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What do you think about canvassing

Fahad

New member
Messages
11
Location
Leicester
Hi as I need more customers and would like to speed up things. Should I invest in a canvassing company to get the work? But I am in 2 minds. As they can get the customers to sign for one clean and cancel after that. What are your experiences with canvassing company have they worked for you?

 
Hi as I need more customers and would like to speed up things. Should I invest in a canvassing company to get the work? But I am in 2 minds. As they can get the customers to sign for one clean and cancel after that. What are your experiences with canvassing company have they worked for you?
How about saving the cash and have a go doing it yourself? 

 
Hi as I need more customers and would like to speed up things. Should I invest in a canvassing company to get the work? But I am in 2 minds. As they can get the customers to sign for one clean and cancel after that. What are your experiences with canvassing company have they worked for you?
Do it yourself until your to busy to do it yourself.

Then when your that busy then you never will have to worry about having leads coming in. Because referrals will be rolling in if your constant and a decent cleaner.

Hope this helps.

 
Personally, I would be doing the canvassing myself, as said above.

Do the leg work yourself, and use the cash you will save for branding to support your marketing. Logo'd uniforms, flyers, website, van signage etc. Not things I would be bothering with if I was tight on cash starting out, but will help if you do have the funds.

For me the biggest reason to do it alone, is you can assess the job, and price it accordingly, rather than the fixed prices canvassers tend to use.

 
Hi as I need more customers and would like to speed up things. Should I invest in a canvassing company to get the work? But I am in 2 minds. As they can get the customers to sign for one clean and cancel after that. What are your experiences with canvassing company have they worked for you?
It really does depend on a number of things.

First of all do you have the time to do the Canvassing yourself? If the answer is yes, then you should be doing it yourself really.

However some people really dislike canvassing themselves. They would prefer to just pay someone to do the canvassing or marketing for them, and they can spend their time cracking on with the cleaning instead. I know lots of people who have done this. This way of doing things is more expensive in the short term though. So then it depends if you have the budget / cash flow / savings - to actually pay a canvasser or marketing company to help you grow.

If you are short of money then the answer is nearly always to canvas yourself. If you have plenty of money behind you to help you grow your business quicker then canvassing/marketing can work really well.

I knew a guy last year that i did some lead generation for. He started his window cleaning business in February 2021. He had lots of money behind him saved up to kick start his business. He didn't knock a single door. Within 3 months from paying me for lead generation, paying another company for door knock canvassing and paying for leaflet drops he built a business that was turning over 6k a month by June 2021. He just threw as much money as possible at it. But i would say that it paid off.

Most window cleaners it would take literally 2-3 years to get to the stage he got to in just 3 months by throwing money at it and going hard at it.

So anything is possible really. Depends on your circumstances and only you know that :)
 
It really does depend on a number of things.

First of all do you have the time to do the Canvassing yourself? If the answer is yes, then you should be doing it yourself really.

However some people really dislike canvassing themselves. They would prefer to just pay someone to do the canvassing or marketing for them, and they can spend their time cracking on with the cleaning instead. I know lots of people who have done this. This way of doing things is more expensive in the short term though. So then it depends if you have the budget / cash flow / savings - to actually pay a canvasser or marketing company to help you grow.

If you are short of money then the answer is nearly always to canvas yourself. If you have plenty of money behind you to help you grow your business quicker then canvassing/marketing can work really well.

I knew a guy last year that i did some lead generation for. He started his window cleaning business in February 2021. He had lots of money behind him saved up to kick start his business. He didn't knock a single door. Within 3 months from paying me for lead generation, paying another company for door knock canvassing and paying for leaflet drops he built a business that was turning over 6k a month by June 2021. He just threw as much money as possible at it. But i would say that it paid off.

Most window cleaners it would take literally 2-3 years to get to the stage he got to in just 3 months by throwing money at it and going hard at it.

So anything is possible really. Depends on your circumstances and only you know that :)
In an 8 hour day what do you think would be the average amount of new custoners picked up. I know its a how long is a piece of string type question, but using averages how many would you say?

Iv thought abput canvassing and have plenty of time to do it
 
In an 8 hour day what do you think would be the average amount of new custoners picked up. I know its a how long is a piece of string type question, but using averages how many would you say?

Iv thought abput canvassing and have plenty of time to do it
I think you have answered your own question there is no number to many variables , sorry ??
 
In an 8 hour day what do you think would be the average amount of new custoners picked up. I know its a how long is a piece of string type question, but using averages how many would you say?

Iv thought abput canvassing and have plenty of time to do it
Around here in the south east I’d expect to get 1 per hour on average. Although under current circumstances , it might be less.
 
It's hard to say but lets play around with some figures for the hell of it.

Lets assume you average 1 customer per hour £15 job. Over 8 hours thats £120 in new customers. That is really easily achievable.

Also the more you do it the better you get. Eventually you will get to a point where you are averaging 2 customers per hour. Then you have £240 in new customers a day.

If you were banging out canvassing for weeks and weeks on end you would eventually start to get these results.

I'm seriously considering rolling out door knock canvassing services for others, just don't have the time right now to employ and train someone to do the door knocking. I say this every year though lol.
 
Hi as I need more customers and would like to speed up things. Should I invest in a canvassing company to get the work? But I am in 2 minds. As they can get the customers to sign for one clean and cancel after that. What are your experiences with canvassing company have they worked for you?
Canvass your self, look out for is parking, is it easy or rammed, access do you have to go over garage roof, are there lots of cars in your way ?

Don't waste your time on bad properties !
 
I knew a guy last year that i did some lead generation for. He started his window cleaning business in February 2021. He had lots of money behind him saved up to kick start his business. He didn't knock a single door. Within 3 months from paying me for lead generation, paying another company for door knock canvassing and paying for leaflet drops he built a business that was turning over 6k a month by June 2021. He just threw as much money as possible at it. But i would say that it paid off.
I wanna start by saying I completely respect the job you guys do. I think however that this is a really poor example of how to do things. I will add the caveat that my opinion is assuming the person is an inexperienced window cleaner. 0 to 6k in 4 months sounds like a recipe for disaster. Firstly all of those cleans are taking longer because they're first cleans. There has been no space for the round to grow organically so you don't know who the wasters are, there would be a lot of stuffing people around until you get things right. And finally, but most importantly, a new windy wouldn't necessarily have the skills to service that amount of work that quickly.

I think it's good that lead gen and canvassing companies exist as some people don't like canvassing, don't have the time etc. I just think the above example isn't practical in the real world.
 
This is just an observation but canvassing can produce a lot of unreliable customers, they have the first clean, you come back monthly & do a really good job, but two maybe three months down the road the customer cancels...

I find drop & go leaflets are more reliable a no pressure to take approach & they tend to stay long term, because they asked for you.

I mean it's not 100% but if you do other jobs on the side and take your time to build your round... It becomes organically secure..
On the other hand if you need to increase your prices you might have trouble a lot of ppl walk with that.. so i suppose it's down to personal preference...

I just don't find knocking on Customers doors to be reliable or acceptable these days... Most customers just want to be left alone...

But each to their own
 
When starting up I got a lot of bad cleans. Lets face it, you have got to begin at the bottom and slowly grind your way up. That's the reason most usually quit in their first year. Leaflet a street near you that you want to work on. Advertise locally but you will need to spend money on it. Problem with this job is that most folk who start up don't have any money to spend on it and some don't have a van. Speculate to accumulate, the more you put in then the more you get out of it. When preparation meets opportunity then it all fits together.
 
When starting up I got a lot of bad cleans. Lets face it, you have got to begin at the bottom and slowly grind your way up. That's the reason most usually quit in their first year. Leaflet a street near you that you want to work on. Advertise locally but you will need to spend money on it. Problem with this job is that most folk who start up don't have any money to spend on it and some don't have a van. Speculate to accumulate, the more you put in then the more you get out of it. When preparation meets opportunity then it all fits together.
Sorry for the delay in reply been busy, I think alot of the grind comes from impatient dissapointment that the model they are after might not work so well.. I met a guy this week another cleaner, he was a really nice guy worked hard all his life only charges £5.50 per front of house... I nearly fellover when he said it... Now ppl charge what they want & that's ok..

But i can't help thinking how many does he do a day ? is it worth running around and sweating that much to do cleans at that price...
I wouldn't, when cleaners charge so little, of course they are going to feel like they are not making much on each clean, then having to canvass twice as much fueling a negative cycle of unrelistic attinment... I have found it takes alot fo time and let down to build a round somehow i am still here..

He would have to do 20 per day & hardly look at the window frame leaving bits on the sills & around the frames and maybe spend seconds per window i am not saying that's what he does, but that sounds alot like what it is like to me... I mean i spend 30 miniutes per house minimum, i think that comes from giving the customer what they pay for a detailed quality job... I suppose he thinks the same, i did tell him he should put his price up bless him, really nice dude tbf...
 
Sorry for the delay in reply been busy, I think alot of the grind comes from impatient dissapointment that the model they are after might not work so well.. I met a guy this week another cleaner, he was a really nice guy worked hard all his life only charges £5.50 per front of house... I nearly fellover when he said it... Now ppl charge what they want & that's ok..

But i can't help thinking how many does he do a day ? is it worth running around and sweating that much to do cleans at that price...
I wouldn't, when cleaners charge so little, of course they are going to feel like they are not making much on each clean, then having to canvass twice as much fueling a negative cycle of unrelistic attinment... I have found it takes alot fo time and let down to build a round somehow i am still here..

He would have to do 20 per day & hardly look at the window frame leaving bits on the sills & around the frames and maybe spend seconds per window i am not saying that's what he does, but that sounds alot like what it is like to me... I mean i spend 30 miniutes per house minimum, i think that comes from giving the customer what they pay for a detailed quality job... I suppose he thinks the same, i did tell him he should put his price up bless him, really nice dude tbf...
Maybe he does it for beer money or is on benefits. Some people I know just do it to get out the house with a roof rack and old car. But when they retire which will be soon then no one will do their rounds. That's when their customers ask around and realise the real cost of the job.
 
Maybe he does it for beer money or is on benefits. Some people I know just do it to get out the house with a roof rack and old car. But when they retire which will be soon then no one will do their rounds. That's when their customers ask around and realise the real cost of the job.
Agreed then the shock of prices hits home and we have to manage their expectation VS reality and cost to operate... off to work now nice easy day for once haha
 
Agreed then the shock of prices hits home and we have to manage their expectation VS reality and cost to operate... off to work now nice easy day for once haha
Raining all day up here so I have to collect new shocks for van and retapeing my poles. Worked sat and sun because today and tomorrow is raining. I continually watch the weather forecast to make up my diary.
 
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