press release

Your prices should range between $20 and $25 per hour. Pay for hired help should start at $5 per hour. It's important that you do some homework on the various glass treatments in vogue these days. Many of these coatings or coverings require special
treatment such as the use of soft towels instead of brushes that might scratch the surface of the window coating.

 The professional technique for washing windows cleanly and in the least amount of time is as follows: A few drops of cleaning solution in your bucket of water. Remember, too many soap suds are detrimental to quality work. Wet your brush from the bucket and then scrub the window. Take your squeegee and make one wiping pass across the top of the window. Be sure to keep the end of the squeegee pressed firmly against the molding or top sill of the window frame. Wipe the squeegee, and then do the same thing down each side of the window. From this point on, it's just a matter of wiping the window clean with one continuous stroke. You do this by arching and looping your wiping strokes across the window pane, back and forth, never stopping or lifting the squeegee blade from the glass. With this method, you can wipe even the largest window clean in just a matter of seconds. Practice at home on your own windows and those of your neighbors. You will quickly develop a knack for this method and wonder why you never discovered it before, when you've finished with the squeegee, take a chamois and carefully "blot-wipe" any excess water that may not have been picked up along the sides and bottom of the window frame. In reality, that's all there is to it.

 You'll find the spring and summer months to be your busiest, but because of the increasing popularity of painting holiday scenes and special sale announcements on business windows, be alert for year round opportunities along these lines as well. Keep plugging away and offering your services to businesses throughout your area, particularly along those busy thoroughfares where moving traffic contributes to the build-up of dirt & grime on windows.

 When you're ready to hire helpers or people to do the work for you, a simple ad in your local newspaper's "Help Wanted" column should bring you more applicants than you will ever use. After you have hired the one or the ones you want, keep a record of the ones you liked but did not hire, and check with them when you want to add onto your crew of workers again.

 Bulletin Board notices will also bring in a surprising number of applicants. Another good idea is to spread the word that you're looking for part-time help, amongst your local firemen, policemen and teachers. Depending on your are's pay scales, you
can also do pretty well by contacting the temporary help services in your area.

 About the only regular advertising you'll need to do is a medium to large display ad in the yellow pages. This is a must because once you're established, you'll find at least 50% of your business coming from having seen your ad in the yellow pages. An "insider's" trick to advertising in the yellow pages - Try to name your business with the very first letter of your business name beginning with A-B or X-Y-Z. Statistics and surveys tend to prove that when people look for a service in the yellow pages, they invariably pick from either the top or the bottom of the alphabet.

 Aside from the yellow pages, your next best advertising will be the "reminder" kind, such as note pads with your company name imprinted on them, special calendars or holders, special date or appointment books, and/or sports caps with your company name/emblem on them. However, as this kind of advertising is quite expensive, it's good to keep it in mind, but best to hold off on it until you can well afford it.

 Any radio, television, newspaper and/or direct mail advertising efforts will cost you much more than any business you receive from it, so don't even consider this type of advertising. However, do think about, and submit "press release" material to these media as often as you can, because any publicity coverage they give you will surely be well worthwhile.

 Telephone soliciting for business works very well, but you should have a list of businesses and their telephone numbers, plotted out according to new routes you are trying to build. Time spent travelling between jobs will cost you money, just as time spent looking up telephone numbers along a certain planned route will seemingly take forever. If and when you do decide to drum up new business by phone, you'll have much greater success if you can offer some sort of promotional gimmick to get them to try your service.

 We had great success one time by offering to do the windows for free if they'd let us put a sign in the window - These windows cleaned by AAA Window Cleaning Service - 666-5824... Another time, we did the windows for half price as an introductory offer... And still another time, we joined with our telephone answering service - on a combined promotion... half price on three months of telephone answering service just for trying our
window washing service... The ideas, gimmicks and promotions you can use are limited only by your imagination...

 Later on, we hire some good-looking college girls - on a commission basis - to call on businesses along the new routes we were trying to develop. They just introduced themselves as representatives of our firm, explained our services and offered a half price introductory service. They ended up selling better than 60% of the businesses they called upon.

 During one summer, we even tried a crew of these young ladies as window washers - they weren't the best... We dressed them in snappy red & white suspender-type short-shorts and drew quite a crowd on each job. It was good advertising for us - we got free newspaper and television coverage, and an untold number of new business leads - but the glamour of the whole thing grew old very quickly. But it was a gimmick that brought in new business, caused a lot of people to recognize that we were in the window cleaning business, and made our selling job easier.

 Truly, this is an easy business to start... and with just a little bit of imagination on your part, as well as persistence and quality work man ship, you can easily become as financially secure as you want... All it takes is action on your part, so reach for it and may you always enjoy the fruits of a bountiful success.


OTHER SOURCES FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

International Sanitary Supply Association
5330 North Elston Avenue
Chicago, IL 60630

BUILDING SERVICE CONTRACTORS
International Association
301 Tower, Suite 525
Vienna, VA 22180

American Institute of Maintenance
1120 Chevy Chase Drive
Glendale, CA 91205

BUILDING SERVICE CONTRACTING
Economic Development Administrators
Department of Commerce
Washington, DC 20001

Tucker Manufacturing
PO Box 848
Cedar Rapids, IA 52406

UNGAR (Strip-washer Distributor)
254 West Lincoln Avenue
Mt Vernon, NY 10550

Von Schrader Company
9112 Place
Racine, WI 53403

NATIONWIDE LEAD SERVICE
PO Box 2712
Appleton, WI 5493

Barra Chemical Corporation
8851 N. 21st
Phoenix, AZ 85015

SERVICEMASTER INDUSTRIES
2300 Warrenville Road
Downers Grove, IL 60515

ARMTRONG BUILDING MAINTENANCE COMPANY
Franchise Division
5308 Cole, SE
Albuquerque, NM 87108ed, you'll find at least 50% of your business