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Window Washing, Commercial Cleaning, House Cleaning, Apartment Cleaning, Carpet Cleaning, Dry Cleaning, Power Washing, Janitorial Service...
Create the documents and spreadsheets you need to manage your window washing service.
Plan, Start, Operate and Manage Your Very Own Commercial Cleaning Company.
Create the documents and spreadsheets you need to manage your commercial cleaning company.
Create the documents and spreadsheets you need to manage your carpet cleaning service business.
Create the documents and spreadsheets you need to manage your power washing service business.
Create the documents and spreadsheets you need to manage your dry cleaners business.
Create the documents and spreadsheets you need to manage your janitorial service.
Create the documents and spreadsheets you need to manage your apartment cleaning service.
House and apartment cleaning services are gaining in popularity. These are business services that are growing in demand as a result of more and more women seeking jobs outside the home. Their need to supplement the family income creates the opportunity for you to set up a lucrative business.
[Read more…] about How To Start Your Own House and Apartment Cleaning Service
Are you an outdoorsy person? Or do you dream of traveling for months at a time? Or maybe just someone who appreciates long periods of down time. Whatever the reason, starting a window cleaning business may be the answer you’ve been looking for.
While working only 8 months out of the year might seem like a pie in the sky dream, it is in fact more attainable than you probably think. I should know because I’ve done it, as have many other window cleaners from around the world. [Read more…] about Work Only 8 Months Per Year and Play for 4 Months With Your Own Window Cleaning Business
Of all the home businesses out there, window cleaning businesses may be one of the best kept secrets around. Most people think of window cleaning as a low paying, low potential, grunt work job, and therefore they never give it a closer look. But, in reality window cleaning is a highly profitable, low overhead, easy to start and run business.
Let’s take a look at what makes window cleaning such a great business to start: [Read more…] about 6 Reasons To Start Your Own Window Cleaning Business
There are two fairly new, and very important conditions existing in the world today that have not only made the carpet cleaning industry a “billion dollar business,” but also practically guarantee your success as an entrepreneur in this field.
First, almost all homes and office buildings built since 1960 have wall-to-wall carpeting. Secondly, the replacement costs and the cyclical faltering of the national economy have caused people to want to make what they already own last longer, especially in the case of carpeting, which is a sizeable investment.
Most businesses employ janitors or janitorial services to vacuum their carpets after hours daily, and then “master” carpet cleaners to deep-clean them every three months or so. Homemakers also generally vacuum their carpets perhaps several times a week, and then hope to deep-clean every spring or fall, depending on the kind of household traffic, and on their budgets.
It's true that people everywhere try to save money by handling these jobs themselves. However, empathy with the people, and an understanding of this trend, should be neither cause for alarm nor a deterrent to your success in this business.
Most people are just too busy to handle all their do-it-yourself projects. They continually put off until later any chore that requires special equipment. This is especially true with carpet cleaning, because deep down, they're fearful of botching the job. Thus, they're more than willing to pay an expert or a specialist to do this kind of work for them.
It doesn't take any special education, skill or experience to operate a professional-type, deep-cleaning carpet cleaner. Yet, from, your first job onward, you should project the image of a thoroughly experienced expert in your field. And, we're going to show you how you can get started in this business, and make $300 or more per working day, with virtually no investment!
The important part of this business – or any other business – is the owner-operator's “sense of marketing” and salesmanship. Make no mistake about it, all businesses succeed through marketing strategies and salesmanship. You won't be selling a product with this business; you'll be selling a service. And the selling of services is often more difficult than product sales.
Your success in this business will be predicated upon the sales effort put forth. Getting if off the ground will require a great deal of selling expertise on your part. You'll have to sell yourself AND your services.
Therefore, it will be to your benefit to learn all you can about selling. Then, you should continue to add to your knowledge through an ongoing program of learning. Keeping up to date and being aware of successful selling ideas and methods will add to the total success of any business person.
Even before the acquisition of equipment, you need customers. Your prospects are all the businesses and homes with carpets in your area. Your problem is going to be in reaching these prospects, impressing upon them the benefits of your service, and getting them set up with an appointment for you to do the work.
We have found that the least expensive and most productive method of reaching these people is by way of neighborhood “hand-out” flyers or announcements, delivered door-to-door by Brownies or Cub Scouts, or members of other youth organizations. These flyers are advertisements or announcements of a “Carpet Cleaning Special,” printed on 5 1/2 by 8 1/2 sheets of paper that invite the recipients to call you for an appointment.
Study the carpet cleaning service ads in your local newspapers, the yellow pages of your telephone directories, and any similar flyers you may have received or seen. Make a pencil sketch of your own flyer, emphasizing customer benefits and your capabilities of doing the job take your ideas to the advertising class at a local college. Explain your project and ask for volunteer help. In most cases, you'll be favorably impressed with the work, and will only have to pay with a copy of the finished flyer for the student's portfolio, and a recommendation or testimonial about his work for you. Even if there should be a charge for the work you have done at the college, it will be a reasonable one.
Contracting with an advertising agency will probably take longer and will cost a significant amount of money. However, you might be able to contact a staff member who does free-lance work on the side. But you should set a specific date for completion of the project, and agree to pay no more than half the total estimated cost until the job is finished, and meets with your approval.
The next step is to take this original of your flyer to a printer, and have printed whatever number of copies you want to start. Most quick print shops will be able to print up to 20,000 copies, and deliver in a reasonable time, with nominal costs. If you decide to start with more than 20,000 copies, you will do better by going to a regular commercial printer. Larger quantities that would take a quick print shop all day can be handled by a commercial print shop in a few hours.
While your flyers are being printed, you should be lining up your delivery people – local Brownie or Cub Scout Troops. No big problem here. Either look up their local headquarters office in your phone book or call a friend or two with children about the right age and ask for the name and phone number of troop leaders. Arrange to pay these scout troops $10 for each thousand circulars they hand out door-to-door.
One other thing before you start handing out your flyers – be sure that you have someone available to answer the phone and set up appointments for you. It's usually best to have a woman do this; it makes the caller think of your service as an established business. You can pay an answering service to handle these calls for you, but if your wife or a friend is available, that would be even better. It is, however, imperative that a “live voice” answer your phone. People have some strange ideas about answering machines, and most businesses find they do much better not using them.
Your “secretary” should have a set pattern of answering your calls, and an appointment book. Usually, your flyer will advertise a special such as “Your living room carpet deep-cleaned for just $20. Get all the ground-in dirt and unpleasant odors out. A professional job by experienced master carpet cleaners, and we can do it all for you tomorrow. Give us a call; set up a carpet cleaning appointment with us now; and we'll have your home sparkling clean, ready for company in no time at all!” This special offer should take you no more than an hour in the customer's home, meaning that your secretary can book appointments for you at the rate of one every ninety minutes or less, depending on the travel distance between appointments.
By setting your first appointment for 8:30 in the morning, and working thorough the whole day, allowing 30 minutes between appointments, you'll be able to handle seven appointments per day. At $20 per call, you will gross $140 per day. Your secretary should book you solid from 8:30 through 5:30 each day. Naturally, some people may want you to stop by at a certain time that's already booked. In that case, you set them up for their requested time on an open day. You'll also find that as you gain experience, you can cut down considerably the time it takes you to handle each job, as well as your travel time between jobs, enabling you to book more appointments.
Just as soon as you have job appointments lined up, hurry over to your local carpet cleaner distributor, your local rent-all store, or even some super markets and rent a steam-clean carpet cleaner. Most of the time, you won't have to pay until you return it, but even if you do have to pay at the time you take it, the cost is usually $25 or less for twenty-four hours. Read the directions and make sure you know how to operate it. Then load it into your car, van or pickup, and set out for your first appointment.
You should bear in mind that carpet cleaning is a type of service business that takes you into the homes of your customers. Therefore, how you look, dress, and handle yourself – particularly in the presence of your customers – will have a direct bearing on the success of your business.
Be clean, and conduct yourself in a business like manner at all times. Dress neatly. In fact, one of the best ways to get off to a fast start is to purchase a working uniform from Sears, Ward's or Penney's. Drop by a “pennant shop” and have them make up a special oval name tag which can be sewn over the left breast pocket. At the same time, have them make up a large oval with the name of your business and your phone number to sew on the back of the uniform. When you hire people to help you with the work, outfit them similarly.
Go out of your way to be polite and friendly with your customers, but refrain from being fresh. Avoid getting involved in extended conversations – if you are to keep on schedule, you won't have time for a lot of talk.
Keep your equipment clean, properly maintained, and operating smoothly. Have your supplies organized and within easy reach. Don't allow yourself to be caught in a position where you have to make excuses because the equipment won't function properly, you can't find what you need, or you suddenly find yourself out of certain supplies.
When working these advertising specials, just concentrate on doing the job and moving on to your next customer. If the customer questions you about the cost to do the other rooms, give an estimate and set up a tentative appointment, which you should later confirm with a call-back after checking your schedule. Don't try to sell your complete carpet cleaning services on this first call, but do be sure to leave a business card with the name of your company and your phone number.
Your service is the “deep-down shampoo cleaning” of carpeting in your customers' homes or places of business. Always strive to use the best equipment that's available. Later on – possibly in a month or six weeks – you'll want to buy or lease your own equipment. Your business will grow and flourish as a result of your doing a good and complete job every time. It may take you a few minutes longer – especially when you are learning the equipment and establishing a procedure – but in the end this will pay off with satisfied customers; and a group of satisfied customers is the key to your becoming wealthy in this business.
You want your customers to call you again and again to clean their carpets. Being pleased with your work, they'll spread the word about your service for you, free of charge! And this, of course, will generate an almost unlimited amount of ongoing work for your new business.
The average price to the customer to have a 12 by 18 foot wall-to-wall carpet “shampoo cleaned” is about $50. Your materials to do that size job will cost about $5.
The typical job involves more than just one room, and the average period of time spent on the typical job is about two hours, with an average billing to the customer of $75 – materials for each $75 job cost you about $10 all of which means that with just five appointments per day, five days per week, your gross income before expenses will be approaching $2,000 per week.
Most people who set up carpet cleaning businesses manage to gross $50,000 or more the first year. We've described to you how to get started with virtually no real investment. However, we do advise you to either purchase or lease your own carpet cleaning equipment just as soon as you can possibly afford it.
Several equipment manufacturers have financing plans available. It would be well to check out several of these plans before purchasing your equipment. Even better than the financing plans offered, some of the manufacturers have business start-up programs to help you along the way. They will provide you with a complete carpet cleaning business plan, numerous advertising materials, a regular newsletter featuring business ideas from all the buyers of their equipment, and low cost supplies.
Before actually starting work in your carpet cleaning business, you should register your business or company name with your county clerk. The cost for this is nominal, and you will receive a registration certificate or card, which you will need to open a bank account in your company name. You should also talk to a few business insurance agents to get complete business insurance against damage to any of your customers' carpets or accidents in their homes. Being able to state “All work fully in sured,” will greatly add to your business image.
Think seriously about buying or leasing a van for your service calls. A uniform with the name of your company emblazoned on the back, plus a late model van with your company name neatly painted on the side will do just about as much to build your image and your business as a full page advertisement in the Sunday paper.
On the subject of advertising, so long as you don't erect a sign on your front lawn or your roof, proclaiming for all the world to see the fact that you're operating a carpet cleaning business, you won't have any problems operating your business from your home. Sooner or later though, you'll have to buy a City or county business license. So, the sooner you do this and are approved by the licensing agency in your area, the better you're going to feel and the more confidence you'll exude in all your business dealings.
Definitely plan to run a quarter page ad in your local business and telephone directories. You'll really be surprised at the number of calls you get from these ads. At least in the beginning, you should run a regular ad in your newspaper. This should be a display ad, at least 2 columns wide by 4 inches deep, and should appear in your Wednesday and Thursday papers. As you become established, it won't be necessary to run more than an ad every other week in your Wednesday papers and before the holidays such as Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas, when people always want to spruce up their residences.
Radio or television advertising really doesn't pull that well for this kind of business when you compare the costs to the number of jobs you get from it. I would suggest that you contact these media and try for a trade or barter agreement. You clean their carpets on a regular basis, and they allow you to store up advertising credit to use in the spring and fall when people are really serious about spring cleaning, and and Christmas preparations.
It's also recommended that you register as a “probationary member” of your Chamber of Commerce. This will add prestige to your business, and enable you to associate on equal terms with the various other business leaders in your community. Joining and attending civic club meetings, participating in their causes and events, will also result in long-range business income for you.
Something else to keep in mind: Get the word about your being in business out to the people in your area. Get the Chamber of Commerce to mention you in their newsletter; send “blurbs” about your business and service to all your area newspapers, TV and radio stations; arrange to put on an all-day demonstration of your work on the carpeting in the covered mall areas in your city's shopping centers, and hand out brochures to all the people watching; rent a booth and hand out brochures at all the home building, remodeling, and home improvement shows. Do the same thing at your county fair, and hold seminars on the care of fine carpets. The ideas for free publicity and promotion are limitless, so use your imagination and -push” to get your name in the paper and on radio and TV as often as possible.
There's always going to be competition. Some of it will be good for you, and some of it will be bad for you. Accept it as a part of life. Just keep in mind that you're in business because you feel you can do a better job; you can do it more efficiently; and you can do it with greater satisfaction to your customers than anyone else. Be aware of the competition, but don't worry about it. Just stick to your own business plan, and you'll be okay.
Depending on the population of your area, you should be planning for additional carpet cleaning machines and the hiring of people to do the work for you within three to six months – that is, unless your original motive for a business of your own was to see how fast you could work yourself to death. Assuming that all goes well with you, within a couple of years you should have “hired help” running the business while you enjoy the fruits of all the hard work you put in at the outset.
I personally don't see the need for you to even consider buying a franchised operation. There's just too much real help available for the “independent” to go to the considerable expense and obligation of a franchise. Starting from scratch, and as an independent, this is most assuredly a low-investment, low-overhead type business – the kind we recommend for anyone and everyone who's determined to make it on his own.
A carpet cleaning business of your own is one of the easiest of all small businesses to start. You'll find the initial start-up costs well within your reach, and the margin of profit most astounding! It's an easy business to operate, and yet one that can be called necessary to today's standard of living. It carries a very high rating on all business evaluation stability charts, and it's a business that will grow rapidly to bring you the monetary rewards you desire.
Money makes the world go round. Whether we like to admit it or not, we live in a capitalistic society those little slips of greenish paper have the ability to rule our lives. It affects where we live, what we eat, what we wear, what we drive, and what we do.
Therefore it is no wonder that people all across the world are starting their own small part time businesses to help make ends meet and enjoy a more comfortable lifestyle.
It is also no wonder that many people are turning to window cleaning business for their additional part time income.
Why?
Because a window cleaning business meets the majority of the criteria people consider when looking starting a part time business.
A window cleaning business is: [Read more…] about Earn $150 to $250 a Day With Your Own Part Time Window Cleaning Business
Here's a business that, almost more than any other with equal potential for real wealth, meets the most stringent requirements of just about any skeptic. In fact, there's so much in favor of the “little guy” with this business, it's a real mystery why more people don't choose this one as the vehicle for their ultimate independence and financial security.
This is a business that can make you rich very quickly… It's a kind of service business that can very profitably be operated by one person – male or female… The basic knowledge needed for success is simple and easy to learn… Very little monetary investment is needed for equipment – usually less than $100… There are virtually no storage space requirements… You can operate out of your home for virtually as long as you like, and yet, there's a real demand for this type of business everywhere…
The success potential for window washing services is present in the smallest of towns as well as the largest metropolitan areas. Your risks will be minimal, while your rewards can far surpass even your wildest dreams. Generally, a one man operation in a city of 50,000 can expect to gross $4,000 or more per month after just 90 days. Operating expenses for one person operations grossing this amount should be less than $1,000 per month.
Ideally, your plan should be to solicit new accounts, do the work yourself and establish a regular customer route. Once you've established such a service route, and you're beginning to realize a good profit, you should hire part-time help to do the work while you solicit new accounts and establish more regular customer routes.
You should concentrate on providing regular window washing services for all the one and two story office buildings and storefronts in your area, start with those closest to your home and expand your efforts outward. Choose a busy thoroughfare leading into your city's downtown area. Select the one closest to your home and begin calling on business owners and store managers all along this street into the downtown area.
Usually, you won't have to do much more than introduce yourself, briefly explain your services, and leave your business card. We did this regularly on a once-a-week basis, and after 6 weeks, we had enough business to keep one man busy – 6 hours a day, 5 days a week.
Until you become well-established, don't even bother soliciting work on windows higher than the second story. However, it's best to call on every business, one after the other as you make your way to the downtown area. Later on, you can call upon churches, private schools, businesses located on side streets branching off the main thoroughfares, and even homes if you'd like to try that market. Generally though, you'll find the residential market too time-consuming to make your efforts really profitable, plus the fact that you simply won't be able to charge enough to make it worthwhile in comparison to your commercial customers. Apartment houses and condominiums are quite a different story however, particularly when you can land several customers in the same building.
As mentioned earlier, you can headquarter in and operate completely out of your home. You can store your cleaning equipment and supplies in a corner of your garage. Your bookkeeping and other paperwork can be taken care of at your kitchen table, with whatever office supplies you need, easily stored in a dresser drawer.
Speaking of office supplies, you should have a supply of business cards – and an adequate supply of billing statements with your business name and address, plus mailing envelopes and return reply envelopes. You can get away with rubber-stamping your
business name and address on your statements and envelopes, but your business will grow faster – you'll probably also save time and money as well – by going with printed supplies from the beginning.
There are no “real reasons” not to list your home address as your business address, but listing a post office box number -if you prefer – will not really harm your image. The important thing is personal contact – someone from your company regularly calling upon your prospective customers.
Talk with them. Listen to them. Get to know them. Find out who's currently doing their windows for them, if they have any complaints and how you can offer them a better deal. When you've actually investigated the service they're already contracted for,
and you're certain you can offer them a better deal, put your ideas into the form of a written proposal and give it to them. Don't be afraid to submit a proposal for a better deal, but remember when you do, your proposal should offer more than just a price break. Under-cutting a competitor's price usually means less profit for you, and an overall deterioration of your reputation. It may temporarily result in more work for you, but you're in business to attain wealth – not work yourself into an early grave.
If your spouse is home during the day, she can answer the phone for you and generally set up appointments for you, while you're out making sales calls. She can also type out your monthly statements, see that they're sent out on time, and pretty much handle your bookkeeping for you. Should it not be feasible, or for some reason, inconvenient for your wife to handle your incoming calls for you, look around until you find a good, dependable Telephone Answering Service. Many of these telephone answering services also handle typing jobs as well, so if you're lacking someone to handle these chores for you, chances are you can find all the services you need without too much of a search.
It's important with this type of business that you have a “live” voice answering your calls. Selecting the right people to handle your calls, and spending the extra time necessary to train them according to your desires – even paying a little more to have things done the way you want them done – is almost always well worth the time and added expense. Remember, this is a service business with your growth dependent upon the personal contact you and your representatives have with prospective clients. Work on it, develop it, and cultivate your personal contact transactions.
As the size of your company increases and you hire crews of people to handle work assignments, you can usually get your answering service to take on the added duties of job assignment notification or dispatcher. All of this simply points up the possibilities of operating your business out of your home indefinitely, should you choose to do so.
If somewhere along the line you decide to set up an office in a location other than your home, you might want to make an offer or otherwise induce one or two of the people from your telephone answering service. Regardless of how large your work force becomes, it's always best if you supply the window washing equipment and supplies.
Employees should be allowed to take the equipment home with them, and required to use their own vehicles for transportation to each job site. By all means, spend the extra money to supply your workers with uniforms. Matching shirt and trousers with a big patch on the back of the shirts, listing your company name and phone number, is not only impressive in projecting a professional image, it is also one of your cheapest and best advertising methods.
Once you have hired people to do the actual window washing for you, get a couple of magnetic signs showing your company name and telephone number. Be sure to “wear” these signs on your car as you make your sales calls and spot check on the progress of your work crews. Later on, you can get similar signs for your crew chiefs. If you should opt for company-owned vehicles, you'll find vans to be the most convenient and serve your needs the most efficiently. Be sure to have your company name, phone number and logo printed on each side of these vehicles – and allow your crew chiefs to drive them home at night – all of which benefits you with practically free advertising.
The kind of equipment you'll need to professionally wash windows is relatively simple… A 12 or 18 inch window brush, aluminum telescopic brush handle… 6 inch, 10 inch and 18 inch squeegees with replacement rubber blades… A couple of plastic or galvanized water pails, one 2 gallon and the other 5 gallon' And an 8 – foot step ladder, plus maybe a 6 foot straight ladder.
Your start-up supplies should include 5 gallons of liquid soap… a good supply of clean rags, towels and chamois… And a sharp razor blade scraper…
This entire list of equipment and supplies should total no more than $250 in cost. You will need to add to your equipment only as your business grows and you have the need to hire more personnel.
Some professional window washers are proclaiming an alternative or “better method” than with the use of window brushes and squeegees. They're advocating the use of “strip washers.” These are 3/4 inch pieces of aluminum pipe covered with a nylon
sleeve that fits the pipe. These are similar in appearance to the handy do-it-yourself paint rollers, and are used in much the same manner. These strip washers reportedly work very well on all but the dirtiest of windows.
Another alternative is an extension pole and brush device. Water is pumped through the handle and out the brush in a rinse-wash-rinse cycle. Most professionals claim this device is ideal for second story windows, but for best quality workmanship, they still prefer the basic brush and squeegee approach.
Still another alternative is a hose-water-fed brush that utilizes de-ionized water where ladders aren't feasible. Deionized water is a kind of water from which all minerals and foreign elements have been removed. Using this kind of water assures the window washer an easier and faster job with no worries about streaking or water drops.
Your prices should range between $20 and $25 per hour. Pay for hired help should start at $5 per hour. It's important that you do some homework on the various glass treatments in vogue these days. Many of these coatings or coverings require special treatment such as the use of soft towels instead of brushes that might scratch the surface of the window coating.
The professional technique for washing windows cleanly and in the least amount of time is as follows: A few drops of cleaning solution in your bucket of water. Remember, too many soap suds are detrimental to quality work. Wet your brush from the bucket and then scrub the window. Take your squeegee and make one wiping pass across the top of the window. Be sure to keep the end of the squeegee pressed firmly against the molding or top sill of the window frame. Wipe the squeegee, and then do the same thing down each side of the window. From this point on, it's just a matter of wiping the window clean with one continuous stroke. You do this by arching and looping your wiping strokes across the window pane, back and forth, never stopping or lifting the squeegee blade from the glass. With this method, you can wipe even the largest window clean in just a matter of seconds. Practice at home on your own windows and those of your neighbors. You will quickly develop a knack for this method and wonder why you never discovered it before, when you've finished with the squeegee, take a chamois and carefully “blot-wipe” any excess water that may not have been picked up along the sides and bottom of the window frame. In reality, that's all there is to it.
You'll find the spring and summer months to be your busiest, but because of the increasing popularity of painting holiday scenes and special sale announcements on business windows, be alert for year round opportunities along these lines as well. Keep plugging away and offering your services to businesses throughout your area, particularly along those busy thoroughfares where moving traffic contributes to the build-up of dirt & grime on windows.
When you're ready to hire helpers or people to do the work for you, a simple ad in your local newspaper's “Help Wanted” column should bring you more applicants than you will ever use. After you have hired the one or the ones you want, keep a record of the ones you liked but did not hire, and check with them when you want to add onto your crew of workers again.
Bulletin Board notices will also bring in a surprising number of applicants. Another good idea is to spread the word that you're looking for part-time help, amongst your local firemen, policemen and teachers. Depending on your are's pay scales, you can also do pretty well by contacting the temporary help services in your area.
About the only regular advertising you'll need to do is a medium to large display ad in the yellow pages. This is a must because once you're established, you'll find at least 50% of your business coming from having seen your ad in the yellow pages. An “insider's” trick to advertising in the yellow pages – Try to name your business with the very first letter of your business name beginning with A-B or X-Y-Z. Statistics and surveys tend to prove that when people look for a service in the yellow pages, they invariably pick from either the top or the bottom of the alphabet.
Aside from the yellow pages, your next best advertising will be the “reminder” kind, such as note pads with your company name imprinted on them, special calendars or holders, special date or appointment books, and/or sports caps with your company name/emblem on them. However, as this kind of advertising is quite expensive, it's good to keep it in mind, but best to hold off on it until you can well afford it.
Any radio, television, newspaper and/or direct mail advertising efforts will cost you much more than any business you receive from it, so don't even consider this type of advertising. However, do think about, and submit “press release” material to these media as often as you can, because any publicity coverage they give you will surely be well worthwhile.
Telephone soliciting for business works very well, but you should have a list of businesses and their telephone numbers, plotted out according to new routes you are trying to build. Time spent travelling between jobs will cost you money, just as time spent looking up telephone numbers along a certain planned route will seemingly take forever. If and when you do decide to drum up new business by phone, you'll have much greater success if you can offer some sort of promotional gimmick to get them to try your service.
We had great success one time by offering to do the windows for free if they'd let us put a sign in the window – These windows cleaned by AAA Window Cleaning Service – 666-5824… Another time, we did the windows for half price as an introductory offer… And still another time, we joined with our telephone answering service – on a combined promotion… half price on three months of telephone answering service just for trying our
window washing service… The ideas, gimmicks and promotions you can use are limited only by your imagination.
Later on, we hire some good-looking college girls – on a commission basis – to call on businesses along the new routes we were trying to develop. They just introduced themselves as representatives of our firm, explained our services and offered a half price introductory service. They ended up selling better than 60% of the businesses they called upon.
During one summer, we even tried a crew of these young ladies as window washers – they weren't the best. We dressed them in snappy red & white suspender-type short-shorts and drew quite a crowd on each job. It was good advertising for us – we got free newspaper and television coverage, and an untold number of new business leads – but the glamour of the whole thing grew old very quickly. But it was a gimmick that brought in new business, caused a lot of people to recognize that we were in the window cleaning business, and made our selling job easier.
Truly, this is an easy business to start… and with just a little bit of imagination on your part, as well as persistence and quality work man ship, you can easily become as financially secure as you want. All it takes is action on your part, so reach for it and may you always enjoy the fruits of a bountiful success.
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