Point Your Window Washing Business Towards Success and Profits
by Taking Massive Action!
Some folks may interpret this article as containing only a
motivational message for your window washing business, but
no...this article is a call for action. And a lot of it. Also
defined as "Massive action".
I'm a firm believer that a person's ultimate success in business
depends on what happens in the first 30 days of his or her
business. Just like a house, every business needs a strong
foundation to build on. And by hustling the first 30 days of
your window washing business, that foundation can be put in
place because:
1) Your belief in the window washing business will strengthen
(seeing is believing right?) 2) Seeing strong activity early in
your business creates continued motivation and excitement. 3)
Positive intense action will translate into more customers and
more dollars which of course leads us back to one and two.
On the other side of the coin, if you plod along slowly doing a
little something here and a little something there, the opposite
occurs where you may lose the initial interest or excitement you
felt when first getting into this wonderful business. I've seen
it happen...and I don't want it to happen to you!
If you've been in the window washing business a few years or a
few months, and the first 30 days of your business has passed
you by, it's not too late. Just pretend that the 30 days starts
today. Right now!
The kind of action I'm talking about doesn't consist of sitting
in front of the computer reinventing "stuff", pushing papers
around, talking to a few people about the business, or
distributing a few flyers around town.
I'm talking serious, petal to the metal, take the bull by the
horns, and preach the window washing gospel prospecting for 30
days that'll provide an immediate boost to your business.
Now this doesn't mean at the end of 30 days we can all retire to
our sofa and crack open a beer and watch our prospects and
customers beat a path to our door. We still have to continue to
market, work the referrals, etc, but what this 30 day period
does though is crank up the fire fast and make people take
notice. Once it's hot, then all you have to do is fan the flame.
Let me put this into prospective for you by talking about the
importance of "seeing the numbers" or "playing the numbers
game", and how it relates directly to the number of window
washing jobs you get or don't get.
A quick definition...when I'm talking numbers, I'm referring to
the people/prospects you market your window washing business to.
Business, marketing, and sales is all about numbers. See enough
numbers and your business thrives. Don't see enough numbers and
your business suffers. Elementary stuff for sure, but now we're
going to apply it in the real world.
But first, let me emphasize that it takes a certain kind of
person to pay for a professional to wash their windows so you
have to see more "numbers" than let's say a carpet cleaning
business or maybe a landscaper would. In other words, not
everyone is our prospect, so we need to see a lot of
numbers/prospects.
And here's how we do that...
Let's use the marketing technique of flyers because it's
probably the lowest cost form of marketing available.
If you put out 300 flyers a day 4 days a week every week for 4
weeks, that is 4,800 flyers. Using the average of a 1% return,
48 people will contact you. Out of those 48 people, let's stay
really, really, really conservative and say only 40% of those 48
prospects end up turning into customers. That's 19 jobs you just
captured in 30 days!
Now I know there are people out there right now saying "I can't
possibly do that. I work full-time" or "I just simply don't have
the time to do those kind of numbers."
My answer to that is to have someone do it for you.
It'll be the best investment you would ever make. Think about it
for a second. You invest $50 to $75 bucks a week in flyer
distribution for 4 weeks and get 19 jobs. Again remaining
conservative, let's use a low average per residential window
washing job of $150 per house. That's $2,850 for a $300
investment!
Um...not to bad, wouldn't you say? Try and get that from the
stock market.
And I'd like to stress once again that I'm remaining
conservative. Frankly, if you can only turn 40% of your
prospects into customers, then you're doing something wrong. You
should be able to convert at least 70% to 80%. Especially if you
use the estimate package I provide in my window washing system.
It does the selling for you.
I'm also not even talking about the number of referrals you're
going to receive from the above 19 customers you just acquired,
PLUS the fact that you'll be going back in 6 months to a year
for a repeat performance.
If there's no way, no how, you can invest any money or spend 4
days a week distributing 300 flyers a day, then how about 200
flyers every day 3 days a week every week for 4 weeks? Using the
same conservative numbers above, you'll have 2,400 flyers turn
into 24 interested people turning into 10 window washing jobs.
THEN take some money you have just made from these jobs and pay
someone to assist in flyer distribution so you can boost your
numbers.
This works! How do I know? Because that's exactly what I did.
When I was in the insurance industry and made the transition
from health insurance sales to AFLAC (yeah...I know. The AFLAC
duck), I bought a mailing list of business names/addresses and
must have visited every single business in my town in the first
30 days.
After awhile, the sales manager was asking me to make
presentations to the sales force to explain why I was able so
sell so much insurance. I think everyone in the audience
expected some sort of magic bullet or "secret".
No...just a non-stop, whirlwind of activity the first 30 days.
And once I hopped on board the window washing freight train,
this whirlwind consisted of not flyers, but mailing out lots and
lots of postcards. A constant barrage of postcards the first 30
days created an incredible foundation to build on.
Use whatever marketing method appeals to you (and what your
finances dictate), but take strong action "early and often".
I don't care how you slice and dice it, but IF you work the
numbers, the numbers WILL work for you...each and every single
time.
But the numbers will not work in your favor if you see "few
numbers". If you distribute 100 flyers one day every 3rd week,
it won't work. Not enough numbers. Sure...it would work if
you're in the pizza business distributing pizza coupons, but
we're talking about the window washing business. You may receive
a customer or two, but this whole article today is dealing with
massive action by seeing serious numbers, not getting one or two
customers.
So...are you working on your foundation?
Pick a date to really commit to your "massive action" campaign.
Work it hard for 30 days.
Whatever day you pick, reread this article the night before you
launch. I can promise you this...come 30 days later (assuming
you religiously hit it hard during your 30 day massive action
campaign), when the dust has settled and the smoke has cleared,
you will be well on your way to a successful window cleaning
business with more customers, more jobs, and more income.
As a side note, 30 days is my general rule of thumb because that
has worked for me, but pick whatever time period works for you.
You might be even more ambitious. Heck, just imagine what kind
of business you can create with a strong 60 or 90 days of
non-stop, aggressive, push-push activity.
I realize that some folks are only interested in doing one house
a week to supplement their retirement income or maybe they love
their employer so they're staying there and using the window
washing biz more as a side business.
This article is geared towards the window washer who wants to
build a substantial window washing business. And my research has
shown that that's the majority of window washers out there.
I want this to be the best year you've ever had so give me a
call anytime, anywhere, and anyhow. Let me know how I can help.
My phone lines are always open. 'Til next time...happy marketing
and don't forget to think "massive action"! :o)
Best Wishes,
Steve 256-546-2446