Commercial Window Cleaning
This year has demonstrated 2 things to us with great emphasis. Both lessons can be applied to commercial window cleaning. Both lessons should be taken to heart by anyone looking to Run a Franchise Business.
The first lesson is:
“Client relationships make or break your businesses.” In our previous blog post, we talked about the importance of great client relationships. Then we thanked our clients for getting us through this year.
The second thing we learned was how much stability you can have by maintaining a diversified portfolio of commercial window cleaning contracts.
Our commercial window cleaning contracts actually gave our business a lot of flexibility this year. This was contrary to what we thought would happen. We’ll be clear, not all of our commercial work came back to us this year. There are still businesses that are not ready to have their windows cleaned, but we have talked with all of our commercial clients to let them know we are still available when they need it.
Large Commercial Window Cleaning Contracts
This year, the commercial window cleaning we have been able to maintain provides long-term project work for a few different teams that we employ. We maintain large commercial contracts with Queen’s University, cleaning all of the residence buildings on their campus. This is a multi-month project that takes a dedicated team of 6 full-time employees.
This is a massive contract, and it provides a lot of stability within our business. One of the added benefits is that any day where we have last-minute cancellations, instead of sending that crew home early, we can send them to chip away at a large commercial project.
Commercial Window Cleaning Contract Examples
Aside from landing a massive contract with one of the largest employers in your area, what are some other examples of commercial work that has aided our stability through this season.
- Regular Storefront Cleaning. We clean a lot of storefronts (and we try to service them all in a row). Doing a single store-front once isn’t great for businesses. However, if you can string together a few in the same area and repeat service once or twice a month then that is much more sustainable revenue.
- City contracts. For example, in each of the cities we operate in (including our Franchise cities) we maintain municipal contracts. Getting a municipal contract will help to solidify your presence in an area. An added bonus is that cities tend to continue operations (even if modified) through thick and thin. This is not an end-all solution, but city contracts can help steady a blow.
- Rental and Property management companies. These companies are another example of solidifying your local presence in an area. Generally, they serve a large group of properties with some sort of established reputation. This reputation can be good or bad, as explained below.
*An important note for whenever you are doing any type of subcontracted work. You will want to separate yourself from the entity that has hired you. Build your image individually and positively so that if there are any faults in the chain you emerge on top. This means introducing yourself and establishing great rapport with those in your immediate vicinity.*
Final Thoughts
By working with these 3 types of commercial clients we have been able to create a profitable year for a service-based company in the height of Covid-19. We cannot attribute all of our success to this strategy. However, we can certainly say that focusing our efforts on this type of target has produced excellent results this year.
To summarize, for anyone looking to grow a sustainable window cleaning business, building a diversified commercial window cleaning portfolio will allow you to maintain stability in more turbulent times.
After all that, if you’re interested in learning more about Elite Window Cleaning, we’ve linked to some of our most interesting blog posts just below:
The Best Reasons to Buy an Elite Window Cleaning Franchise in 2021
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