The increasing difficulty of running home services such as window cleaning

For the best part of 7 and a half years with window cleaning as a base service in my company Wilkinson Property Pro. In that time I've seen the changing landscape of home services and trades. I have seen a shift among the companies, the talk online and in videos from tradesmen. There’s massive tension and a growing gap between customer perception and needs for running a business. Here’s the reality using my own experience and how its impacting all home service trades.

To start, i do know that window cleaning is a low entry service and prices reflect that. Even so, the change in equipment and costs to make them has pushed the entry price further out of the easy range it was once. Years ago it was a basic ladder, bucket, mop and squeegee. Everything for traditional window cleaning can now reasonably be bought for under £200 when shopping sensibly. Now water fed pole systems have become more like a £800 investment just for a basic set up that can be useful for a small round of standard houses but will limit scalability. Full professional water fed pole systems are now thousands which still may seem like a low investment compared to other businesses. This wouldn't’ be an issue if you could guarantee the return in few years but here’s the issue. Changing customer perceptions and the squeeze on their pocket is turning the guarantee into a never ending slog.

Customer perceptions and the expanding gap of reality

Customers want jobs doing because they either don’t have the time, suitable equipment and/or knowledge to do that job. Many home services appear on the surface to be easy but they appear that way because of practice and proper equipment. In reality no homeowner will do as good of a job anywhere near the speed a trade or homer service will do it. This perception is hurting the trades as customers think a job is worth X amount in their head and yet do not understand the cost of running such as trade or business. The things usually not considered are:

. Material costs

.Equipment replacement or fixing costs

.Paying off initial investments into equipment

.The time that goes into admin such as quotes

. Insurances

. Marketing

I’ll use my own business as an example again. Just on the window cleaning basis there’s;

.A van to be paid off

. Fuel for that van

.Insurance for the van

.Insurance for my work

. Time I spend arranging work and doing quotes

. Buying replacement brushes and hoses. On occasion its been a new pump. Regular replacement of filters for water.

. Website to pay ongoing fees for and any SEO or marketing ongoing with that.

. Time i spend editing videos for useful content so i can win over customers with something to trust and understand.

That’s just the window cleaning side. There are many other services with their own payments and challenges. This is all before i take my profit, then there’s tax. Let’s do some calculation to see what the modern home service or trades man needs to make. Take the minimum wage someone should be earning on full time £26,500 (rounded up for ease). For someone who has learned a trade or niche do you think they should be on more than minimum wage? I would say so especially due to the time investment, equipment investment, learning a skill, filling several positions within a business rather than just being 1 in an employed job and the list goes on. We also need to consider sick and holiday pay. Again lets take 4 weeks and leave 48 working weeks. To cover minimum wage, someone self employed would need to make £110.42 and that's without the safety net of sick pay. Someone self employed then needs to find a way to fill those days with work. What if they cant work one of those days…. The price per day goes up. Then factor in the equipment costs, insurance, marketing etc. The absolute minimum someone needs to make a day in a low entry job business is £150 and that's just not worth it to match minimum wage for all that work. Quite frankly a home service or trades man needs to be looking at £250 or more depending on the trade or service being performed to make it worth the time and investment into a business or company. That definitely isn't coming immediately when you start a business either. It takes time to build reputations, social proof, reviews, speed etc. What is a customer perception of what someone should be earning?

But it “only window cleaning” to my customers. Some think of it as less than that when they don’t understand the modern water fed pole system. I know the figure i need to make per window or per house according to my outgoings. Lets use £200 as figure to assess what work needs doing. At £15 a house that’s over 13 needed a day…. every day. Over 260 customers at that price per month. And that’s guaranteeing they have it every month and that they pay, no sick days, always good weather. It starts to become ridiculous, a fantasy. This widening gap between what it actually takes to run a business compared to customer perception is putting a strain on self employed trades. What can be done to combat this?

How to survive the widening gap

Most of the issue here has been customer perceptions because of lack of knowledge. Reading this has hopefully helped you to see in writing what a business really needs to make to run properly. To educate a customer and set the expectations i would recommend the following;

. Use clear pricing somewhere a customer can view before the initial call- this will set the expectation before any conversation has begun saving any negotiations.

.Have a blog- Use articles to explain procedures. Have case studies. Anything where a customer can see what goes into a job and why you use the professional equipment that you do.

.Make videos- Customers can get to know you, your work and the result. Using a VLOG style video you can show the buying materials, how much they cost and show the thinking behind the job you are working on. This all shows the value and sets expectations for what they will be paying for.

If you want to see how i do this and want some ideas then visit my website https://www.wilkinsonpropertypro.co.uk/ , see the blog articles at https://www.wilkinsonpropertypro.co.uk/blog and see the videos i post for information content to customers at https://www.instagram.com/wilkinsonpropertypro/ and new business style vidoes coming soon on https://www.youtube.com/@WilkinsonPropertyPro

New situations and changes require a shift in business strategy. I’ll alwasy be open to the suggestions and guidance of others as the business landscape changes into the future. I’ll revisit this in the future to see what i can share and what i’ve learned from others.