages too, good in liquidators because the ends wear fast

 

[Dave B]

In my liquidators the ends don't seem to wear

Lasts forever

Have you tried the wire/paperclip trick yet @Pickingpaul?

 

[Leeds]

Just concentrate on getting more work than you can handle. Pricing up becomes a whole lot easier then for some reason /emoticons/smile.png