3k should be plenty
2k on the van and 1k for everything else needed, get a van mount.
Do you think? I had my self as maybe 2-3k shorter ( I’ve probably over estimated some of the costs
How have you broken down the costs for everything other then the van? Just so I can see where I’ve gone wrong…
This was my very rough list I done yesterday
Work clothes £150 ( including some shoes )
Poles £500 ( for 2, or do you think just 1 for now? )
Brushes £100 ( do I need 2 different ones? For a regular clean and maybe 1 for a first clean? )
Spares ?
Other equipment £150 ( cones etc )
Website - ?
Leaflets - £500 ( including paying my sister to help me deliver )
Van - 2-3k
Sign writing ?
Insurances ?
Gutter vac
Go pro
I only want the gutter vac as to help with another source of income while building and obviously good to have in my Arsenal of services I can offer, but maybe just good to focus on windows for the time being?
Any thoughts or things I’m missing would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks again all
Easiest way to get work is local facebook groups, could build an entire round off them if theres enough groups in your area. If i had know about them when i started i would have literally saved thousands in canvassers, leaflets, google adwords and websites.
Well i didnt factor in a gutter vac as you i assumed you were talking about window cleaning......
Youve probably gone wrong firstly by assuming you need to buy everything new for a start
You can get 5k of leaflets for about £50, thats plenty to start as you want to be canvassing and only leafletting those not in, couple this with hitting FB groups every day and by the time you run out you probably wont need to buy any more.
work clothes, not really essential when just starting but a couple of printed shirts and a hoody would be about £50, you can get a pair of cargo shorts or trousers for £20 and boots for about £30 from go outdoors. Although in summer i wear trainers.
Website, dont need this straight away, waste of money it wont start producing anything for at least 6 months and you will have to pay for seo to get it to rank. Waste of £500/1000. Better to make your own on wordpress, you can get sitebuilders cheap enough if you just want one as a reference. Ive made a few sites that cost nothing more than the hosting fee of a couple of quid a month. You can always get a flashy site later down the line.
Insurance, you only need public liability which is about a fiver a month, and even thats not a legal requirement. If you must get insurance that covers you for things you work on thats about £15 a month.
Equipment
Buy second hand where you can, tank £100, reel £50, maybe get a new battery and pump as these wear but even then £70 for a battery and £90 a pump. Pole, just get a 22 or 25, slx would cost about £300 new or see whats about second hand, scrimp on the rest but not the pole.....ive got a perfectly good slx 25 in the garage i dont use that would last another year or 2......you dont really want pita jobs anyway, waste of money buying a 35 footer for the odd job that has velux etc as you will only hate doing them later down the line. You dont even need a controller, i ran without for many years but get one if you want but its not ESSENTIAL when starting out if we are working to a budget.
Handfull of spares and a cheap tool kit wont cost you much at all.
Just get what you NEED to do the job you can upgrade as you go along, my first van was £500 and my van mount was about the same again!
Spend your time on learning how to build websites, run Fb ads, seo, adwords etc, everything is digital these days. Canvass to make best use of your time rather than leaflet, once you leafletted all day and only had 1 call you will see why, been there done it.
It can be as cheap or expensive as you like, when you get down to basics you just need a container of water in a vehicle with some way of pumping it to a brush head, i used £10 chinese pumps off ebay for many years which worked absoloutely fine.
