630: How this College Student’s Side Hustle Brings in $10k a Month

0:00:01 (upbeat music)
0:00:03 How this college student’s side hustle
0:00:05 brings in $10,000 a month.
0:00:07 What’s up, what’s up, Nick Loper here.
0:00:08 Welcome to The Side Hustle Show,
0:00:10 part of the entrepreneur podcast to network
0:00:12 where we’ve been helping make day jobs optional
0:00:13 since 2013.
0:00:15 Awesome case study for you today.
0:00:18 My guest is about to start his sophomore year at college,
0:00:21 but he’s already bringing in $10,000 a month
0:00:24 from his side hustle window washing business.
0:00:25 Stick around in this one to learn how he’s doing it,
0:00:27 how he’s landing customers, delivering the work,
0:00:29 delegating the work, and getting paid.
0:00:31 Jack Weinbach, welcome to The Side Hustle Show.
0:00:33 – Hey, Nick, I’m so happy you have me on.
0:00:35 I’m super excited to get talking about this.
0:00:38 – I am pumped, what an inspiring story.
0:00:39 And if windows aren’t your jam, you don’t have to worry.
0:00:42 I’ve got a special listener bonus for you
0:00:44 that shares 101 different service business ideas.
0:00:46 Some are online, some are offline,
0:00:47 that you might be able to apply
0:00:49 some of Jack’s same tactics too.
0:00:51 You can grab that for free at the show notes for this episode.
0:00:53 Just follow the link in the episode description
0:00:55 and it’ll get you right over there.
0:00:57 So Jack, take me back, you get the idea,
0:00:59 you get the inspiration to say, you know what,
0:01:01 I need to make somebody, I want to start window washing,
0:01:04 but even though it’s a pretty low startup cost business,
0:01:06 it’s still like, well, I’m gonna need some squeegees,
0:01:06 I’m gonna need some other stuff.
0:01:08 Take me back to day one here.
0:01:11 – Yeah, so my brother actually,
0:01:12 he was cleaning windows professionally
0:01:14 at like a real business.
0:01:16 And so that’s kind of how I got the idea
0:01:17 of wanting to clean windows.
0:01:20 And he kind of just showed me how to do it with his squeegee.
0:01:22 But I went home after that
0:01:25 and I asked my dad actually for a $200 loan
0:01:27 so I could buy the window cleaning gear.
0:01:29 It’s just a kit off of Amazon.
0:01:32 It was about 200 bucks and then the rest is history.
0:01:33 – Interesting.
0:01:34 You want to start a business?
0:01:36 Here’s a business in a box, we’ll sell you the kit.
0:01:37 What came in it?
0:01:40 – So there was just the squeegee, the strip washer,
0:01:43 a bucket and then the soaps that you need.
0:01:46 And then after that, I got a couple towels
0:01:47 and then I used my buddy’s ladder.
0:01:50 And after that, you’re kind of just able to get right ahead
0:01:51 and go knocking.
0:01:52 – Okay, go knocking.
0:01:55 So that sounds like step one, acquiring the gear,
0:01:57 maybe step zero coming up with the idea.
0:01:59 Step one, acquiring the gear.
0:02:01 And I love that dad is like, hey, you know what?
0:02:03 I want to encourage this entrepreneurial spirit.
0:02:04 If you need 200 bucks worth of startup costs,
0:02:06 I’m going to front the capital.
0:02:07 Hopefully he didn’t charge you too much interest
0:02:08 on that loan.
0:02:10 And then you go out and say, well,
0:02:12 now I got to go find some customers.
0:02:14 – Yeah, 10% interest on that loan, by the way.
0:02:16 – That’s not horrible, not horrible.
0:02:19 – I know, definitely worked out though in my favor.
0:02:20 – You probably could pay him off.
0:02:22 I mean, I don’t know what a professional window washing
0:02:25 or even like a rookie window cleaning would cost,
0:02:28 but I imagine it’s a pretty quick break-even point.
0:02:31 – Oh yeah, so the first door actually that I ever knocked,
0:02:33 I was with one of my best friends at the time.
0:02:35 The guy said yes right away,
0:02:37 which just never happens normally,
0:02:39 but it did this time and it got us super pumped
0:02:41 and that house was actually $220.
0:02:44 So within three hours of starting the business,
0:02:46 we already paid back our costs.
0:02:47 – I love you, there it is.
0:02:48 There’s the loan plus the 10%.
0:02:49 – Yep, yeah, exactly.
0:02:52 – Now, how did you know what to charge for that?
0:02:53 Or was that the target?
0:02:56 Like I just want to pay off the material cost.
0:02:58 – So since my brother was doing it professionally,
0:03:00 he kind of put me onto a lot of pointers,
0:03:02 which is certainly something that’s super important
0:03:04 to have somebody kind of help you out
0:03:05 or at least you know what you’re doing.
0:03:09 But I kind of just charged $5 per pane per window pane
0:03:11 or maybe it was $4 back then.
0:03:13 But that’s kind of still how I priced things today
0:03:14 is $5 a pane.
0:03:17 – Okay, so that allows you to kind of give a quick estimate,
0:03:19 just do a quick walk around of the house
0:03:23 and count up windows and multiply by five.
0:03:24 – Yep, exactly.
0:03:26 I tell the homeowner, I’ll walk around their house.
0:03:28 It’ll take me 30 seconds, super quick.
0:03:29 And then I tell him the price.
0:03:30 – Oh, okay, ’cause that’s probably the,
0:03:33 yeah, knock, knock, can I wash your windows, sir?
0:03:36 Or what’s this gonna cost me?
0:03:38 Yeah, that’s cool that you got a yes on the first one.
0:03:40 And I love the idea of bringing a buddy with you.
0:03:41 You know, safety in numbers,
0:03:43 it’s intimidating to go knock on doors.
0:03:45 But I love all of that.
0:03:46 So you deliver the first job
0:03:49 and it goes relatively smoothly
0:03:50 and then you’re off to the races.
0:03:52 – Yeah, so after the first job,
0:03:53 we finished off for the day,
0:03:57 but that job, I think it took us around three hours,
0:03:58 went pretty good.
0:04:02 And then after that, we knocked on like 50 more doors,
0:04:03 we couldn’t get a yes.
0:04:06 – Oh, that’s like more the reality of cold calling.
0:04:08 That’s when it starts to set in, yeah.
0:04:09 All right, so the first door is a yes,
0:04:11 but then the next 50 in a row,
0:04:13 our nose, if you’re starting to think like,
0:04:16 oh, maybe this isn’t the greatest business idea after all.
0:04:17 What happens at that point?
0:04:19 – Yeah, so what kept me going
0:04:21 was actually a next door post I made.
0:04:23 I just used a personal account
0:04:25 and I was like, hey, I’m a high school student.
0:04:27 I clean windows on my free time.
0:04:28 Does anybody want their windows cleaned?
0:04:31 And I think I had a few people reach out to me.
0:04:33 I think I landed two or three clients is like 500,
0:04:35 they’re 750 bucks.
0:04:39 And when I’m a lifeguard making $12 an hour,
0:04:41 750 bucks is like mind blowing.
0:04:43 It’s like life changing for me.
0:04:45 And that’s what really motivated me to keep going.
0:04:47 – Yeah, it’s like a week’s worth of wages all at once.
0:04:48 – Yeah, exactly.
0:04:51 It’s literally one of my paychecks or maybe like two paychecks
0:04:54 just in a few hours, cleaning windows.
0:04:56 – Was there an hourly rate that you had in mind
0:04:59 or that you were shooting for for the window washing jobs?
0:05:02 – Yeah, so the first little bit when I just had my squeegee,
0:05:07 I was shooting for around 60 to $80 an hour.
0:05:09 But sometimes when you just have those one story houses
0:05:10 and you don’t need to take out the ladder,
0:05:12 and I could be making around $100 an hour.
0:05:14 So that was normally my goal.
0:05:16 But nowadays, one other person,
0:05:18 as well as my water fed poles,
0:05:20 we’re shooting for around $150 an hour.
0:05:22 – Wow, that’s a pretty good rate.
0:05:23 – Yeah, yeah, it’s super good.
0:05:26 And then I pay my employees around $20 an hour.
0:05:30 So my labor margin typically is about 30%.
0:05:33 And that includes their door-to-door salary
0:05:35 because I pay them commission based off that.
0:05:35 – Oh, okay, yeah.
0:05:36 If they’re laying in the sale,
0:05:39 if they’re making the customer deal in the first place,
0:05:41 absolutely, yeah, everybody’s happy.
0:05:43 And that’s kind of the margin that we heard
0:05:45 from a recent guest was kind of the sweet spot
0:05:49 of a three-to-one sales price-to-labor ratio
0:05:51 that would allow you to invest in scale
0:05:53 and marketing and systems and everything else,
0:05:55 and still have some money left over.
0:05:56 Where I think in my mind,
0:05:59 how you kind of think of as like a general contractor,
0:06:03 or maybe I’m only adding 10 to 15% on top of whatever,
0:06:06 like, ah, that’s pretty thin, that may not be enough.
0:06:09 So I like that you’ve got some room to breathe
0:06:10 on that front.
0:06:11 So things are humming along.
0:06:13 Hey, I’ll make it way more than I am lifeguarding,
0:06:14 but things aren’t going crazy.
0:06:16 – And then nine or 10 months in,
0:06:18 a couple key shifts happen.
0:06:19 Talk to me about that.
0:06:23 – Yeah, so really nothing the knowledge-wise really changed.
0:06:26 I was just scrolling TikTok as I did a ton back then,
0:06:28 and I saw these two brothers.
0:06:30 I think their names are Josh and Oliver Lester,
0:06:32 and they do these door-to-door sales pitches.
0:06:34 And I thought it was the funniest thing
0:06:36 because they could make the homeowner laugh,
0:06:38 and they claim to get all these yeses.
0:06:39 And so I decided, like,
0:06:42 why am I trying to reinvent the wheel with my crappy pitch?
0:06:43 I’m gonna go ahead and use their pitch.
0:06:46 And I also thought I’m using this water-fed pole
0:06:48 and deionization tanks.
0:06:51 And so I looked up on Facebook Marketplace,
0:06:53 and I saw one for sale about an hour and a half away
0:06:55 from me for a pretty decent price.
0:06:57 So literally the next day I went out and bought it,
0:07:00 and then I decided to go knocking with this new pitch.
0:07:02 And the first three people I talked to,
0:07:03 they all said yes,
0:07:06 and that has never once happened before.
0:07:08 – You’re like, three at a row, it must be odd to something.
0:07:09 What’s the pitch?
0:07:10 What was different about it?
0:07:12 – Yeah, so for the first nine months,
0:07:14 I would kind of just go up to somebody’s house,
0:07:17 I’d say, hey, my name’s Jack with tiger window cleaning.
0:07:19 Would you like your windows cleaned?
0:07:21 And everybody obviously is like, no,
0:07:23 because they have a hundred sales people coming
0:07:24 and knocking on their doors every day,
0:07:25 and they’re just tired.
0:07:26 Once you get off their lawn,
0:07:27 typically they’re pretty mean about it.
0:07:28 Then I’d just be like, okay,
0:07:30 then I move on to the next house.
0:07:31 And obviously that didn’t work out very good.
0:07:33 But what these brothers were showing me
0:07:35 is you try to make, you know,
0:07:36 you try to throw in a joke,
0:07:39 like a lot of people have dogs barking
0:07:41 when you knock the door.
0:07:43 And so they kind of break the ice, I go,
0:07:44 oh, are those the guard dogs?
0:07:46 They’re so ferocious.
0:07:48 And 10 times out of 10, the homeowner will laugh
0:07:50 and be like, oh yeah, they won’t harm you.
0:07:52 Like, wouldn’t hurt a fly.
0:07:53 And then I’d say, you know,
0:07:55 have you seen this on the street?
0:07:56 Handsome fellows in the blue shirts.
0:07:59 And then they laughed about that too.
0:08:00 And then after that, you know,
0:08:03 you really built up a good reputation for yourself
0:08:04 and they’re about ready to buy from you
0:08:06 rather than just some dude coming up
0:08:08 asking if they want their windows cleaned.
0:08:09 – Yeah, trying to get the guard down,
0:08:11 build a tiny bit of rapport.
0:08:12 I remember doing the same thing.
0:08:14 Like, oh, you know, it would be a, you know,
0:08:16 a tiny Chihuahua or Shih Tzu or something.
0:08:17 Like, oh, is this the attack dog?
0:08:19 Or, you know, guard your ankles.
0:08:21 – Yeah, pretty much every window cleaner,
0:08:24 TikToker uses it because it’s such a good pitch.
0:08:26 And, you know, you don’t want to reinvent the wheel.
0:08:28 It’s already been perfected.
0:08:30 And it’s definitely the best one.
0:08:32 And when you compare it to a pitch just like,
0:08:33 hey, my name’s Jack with Tiger Window Cleaning.
0:08:35 It’s not even, it’s not even comparable.
0:08:36 And it’s super demotivating,
0:08:38 knocking on doors for eight hours,
0:08:39 not getting a single,
0:08:40 you can’t even call it a single house
0:08:42 because you can’t even get to that point.
0:08:43 – Right, yeah.
0:08:44 Forget your 150 bucks an hour.
0:08:45 It’s like, you know,
0:08:48 now I have to calculate it all this marketing time too.
0:08:49 – Yeah, yeah, exactly.
0:08:51 – Do you make some joke about the dog
0:08:53 or the handsome, handsome guys in the shirt?
0:08:55 Or we were, hey, we were working on your neighbor’s house
0:08:56 down the road.
0:08:57 What happens after that?
0:08:59 – Typically, I’ll try to throw in the name.
0:09:01 I’ll say, okay, like no big deal.
0:09:03 We were just over at Michelle’s house,
0:09:06 cleaning up all of her windows, frames and sills
0:09:07 across her entire home.
0:09:09 Figured I’d stop by,
0:09:11 see if I could interest you in that
0:09:13 and we could get you in for pretty cheap
0:09:14 if we could do you today
0:09:15 because our truck’s already here
0:09:17 and we could take off our transportation fee
0:09:20 or something to kind of appeal and make ’em bite.
0:09:21 – Yeah, some reason to act now, right?
0:09:23 Like some sense of urgency.
0:09:25 Oh shoot, now there’s like a deadline.
0:09:26 – Yeah, exactly.
0:09:28 And that’s kind of the same thing.
0:09:31 If you ever go into online marketing on social media,
0:09:34 you want to try to do the same kind of things.
0:09:35 – And then you’re trying to figure out,
0:09:37 well, how many windows are there?
0:09:39 We could do the math really quick and get you a number.
0:09:40 – Yeah, exactly.
0:09:41 You just tell the homeowner,
0:09:43 I’m gonna run around to count up the glass.
0:09:44 It’ll take me 30 seconds
0:09:47 and I’ll meet you back here with the price just so you know.
0:09:49 And there’s really no reason to say no.
0:09:51 It’s gonna take you 30 seconds
0:09:52 and you just count up all the glass,
0:09:56 multiply it by five or somewhere relatively around there
0:09:58 depending on how hard you think the house is gonna be.
0:10:01 And then you just, but it’s a really simple process.
0:10:03 – Yeah, I think that would be helpful for me
0:10:04 just to get a ballpark.
0:10:06 Even if I don’t want to hire you,
0:10:08 at least now I kind of have a benchmark.
0:10:10 It’s like, you know, for the next guy who comes up
0:10:12 or if I want to do my own shopping around, that makes sense.
0:10:15 – One big thing to do as well,
0:10:17 when you are dropping the price,
0:10:19 you can say, okay, so normally when you were just
0:10:22 to call us out, like it’d be $300,
0:10:23 but since we’re already here,
0:10:26 take off our $100 transportation fee comes down
0:10:29 only $200 and we can do it all right now.
0:10:30 And that works really well.
0:10:34 – Okay, so a refined cold calling intro pitch,
0:10:37 trying to name drop the neighbors if you can,
0:10:40 like any level of trust and rapport that you could build,
0:10:43 ’cause I have some, hopefully a positive associations
0:10:44 with my neighbors.
0:10:45 Well, if they already trusted these guys to do the work,
0:10:47 then maybe I should too.
0:10:49 There’s some social proof or safety numbers
0:10:53 and trying to crack some jokes and make it reduce the friction.
0:10:55 Like it’ll take me 30 seconds to get you a number.
0:10:58 Like it’ll be super fast and take it or leave it.
0:10:59 We’re already here, price today is less
0:11:02 ’cause we don’t have to drive out and make a special trip,
0:11:03 all that stuff, that makes a lot of sense.
0:11:06 And you mentioned this new water-fed poll thing,
0:11:07 finding that on Facebook marketplace.
0:11:09 How much does this tool cost?
0:11:12 – So when I bought it used, I think I got it for $1,900.
0:11:15 But if you buy it brand new, you should get it off Tucker USA
0:11:17 and you should spend at least $2,400.
0:11:21 That’s to get a great one would be $2,400 off of Tucker USA.
0:11:22 That’s how much I pay for mine.
0:11:25 Anything under is probably not gonna do as great of a job,
0:11:27 but it’s a three-stage system
0:11:30 and it just purifies all the water to zero
0:11:31 particles per million.
0:11:34 You can clean windows up to 40 feet high
0:11:36 and you just spray it off with this clean water
0:11:38 and you don’t even have to go up there and squeegee it.
0:11:41 You just let it dry and it dries up totally crystal clear.
0:11:43 – Yeah, and I’m adding that saves a ton of time
0:11:45 from having to move ladders around
0:11:46 and probably sell a lot safer
0:11:47 than climbing up on a 40-foot ladder.
0:11:48 – Oh yeah.
0:11:50 – So reinvesting some profits back into the business.
0:11:53 It sounds like with this revamped, better equipment,
0:11:55 better pitch and things start to take off.
0:11:56 This is April?
0:11:58 – Yeah, this is in April, yep.
0:12:00 – And this was your first $10,000 month?
0:12:03 – Yeah, I think the best month I had before April
0:12:05 was maybe $2,000.
0:12:09 And then in April, I got access to all these new neighborhoods
0:12:12 and all these super rich, rich areas
0:12:14 because now I can clean up to 40 feet high
0:12:16 rather than just sticking to one story
0:12:18 or maybe some two-story windows
0:12:20 if my 18-foot ladder could reach a tricky spot.
0:12:22 But even then, there’s still a lot of times
0:12:23 I have to tell the homeowner, like,
0:12:25 “Hey, I can’t do these windows, I’m sorry,
0:12:28 “but you don’t have to pay me as much as we agreed,
0:12:29 “but I just can’t do these windows.”
0:12:31 But that totally goes away
0:12:33 once you get this water-fed pole system
0:12:35 and it makes everything a lot easier
0:12:37 and sometimes doubles the speed
0:12:38 and efficiency that you’re working at.
0:12:39 – Okay, got it.
0:12:40 So you’re knocking on doors,
0:12:42 your crew members are knocking on doors,
0:12:44 they’re getting a commission on everything
0:12:45 that they sell.
0:12:47 Is there, you mentioned like the handsome guys
0:12:50 in the blue shirts, like the company uniform at this point?
0:12:52 – Oh yeah, when we’re working on the job,
0:12:54 we typically have our blue shirts.
0:12:56 It’s got like our company name on it,
0:12:59 but I try not to knock in the company shirts
0:13:02 because the first time I ever went knocking out with them,
0:13:03 me and my buddy were wearing them,
0:13:05 we were looking super professional.
0:13:07 I thought this was gonna be like a great day.
0:13:08 Everyone would say yes,
0:13:10 ’cause we look like a serious professional.
0:13:11 – Yeah, yeah, we’re legit now, yeah.
0:13:13 – Yeah, and the first three people,
0:13:15 we see them in their kitchen or through the door,
0:13:17 they look at us and they just walk away
0:13:19 and we, you know, maybe we knock again.
0:13:21 They just walk away, they do not want us there
0:13:22 because they just know we’re sales guys.
0:13:27 Yeah, rather than when we’re just in T-shirts and shorts,
0:13:28 they think we’re just some kids
0:13:31 and maybe they wanna ask, we wanna ask them a question,
0:13:33 they don’t know and they’re willing to hear us out.
0:13:35 – How funny, yeah, the uniform was actually a detriment.
0:13:38 – Yeah, no, I gotta kind of dumb down
0:13:41 my professionalism at times.
0:13:42 – More with Jack in just a moment,
0:13:47 including his super profitable $10 a day online ad campaign
0:13:50 in the opening script for that that makes all the difference
0:13:52 that’s coming up right after this.
0:13:55 Being an entrepreneur and being able to work remotely
0:13:56 definitely has its perks.
0:14:00 I’ve recorded podcasts everywhere from Vietnam to Italy,
0:14:02 drafted newsletters from Japan,
0:14:04 hosted mastermind meetings from Spain,
0:14:05 ended up being the middle of the night
0:14:07 to get to US business hours
0:14:10 and outlined courses in Mexico.
0:14:12 The common thread of all of these trips though,
0:14:13 is Airbnb.
0:14:16 We love being able to get exactly what we’re looking for
0:14:20 in a place to stay and have a more local experience
0:14:23 than staying in some giant hotel chain.
0:14:24 And you know me, I’m always thinking about
0:14:27 the next side hustle idea, the next income stream, right?
0:14:29 And one that’s at the top of the list
0:14:32 is hosting our place on Airbnb while we’re traveling.
0:14:34 That way the house doesn’t have to sit empty.
0:14:36 We could use the income to help pay for the trip.
0:14:39 And we’ve heard from several successful Airbnb hosts
0:14:40 on the show.
0:14:42 And what’s interesting is a lot of them started
0:14:44 with almost that exact strategy,
0:14:47 running their place or even a spare room
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0:16:21 Okay, well very good.
0:16:23 So that’s the local boots on the ground
0:16:24 type of marketing effort.
0:16:26 Anything going on on the online front?
0:16:28 – So at this point, we actually didn’t.
0:16:30 It wasn’t until I believe June
0:16:33 where I made my first Instagram ad.
0:16:35 And I posted it on Facebook.
0:16:36 I posted it on Instagram.
0:16:37 Facebook didn’t do very good.
0:16:39 So I just, I took it off Facebook,
0:16:41 kind of put all the money towards Instagram.
0:16:44 And I was just spending $10 a day, like really nothing.
0:16:45 And then I was knocking on the side of it.
0:16:48 But just that one ad after spending $600,
0:16:51 it generated me $10,000 in revenue just from the ad.
0:16:54 And that doesn’t even include the word of mouth I got from it
0:16:58 or recurring customers, whatever it is.
0:17:02 But the return on investment on online advertising is huge.
0:17:03 – Wow, that’s crazy.
0:17:05 ‘Cause it’s probably like super location targeted.
0:17:07 Probably, I imagine you like,
0:17:10 I wanna target homeowners above average income level.
0:17:13 I think you probably said it really targeted.
0:17:15 – Yeah, there’s a bunch of little things
0:17:18 you can add in, like I want it to be a woman
0:17:22 that’s 35 to 65, and I want it to be right in my area.
0:17:25 But in all these ads, the super important part is,
0:17:27 so I made a video, they were all super funny.
0:17:30 I tried to make them like super entertaining to listen to.
0:17:32 But the most important part was right at the beginning,
0:17:35 I’d say, hey Evergreen or hey Auburn,
0:17:37 that way people know I’m talking to them
0:17:38 and they’re not just gonna skip it
0:17:41 because they see the send message, which shows it’s an ad.
0:17:43 So they’re not just gonna skip it right away.
0:17:44 And they actually might listen
0:17:46 because they know I’m targeting it right to them.
0:17:48 And then I’m gonna throw in the joke a little bit after.
0:17:50 So for example, for my Auburn ad,
0:17:52 I posted this one about six days ago
0:17:54 and I’ve just, I’ve put in 60 bucks into it.
0:17:58 I’ve already booked $2,500 worth of jobs with it.
0:18:00 It’s been doing super good, but what I said, I said,
0:18:02 hey Auburn, there’s a huge epidemic
0:18:05 going around the Auburn and Opelika area.
0:18:08 Your windows are looking like this, or this, or this,
0:18:10 and it’s gonna cause some serious permanent damage
0:18:13 that’s gonna seriously lower your property value.
0:18:15 And then I did this funny little transition
0:18:16 where I did a little jump
0:18:19 and I went from my normal clothes
0:18:20 to like my uniform with my belt on.
0:18:22 And people love that.
0:18:24 But then I have all these moms texting me
0:18:25 and they’re like, or DMing me.
0:18:27 And they say, “Hey, I love a quote.”
0:18:29 And then you get there and then you do your spiel.
0:18:30 – Okay, okay.
0:18:33 So that’s the call to action of the, I love that.
0:18:35 There’s a huge epidemic of dirty windows going around.
0:18:37 And then you show the visuals, you’re like,
0:18:39 and then you can see people looking up at there.
0:18:41 It’s like, yeah, when was the last time those were clean?
0:18:45 So the call to action is message me for a quote
0:18:46 or message me to schedule an appointment.
0:18:48 – Yeah, so at the very end,
0:18:50 I tell them all the services I do.
0:18:52 And I say, I know you need at least one of these done.
0:18:54 So give me a text and I point up
0:18:55 and then my number pops up.
0:18:58 But most people just DM me and it says at the bottom,
0:19:00 like the whole time you’re reaching, it says send message.
0:19:01 And then they can just send a message
0:19:03 and it’s super duper easy.
0:19:04 Most people just say, “Hey, I’d love a quote.”
0:19:06 And then maybe they send their address.
0:19:09 And I say, “Okay, I’ll be there tomorrow, blah, blah.”
0:19:10 And then they’re like, “Oh, that’s super easy.”
0:19:11 – Okay, how cool.
0:19:13 What a great return on investment on that.
0:19:15 And then while you’re out on the job,
0:19:17 of course there’s opportunity to go get some warm
0:19:19 or semi-warm leads from the neighbors.
0:19:22 Hey, we’re working on someone’s house next door
0:19:24 and try and turn one job into two.
0:19:27 – Yeah, so typically how we structure our business plan
0:19:30 for the day is we schedule one house from an ad
0:19:32 or that we’ve knocked on a previous day.
0:19:34 And we schedule one house per day,
0:19:36 like per morning or whenever we start working.
0:19:38 And then when we get to that house,
0:19:39 normally one person starts cleaning
0:19:41 while the other goes knocking
0:19:42 to line up the rest of the day.
0:19:45 And that’s how we’re able to fill up our schedule so often
0:19:46 just ’cause we hardly have that name.
0:19:49 And so we can say, “Oh, Michelle, down the road,
0:19:50 like that’s where we’re at.”
0:19:52 And that builds that level of trust.
0:19:54 It’s, you’re more likely to land the client.
0:19:57 – Yeah, leaning on the job that you were able to book
0:19:58 and then being able to say,
0:20:00 “As soon as we’re done there, we’ll come over here.”
0:20:02 Versus, “Well, let’s book it.”
0:20:03 Like, well, you know, the motivation might wane
0:20:04 if you wait too long.
0:20:06 We’re only gonna schedule one per day
0:20:10 and then trust and hope that we can get some more jobs
0:20:11 to fill up the schedule.
0:20:13 – Yeah, when people are calling you out,
0:20:15 usually they got a couple people that are asking for a quote.
0:20:17 And so you’re trying to just beat those other people.
0:20:19 But when you’re doing door to door,
0:20:21 you know, there’s that appeal of the homeowner
0:20:22 to just like get it done right away.
0:20:24 And so, you know, you’re not really competing
0:20:25 with other people.
0:20:27 And the homeowner just loves the fact that like,
0:20:29 “Okay, these guys can do it in literally an hour.
0:20:31 They can get me a price in 30 seconds.
0:20:33 Like I might as well just hear the price.
0:20:34 And then, you know, if I want it done today,
0:20:35 like that’d be great.”
0:20:36 That’s what it was.
0:20:37 We had some guys a couple of doors down
0:20:39 doing window washing, gutter cleaning
0:20:40 or something for the neighbors.
0:20:41 And so I’d go up to them like,
0:20:42 “Hey, do you guys use skylights?”
0:20:43 And they’re like, “Sure, you know,
0:20:45 we’ll be over in 15 minutes.”
0:20:45 Like, okay, you know,
0:20:48 that saves me the trouble of having to quote anybody else.
0:20:51 Like just, you know, remove that pain point of mine
0:20:52 and take care of it.
0:20:56 I was gonna ask, I mean, Auburn is a town of college town,
0:20:58 but like decent size, well, you got 50, 60, 80,000 people.
0:20:59 I don’t know.
0:21:00 It’s like a decent size town,
0:21:02 but I guess that’s a lot of doors to knock on.
0:21:04 Like it’s gonna be awhile before you saturate
0:21:05 the whole thing, yeah?
0:21:08 – Yeah, so I did have this problem actually in Colorado
0:21:09 when I was cleaning over the summer
0:21:11 ’cause there’s some neighborhoods
0:21:12 that you just don’t want to knock.
0:21:13 Everyone’s gonna be mean.
0:21:14 You’re never gonna get a yes,
0:21:16 no matter how many doors you knock on.
0:21:17 There’s some neighborhoods where I’ve knocked on.
0:21:20 Five doors landed four people
0:21:21 and then the next five I land three people
0:21:23 and it’s just insane.
0:21:25 So, but I, in Colorado,
0:21:27 I actually ran out of good neighborhoods
0:21:30 and I just had to fully rely on my ad
0:21:31 and I couldn’t do very much knocking.
0:21:32 But in Auburn here,
0:21:36 there’s so many houses compared to good neighborhoods.
0:21:37 And if you just look around,
0:21:39 like look at the street, there’s a ton of cars.
0:21:40 All those people have a house.
0:21:43 You really can’t run out of houses to knock
0:21:43 and it’s just more,
0:21:46 are you willing to get yelled at a lot or not?
0:21:49 – Yeah, yeah, house painting was the same way
0:21:51 where you’d have these long droughts
0:21:53 and then you’d find like this little gold mine of a street
0:21:55 and we’d end up booking,
0:21:58 sometimes probably the majority of the houses
0:22:01 on that little cul-de-sac over the course of the summer
0:22:03 just go from one to the next to the next.
0:22:04 And to think I almost drove by here.
0:22:06 You know, that was 10 grand worth of sales.
0:22:09 – Yeah, but super helpful with those gold mine streets
0:22:11 is this app I use, it’s called SalesRabbit.
0:22:14 And it allows me to kind of pin which houses don’t answer
0:22:17 because typically like two thirds of the homes
0:22:18 that the people aren’t gonna be home.
0:22:21 So I’m able to mark down which houses don’t answer.
0:22:23 And then I can go back another day
0:22:25 and that allows me to really elongate
0:22:26 how many houses I have.
0:22:29 In Colorado, I wasn’t using the app for a majority of the time,
0:22:31 which was a huge reason
0:22:33 why I ran out of neighborhoods to not.
0:22:35 But that issue would not have occurred.
0:22:37 And then you can always go back the next year
0:22:39 and knock those same houses again
0:22:41 ’cause they need the windows cleaned again.
0:22:42 – Right, that’s the beauty of this business.
0:22:44 Things are gonna keep getting dirty.
0:22:45 It’s the same with any other cleaning business.
0:22:48 Like wait, let’s sign this up for recurring service.
0:22:49 – Exactly.
0:22:50 – Have you done any of that
0:22:51 where the dentist is the best at this?
0:22:52 You’re not leaving that office
0:22:54 until they’ve got your next cleaning booked.
0:22:56 Anything like that and setting people up
0:22:57 for their six month checkup,
0:22:59 or 12 month re-cleaning?
0:23:02 – This is definitely a big mistake of mine
0:23:03 for the majority of the time
0:23:05 is I haven’t really had a system
0:23:06 where I’m really keeping track.
0:23:08 But what I do do, for every client,
0:23:11 I get their phone number and I get the contact
0:23:12 and I put a little date next to it.
0:23:15 That way, when I know it’s a year in advance,
0:23:16 I can just send them a text,
0:23:19 kind of tell them I’m still doing the window cleaning,
0:23:21 I can get you like 10% off, whatever it is.
0:23:24 And I’d be happy to come back, clean your windows,
0:23:26 and you already have that trust.
0:23:27 You did a great job.
0:23:28 If you’re doing a house,
0:23:30 you really want to try to connect with the homeowner,
0:23:32 do as best of a job as you can.
0:23:34 Tell them, if you see anything wrong,
0:23:35 please let me know.
0:23:37 I’m more than happy to come back, fix anything up.
0:23:40 But yeah, that’s the best way to get recurring clients
0:23:42 is just kind of texting them and reaching out to them.
0:23:44 – Yeah, like the big barrier is that,
0:23:45 getting to yes in the first place,
0:23:49 it’s much easier to sell something to an existing client,
0:23:50 sell it again to an existing client
0:23:52 than go find somebody new to say yes to you
0:23:53 for the first time.
0:23:56 So I think that is a big area of opportunity.
0:23:58 And you can imagine people live in a house,
0:23:59 whatever the status,
0:24:00 like an average of 10 years or some things.
0:24:02 Like the lifetime value of a customer
0:24:05 could be quite big in an industry like this.
0:24:07 – Oh yeah, I just actually left
0:24:09 a homeowner’s house the other day.
0:24:12 She was telling me how she’s used the same guy
0:24:14 for a little over 20 years.
0:24:17 And he just retired and that’s why she called me out.
0:24:20 And she’s like, okay, if you do a good job in my place,
0:24:21 like I’m gonna keep you around
0:24:23 for however long I can until you’re gone.
0:24:25 – Yeah, I think mom and dad the same way
0:24:27 I’ve had their go-to guy.
0:24:29 I think he comes by twice a year, does his thing.
0:24:31 And then of course the kids go up
0:24:33 and press their nose right up against the glass.
0:24:34 I’m like, no, no, no, don’t touch that.
0:24:35 They just had it cleaned.
0:24:36 – Yeah, absolutely.
0:24:37 I think that’s really cool.
0:24:38 So sales rabbit, appreciate you sharing that tool.
0:24:40 That was something I probably could have used
0:24:42 when I was going door to door selling paint jobs.
0:24:45 Especially in those gold mine neighborhoods
0:24:48 when you’re hitting above average
0:24:50 and you’re like, dang, but the person wasn’t home
0:24:51 or that person wasn’t home.
0:24:55 Like to make a record of which ones
0:24:56 that you weren’t able to talk to.
0:24:57 I think that makes a lot of sense.
0:25:01 Anything else on the tools tech side software or otherwise?
0:25:03 – Yeah, so the benefit of window cleaning
0:25:04 is it’s simple tasks.
0:25:08 So really the only other app I use is called Jobber.
0:25:09 I’m sure a lot of people have heard of it.
0:25:11 It’s like one of the most popular apps
0:25:12 in the service industry.
0:25:15 But I mainly just use that to send out
0:25:18 super professional looking quotes and invoices.
0:25:19 ‘Cause when I just text them a number,
0:25:21 they’re less likely to say yes.
0:25:22 Other than that though,
0:25:24 I don’t really use Jobber for much else.
0:25:28 But once I start really, really harken on my employees
0:25:30 for to see like their hours,
0:25:32 you can do all of that stuff through Jobber
0:25:35 and you can also get paid and schedule houses.
0:25:38 But as of now, I’m more doing all that stuff
0:25:39 in my other calendar.
0:25:40 It’s called TimeTree.
0:25:42 – Okay, TimeTree is new to me.
0:25:45 Jobber has been mentioned a bunch on the show
0:25:46 for these local service businesses,
0:25:49 scheduling out team members and job sites
0:25:51 and sending out quotes and invoices
0:25:53 and just a professional looking thing.
0:25:55 Just another little checkbox or layer
0:25:57 to build client trust.
0:25:59 – Yeah, it’s definitely a great tool
0:26:00 and I’ve got it recommended
0:26:04 from so many other service industry workers so many times.
0:26:05 But if you’re gonna start somewhere,
0:26:07 I definitely would use Jobber.
0:26:10 – We will link that up in the show notes as well.
0:26:12 And for all the homeowners in the audience,
0:26:13 the question always comes up.
0:26:15 It’s like, well, what about insurance?
0:26:16 What if something happens?
0:26:19 You knock a ladder through a window or something
0:26:20 and how does that all work?
0:26:23 – Yeah, I’m actually shocked how little people
0:26:24 care if I have insurance.
0:26:27 ‘Cause I’ve only had a few people ask
0:26:30 out of the hundreds and hundreds of homes that I’ve cleaned.
0:26:33 I didn’t even have insurance until very recently,
0:26:34 just a few months ago.
0:26:36 But I was already making my $10,000 months
0:26:39 without an LLC, without insurance, without any of that.
0:26:41 But it’s definitely something I should have gotten
0:26:44 further in advance because if I did accidentally
0:26:47 knock over a ladder and hit a car or break a window,
0:26:48 break the siding of a house,
0:26:50 that’s a really expensive thing to fix.
0:26:52 ‘Cause that can really take down your business.
0:26:54 – Yeah, and depending on the sales volume that you’re doing,
0:26:57 it’s not super expensive, at least in most industries,
0:26:59 from what I’ve been researching.
0:27:02 – Yeah, I think I pay around $1,000 a year.
0:27:05 And I pay the off monthly, I think it’s like $80 a month.
0:27:08 It’s really not expensive and it’s 100% worth it.
0:27:10 And also you can send that to clients
0:27:11 and put it on your website
0:27:13 just so you have the extra level of trust.
0:27:14 – Right, yeah.
0:27:16 So it’s a small percentage of revenue
0:27:18 to have some level of protection there.
0:27:19 So that makes sense.
0:27:21 As you’re going out, you’re doing these jobs
0:27:24 and your team is doing these jobs.
0:27:26 Do you ever get the pushback if you send out
0:27:28 one of your friends or crew members,
0:27:28 like, “What happened to Jack?
0:27:29 “I thought it was gonna be him.”
0:27:32 – I typically try to stay on the job site,
0:27:34 but that’s more to show my workers
0:27:35 that I’m just as hardworking as they are
0:27:37 and I’m not skimping out on any labor.
0:27:38 But it definitely does happen
0:27:41 where I actually have had one customer complain
0:27:42 about how I wasn’t there
0:27:44 and she thought I was gonna be there.
0:27:46 If you’re not gonna be at a job site though,
0:27:48 and you’re the one that talked to the client
0:27:50 or maybe they saw your ad,
0:27:51 I just try to make it super clear
0:27:52 that I’m not gonna be there.
0:27:54 And typically, like nine times out of 10,
0:27:55 they really don’t mind.
0:27:58 Actually, probably more like 10 times out of 10,
0:27:59 they do not mind at all.
0:28:02 But it’s just when I have those recurring customers,
0:28:04 those are the ones that do care a little more
0:28:06 and I always try to be at those jobs
0:28:08 because I am the one who made that connection with them.
0:28:11 And I’m not too sure how Michelle or Johnny
0:28:14 is gonna act when I don’t show up to his job site.
0:28:17 – Yeah, as long as the work gets done,
0:28:19 the line that it was given on the show years ago
0:28:21 was are you selling your time or are you selling results?
0:28:22 And if somebody else on YouTube
0:28:24 could deliver the same results,
0:28:26 then probably gonna be fine,
0:28:28 but just being upfront about that client communication.
0:28:30 Hey, my team member,
0:28:32 someone’s always gonna take care of you today
0:28:34 and I’m gonna go out marketing,
0:28:36 I’m gonna go find some more customers
0:28:37 while we’re here in the neighborhood.
0:28:38 – Yeah, I just try to make it super clear
0:28:41 that my crew is, they’re all trained snipers,
0:28:42 they’re all super trusted.
0:28:44 And we’ve done hundreds of homes
0:28:47 and we’ve never had a callback or anything like that
0:28:48 and they all love that.
0:28:50 – Yeah, and on that line,
0:28:53 like no dropping a ladder on the car,
0:28:56 none of these kind of disasters that could happen.
0:28:58 – Yeah, so there’s definitely a lot of things
0:29:00 that can happen.
0:29:01 And when you have employees,
0:29:02 that’s why you really wanna make sure
0:29:04 you hire employees that you trust
0:29:06 because there’s a lot of things that can go wrong,
0:29:08 especially when you’re cleaning interior homes.
0:29:10 A lot of times I carry my big heavy ladder around in there.
0:29:12 It folds up, but it’s really heavy.
0:29:14 And if I’m not careful,
0:29:15 I can knock a vase over
0:29:19 or I can crash into the drywall and easily leave a hole.
0:29:20 And that’s just the kind of stuff
0:29:22 you wanna have the general liability insurance for.
0:29:23 – Yeah, got it.
0:29:24 You know, we’ve got the same,
0:29:26 like a little giant or something ladder.
0:29:29 It’s super handy, but it’s like,
0:29:30 it’s crazy heavy for what it is.
0:29:32 – That’s yeah, I have the little giant.
0:29:35 Yeah, I know it’s just ridiculously heavy.
0:29:37 – As you’re at the job site,
0:29:38 as you’re up on the ladder,
0:29:40 I imagine you get customers being like,
0:29:41 hey, while you’re up there,
0:29:42 could you clean off the roof?
0:29:43 Could you clean the gutters?
0:29:46 Could you, would you paint the trim?
0:29:47 Would you re-cock the window?
0:29:49 Like, do you get people asking for other random stuff
0:29:50 once you’re there?
0:29:52 – Oh yeah, all the time people ask
0:29:54 for little random things, the big, big random things.
0:29:56 And sometimes they want me to do something for free
0:29:58 or sometimes they want me to do a big job,
0:29:59 like a gutter cleaning.
0:30:00 Usually they don’t want that for free
0:30:05 because typically that’s like a $200 ticket, 250 on average.
0:30:05 – Yeah.
0:30:08 – Some things you can upsell would be the screens,
0:30:09 cleaning the screens.
0:30:11 And what I do for that is I just use my strip washer
0:30:13 and I can just clean them off like that.
0:30:16 Or I recently invested in a screen cleaner.
0:30:18 It’s just a bunch of bristles and it shoots out water.
0:30:19 I can clean them super fast.
0:30:21 But almost, I’d say like eight times out of 10,
0:30:23 you can upsell for screens.
0:30:25 You can also go onto the roof
0:30:27 and take pictures of the gutters
0:30:29 and kind of just show the homeowner pictures of the gutters
0:30:31 and be like, hey, you need your gutters cleaned.
0:30:33 While I’m here, I could get you a pretty good price.
0:30:35 A lot of time they’ll say yes and it’s super easy.
0:30:36 Once you’re up there,
0:30:38 you just need a bucket and some gloves
0:30:40 and you’re pretty much set for that.
0:30:42 And it’s really easy money for that.
0:30:43 – Yeah, okay.
0:30:47 And then are the interior part of the windows included
0:30:49 or would you consider that an add-on as well?
0:30:51 – I don’t know if I consider it an add-on.
0:30:54 I’d more just consider it another service.
0:30:57 Typically it’s exterior cleaning as a base level,
0:31:00 but if somebody calls me out from an ad,
0:31:01 nine times out of 10,
0:31:02 they want me to do the inside as well.
0:31:04 If I’m doing door to door,
0:31:05 they do not want me to do the inside.
0:31:07 I don’t know if it’s invasion of privacy
0:31:09 or it does almost double the price
0:31:11 ’cause I charge three to $4 per pane
0:31:16 when I’m charging $5 per pane for the exterior.
0:31:17 But a lot of door to door people
0:31:18 do not want the inside done.
0:31:19 If someone calls me out though,
0:31:21 it’s like a whole nother job.
0:31:23 It’s like a whole nother client in one though
0:31:25 because I’m landing that interior.
0:31:26 It’s pretty hard to upsell it though
0:31:28 because normally people have their mindset
0:31:30 if they want the interior done
0:31:31 or if they don’t want it done.
0:31:33 It’s pretty easy to tell normally
0:31:35 and you don’t really gotta do a whole pitch for it.
0:31:38 It’s just, hey, can I, do you want the insides done?
0:31:39 One key thing I did notice though,
0:31:41 if you’re trying to sell the inside is I’d say,
0:31:42 instead of saying,
0:31:43 do you want me to clean your inside windows?
0:31:47 I’d say, I assume you wanted your inside windows cleaned
0:31:47 as well.
0:31:50 And they’re like, oh, I guess everyone does get them cleaned.
0:31:53 And I’d notice a huge spike in landing those interior tops
0:31:55 is saying, I assumed you already wanted it.
0:31:57 – And so those are for the people primarily coming off
0:31:59 the Instagram ad traffic,
0:32:02 which is maybe a more qualified lead
0:32:04 ’cause they’re reaching proactively out to you
0:32:06 versus you knocking on the door, interrupting the day
0:32:08 and letting a stranger in off the street
0:32:10 get to their house to do the interior side.
0:32:11 I think that makes sense.
0:32:14 But that can add to the average ticket for sure.
0:32:15 – Oh yeah.
0:32:17 Yeah, you certainly have the leverage
0:32:18 because they’re calling out to you
0:32:21 rather than you going to their door asking them.
0:32:22 So when they call you out,
0:32:24 you definitely have the leverage
0:32:27 to definitely at least charge more per pane.
0:32:28 You can definitely do that.
0:32:32 And you can also upsell stuff a lot easier as well.
0:32:33 – Yeah.
0:32:36 Do you need to go out to the house to bid it?
0:32:37 I forget.
0:32:39 This was a pressure washing episode that we did.
0:32:42 The guy was like, no, I just pull it up on Google Earth.
0:32:44 I get an estimate of like the street view,
0:32:45 approximate square footage,
0:32:48 and I’ll throw out a number or something like that.
0:32:49 – Yeah.
0:32:50 Absolutely you do not have to go.
0:32:51 If the house is on Zillow,
0:32:53 you can easily count the windows like that,
0:32:55 but I will never do that right away.
0:32:57 I only do that if the customer asks.
0:32:59 Otherwise I will be at the house
0:33:01 because if I’m at the house and I, you know,
0:33:03 I put a little charm on at the door
0:33:05 when I’m talking to them nine times out of 10,
0:33:07 they say yes, rather than if I just send them
0:33:09 a couple numbers, then like, oh, it’s too easy.
0:33:11 But if I’m actually at the house,
0:33:12 it’s a much higher success rate.
0:33:13 – Got it.
0:33:14 Yeah, that makes sense.
0:33:16 Versus just lobbing an email off
0:33:18 or lobbing a text message off.
0:33:18 Okay, fair enough.
0:33:22 More time required, but a better success ratio there.
0:33:23 – Oh yeah.
0:33:24 It’s definitely worth it.
0:33:25 – More with Jack in just a moment,
0:33:28 including collecting positive customer reviews,
0:33:31 how he manages his schedule as a full-time student
0:33:33 in his plans to double the business.
0:33:35 All that and more right after this.
0:33:38 Lots of scrappy side hustlers start their business
0:33:40 with just their personal phone number.
0:33:42 And I love that, but at a certain point,
0:33:44 you can’t be limited to just your cell phone
0:33:46 and notes app to get your work done.
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0:34:49 Hey, it’s no secret.
0:34:51 Starting a business can feel really hard
0:34:53 and growing a business even harder.
0:34:55 How are you gonna reach more customers?
0:34:57 How can you do it when budgets are tight?
0:34:58 How can you maintain the quality
0:35:01 of your products and services as you scale?
0:35:02 Well, there’s a great podcast that can help out
0:35:03 with all of that.
0:35:06 It’s called This Is Small Business.
0:35:09 This Is Small Business is full of practical insights
0:35:11 that you can apply to your business right now,
0:35:13 and it answers so many of those kinds of questions
0:35:15 that all entrepreneurs have,
0:35:17 like how to build your marketing strategy,
0:35:20 how to use email lists to increase revenue,
0:35:23 tips to accelerate small business growth, and tons more.
0:35:25 A couple of recent episodes I think you might like
0:35:28 are episode 61 on Marketing, Networking,
0:35:31 and Audience Building, and episode 63
0:35:34 on how to build your business with a small budget.
0:35:35 Both of those are filled with practical,
0:35:38 actionable tips to move your side hustle forward
0:35:40 so you can reach your goals.
0:35:42 So go ahead and follow This Is Small Business,
0:35:44 an original podcast from Amazon,
0:35:45 wherever you listen to podcasts.
0:35:49 Are you doing anything to build,
0:35:52 and this may be difficult if the business is split
0:35:54 between Colorado and Alabama,
0:35:56 like a Google business presence
0:35:58 or a local business presence for SEO,
0:36:01 for Google reviews, for Yelp, for Facebook,
0:36:03 or do they allow you to have a branch office
0:36:04 in Colorado or something?
0:36:07 – So I did try making a Google page a while ago,
0:36:09 like a really long time ago,
0:36:11 before I even had my $10,000 month,
0:36:12 and it kept on getting denied.
0:36:14 I think you need to have an LLC and insurance
0:36:16 and proof of that to start it,
0:36:17 which I didn’t have until the summer.
0:36:20 And then I tried making it up in the summer,
0:36:21 but it kept on getting denied
0:36:22 for reasons I don’t even know.
0:36:24 But then very recently,
0:36:25 I set the location to Alabama
0:36:27 and I sent a video with all the proof,
0:36:29 and it very recently got accepted.
0:36:31 It was definitely a very important thing
0:36:33 and a super easy way to get customers.
0:36:36 But once you do get tons of reviews,
0:36:37 it really depends on your location
0:36:38 and what your competition has.
0:36:40 But for example, in Auburn,
0:36:43 the highest is 375 reviews for window cleaning,
0:36:45 but then the second is like 75 reviews.
0:36:49 So once you get past that 75, you’re already second,
0:36:52 and it’s not gonna take too long to get those 75 reviews
0:36:54 as long as you’re asking each homeowner.
0:36:57 – Is there a script or an ask
0:36:59 after somebody swipes their card
0:37:01 and they pay you or they hand you that check
0:37:04 and you say, “Hey, I appreciate your business.
0:37:07 “If you’re happy with our work, would you mind jumping on
0:37:08 “Google and leaving us a quick review?”
0:37:09 – Yeah, so as of now,
0:37:12 I’m just sending them a link over text.
0:37:14 I’m just about to buy these cards.
0:37:16 It’s kind of like a credit card,
0:37:18 and it has, you kind of just tap it
0:37:19 to the homeowner’s phone,
0:37:21 and it sends them straight to a link.
0:37:23 So I can do it in person
0:37:24 and it just sends them straight to the link.
0:37:27 And so they already have all the stars up in front of them.
0:37:28 They’re kind of forced to leave a review
0:37:30 because I’m standing right in front of them saying,
0:37:34 like, “Oh, it worked, like, can you leave a review?”
0:37:36 And if you do a good job,
0:37:38 they’re always more than happy to leave you a review.
0:37:40 A lot of the people hiring you,
0:37:42 especially if you’re doing door to door,
0:37:45 they wanna see you succeed and they wanna support you.
0:37:46 So that’s why they’re hiring you.
0:37:47 – Yeah, that’s fancy.
0:37:50 Do you know the name of that little RFID card?
0:37:52 – Yeah, I believe the name is Dot.
0:37:53 It’s just the Dot card.
0:37:55 And you’ve literally just put it up to the person’s phone,
0:37:56 it sends them straight there.
0:37:56 It’s super convenient.
0:37:58 But another thing I’ll be doing
0:38:00 is printing little business cards,
0:38:01 which is QR codes on them,
0:38:03 which will send them straight to the link as well,
0:38:06 in case, you know, maybe they’re not home or whatever it is.
0:38:07 – Okay, gotcha.
0:38:08 Yeah, collect those reviews.
0:38:10 It may not take a ton,
0:38:11 depending on your local competition
0:38:13 and what else is out there
0:38:16 to start to build that body of social proof
0:38:19 and just, again, it’s sales all about no like and trust.
0:38:23 Like you build all these different little trust factors
0:38:24 and that’s just another one that can help drive it.
0:38:25 So that makes sense.
0:38:29 – Yeah, a huge way of marketing as well as,
0:38:30 if you don’t have a Google page,
0:38:33 you can always ask them to leave a review on Nextdoor
0:38:35 or Facebook or in one of their Facebook groups.
0:38:37 Those are always bound to get you tons of clients.
0:38:38 So if you’re able to do that,
0:38:40 which most people are willing to,
0:38:41 you can also say,
0:38:44 “Hey, I’ll throw in this extra service for free.”
0:38:46 If you just leave me a little review,
0:38:48 like an honest review on Nextdoor or on Facebook,
0:38:51 or you can tell them I’ll take 20 bucks off the price
0:38:52 if you could just do this for me.
0:38:54 And nine times out of 10, if you ask,
0:38:55 they’re going to do it.
0:38:56 – That makes sense.
0:38:58 And we see people doing that in our neighborhood groups
0:39:00 as well, hey, this company,
0:39:02 if you need handyman services,
0:39:04 this company was just out and they did great work.
0:39:07 And so now, even if I don’t need it right away,
0:39:10 now that it’s evergreen where I could search that,
0:39:12 handyman or plumber or whatever the keyword is,
0:39:15 and I can see who has been recommended
0:39:17 over the course of several years in the group.
0:39:18 – Yeah, exactly.
0:39:20 That’s definitely a great way to get going.
0:39:22 And the thing with the Google page as well is,
0:39:24 until you have a lot of those reviews,
0:39:27 it does limit you to a lot of other forms of marketing
0:39:29 because I had these little posters,
0:39:31 like the road signs that I’d put up,
0:39:33 just in lawns when I’m cleaning a house,
0:39:35 or at the end of the intersection,
0:39:37 I also have little advertising on my truck.
0:39:38 But what people are going to do
0:39:41 is they’re going to look up tiger window cleaning
0:39:43 rather than just calling the number right away.
0:39:44 And if they don’t see any reviews,
0:39:47 or they see someone else with much better reviews,
0:39:49 they’re not going to call you most likely.
0:39:52 – Yeah, you’ve inadvertently advertised
0:39:53 for your competition.
0:39:55 – Yeah, exactly, that’s exactly it.
0:39:58 – Have you faced a lot of that where people are getting
0:40:00 multiple competitive bids?
0:40:04 Is that the initial job price, 200 bucks, 300 bucks?
0:40:06 It’s like, do I really want to go through the trouble
0:40:08 of getting multiple bids for something like this?
0:40:10 I don’t know, what’s your relationship like
0:40:12 with the other window cleaners in town?
0:40:14 – More often than not, they’re not getting other bids.
0:40:15 Typically it’s just to you,
0:40:17 but a lot of time they do get other bids.
0:40:21 But it is shocking how expensive these other companies are.
0:40:24 Like, I mean, I’m charging and I’m making $150 an hour,
0:40:26 but these companies are charging.
0:40:29 Sometimes double what I’m charging, which is just ridiculous.
0:40:32 And what I’ve heard from a lot of the homeowners
0:40:34 who have used them before and then use my service
0:40:35 is they don’t even do a great job.
0:40:38 Like they come in and they have like four guys
0:40:39 do it in 20 minutes.
0:40:40 They don’t double check anything.
0:40:43 They just send them an invoice after and leave.
0:40:45 And then you can’t reach out to them either
0:40:47 when you see a little something wrong
0:40:49 because it takes forever to reach them.
0:40:51 – Yeah, well, yes, there is a room
0:40:53 for a good old fashioned customer service
0:40:54 and good pricing too.
0:40:54 So that’s great.
0:40:57 Well, my understanding of the class is starting next week.
0:41:00 What’s the game plan to manage this thing
0:41:03 schedule-wise, labor-wise, once schools in session?
0:41:08 – So I assume it will be very similar to last April.
0:41:10 So I’m a student at Auburn.
0:41:13 I’m gonna be a sophomore now, but last year in April,
0:41:14 I had a super full schedule.
0:41:18 That’s when I made 11,853 dollars in revenue.
0:41:20 We were working every single day
0:41:22 and I kind of schedule all my classes
0:41:24 so that they’re done super early.
0:41:26 So I wake up as early as I can,
0:41:27 normally around seven or seven 30,
0:41:30 then I finished class by around 10 a.m.
0:41:31 or sometimes noon.
0:41:33 And then from there, I’d pick up one of my guys.
0:41:35 We go do our first job
0:41:36 or we either start knocking one of the two
0:41:39 and then we typically work until dark
0:41:42 and ’cause it’s pretty hard to clean
0:41:44 during when you can’t see, obviously.
0:41:46 I drop off my guy or maybe he goes home.
0:41:48 I go to the gym and then I study
0:41:52 and I try to be done and asleep by 11 o’clock.
0:41:53 I can get that eight hours of sleep
0:41:55 and do it all the next day.
0:41:56 – Do it all again.
0:41:57 What a schedule there.
0:41:58 Yeah, if you forget about the study.
0:42:00 Oh yeah, there’s gonna be homework involved
0:42:01 with this whole being a student thing.
0:42:04 – If you are really trying to be efficient with your time
0:42:06 and you’re not like dilly-dallying on your phone
0:42:07 while you’re studying.
0:42:09 And there’s a lot of ways to really cut down
0:42:11 on the stuff you have to do.
0:42:14 And there’s a lot of bad habits people have too.
0:42:16 And if you cut that off, you’d really be surprised
0:42:17 how much time you actually have.
0:42:20 But even though I was really focused
0:42:21 on these other things rather than school,
0:42:24 I was still able to maintain my 4.0 GPA
0:42:28 and continued to live a really healthy and just happy life.
0:42:30 Being busy all the time and it’s really fulfilling
0:42:32 and it’s really meaningful too.
0:42:33 And it really keeps you happy.
0:42:34 – Yeah, good work on that.
0:42:35 I’m excited for you.
0:42:36 I think that’s really cool.
0:42:40 I remember my best academic quarters were also the quarters
0:42:43 that I had kind of the busiest schedule rose.
0:42:46 Working a lot of hours and you had to make it work
0:42:49 ’cause you didn’t have a lot of extra hours to do it in.
0:42:51 Somebody’s law, Parkinson’s law, maybe, you know,
0:42:54 whereas work expands to the time allowed
0:42:56 that your time allowed for it.
0:42:57 – That’s a huge part of window cleaning.
0:43:01 It really is a linear equation between how much energy
0:43:03 you’re putting in and how much time you’re putting
0:43:05 into the business versus how much you get out.
0:43:08 ‘Cause you know, you can work 100 hours in a week
0:43:10 if you want to, as much daylight as there is,
0:43:12 you can be knocking on doors or cleaning whatever it is.
0:43:14 Or you don’t have to knock on doors.
0:43:15 You don’t have to be working.
0:43:18 You know, it’s really however much you want to put in.
0:43:19 – Absolutely.
0:43:21 Whenever the income goals are that you have,
0:43:24 you can kind of scale it up and scale it down to that level.
0:43:27 Do you have any plans to scale it further?
0:43:29 Like where do you want to go with it?
0:43:32 – Yeah, so super recently I just spent around $9,000
0:43:35 getting a pressure washing skid all built up.
0:43:36 I’ve been doing that for the last month.
0:43:38 For anyone who doesn’t know what a skid is,
0:43:42 it’s basically a big aluminum part that goes in your truck
0:43:43 and it has shelves.
0:43:45 It just kind of increases the space in your truck.
0:43:47 So I mounted down all the pressure washing
0:43:50 and soft washing gear and reels to the shelves.
0:43:54 And from there, you can land super high ticket customers.
0:43:56 Like for example, a house clean,
0:43:58 you charge like, I think it’s like 25 cents
0:44:00 per square foot of the house.
0:44:02 So if it’s like a 4,000 square foot house,
0:44:05 it can be charging maybe $900 or,
0:44:06 and it really doesn’t take that long.
0:44:08 You’re kind of just wetting down the house,
0:44:10 getting the sodium hypochlorite on it
0:44:11 and then rinsing it back down.
0:44:13 It’s really not a hard task.
0:44:15 And you can do these super high ticket jobs
0:44:17 in a super little amount of time.
0:44:19 But my goal by the end of this year
0:44:23 is to be generating $20,000 a month in revenue
0:44:26 as well as maintaining my school as well.
0:44:28 And I think it’s super doable given that
0:44:31 throughout the summer, we, you know,
0:44:33 it’s just me and one other guy.
0:44:36 And a lot of the time I was on vacation with my family,
0:44:37 you know, the month of June,
0:44:40 I was in Mexico for a little over 10 days
0:44:43 and still managed to generate
0:44:45 almost $12,000 in the month of June.
0:44:46 – Did you have team members going out
0:44:49 while you were out of the country?
0:44:50 – So in Colorado, I didn’t really.
0:44:53 In Auburn, I have a lot more team members.
0:44:54 So it’s a lot easier to,
0:44:56 and they’re a lot more willing to work too.
0:45:00 So it’s a lot easier to kind of not have to be there
0:45:01 and not have to be in town.
0:45:03 And for example, in April,
0:45:05 the last month of April I was out
0:45:08 and they did work all week
0:45:10 and generated about $2,500
0:45:13 just without me having to really do anything.
0:45:14 Yeah, yeah, it’s a great feeling.
0:45:15 – Isn’t that cool?
0:45:17 Like things are happening when you’re not there.
0:45:19 That’s gotta be really rewarding.
0:45:22 What surprised you the most in building this thing?
0:45:24 – So what surprised me the most
0:45:26 actually is just how easy this,
0:45:29 and I really didn’t understand how easy it would be
0:45:32 until the 10th month when I had that first $10,000 month
0:45:34 because the first nine months of the business,
0:45:36 my best month was maybe $2,000.
0:45:39 And I knew what it was gonna take
0:45:42 to have that $10,000 month.
0:45:43 – I mean, is it easy?
0:45:46 I mean, you’re layering on sales and customer service
0:45:49 and physical labor and one man’s easy is another person.
0:45:50 This is like, that sounds hard.
0:45:52 – Sorry, I should clarify.
0:45:54 It’s more like the vision,
0:45:56 like the kind of steps you have to take.
0:45:57 The work itself is certainly not easy.
0:45:58 I will not say that.
0:45:59 But the steps you have to take,
0:46:02 it’s really just go knock on more doors
0:46:03 and work a little bit more,
0:46:05 or not a little bit, a lot more.
0:46:06 – Yeah, you gotta go earn it.
0:46:07 – Exactly.
0:46:09 – To be fair, the work itself isn’t rocket science either.
0:46:11 I mean, you’re able to teach yourself these skills
0:46:13 and teach other people how to do these skills.
0:46:15 But it’s interesting to hear you say,
0:46:18 maybe it was more of like the barrier to income,
0:46:19 it might be lower than you think,
0:46:21 but you’re gonna have to be willing to put in some labor,
0:46:22 put in some work to do it.
0:46:23 – Yeah, exactly.
0:46:26 Like most people, when they think of $12,000 a month,
0:46:28 they think of, okay, this must have taken
0:46:31 like a million steps to really get it going.
0:46:33 But once I figured out what I was doing,
0:46:37 for example, in May, I moved back to Colorado
0:46:38 and I didn’t start to the 10th.
0:46:41 And I literally started from completely scratch.
0:46:43 I didn’t have any reclients.
0:46:46 I just had my equipment and the knowledge.
0:46:47 And from the 10th to the 30th,
0:46:51 I was still able to make $11,600 in revenue.
0:46:53 And that’s really just from starting from scratch.
0:46:55 And just because I knew what I was doing,
0:46:57 and it really is some simple steps.
0:47:00 I was literally knocking until my knuckles bled.
0:47:02 – Yeah, it’s a portable skill.
0:47:04 But once you build up a certain reputation in town,
0:47:06 it can be seen as a local business.
0:47:07 And it’s like, oh, it’s hard to move away
0:47:10 from all those local reviews and reputation.
0:47:12 But the old saying in the car business
0:47:14 with my toolbox has wheels.
0:47:16 It’s like, I could take this show on the road
0:47:17 anytime I want.
0:47:19 Do you ever lose motivation, go to class?
0:47:21 Look, I’ve got this vehicle that I’ve built
0:47:25 that can generate a really, really strong income.
0:47:28 Why am I sitting here, go to school?
0:47:30 If I just put more hours into the business,
0:47:31 imagine where I could take it.
0:47:33 I could go to different locations.
0:47:34 I could franchise this thing.
0:47:35 Where’s your head at on that stuff?
0:47:37 – Yeah, that’s actually been something
0:47:39 I’ve been thinking about a lot recently.
0:47:40 – I don’t want to be the one that encourages you
0:47:41 to drop out.
0:47:44 I just genuinely, ’cause this is a really big debate
0:47:45 with the cost of tuition.
0:47:48 And is school still really that important?
0:47:49 What’s your take on it?
0:47:52 – The thing is with this is it looks phenomenal
0:47:53 on my resume.
0:47:56 And I can really leverage it to get in places
0:47:57 that I originally wouldn’t be able to do.
0:48:00 My goal is to break into the investment banking world.
0:48:02 And once I can do that and I want to build
0:48:04 a lot of business experience through that,
0:48:05 and then I want to move back
0:48:07 into the more entrepreneurial side
0:48:11 and be able to build maybe a seven-figure,
0:48:13 eight-figure business, nine-figure business
0:48:15 rather than just a six-figure business.
0:48:18 And as impressive as it is already,
0:48:19 I just don’t want to limit myself
0:48:21 to window cleaning right now
0:48:23 when I believe I could do better things down the road.
0:48:25 – Yeah, all right, investment banking,
0:48:27 tiger window cleaning is going to be the private equity
0:48:30 rollup of all these little mom and pop operators
0:48:31 around the world.
0:48:33 The path is out there.
0:48:34 So Jack, this has been awesome.
0:48:36 Give him a follow on Instagram,
0:48:37 support him over there.
0:48:40 We will link that profile up in the show notes for you.
0:48:42 Let’s wrap this thing up with your number one tip
0:48:43 for sign hustle nation.
0:48:44 – Yeah, absolutely, Nick.
0:48:47 So the advice for so many years has really been the same.
0:48:49 Audar, if you’re listening to this,
0:48:51 you already know what it takes to be successful.
0:48:53 You already know what bad habits you need to drop.
0:48:55 You know what hard work looks like.
0:48:56 There’s not much I could tell you
0:48:57 that’s just going to change your life.
0:49:00 What I can tell you is you already have all this knowledge.
0:49:03 What you need to do is apply that knowledge.
0:49:05 Like I said, for the first nine months of the business,
0:49:08 my best month was $2,000,
0:49:11 and I had a 600% increase on the 10th month.
0:49:13 And that’s really because I went out there
0:49:15 and I applied that knowledge I already knew.
0:49:17 I did have new equipment and I did have a new pitch,
0:49:20 but I really just applied what I already knew
0:49:21 and all the advice I’ve gotten,
0:49:23 but I didn’t have like a sudden click
0:49:27 that just transformed me into having a 600% increase
0:49:28 in my business.
0:49:30 – Yeah, you find it’s just like laying that foundation
0:49:32 and building the confidence and putting in the reps.
0:49:34 And you start to see the compound effect
0:49:36 of all of that stuff add up.
0:49:38 And then all of a sudden you’re like,
0:49:40 “Okay, now we’ve got this thing figured out.
0:49:41 We can go make it happen.”
0:49:42 – Yeah, exactly.
0:49:45 – Well, I’m inspired by this one taking a ton of notes.
0:49:47 As always, like all of these different tools
0:49:49 and tactics and resources and, you know,
0:49:51 “Hey, Auburn, hey, you know, local town,
0:49:52 there’s an epidemic of, you know,
0:49:55 all this really creative marketing strategies,
0:49:56 trying to break down the barriers,
0:49:59 build up trust and do it quickly
0:50:01 and intentionally with integrity
0:50:05 and with a positive spin on it, with a positive smile.
0:50:07 I think, you know, good things are gonna happen from that.
0:50:09 And so the cast is out there like Jack has shown.
0:50:11 Just have to go out there and get it.
0:50:13 So really, really inspiring story.
0:50:15 Again, we’ve been chatting, window washing.
0:50:20 We did an episode with Johnny Robertson at Squeegee God
0:50:21 in episode 480 a few years ago.
0:50:23 If you want another take on this business
0:50:24 from a different angle,
0:50:26 I remember him talking about going out and doing his first,
0:50:27 they wanted to get commercial business.
0:50:30 So he’s talking about knocking on storefronts
0:50:32 and doing his first job.
0:50:33 And the owner was like,
0:50:35 “Well, if you like what you’re doing, we’ll pay you.”
0:50:38 And so they spent way longer than they ever should have
0:50:40 doing this job because they didn’t know what they’re doing.
0:50:41 And at the end, he’s like, “Good work.”
0:50:42 And he pays them in donuts.
0:50:44 He’s like, “Here’s your day old donuts.”
0:50:46 They’re like, “Well, we kind of got paid.
0:50:48 Do we count that as our first job?”
0:50:50 But it was motivated enough to keep going.
0:50:51 But he had some really interesting stuff
0:50:53 on growth through acquisition
0:50:55 and the kind of his online marketing strategies
0:50:56 and reputation building.
0:50:56 So check that one out.
0:50:57 That’s episode 480.
0:50:58 And if windows aren’t your thing,
0:51:00 I want to encourage you to download
0:51:03 my list of 101 service business ideas.
0:51:05 Some are online, some are offline.
0:51:06 But in either case,
0:51:08 I think you’ll be able to apply some of Jack’s
0:51:10 marketing and sales tactics to those.
0:51:12 You can ground that for free at the show notes
0:51:13 for this episode.
0:51:16 Just follow the link in the episode description
0:51:17 and it’ll get you right over there.
0:51:19 Big thanks to Jack for sharing his insight.
0:51:20 Big thanks to our sponsors
0:51:22 for helping make this content free for everyone.
0:51:25 You can hit up sidehustlenation.com/deals
0:51:27 for all the latest offers from our sponsors in one place.
0:51:29 Thank you for supporting the advertisers
0:51:30 that support the show.
0:51:31 That is it for me.
0:51:32 Thank you so much for tuning in.
0:51:33 If you’re finding value in the show,
0:51:36 the greatest compliment is to share it with a friend.
0:51:37 So fire off a text message.
0:51:39 I know you’ve got a friend or two who needs to hear this.
0:51:42 Until next time, let’s go out there and make something happen.
0:51:43 And I’ll catch you in the next edition
0:51:45 of the Side Hustle Show.