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Work Only 8 Months Per Year and Play for 4 Months With Your Own Window Cleaning Business

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.

In most parts of the world, the window cleaning markets boom for a little over half the year and then slow down through the winter months before picking up again in the spring. Therefore by operating a window cleaning business you have roughly 8 months (or more in some places) to rake in the money with steady window cleaning jobs.

But can I really make enough money in 8 months to live on for the full year?

The answer is a resounding YES! Of course, knowing how to live within your means is required. Let’s look at some basic numbers to explain how it is possible to only work for 8 months out of the year.

Most people in the US could live quite comfortably on $50,000 a year, in fact a large percentage of the population would kill to earn this much in 12 months, much less 8. So we will use $50,000 as our required income for the example.

Nobody wants to work 24/7 at any job, no matter how much you love it. Most good paying jobs require you to work 5 or 6 days a week, so we will use these numbers in our example.

Full-time solo window cleaners typically earn between $300 and $400 a day. Sometimes they may earn as much as $500 per day working by themselves. Simply by hiring a laborer to work with you can jump your daily income by 80% or more.

Now that we’ve got all of our criteria nailed down, let’s see how it all breaks down in our 8 month time frame:

– Working 6 days a week for 8 months, means you would be working a total of 192 days per year. And with our required income of $50,000, that means that you would need to earn an average of $260.41 per day.

– Working only 5 days a week for 8 months, means you would be working a total of 160 days per year. And with our required income of $50,000, that means that you would need to earn an average of $312.50 per day.

Looking at the above examples, the goal of working only 8 months out of 12 is looking more tangible by the minute and considering that the average residential window cleaning job is around $200, earning $50,000 in eight months could easily become a reality.

How A Window Cleaning Business Survives During The Winter

In some parts of the country window cleaners are able to clean commercial and residential windows year round regardless of what month it is, because the seasons in their part of the country are much milder and more constant.

Well that’s great for them, but what about the rest of us? Is the sentiment I hear expressed most often in regards to this topic. But I have good news for you. Just because its winter time doesn’t mean that your income has to die, it just means that you have to adapt and expand on the services you offer.

Before I get into describing some of the various ways a window cleaner can make money during the winter, let me remind you that while the residential market may die down during the winter months, the commercial market still continues to provide stable income. Why? Because commercial businesses need to maintain clean storefronts and office spaces in order to make them inviting for customers. This means that they need your window cleaning services as much if not more during the winter than they do in the summer.

Now on to some different ways you can keep your window cleaning business in profit during the slow winter months. I will share with you several services you can offer, but please don’t let yourself be limited to only these services. Think outside the box and think about what your customers need during the winter months besides window cleaning.

Christmas Light Installation

One of the most profitable services you can offer your existing and potential customers in the winter time is a Christmas light installation service. In this case your customers would pay you to hang up there holiday lights and then come back at the end of the season and take them down. This can be extremely profitable if done right as you charge the customer upfront for both the installation and the removal. This can lead to a nice chunk of change in your hand right before Christmas time. Christmas Light Installation has become such a large part of my winter income that I started another company that only deals with holiday and special events lighting.

Gutter Cleaning

This can be a year round service, but is much more profitable during the fall, and winter months. Gutter cleaning is essentially just using your ladders to reach the gutters of customers homes and then cleaning out all the debris. This is an essential service for many homeowners who live in areas with lots of deciduous vegetation, as leaves, dirt, twigs and other debris can very quickly clog up a homes gutter system. Not only is this debris unsightly, but it also causes a fire hazard as well as prevents the gutters from doing their primary job of shedding water away from the house. Water damage is a very expensive repair and many homeowners are more than happy to pay you to clean out their gutters once or twice a year.

Pressure Washing

This is another service that can be offered year round, but can also be very lucrative in the winter months. Water mixed with dust and dirt makes mud and mud gets everywhere in the wintertime. Especially in areas where the city transportation department spreads dirt over the roads to prevent people from sliding on the ice; that dirt has to go somewhere and a large percentage of it winds up in parking lots and against commercial businesses. These businesses become very excited when you offer a pressure washing service to clean up their sidewalks and walkways.

The services outline above are just but a fraction of the services a window cleaning business can offer its customers during the winter months. This article is not meant to be exhaustive, but rather to help get you thinking about what you can offer your customers to make additional money in the slow season.

Sales Training and Prospecting Tips to Increase Sales With Actions I Learned From My Window Fitter

Sales training and prospecting tips from the unbelievable sites I witnessed while watching window fitters working on my house. I recently had new windows fitted and while watching what happened I saw some fantastic sales prospecting techniques that just naturally happened because of how prospects think and act. Forget classroom sales prospecting skills you learn on courses, I saw a steady flow of sales prospects that would fill any sales person’s diary and make their target for the month. I’m now adapting these techniques with my working sales teams and you can fill your diary or grow your small business sales by doing the same.

The front of my house is on a busy lane that leads to the local shops and throughout the day many people passed by and saw the two guys installing my new windows. I saw people slowing down and stopping to look towards the house and the work being done. Some took the contact details from the side of the window fitter’s truck, and many others stopped to ask the guys questions about windows and for prices for repairs or renewals. I have to admit I cringed as I listened to the window guys responding to these passing sales prospects. They were excellent window fitters but not salesmen.

What I learned was the marketing power this situation created. This was far more effective than expensive T.V. or newspaper advertising. It triggered a reaction from anyone passing that had the slightest need for the guy’s services. This was a sales person’s dream, prospects queuing up to talk to someone. It got to the point where it was stopping the guys from working and they didn’t have the time to deal with all these people. What a waste of sales opportunities, I bet there are home improvement direct sales people that work all month to get that many prospects, more on that later.

There are several reasons why these prospects stopped and talked to the working window fitters, and within these reasons we can find valuable sales training and prospecting ideas.

The main reason people felt comfortable was that someone else has taken the first action and decided these professionals were the ones to contact and employ. So the prospects follow some one else’s first action.

Another reason is that these were working tradesmen not salesmen. When a windows salesman knocks on your door they are doing it for their benefit. When you stop a working guy in the street you are doing it for your benefit. Imagine what a sales person could have done with all those leads.

Buyers will always take the easiest actions. Which is easiest, searching through adverts, directories, and the internet and having to make a decision on which company to contact. Then speaking to someone on a sales line and waiting to be ambushed into agreeing to a sales appointment or even a sale. Or, stopping for a casual chat with a working guy that you can see actually knows what he’s talking about? If you wanted information and advice about having new windows fitted who would you talk to. A guy in overalls that fits windows everyday or a smart suited salesperson that knows more about the credit agreement than the windows? So what sales training lessons can we learn from the actions of the passing sales prospects and my window fitters? Without knowing your line of business it’s difficult to give precise sales tips. But consider the following ideas and think how you could adapt them for your sales role.

If you were a sales person for the company my window fitters worked for how about getting your hands dirty and spending some time with the guys fitting the windows. Put on some overalls and talk to all the passing prospects that want information. From what I saw outside my home I guarantee you will fill your sales diary.

Small business sales can be boosted by making all your front line people sales motivated. Put a reward scheme in place and supply every one of your staff with sales and information literature. Give them a prospect pad to take details of any potential sales opportunities, and reward them for every sale that they generate.

Sales people are perceived as doing their job and contacting people for their own benefit. Working people in non sales roles are viewed as being able to offer information that will benefit the buyer. If you’re a sales person how do your prospects perceive you? What can you do to be seen as someone that can benefit the buyer, and how will you get a queue of prospects wanting to talk to you.