David,
of course you are run off your feet if you are doing work for nothing...
Is your philanthropic attitude reflected in your window cleaning pricing as well?
When we start out, we have a choice as to the customers we wish to target.
We can go the council estates or the bungalow/pensioner estates where we can rely on volume of work at a low price. These people cannot afford high prices and simply would not pay it...so you end up with hundreds of low paying customers. You work long hours, have a bursting round but earn an averagely decent income.
These customers would more likely consider dropping you if someone was knocking doors/leafleting offering to do the work cheaper and these type of areas are where most drink money, summer only window cleaners will canvass and undercut as they are most comfortable in this cheap quote arena.
If you target high income owners in large properties...these people are not interested in saving a pound or two or shopping around. They are after quality...this is why they shop at M+S for their food and not seen bargain hunting in the local Netto.
The fly by nights are not comfortable knocking on these accounts and quoting £20/£25 plus and the owners would smell a rat if they were to answer a knock at the door to find a stranger offering to clean their windows for a few pounds.
If you set out to gain the custom and trust of the high income family...your work will be judged on the quality, your reliability and your apparent level of professionalism inferred by your appearance, equipment, contact details and insurance details etc being made available to the customer.
These customers are also the people whose carpets and exterior areas are too large for them to clean themselves so there is an opprtunity to sell more services to these people during each season of the year. They already know and trust you and will pay well for your services.
These are the people whose windows you want to be cleaning.John, if people shop on price factor alone, they are happy with poor quality.
If people want quality, they will only shop at certain outlets...these outlets price high but attract high income customers who are prepared to pay high. If a customer walked into this shop and started haggling, they would probably be asked to leave.
If you were to take your family for a restaurant meal, would you look at the window menu and go pale at the prices and keep looking elsewhere until you found somewhere cheap enough. If you did, you cannot expect a high quality of food preparation or service and the experience will probably be very uncomfortable with you vowing to never go there again...for a memorable meal prepared with the finest ingredients by a well paid and reputable chef presented to you by attentive, well trained staff in beautiful surroundings, you are going to have to pay for this level of quality and you will be happy to do so.
Social economics and politics dictate that there are whole communities whose families are surviving on a low income, who can only afford to shop at discount stores and a family meal is more than likely to come from the local chip shop or McDonalds...I would love to be able to sort out the politics that keep these people in the same financial struggle generation after generation...but I cannot.
From a business perspective, however, I would NEVER attempt to build a round in these type of areas.
