[steve k]

edited out for ease of reading day 2 post...

[rs_cleancare]

Well done!
This is the sort of money everyone shoud be earning.
It's a bussiness after all.

I try to aim for £40 an hour whilst working not including travelling.

Rob.

[S.A.J]

Nice one steve its like the good old days with your picture posts, they where missed when you left the forum about a year ago (i think).

Look forward to todays pics.

Stuart
SAJ WIndow Cleaners Ltd

[MNWC]

Nice photos steve,

Do you get any hassle off the people in the lower flats ?

Marcus

[steve k]

went out to do an inside and out of a regular customer who is having a party at the weekend. Quoted the normal £12 for outside and £15 for inside.







When I got there, there was a smashed egg congealed on one of the lower windows so I made a bit of a point about how difficult it is to get this off.

I soaked it in washing up liquid and asked her to bring me a kettle of boiling water. I poured this onto my mop and washed it off easily...then WFP as normal...came up a treat.



She gave me a cheque for £26...£1 short but then handed me 5 £1 coins for sorting the egg out so I never mentioned the pound...

took exactly 1 hour.



Drove 10 minutes to my next customer of the day...a gutter clean, quoted at £45 for a semi-detached.



I got the ladder out and every gutter was spotless...
I was there 10 minutes and told the woman that I did not have to clean the gutters but I would have to charge a turn out and inspection charge of £20.
She was happy with this and I thought it fair enough.

Left after just over 10 minutes


Drove 15 minutes to a beautiful village a few miles out to do 2 gutter cleans next door to eachother (terraces quoted at £30 each)

arrived:



They were full of grass so emptied them out and then suggested a WFP wash of the exterior of the gutters for an additional £10 each. They both agreed straight away so I got the pole and they were back to white in 10 minutes front and back...the green stuff came off easily.





While I am there, a passer by sees my van and knocks on the customers door to ask if I would pop round the corner to do her gutters as they have the "hanging gardens of Babylon in them"

Finished the 2 terraced houses and left at 12.45pm. Just under an hour and a half for £80.00



Got round there and I could only reach safely 1 section of gutter about 15ft long...luckily the one with all the grass growing out of. Quoted £20 and did it in 35 minutes.



Off to the flats I never finished yesterday. Arrived at just before 1.45pm



top floor


top floor and ground floor


2 x top floor flats and a middle floor flat


top floor flat and middle floor flat


top floor flat and ground floor flat


2 ground floor flats to finish


packed up and drove away at 3.10pm


£26.00 plus £5 tip = £31.00
gutter inspection = £20.00
2 x gutter cleans = £80.00
1 x gutter clean = £20.00

7 x top floor flats = £49.00
3 x middle floor flats = £15.00
4 x ground floor flats = £20.00

total earnings today = £235.00 between 9.45am and 3.15pm...5 and a half hours.

[mike richardson]

wish my customers would pay that money round my way u are lucky to earn £20 per  hour per man,but am slowly sneaking prices up

[Ian_Giles]

Great thread Steve
To get these prices you have to be confidant in your pricing, believe in yourself and the customer will too.
I Barely scraped up £120 today Because of the blasted weather I was £69 short of where I hoped to be
Still, I had the afternoon off and was home to receive my package from Gardiners

New pump and a couple of other bits & pieces, went off to one of our local builders merchants to by a sheet of 12mm ply (was going to box in most of my van tank) £18 plus vat.
But was too big to go in van (8 by 4) they wouldn't cut it down so I popped into Homebase cos was told they'd probably cut it down for me.....£40 bloody quid for the same size sheet!!!
Sod that for a game of soldiers I spent 8 quid on a small piece of board that I can attach to the framework of the van tank...40 quid indeed!

Meander over

I look forward to Steve's next set of photo's

Ian

[macmac]

why are there ladders in the picture? are they yours?

tony

[steve k]

for cleaning out the gutters...come on Tony, keep up
in the picture you see, I have used the ladders to show the owner how the gutters are not running towards the downpipe...for cleaning, I use a stand off to hold the head of ladder away from the building...great piece of kit.

[steve k]

good point...done

Marcus...I have no problems as I just ask them if they want to engage my services...
The skinflints use a couple of gardeners who charge £2.50 a flat.

The previous window cleaners took 2 days to do the flats I now do in 4-5 hours.
They used ladders and the second window cleaner of the pair was used to foot the ladder. A hell of a lot of high ladder pitches and climbing...

They charged £2.00 for bottom and middle floor flats and £3.00 for top floor flats.
I went in and charged £7.00 for top floor and £5.00 for ground and middle floor flats.

The hourly rate on these flats is superb (£50-£60)...I do 10 flats an hour approx...but a while back, I was considering selling the flats to another window cleaner...I told him to go along and look the place over before agreeing to a price. According to one of my customers, they told the gardeners that I was selling up and they would possibly be taking over with a minimum charge of £10 a flat... That would have been £100.00 an hour but they were adamant about having a minimum charge so they lost out on a good earner.

I will do another few days but I wont be putting prices up anymore. The reason I did it this time is because of another post about how much we can earn and some people appeared to be very sceptical. I hope the pictures and prices give someone a bit of help and confidence when pricing up.

You have to be tough to increase your earning potential and that means having no qualms about offloading your low paid work...work that takes too much time...the awkward jobs...the moaners....the late payers.
These are all an unneccesary drain on your time and earning potential.
By all means, explain to the 50 odd pensioners who you have cleaned for 20 years at £4 a throw that you are having to move on and maybe pass on the work to someone else but do not let loyalty keep you tied down...some may not have the character trait to do that and that is fine...but if you really want to provide for you and your own in a way that will not lead to an early grave....then get tough and price high...YOU deserve it

[Clive McDonald]

Thanks for the practical demo.There was also some logic and thinking on your feet to organise your work. Even with good prices not everyone would be able to do this.
Questions that arise for me are from your pics are.1. Is it okay just to use a mobile number? My wife would prefer this but i wonder if a landline instills more trust.You obvously have a view on the nuisance benefit balance.
2.What's the long (third storey pole)?

[steve k]

the only reason I only have a mobile number on i because at the time I decided to order some signage,  I was waiting to have a new line installed at home to use solely or my business. Although BT gave me a provisional number, they couldn`t conirm that this would actully be the number the engineer left me with.

The pole is a 30ft carbon fibre from Bodex...great

[EasyClean]

good point...done

You have to be tough to increase your earning potential and that means having no qualms about offloading your low paid work...work that takes too much time...the awkward jobs...the moaners....the late payers.
These are all an unneccesary drain on your time and earning potential.
By all means, explain to the 50 odd pensioners who you have cleaned for 20 years at £4 a throw that you are having to move on and maybe pass on the work to someone else but do not let loyalty keep you tied down...some may not have the character trait to do that and that is fine...but if you really want to provide for you and your own in a way that will not lead to an early grave....then get tough and price high...YOU deserve it

Steve K, I started last month doing exactly what you have wrote above simply because I am down in the dumps with regards the amount of rain we have had this winter. I have too much work, not enough time to fit it all in and am making a point of increasing my prices where possible almost on a daily basis until I've completed each property on my complete round. To date I have not lost one customer yet (to my surprise) and although it rains frequently here in the Westcountry I am still smiling! Good advice Steve and thank-you for posting it!