[mick hay]

ive decided to start up in w/c. im going the whole hog with wfp van mount . i have a budget for marketing and am obviously wantin to use it effectivley. im looking at in the launch ...to knock doors....say 2hrs a night and also have 10,000 leaflets put out (put out solas by someone else!!)..if i do both of these alongside each other...what kind of results do you think i could expect?....the way i see it...while im waiting for a reply of the leaflets...i can knock for some instant work and when i get replies of the leaflets i can knock around the house i quote for!!!   do you think i could build a round rapidly this way??...

[jsm]

whole hogg WFPing 

 you will still need to do windows the old way some times, don't forget a bucket of tools on the van as well for when you have to do insides , or the house isn't sutable for wfping.
 thats your budget blown haha 

[windows_chepstow]

ive decided to start up in w/c. im going the whole hog with wfp van mount . i have a budget for marketing and am obviously wantin to use it effectivley. im looking at in the launch ...to knock doors....say 2hrs a night and also have 10,000 leaflets put out (put out solas by someone else!!)..if i do both of these alongside each other...what kind of results do you think i could expect?....the way i see it...while im waiting for a reply of the leaflets...i can knock for some instant work and when i get replies of the leaflets i can knock around the house i quote for!!!   do you think i could build a round rapidly this way??...

Yes, mate.

Expect a 2 percent rate with your leaflets.  For every hundred you'll receive two phone calls; unless you hit an area without a window cleaner.  Some areas; you'll receive none.

I haven't a clue what canvassing will get you, but most, if not all people here agree that canvassing is better.

Don't expect to get 300 quality customers overnight.  It takes time, a couple of years at least,  to build a decent quality round. 

Also, don't make my mistake (a common one) and underprice.  If you do, you won't be doing yourself or your customers any favours.  You'll end up grafting like a mug for a pittance then jack it all in and do something else.

Ask here, in the main forum about how much you should be charging for your area and type of house.

[matt2323]

charge a 10pound min. trust me this works.

[mick hay]

hi matt....ive read in lots of posts to charge £10 minimum. i understand the logic behind it...less work for more money and set the standard in pricing, but i am wondering what the reaction would be to these terraced houses with say 3 front and 3 back windows or even 2!!!... i totally agree to set it at £10..but just wondered out of experience, does it sometimes come across as expensive to some potential customers?....also in your view...whats the most sure fire way to build a round?....mick

[windows_chepstow]

hi matt....ive read in lots of posts to charge £10 minimum. i understand the logic behind it...less work for more money and set the standard in pricing, but i am wondering what the reaction would be to these terraced houses with say 3 front and 3 back windows or even 2!!!... i totally agree to set it at £10..but just wondered out of experience, does it sometimes come across as expensive to some potential customers?....also in your view...whats the most sure fire way to build a round?....mick

Today we had three people approach us to clean their houses.  All asked for a quote.  They were all in the same area and same type of house.  I quoted £8.50 for all three.

The first lady said yes.
The second lady said, 'How Much'? which was a 'No'.
The third said I was 50p more expensive than her last quote.

So I got one out of three for £8.50.  I think I'm on the edge of acceptable quoting for the estate I was in.

To charge a minimum of £10.00 per house I think you have to target rural villiages; places where you don't have much comptetion.  In any estate; you'll have at least 3 or 4 window cleaners cleaning around and about.  Customers know if you're too much over the average price and might think you're having a laugh.

[matt2323]

trust me mick you dont want cheap work,this is a buisness not a job.

[mick hay]

how long you been window cleaning matt?..be interesting to know how your round built up from the start!!

[s.hughes]

The second lady said, 'How Much'? which was a 'No'.

Hey Chepstow, please dont use my name in vain!!!!!!!!!!!!

[replacement]

charge a 10pound min. trust me this works.

100% agree.

Justin

[windows_chepstow]

charge a 10pound min. trust me this works.

100% agree.

Justin

Justin, you may agree, but only 14 months ago you stated here how you priced a house at £5.75, but rounded it up to £6.00.  Quite a way off a £10.00 minimum charge.

I think when stating here about a £10.00 minimum price; you've got to say how you work it.  For example you will NOT get more than a point-one percent success rate in any of the estates where I live.  But you WILL get a better success rate in some of the rural areas around here.  So area must play a major factor in a ten pound minimum fee.

I do a whole load of pensioner's bungalows.  Four windows and two doors.  I charge £5.00 each.  Each one takes about ten minutes.  I think if I told them I'd charge them a tenner; I'd be hurrying them into their graves.

Not only that; I'd personally feel like I was ripping them off.

[matt2323]

hi mick,been goin nearly 5 yrs this time round.did it ten years ago for about 12 years,made lots of mistakes ,dont make them this time round.i  started with my girlfriend who is my wife now,and we leafleted for 4 weeks solid  in the rain, snow and ice it was awfull.i remember saying to my wife dont get to despondant if we dont get many calls as it takes time to build the work up.at the time i hired a black cab at the weekends and i used to work 3 long nights to earn a pitifull 200 a week .from the first week after i leafleted i didnt ever need to work as cab driver again.dont listen to any negative responses about this game;if you put the effort in you,ll get loads out ,be patient and dont sell yourself short.

[spursdefoe]

where I work we charge a min.£5.00 if i 1 window or less £10.00 min for any bug ladder work the price accordingly if over £5.00

[matt]

so a 2 up 2 down terraced house on a estate would be 10 quid  :

i charge them 7.50 and thats high

10 quid would result in getting told "no way"

sorry guys, i live in a fairly affluent area, and i couldnt get away with 10 quid

[matt]

mick hay

work out how much you want to earn a hour, and then look at a house and you will after a week of working get a rough idea, then price up like that

i was allways told a rough idea of price is 50 p a window, i now charge 75p a window, BUT i have plenty of work

[matt2323]

we work in swindon and we have charged 10 min for 4 yrs. we have just put our min up to 15. i know guys that are dearer than us

[www.mrgutters.co.uk]

i am the same £10 min but this depends on area ... i live near london so prices are higher but i still get the odd WHAT? £10 my last was charging £4-£5 at which i say well well he has probably starved to death thats why he was your old cleaner and not the current one ... i do a load of pensioners houses in sheltered accom £5 each i charge them , i do a shop front £10 its 3m X4m 1 large pane .. but youcant get away with it everywhere others are £3 for the same . you have to do what you feel will work wether it £4 , 5 , 6 or £10 there is no point over pricing and not having work ..

shawn 

[Ian_Giles]

It REALLY REALLY depends on your area, but an average semi, done traditionally will take about 15 or 20 minutes.
You can reasonably expect to do about 3 an hour.
The AVERAGE window cleaner will have about 5 or 6 hours of productive work time a day.
If you are able to charge as much as £8.00 for one of these houses you might reasonably expect to turn over anything between £100-150 in a day.

In other threads I have banged on about what is a reasonable amount to expect to be able to earn.
The sky really is the limit, but if you can turn over £500 a week you are doing well.
£300+ is still fair dinkum too.
To climb above £500 a week you will have to have d*mn good prices and also be pretty quick, and that won't happen overnight.

You start your first account at 9am, you finish your last account at 5pm, your productive time will only be 5 or 6 hours.
Most window cleaners I know start at 9am (if they are lucky) and are back home by 3pm (or 4pm if they have been lazy and not started until 10am!)

You are only being productive when you are washing and squeegee-ing. NOT when you are driving between accounts, collecting money off customers, talking to customers or workmates, writing out invoices, answering the call of nature, going off to buy a pastie for your lunchbreak! And so on.

Don't forget you also have to factor in downtime due to bad weather, holidays, car breakdowns, days when you are just not motivated, illness. late starts often happen too!

It will take you at least 6 months before you are begining to get really proficient at the job, and it'll take you far longer than that to build up your round to the point where you are full up.

A tenner minimum? You won't manage that in most parts of the country.
Move to Swindon, that's the answer of course! Seems they are used to paying top wack over there!
Most of us will simply not be able to manage that though.

If you can charge 75p for a standard UPVC window, for the most part you will do ok.
But don't work cheap!!

A good tip is to advertise in local parish or church magazines, the people that take these are often well heeled and will keep them by the phone for reference to local tradesmen. An inexpensive way to advertise.

Regards,

Ian

[replacement]

windows_chepstow/Ken,
                                       Yes your right I did go in low when I started and soon learnt the errors of my ways with some great fedback off some other window cleaner whoms up north( i do think everyone does this),  I still have some jobs under £10. After about 4-5 months after starting I went with a £10 min charge and I have never looked back on that. Nothing to do with area's as there is alot of window cleaners around this way, maybe more than normal (last count 12 might even be 14 now) and a normal price is approx £7 for a 3 bedroom house here at the moment there is 4 window cleaners in the local parish mag ( 1 being me ) with adverts all cheaper than me, but I still get the work at £10 and over. I put it down to image and the way I present myself. So if I can do it everyone can.

Justin

[Ian_Giles]

Don't forget Justin, With WFP you can also justify a higher than normal price as you also wash all of the frames.
There are area's in my own patch were a tenner minimum is an absolute no-no.
Don't care who are, you won't get much work if you charge that.
9 miles up the road the average price is much closer to £6.00 on the estates, a few miles further on it is even lower.
Location counts for a lot and there is no getting away from that.
If I take a different direction, I head towards the area covered by Roy Harding, min price shoots right up, and that includes his home town of Monmouth too.
Trek up into the Welsh valleys and try charging a minimum of a tenner for a tiny terrace (4 little windows on the front, 4 on the back) and you'll be thrown down the nearest spoil heap
Doing this traditional will take less than 10 minutes to clean, just won't happen.

But if you have a row of half a dozen terraces and are lucky enough to get £6.50  per house, you'll still knock them out in around an hour, £39.00 in an hour is a fantastic rate of earning, if you worked the sort of day I claim you would do (6 hours actual work) That is close to £250 a day, and that is huge money in anybody's book.
£1250 a week, 65,000 a year.
And that is with a minimum of just £6.50 an account
Real life isn't like that of course, wish it was though!

Never give a price over the phone though!! always go to the place to price it up!!

Ian