You would, lol
I’m sure you’re great at window cleaning, but it isn’t rocket surgery. There’s only so many ways to wash a window, a house, a deck, etc.
If someone can do it 80%+ as well as you can it’s worth delegating it if you’re at capacity already.
All day long. I just tell people November so they’ll call someone else and the next thing you know there’s 75 houses booked during hunting season
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It’s good to be king…
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Brock raise your wc prices. Our wc prices went up 50% and we’re overbooked still. It’s the best advice i can give you. Also we stopped doing insides completely. No exceptions. It makes me very happy. And we kept almost all our customers even though i expected to lose a lot of them. And we refer new inside windows inquiries to another wc who refers us gutter cleaning jobs in return. Excellent arrangement for us.
Don’t feel bad raising prices. It just cost me 130$Cad IN FUEL (truck and pw) to do a 700$Cad housewash.
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Why don’t you just drop window cleaning if the exterior cleaning side is booming? Sounds to me like you’re scared of letting go of the window cleaning side because that’s what you’ve been doing for so long. I’m a firm believer of building the top while dissolving the bottom when it comes to services, lower paying jobs take time away from higher paying jobs, it’s that simple.
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Yes but wc is repeat business, on average once or twice a year here compared to pw once every 5 or 10 years maybe. By adjusting our rates we make about the same income with wc than pw now. It can be done! Also many call for wc but if we see it’s needed we offer a housewash also and many get it done together.
Wow, washing here is every six months to a year. I’ve made it 17 years in this house without ever washing the windows though.
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Window cleaner gone pressure washer here.
I started out window cleaning, as an escape from my previous employer (carpet cleaning)
At the time, I didn’t have the funds to get a nice rig and all that, But after 2 years on my own, I was able to save enough for my first rig. Window cleaning grew pretty quickly so for the next 4-5 years I was doing good. Mean while I was building my PW side, it took a solid 3 years to turn it over to more PW’ing vs WC’ing. Til this day, I still window clean, but I only have about 13 clients left. Only the best paying and the friendly ones are the ones left, in short. Only my favorite people. The rest are gone! And I don’t take on new calls.
I can get $200-250 per hour, with out breaking a sweat, can’t do that with windows. On the more negative side, Pressure wash clients don’t call as often, and pressure washing stuff is expensive compared to a squeegee. It pays more but there is also more expenses involved.
After getting a taste of pressure washing money, I just lost total interest in the work, I actually kinda hate it. Watching SH work before your eyes is beautiful! Grab the check and done!
where are you, Arizona? 
I like to diversify in case one facet of the business craps out. I will never quit window cleaning altogether, just need to modify it somehow so I can still offer exceptional service but not become Stretch Armstrong.
That post describes me to a ‘t’. 27 years doing this, I don’t mind certain jobs but some of the more aggravating stuff has been handed over to another company in town with 10% referral fee.
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You have two choices. Expand and deal with employees to take care of the WC side of the biz.
Or
Juice it til it runs dry, Meaning raise prices, be picky with clients, don’t invest in advertising WC’ing. This is the choice I took, Im down to a few clients that I actually enjoy working for and pay real well. I forgot to mention that I also thought about selling my client list , but after reading how low they pay for client lists and phone number, I much rather trow all my invoices and phone into a ball of fire and watch it burn! Worked way too hard for it
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You can’t really modify or shuffle around growth. You either have the manpower and hours in the day or you don’t. You’re probably reaching the upper end of an owner operator in terms of workload, probably not the worst problem to have.
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C
Chris,
Money is a medium of exchange. The real wealth to seek in life is education and experience which I have a lot of at age 81 with four careers under my belt. I am so happy with what I have been responsible for.
I have been fighting Acute Myeloid Leukemia (bone marrow cancer) since January, I’ve gotten a will written, executor selected, health agent selected if I end up in hospice care and am sharing wisdom with many younger people.
So if you take pride in windows and like happy customers…do it. If your greed is so strong to make lots of money, do that. Manage your time, manage your money, manage your workers and find good ways to spread happiness.
Best wishes!
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That’s awesome. Good luck and prayers for recovery
We’ll be praying for you, Sherm. We lost my mother-in-law to cancer this past year and know what a struggle it is. Stay strong!
Sorry to hear. Prayers for strength and grace.
How do you deal with the screens? I usually go inside and grab them but then have to deal with shades and furniture, otherwise, you have to use a ladder which defeats some of the purpose of the wfp.
California can be like that it can take 20 years for a roof to get dirty.
