Who will pay for your services?

Customer-facing businesses

Businesses may need their windows professionally cleaned so that their store or office looks cared for. They don’t want to deter potential clients or customers from walking in their doors. They will likely need your service on a regular schedule, so you gain some consistency in your income. However, if you target retail clients they may be mostly smaller jobs (e.g. one storefront window) so you would need a large number of clients to make money. They may have dirty windows, but their real problem is getting more bodies through the door to sell their stuff.

High-traffic locations

They are located in higher-traffic public locations, which means they have more dirt, grime, and fingerprints to deal with than a typical home. Although their windows are within reach (thus the fingerprints), they just don’t have the time to keep up with it and might look to hire you as part of a regular cleaning service. If this is the work you are looking for, you may be contacting business owners directly or you might be better off networking with existing janitorial services to team up as a subcontractor. Their pain point is that they constantly have disgustingly dirty windows and no time to keep up with them.

Owner peace of mind

Psychologically, the owner may just like their windows to be spotless because it makes them feel like a boss. They take great pride in their business and are willing to pay for exceptional service. You might look for businesses with a great reputation, impeccable landscaping, and high-end furnishings. With these clients, you would need to present yourself professionally and explain why your window-cleaning technique is superior to your competition and how your professionalism will mean they get the type of service they are looking for. For these businesses, the owner needs to feel in control over the many aspects of their business to consider themselves successful.

Lack of tools and skills

The building may be much larger than a house or the windows more difficult to reach, so it may be a lack of tools and skill that causes them to hire a service provider. In this case, you may be cleaning windows, but you are also making it so that they don’t have to go out and buy specialized equipment or figure out how to operate it. Really, you’re helping these businesses solve a logistical problem – how do I get up there safely, how much time will it take, and how much will it cost?

Insurance issues

There may be insurance issues with trying to DIY their windows or having their staff clean them. Their windows need to be cleaned and they theoretically could have someone on staff do it, but your service is actually saving them a bundle on hiring and insuring someone for the task of cleaning windows. In this case, it’s actually a regulatory problem you are helping them with.

Cost effectiveness

It may simply be cheaper to pay for the service than to lose the hours of productivity for their staff. It’s not just the hourly rate they may pay their staff to get the job done they are thinking about, but the money that those workers could be making the business if they were doing what they were hired for. In this case, your service is simply cheaper than the lost revenue from having their skilled staff perform the task.

Commercial-residential situations

The business you serve may be a retirement care home or rental development who are looking to avoid complaints from their tenants, and who need to be consistently clean to attract new residents. In this case, having clean windows may be directly related to sales unlike with retail where it is a step in the sales process.

Your ideal clients may have a combination of a few of the problems you’ve come up with. Now that you have a good idea of the problems your service could help to solve, it’s time to draw some lines about the types of clients you don’t want to work with.

For example, you may not have the skills or the tools to handle high rise buildings, so write down that you only want to work on buildings that are three stories or less. And with those commercial-residential buildings, you’ll probably have to deal with a lot of small-talk if you are doing interior windows, so you need to decide if that is something you are OK with and how to charge so that extra time is covered in your price. Other considerations may be the time of day that you’re expected to work, how much set-up and take-down is involved, or the amount of travel you’re willing to consider.

Little spare time

If a homeowner has very little spare time after work and other commitments, they don’t want to spend their entire weekend washing their windows when they can hire a professional to do it in a matter of hours. In this case, you’re giving the homeowner back their leisure time.

Home value

If someone is selling or renting their home, clean windows will help play into the buyer’s decision to purchase and even the price they are willing to pay without them realizing it’s your sparkling windows that are doing the trick. In this case, you might want to get to know some local realtors and property managers to help them close the deal faster.

Restricted view

If someone has purchased a home with a view, they did so for a reason and likely paid a little extra for that view of the lake or picturesque landscaping in the backyard. Their problem is that they now can’t see as clearly something they already paid for, so they need someone to do the upkeep for them.

Keeping up with the Jones’

If most of the houses on Mr. and Mrs. Smith’s block have professionally cleaned windows, the Smith’s may feel the need to have their windows cleaned too. Don’t discount the need for people to feel accepted in their social circle.

Again, actually writing down what you will and will not deal with for your customers is key to creating a profile for your ideal clients.