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 person who wants to build a substantial window washing business. And my research has shown that that's the majority of you 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)
Regards,
Steve
256-546-2446
Steve Wright is the highly acclaimed author of How to Start Your Own Residential Window Washing Business. and is responsible for starting hundreds of individuals on the path to financial freedom by owning their own window washing business. Mr Wright has also developed a revolutionary online web-based system called The Customer Factor to assist all window washing business owners in maintaining and growing a successful business. Using both of these resources provides the one-two punch needed to catapult anyone from zero to six figures per year in the window washing business. For more information, give Mr. Wright a call at 256-546-2446 or visit either of the websites posted.