So I’m fairly new to this business. 4 months ago I basically just bought a window cleaning setup, and started my business 24 hours later.
I’m at about 250 customers right now, and I think I’ve made a lot of progress.
But I wouldn’t call myself the regular window cleaner. I love the “business” part of the business more, than the cleaning part of it.
I’ve always been good at managing, and I’ve had a couple small business before (They failed though!)
But lately I’ve been thinking of the idea, of just buying another window cleaners business, so I can grow even faster. And I know I’m only 20 years old, but I’ve really made an effort in systems, so everything is as automated as possible.
So can any of you give me some advice, of buying another business? (Smaller businesses, with about 100-1.000 customers).
The reason I’ve been having this idea, is because I’m probably the most impatient person in the world, and moving forward can’t go quick enough.
Sorry for the long text, and sorry for my rubbish english (I’m from Denmark)
Why did the other business fail? What are you doing to not repeat that? Why did you pick window cleaning if you admittedly don’t like window cleaning? Why isn’t 250 customers enough for you? That sounds like a lot for 4 months in, and it seems like they can all refer you other business too if you simply ask. I may be wrong but it feels like you want to be an overnight “success”, and that’s just not how things normally work.
Are the 250 existing customers commercial or residential?
What type of business are you wanting to purchase? Commercial clients or residential clients?
Do you have the capacity to take on more work? Employees, CRM, vehicles, equipment ect.
Do you have the capital to purchase another buisness?
Why not just repeat what you did to acquire the 250 customers that you have now?
If you gain 200 customers every 4 months on your own that’s 600 a year. Surely you can perfect whatever type of marketing that you are doing and increase this number. Plus this would give you a you a little more time to grow with the buisness too. Purchasing other routes and customer lists can be very tricky. Fresh out the gate with little service buisness experience might be a little difficult.
Give it 6 months to a year. See how much you can grow the company yourself then come back to purchasing another buisness.
But dont let me or anybody else tell you it cant be done. Maybe you buy up companies around you and become huge in the next year. Maybe your back end of things is incredibly solid and 100% on point and you’re ready to do this. This is going on my 12th year. I’m just now really looking at buying routes and other companies. But I was a slow learner
Ok, to be honest, it just sounds like you’re trying to move to fast. But the comment above by @Luke pretty much covers all that I was thinking and then some.
I only have 2 storefronts, and the rest is residential. And the route I was looking to purchase, is a residential route.
My main issue is the employee situation. The employee is obviously the front figure of the company, and it would tear me apart, if the he/she did a bad job. (Even though I’m far from experienced, but I do like the customer service side of the business.)
The vehicle/equipment situation is not a problem, as I can get that quite quickly.
I think my main concern, is that I’m missing out, if I don’t grow quicker.
I’m certain that I could handle all the management side of the business, as I spent a lot of time on CRM, and that seems to be rolling quite good right now.
But I do believe that you are right, I should probably wait at least 6 months, so I have a better overview of the whole situation.
In my opinion, yes, wait a while, get used to managing what you have and build your hands on experience. There is great potential ahead if you play things right.
Thanks for all the help and great responses.
I’ll wait 6 months, and take a look at it again. It is probably best to get proper experience, before throwing myself in a situation like this.
I can straight up tell you, feeling confident that I can relate to your situation, give up on finding that “front face of the company” employee right now. If you don’t like window cleaning, sell the business and wipe your hands of it now.
If you have someone good enough to be you and doing the work, that person is going to save up, buy their own gear, and they’ll be your competition in a year. Why waste your time training and grooming someone like that?
You want a window cleaning company? Better like window cleaning. If you have big, commercial contracts, or at least massive connections in the commercial and property management world then great. You can hire a few losers who will work for peanuts and they’ll do the work you need done more or less to the bar you set. If you want to be fast, friendly, professional, reliable then get used to doing all the work yourself and hire a helper on occasion. That’s the optimal window cleaning business. If you don’t like that reality then you’re in the wrong trade. IMHO.
I feel, looking back on this post, that I might have been a little bitter at the time of writing it. There are people out there who will gladly be your lead hand - often times they’re people who have tried to do their own thing for a while but found the operations side unappealing or just too much work. Those people exist who just want to go to work every day and make a guaranteed dollar by the end of the day. It just takes a really long time to find that person.
You are the front face of the company !
If u are good people will only want you to do the jobs !
And to find a good windowcleaner to trust and doing a good job is not easy.
And i think there is alot more to learn. I think 4months might be to soon…
Can you please tell me how you got so many customers? Do you work every day or only some days a week? I want to find a way to work only on Sunday and sometimes Wednesday because I have college and school I have to spend a lot of time on. I was thinking of finding a single person window cleaning business, and maybe, just maybe they will let me work on chosen days. That’s better for me than working alone because I cant spend a lot of time searching for customers, appointments and etc. But if I work for someone, they just give me addresses so I can just go and wash windows without doing anything else. By the way, do you mind telling me what state do you work in? If it’s Maryland maybe we can work together.
Its been a lot of hard work man. Hitting the pavement and knocking on doors. A good website dosent hurt either.
There are definitely pros and cons to both of those options. Id say just do it yourself. You’ll have to set aside days or hours just for acquiring new clients. Its one of the hardest things in the beginning.
Hit the pavement and sell yourself and your work. Did that the first couple of years, last 24 years I just wait for the phone to ring. Show personal interest in your customers, have reasonable prices and do great work. You won’t have problems getting more customers, they will call, word of mouth is powerful. It does take hustle at the start. Much success!
If you know someone will work out well right away for an employee offer them some casual labour. It will help ease the amount of work you do. You will have to check their work. As they take it more seriously and they enjoy it, offer them more to do. What ever is within their capabilities and let them grow with you. Eventually you can send them to jobs on their own, but when you know they are ready. It takes a while before you can let go of their hand and meet your expectations.
