To leaflet houses saying a fiver a house is just so unprofessional and shows total business inexperience or knowledge.
As the original poster said, how on earth can you clean one house with say...10 small windows for a fiver, then go on to the next that has 20 big windows and a large conservatory and still charge a fiver...crazy.
When I started window cleaning some 27 years ago it was - as has been stated by someone else - a means to an end while I waited for the building trade to pick up, much the same as a great many newbies will now be doing...hoping to earn a little cash while waiting for that '
proper job' to come along.
It turned into my means of earning a living for the rest of my life of course, but even though I was starting it up as a means to an end I still did a huge amount of research, especially where price was concerned!
Underpricing is something that just about everyone who starts up in this job falls victim to, but if you don't learn, and learn fast, then you will earn only peanuts, and most will jack the job in way before they have enough work on board to make a decent living.
The average sole trader window cleaner turns over around 17k per year, take out even the most basic costs and you are left with something like 12k, less than half the national average income.
You can earn more working in a warehouse....er...well you could when there was still work in them
And you get holiday pay, sick pay and so on.
So many undervalue their worth, they really do.
I have a few accounts that I charge just a fiver for, got a few where I charge even less too, but they are the exception and not the rule.
I was charging a fiver for an average house 20 years ago, ain't no way I'd want to go back to earning so little!
I'm not worried about newbies starting out and charging so little, I am seeing plenty of of new window cleaners about now, but I am not really worried as there is only so much work to go around, those of us with long established rounds may well lose a few accounts here and there, but if 20 newbies try and start up in my area, just how much work do you really think they are going to pick up? Regardless of how little they might charge.
Any area can only support so many window cleaners.
I clean the houses of some very wealthy people, prices varying from £18.00 up to £200 plus, inexperienced newbies charging pennies are not going to stand a snowballs chance in hell of making a dent in these accounts, these are people that trust me with their key codes to get into their houses (er...not inside the houses themselves of course!)
Those charging a fiver are not idiots, if they have established rounds - as many of those who have replied on this post have - then they have developed their rounds to suit their lifestyles, pay their bills and so on.
Neither are those that are starting out in the job.
They may have watched some experienced window cleaner knocking out the house over the road in what looks like just a few minutes, he makes the job look like a doddle, collects a tenner and goes off to the next house and earns another tenner in just a few minutes...easy money eh?
Maybe he thinks to himself, "I can do that, and I'll do it for half the money, why hell, if I do 3 an hour I'll be earning myself £15 quid an hour!"
So off he goes, buys some ladders, a squeegee a bucket and an applicator from Wilkinsons, does his neighbour's place and a few friends and off he goes!
The reality is very different of course, it takes many months to pick up enough work to earn enough to make a living, it also takes months to be able to do the job quickly enough to knock out 3 houses an hour to a good standard too!!
Not all newbies look on forums such as this one to learn all they can about the job, and even those that do can be blinded by the possibility of the '
potential' earnings that can be generated in this line of work (the reality is about 12k a year income for most) so they often start out in ignorance of what the job entails...but they soon learn!
Ian