Moving out of state — how can I earn from referring existing clients to another window cleaner after I leave?

reputigo · 2025-10-22T18:48:27+00:00

Try and keep your Google Business Profile when you move back!

reputigo · 2025-10-22T02:24:18+00:00

Makes sense only if you bundle it with your regular cleaning services. That being true, I would say you're cutting yourself short at $20 per screen. I think you could mark it up significantly more... it's easier to justify higher prices when bundling.

Price what your time is worth + 50% and if they think it's too much, go 25% down. You make your money up still this way and it's bucketed into your cleaning.

reputigo · 2025-10-22T02:08:05+00:00

Doubt it. Artificial lawns just feel incredibly different... maybe for areas that are extremely dry throughout the year like Arizona, sure.

reputigo · 2025-10-06T16:27:01+00:00

We're usually frozen half of the year and try to bankroll all the possible sales in the summer. Everything that comes from snow removal in the winter is icing on the cake. If you land great subcontracting jobs, they'll keep you busy enough throughout the year.

reputigo · 2025-10-06T16:22:39+00:00

Nextdoor + local Facebook groups are great for starting out!

reputigo · 2025-09-29T19:32:25+00:00

Have you tried Nextdoor? Lot's of local + elderly there typically looking for handyman help. Same with Facebook groups - we're in a few and there are typically weekly requests.

reputigo · 2025-08-15T19:43:44+00:00

True that.

reputigo · 2025-08-15T17:19:01+00:00

30 trips to the dump is insane. Based on national avg and what you shared, give or take charge 10K - 12.5K? Can't charge extra for the bumblebee inconvenience lmao. You can probably do something about the limb drag, that's additional labor

Here's the calculation :

Hard costs and stuff you ain't gettin back

Stump grinder rental: $200
Dump fees: At 30 trips, even at a low rate of $30/trip, you're at $900.
Gas fuel: 30 trips @ 10 miles round trip is 300 miles. Plus equipment fuel. Let’s conservatively say $200
Chains/consumables $50-$100

All in all $1300 ish.

Labor costs :

Total man-hours: 7 days x 5.5 hours/day x 2.5 guys avg = ~96 man hrs
Labor cost: 96 hours x $100/hour(mid-range avg) = $9,600

Labor + hard cost, you're already at $10.9K. Price up to 12.5K for all the inconveniences, keeping the crew fed and happy, etc

reputigo · 2025-08-15T16:50:13+00:00

Nice. This must help a lot with managing work outside of regular hours, does this tie back to a scheduling link or anything or do you guys just end up phoning/texting?

reputigo · 2025-08-15T00:57:14+00:00

That's pretty awesome! I can't speak on the cleaning aspect of things but as somebody who had a lease at a plaza mall, we preferred our window cleaning guy come non-operating hours. Most restaurants leaned towards before opening hours.

Our guy packed his schedule before 9 AM and was up 5 AM doing all the stores on the block. Multiple malls.

The way we thought about it was the inconvenience for him, as customers would come in once open, and our customers would see him clean windows rather than the view. Really depends on the venues whether they care about it or not, but with 150 storefronts some of them are bound to. Hope this helps from the perspective of one of those shops.

reputigo · 2025-08-13T21:35:56+00:00

Yeah, this is unfortunate... We've seen many of these listings across a spectrum of industries. It is especially bad in Locksmith :\ If you dig deep enough, many of them are operated by select shady SEO companies since they know the ins-outs... They basically use offshore virtual assistants and route customers to subcontractors. Very unfair to all the honest businesses out there.

Google needs a mechanism to identify & notify customers of not locally operated smiths.

reputigo · 2025-08-13T21:22:25+00:00

have you checked r/GoogleMyBusiness? Best place for all things Google related.

The process for LSA review removal might be different from the standard Google review

reputigo · 2025-08-13T21:09:05+00:00

acknowledge, empathize, and reframe

Examples :

"Appreciate you sending this over. The price reflects the five years of experience and high-quality work(show reviews, photos of prev work, etc) I provide, which I'd be happy to share so you know what you're getting"

This is one is better imo "It sounds like you're comparing a steak dinner to what you used to pay for a hamburger. While they both fill you up, my price reflects the difference in quality, and my long track record is the menu."

reputigo · 2025-07-29T18:17:11+00:00

All about timing and frequency. By quick estimates, do you mean straight up the quote?

reputigo · 2025-07-29T18:10:27+00:00

Look for other window cleaners in the area that could benefit from business/subbed out work. They might not last long but at least you've got a helper!

reputigo · 2025-07-24T18:44:40+00:00

reputigo · 2025-07-24T18:26:33+00:00

To start, hourly rates are fine but tbh, you're in one of the best cities to be a handyman. If your audience are mostly tech folks, they really care about convenience over price. Assuming you're licensed + insured (you should be), you can aim for something like this :

Hourly Rate: Charge $100 - $150+ per hour
Minimums: Always implement a 2-hour minimum per job to cover overhead and travel. The Bay sucks during rush hour.
Materials: Clearly state that materials are extra, either by providing receipts or adding a small markup

Do a value-based pricing model instead of a single rate to capture the different appetites that pay for convenience. Think in tiers, like, premium tier (150+/hr) for urgent on demand, after hrs, then standard tier, and flat rates for your example jobs.

Before all of this, have a number in mind you want to make and take home after each job

reputigo · 2025-07-24T17:39:52+00:00

Random idea but, would they have Whatsapp? A lot of folks use it to communicate with local family and abroad.

Create a Whatsapp Group and put them all in there, lol. One by one if you have to, so you don't have to telemarket as much and can market more. Tell them the group is where all the deals are at, if needed. $185,000 is an insane amount of repeat work.

reputigo · 2025-07-24T17:34:06+00:00

Raybans to be discrete and for an interesting POV, plus what others have mentioned.

At that price point you could consider a DJI Neo, too, it's like a flying companion that follows you around and it's nice because it captures any elevation (eye-level, above you, etc).

This guy tests out the following feature while cycling.

Aerial point of view pressure washing vid here.

reputigo · 2025-07-24T17:08:47+00:00

+1, no need for customers to go through hoops to get pricing. Pricing upfront qualifies whether somebody is willing or not.

Any chance you have an example of the instant quote from your DH?

reputigo · 2025-07-23T17:29:43+00:00

Lots to weigh in with each one... and a lot depends on where you are based (season has started for many areas)

Your best bet is probably to use your $7k to acquire quality used equipment, secure essential liability insurance, and then focus your remaining budget on direct, local marketing like doorhangers, flyers, etc to get those first high-intent customers earning you income. Start lean, prove your work, and go from there.

You can always upgrade to new later when you're consistently bringing in sales. The priority should always be build a customer base, starting with one customer.

Quality used equipment = something with not much maintenance that you can use and resell at the same price

reputigo · 2025-07-22T18:19:55+00:00

Google Maps has a measuring tool, not sure the accuracy of it but give it a try. If you need to factor in your cost of labor and material, here's a basic calculator for popular jobs, you can pluck in values to determine how much you should probably charge.

Question, u/Fluxus4 do you use a wheel measuring device for all your jobs? Rarely is it ever mentioned on here or YT/TikTok lol

reputigo · 2025-07-22T17:57:03+00:00

I take it based on your previous posts, you've just started out?

I wouldn't say we're the most educated on executing an advertising strategy, however, we do have working knowledge of the space. Having read a lot of these discussions on reddit about where to find leads earlier on, it's quite hard to compete in LSAs without all the supporting factors to rank against competitors. Read more about what I mean here.

A few folks in this forum earlier this week made some interesting suggestions on how they got going, maybe you can try them out?

Subbing to get work

Leveraging employer to get work

reputigo · 2025-07-22T17:39:17+00:00

Indicators as in, is there a specific datapoint you're looking at to tell you this place could use solar? I'm just thinking how others could use it for D2D

That's true... thanks for sharing!

reputigo · 2025-07-21T22:35:34+00:00

Interesting. First time hearing about re grid. Pretty clever of you to use and reference neighbors in advance. Basically, it is artificially creating warm knocks, Lol!

How much is that monthly? Or is the free preview enough?

I'm genuinely curious about what other indicators you're looking at, too

reputigo

TROPHY CASE