[ecowasher]

Hi,

Going to venture into the world of door knocking to increase my small round  (startup been going two weeks).

I have tried the leaflet drops, but I understand from here its best to get face to face. 

Anyone care to share any tips / lines / approaches that might help??

Many thanks,

Grant

[pylofm]

No advice I am afraid, I'll be the same situation in about 3 weeks...Good luck

Cheers
Dave.

[gsw]

hi this works for me,

dress smart casual,
 
be confident when pricing (do not price too low...you will regret in coming months). try to work off a £10 minimum if your location will support it.

get some business cards from vistaprint.co.uk  (cheap and suggest a professional business approach.)

take a pad and pen and get customers name, address and phone number..... handy if you ever want to sell the round or if the customer is tricky about paying you can give them a ring.

offer two prices when quoting, 1st for a 4 week clean and 2nd for an 8 week clean,  for example £10.00 for a 4 week and £14.00 for a 8 week. this way those who think you are expensive can take the 8 week option and still only be paying £ 7.00 a month.

tell the customer that wiping all window sills is part of the service, and then actually do it everytime!!!!! i have picked up customers just because some window cleaners dont and wont wipe sills, i have no idea why, it takes seconds!!

hope this helps.

greg

[ecowasher]

1.5 hrs got 5 new customers -  better than over 10 hrs leaflet dropping.

Amazing.

Local WC in this particlur area has gone missing -  great.

Underpriced first by 2.50  (quoted 10,  old price 12.50),  discovered he did sills as well,  so upped to 12 for that as well.  Great though as the first customer effectively guided me as to the acceptable rate for the area!

I like this knocking lark.

Grant

[Trevor Knight]

Hi Grant,

Nice website, just out of curiosity, how do you recycle purified water??

regards,

Trev

[ecowasher]

RE:  purified recycled water:

Trevor,  my terminology is probably a little less than perfect.

In short It's not recycled purified water,  it's filtered recycled water.

In the area i live in we are under extreme drought measures (Sutton and East Surrey),  so what I do is run any bathroom non soil water waste from my house through a course carbon filter following collection in a water butt.  It removes all the crud, and most finer particles,  and although i wouldnt want to drink it,  its fine for window cleaning.

...And it's doing my bit for the local water issue.

I think i will change the wording on the site to read 'recycled filtered water',  as in exact terms it is not purified.

Cheers,

Grant.

Grant

[Trevor Knight]

I see what you mean now Grant.

Thanks for letting me know,

Cheers,

Trev

[pylofm]

About door to door cancessing, does anyone give a discount on the first clean.  I suppose this would be for a 'starter w/c', i.e trying to get in customers.


Cheers
Dave.

[Trevor Knight]

About door to door cancessing, does anyone give a discount on the first clean. I suppose this would be for a 'starter w/c', i.e trying to get in customer.


Cheers
Dave.

NEVER!!

If anything I charge more to compensate for having to get the windows and frames back up to standard again.

Trev

[ecowasher]

im currently swallowing the cost of time to get sills / frames on a new customer back to regular status,  goes down well.

[Trevor Knight]

Thats fair enough but I have yet to have a customer refuse the additional charge. Most if not all are fine with it.

Trev

[pylofm]

The only reason that I ask is that when a company has many customers, it is then in a better bargining position, however a new starter is not in such a position.

My thinking was that of providing a 'welcome' price that also acts an initial selling point.

If I were to provide this welcome....what are the issues?

Cheers
Dave

[Trevor Knight]

Dave,

To be honest I understand what you are saying but still maintain that you are providing a service, and that should be paid for.

If you start off giving away freebies then you will soon be into cleaning the patio doors insides for free, oh would you mind, as you have a ladder just pulling away the ivy on my gutters etc.....

This is your business and your time. personally I would keep it straight down the line from day 1.

I have several friends who have turned a blind eye and done "favours" before only to get dumped later on down the road for whatever reason.

It's up to you!

Good luck,

Trev

[pylofm]

That sounds like total logic and thanks for taking the time to point me in the right directions....

I suppose it is just that my initial train of thought was that of "something is better than nothing", but I do realise that what you say is sense.

Thanks
Dave 

[Paul Coleman]

That sounds like total logic and thanks for taking the time to point me in the right directions....

I suppose it is just that my initial train of thought was that of "something is better than nothing", but I do realise that what you say is sense.

Thanks
Dave 

For what it's worth, I think Trevor is spot on with his advice.  I would also like to add a small bit to it.  When you start getting new customers, a (hopefully small) proportion of them will only be after a one off clean but won't tell you.  The extra charge for a first clean helps to compensate you if they do that because first cleans usually take longer with trad and have always taken me longer with WFP.

[pylofm]

Thanks for the advice, I have now updated my leaflets to reflect that which we have been discussing.

Once again.

Many thanks.

Dave...

  have a good weekend !

[chris@c.m.s]

I never charge any more or any less for new customers what I do feel is even if the windows are filthy you leave them spotless after the first clean as its the one they are going to judge you on.

[Mike George]

What about paint spots?

On the first clean I usually get all the paint spots off one or two windows so they can see the standard they will be getting, and tell them more will come off on future cleans.

[pjulk]

Paint spots stay there unless they pay me more to remove them.

I used to remove paint spots when traditional but now i only use a WFP they can stay there.
I can remove them with my unger pole and scraper but that would take quite a bit longer.
If the customer wants them removed i would tell them it will take quite a bit longer so i would need to charge accordinally.

I think a lot of window cleaners spoil there customers to much and do things for free.
I know i used to but not any more you don't get any thanks for doing the extra's.

I had one customer this week saying to me his last window cleaner used to cut the ivy around his windows so he could clean them.
Can i do the same and he will give me an extra couple of quid.
I told him yes i will do it and it will be £40 there is a lot of ivy on this house.
He didn't take me up on it as he thought he would get it next to nothing as we are only window cleaners.

Paul

[Fast 1 *]

hello paul,got a couple of jobs from the road mentioned.very much appreciated mate.  gerry