[JoeMax]

When does everyone that is building up or building on a round plan on canvassing again?

[Paul Coleman]

When does everyone that is building up or building on a round plan on canvassing again?

I intend to resume early February.
I will have 5,000 leaflets ready by then.
I just need 50 decent customers to make it a nice round.  It's already OK but I've grown complacent in recent years.

[GB Window Cleaning]

as soon as i can walk the streets after the snow melts i'll be a-knocking

[Bin Juice]

If you dont have any work , start now

[darren clarke]

february,  want a other 300 good custys by end of next year, all will be on a 6 week cycle by then, except commercial  should be enough for me and 1 full timer

[Blue Frog Systems]

End of Feb for me... want another 150 custys by the end of July

[Smudger]

If you want custy's then canvass now, not currently canvassing for windows but building up gutter clearing - and still getting window cleaning jobs !  ( 4 last weekend + soffit facia job )

good time of year to get work as pt. time windys abandon their custy's until feb/march - get out there and
beat the crowd ! 

Darran

[dazmond]

i got a few custies who have moved into a different area and  a few phone calls through recommendation yesterday.i will only take on bigger accounts or 4 -5 bedroom houses if its slightly out of my area.i then canvass/leaflet both sides and see if i can pick up at few more.at the moment im about 2 weeks behind with my current work with phone calls for conny roof cleaning coming in as well!! : ::)im turning them down until the new year as i want to get round as many of my regular window cleaning custies as i can before xmas!!

im in a great position regarding custies.ill be upping prices again in april on big chunks of very compact run of the mill work and actively seeking bigger accounts and better paying work on longer frequencies.


dazmond

[Lee Gilroy]

Advice Please.

What would you say a good round size is for one man doing it Trad. With the intention to convert to WFP.

I know any customer is a bonus but If I deliver 5,000 and build a round more than I can handle I will end up letting people down.

Would 400 customers be too many.

I was planning on delivering leaflets in first week of Jan and follow up with canvassing the week after is this the best way.

Cheers

Lee

[Jackal]

doesnt matter how many custys you got if its priced well then you should be ok with alot less houses

plus 400 houses is alot to do in a month possible in summer but not this time of year,just build your round till your bulging at the seems 

[darren clarke]

how many can u do in a day, a good wfp should be able to do 20-25 easy,   but everything varies,  some are out for 7 and some like me dont go out till 9

[JoeMax]

So some recommend now - the only problem with that is they'll look at there windows and maybe think "Damn, having a window cleaner at the moment is the least of my worries", but you never know - only one way to find out!

Maybe you can go down the "Hi, I'm currently cleaning a few windows in this area and was wondering if you'll need one for the new year, I'm doing them for everyone on this street every 6 months"

They may think, new year, new window cleaner.. and of course as some of you mentioned the weak window cleaners will be dropping out right now.

I'm not sure I fancy walking around in this snow! At least they'll think this chap is dedicated I guess.

[Paul Coleman]

Advice Please.

What would you say a good round size is for one man doing it Trad. With the intention to convert to WFP.

I know any customer is a bonus but If I deliver 5,000 and build a round more than I can handle I will end up letting people down.

Would 400 customers be too many.

I was planning on delivering leaflets in first week of Jan and follow up with canvassing the week after is this the best way.

Cheers

Lee

I would say 300 x 6 weekly average to slightly above average jobs is a decent manageable size for one person.  The money earned can be lived on, there would be room for more work if desired, and it would be large enough not to have to put up with any customers who mess about too much and large enough not to get too concerned about losing the odd job or three.  There's room to adapt in either direction if required.

[ant french]

i give up on door knocking, i knocked a whole estate or newly built homes which had new cars on there drives and out of about 400 homes i got jack poope!!  just a load of rude people who said i was mad.    i dont think it was what i said when i knocked there doors, i said hi i am upgrading my round to your area as its new and im looking for new customers, would you be interested in a free quote!  them: NO THANKS!

what did i do wrong? apart freeze my balls off and get my confidence battered to an all time low!

[clearlyclean]

i give up on door knocking, i knocked a whole estate or newly built homes which had new cars on there drives and out of about 400 homes i got jack poope!!  just a load of rude people who said i was mad.    i dont think it was what i said when i knocked there doors, i said hi i am upgrading my round to your area as its new and im looking for new customers, would you be interested in a free quote!  them: NO THANKS!

what did i do wrong? apart freeze my balls off and get my confidence battered to an all time low!

I had this a lot of times you go out for a whole week and not get one new customer or you can get 50 new customers in one evening,Just luck of the draw,I try to avoid new estates as their normally mortgage to the hilt.I find blanket leaflet these areas and you might pick up one or two and can build on that,I canvass mainly areas where I have had phone enquires and done the quote and I will knock most the houses to see if they need a windie.I find this time of year hard to canvass but I have done it in the past to get my round going.I find the most productive way is to deliver a load of leaflets in a area and then go back a few days later and knock every house and mention the leaflet and that I am taking on new customers in the area,do they want to be added to my list,tell the price frequency of clean and terms of payment and when I am due again in that area (next week-two weeks time) they have my phone number already and If they say No go to the next house and keep going till you have a enough work

[Scrimble]

dont stick to one area move around, learn from it you got nothing from that estate try another, try some older houses oap bungelows etc, new estates are full of people financed up to the eyeballs anyway arnold clark cars on the drive stack of credit cards in the wallets etc

maybe now is the wrong time to be canvassing?

[ant french]

im covering a 28 mile radius, i got custys dotted all over the place which in a way is good and bad, good coz in summer im sure to get more custys in them areas but at the min its a 20 mile trip to d o just 2 windows. its swings and roundabouts but i guess any custys is good. im upto 18 now but its no where near what i want a week. looking at atleast 25min a week for just winter. i might go bk to that area and chuck a few leaflets about with a special xmas deal of 15% off but add the 15% to the price before i remove it lol 

[Jackal]

if you didnt get anything from that area dont go back drop leaflets waste of time and dont bother with discounts,iv had the same before some areas you could post 500+ leaflets and nothing,its about finding them places when you can pick a few together and there is places like that just got keep trying,  try some cheaper type houses or terraces to build your round a bit first,dont just try the posh places like people have said these kind of people havent got much money spare anyway

[bobby p]

agree the door knocking can be soul destroying but its part of the apprenticeship,only the strongest survive.  in the early days id no idea what i was doing and it used to get me down and then i found a teenage girl who went pumping out my leaflets in the evenings. this built my round up. although it felt a bit like i was cheating by not doorknocking ,it worked. i paid her a tenner per hour and sometimes she struck lucky and i had no end of windows to clean the following day. she also told anybody who would listen "he charges £8 usually" and that REALLY  rakes em in to call,you can then up the price a tad once you arrive with ladder on the shoulder

  its a numbers game,you might need to leaflet/door knock a 100 doors before you get a strike, but you WILL GET LUCKY in the end .

having said all that,if you are high priced you are onto a loser(my opinion). its worth finding out what the big trad firm in your town charges (if you are trad) ,then come in a quid or 2 less than them and you will pick up the cast-offs from that firm . if you can handle these cast-off pickey bugger types you will get a toe hold and later can cast them off yourself when you pick up better types by being seen on the street

[JoeMax]

Nice advice for people getting started I think ^

I do think this is the worst time of the year for knocking though.