Hooray!

I’m celebrating…

And I’m going to give you a free tip… When you setup a blog - Don’t forget your password!  And don’t forget the email you used to create the blog.

I forgot my password and haven’t been able to log on for a couple weeks.  Today the password suddenly pop into my head.   So, I tried it and boom I’m in!

I downloaded Roboform to prevent this from happening in the future.  Plus, I wrote my password down and have it in a secure place.

Keith

Today I was at a house doing a bid.  The customer had called yesterday and told me no one was going to be home.  I told her it would be OK, I would leave the estimate in the front door.  I drove over to her house got out and started walking around the house.  It was a coloinal with storms, and divided double hung windows.  Not exactly my favorite type of windows to clean.  You can get into some hardcore wrestling matches trying to open those bad-boys. 

I walked around the back of the house counting windows.  Made my way around to the front of the house.  As I approached the front door… You already know what happened next, don’t you?… Yes, the front door swung open and a women stated: “Who are you and what are you doing?”

After the heart attack… I filled her in on the details… I was called to come out and give a estimate for window cleaning… and I was told this was the address… and I the person on the phone told me no one was going to be home… and…

The woman told me she was the mother and she often house sat for her daughter.  And she was surprised her daughter forgot to tell her I might be by today.  I said no problem… sorry for the confusion.  Gave her the estimate, got in my truck and left.

The lesson I learned was to always knock on the door before starting an estimate.

Keith

The last few weeks have been very busy.  I’ve embarked on a new venture… Copywriting.  In addition to getting my first client, I’ve been featured on a blog.  Below is the link to the interview:

http://ryanhealy.typepad.com/copywriting/2007/10/new-copywriter-.html

I almost forgot to mention it… guess I’m excited!

Keith

Will the third time not be a charm? Yesterday on the way home from a residential window cleaning job this thought passed through my brain.

You see this is the 3rd time I’ve started my window cleaning business from scratch, or nearly from zero. The first time when I started my business, second when a partnership went bad(very bad.. and blame went to both sides), and third when I moved here to NY.

What my little brain was saying to me was… Are you sure you can do this again? Will the 3rd time not be a charm? Haven’t you just been lucky in the past?

Funny how your little brain will sneak in and try to give your confidence a rattle. I actually indulged in these thoughts for a few miles. My business has been growing, but not as fast as I planned. So, my little brain jumped on the opportunity to exploit a setback. This usually how negative talk works on your self-confidence. It catches you when you are off guard, and attacks.

I caught myself, and shook the negative thoughts out of my thinking. You cannot let these thoughts stick around, or it will spiral out of control. Do you know what I said to myself?

I said to my little brain- Little brain your right things have not been going as planned. But you cannot change the past, you can only change the future. So, I’ll bear down and focus on getting better results and finish out the year strong.

Actually I want to thank my little brain for pointing out a problem. It gave me an opportunity to create a solution, and put a plan in action.

Jim Rohn’s weekly e-zine from Issue 396- June 11,2007 shows you a simple process to conquer doubt. See the archive link here. Give it a try… it works.

Let me know your thoughts,

Keith

A favorite show of mine is Little People Big World. The main reason I watch is because it is a realistic upbeat look at life. The Roloff family is grounded, and fun to watch. Matt Roloff is a business success and keeps family first…not a bad role model!

One episode showed Matt giving a speech to college kids. He started the speech describing the worst day of his professional like. He got fired for being a little person. He said that he was crushed.

What impressed me the most was the speed he recovered from this devastating experience. In fact he mentioned how fast he bounced back from the experience. I’ve read that the speed you recover from a set back is a key ingredient to high achievement.

He has made the news recently with looks from the outside to be an embarrassing incident. (See MSNBC story here) The way I look at it…is everybody makes mistakes. Most of us are lucky that we don’t have reporters following our every move. I’m sure he will bounce back from this better than ever.

It will be interesting to watch how he overcomes this setback. There will be people who criticize him for what has happened, and many will rush to quick, harsh judgment. However there are always people standing on the sidelines ready to pounce. Sometime people secretly enjoy rolling around in a pity party of one. Maybe they find some kind of perverse pleasure, or enjoy the attention they receive. Who knows…

All I know is every minute wasted in a pity party is time lost. My goal is seeing how and fast I can bounce back from any setback.

What about you? How fast do you bounce back from any setback?

Let me know your thoughts,

Keith

My wife is returning Sunday after 2 weeks in China.  Needless to say I’m excited.  And the internet has made it much easier for both of us.  How?  Good question…We used Google talk to talk almost daily!

I have to say the clarity was awesome.  I expected some connection problems, or lag time speaking.  But that was not the case.  It was a clear as talking on a regular phone.  And we spent hours talking a couple of times.  It sure did make this trip much easier on the missing her part. 

The only draw back…arranging our schedules to get together really screwed up my sleep patterns.  But it was worth it.

Well have a great weekend.

Powered by ScribeFire.

This time of year we see a seasonal slow down in residential window cleaning jobs. In fact, over at Gary’s Site the Window Cleaning Network there is a thread about this in his discussion group.

Now I could give you positive talk about the slow down…For example:

“The only slow down is between the ears!”

“I don’t have a slow down…because I choose not to participate!”

“I don’t have a slow down…because I think & operate outside the box!”

However that kind of talk always bugs me. I always feel insulted when some pinhead stands there and rattling off those or similar platitudes.

Now, I’m not saying you should wallow in the fact that this time of year is slow for window cleaning jobs. You should just acknowledge it for what it is…A fact. Figure out what you are going to do about it, and move on.

You can one of several things. You can ride it out till back to school time, take advantage of the down time, crank up the marketing machine, or panic. Personally at one time or another I’ve done all four. I find panicking to be the most stressful.

What I’ve done the last few years is a combination of cranking up the marketing machine, and taking advantage of the down time.

This time of year is good for sending out 3-step customer reactivation postcards, 3-step and new mover postcards. On the reactivation postcards put a strong headline (and no…GET YOUR WINDOWS CLEANED, or your company name is not a good headline), a reminder that you miss them, you really appreciate their business, a great offer if they call and set an appointment, a deadline, and your contact info (Funny, but I have received stuff in the mail with no phone numbers, addresses, or websites). On the mover postcards, replace you miss them - with welcome to the neighborhood.

Send each 3-step postcard 7-10 days apart and refer back to the last one. The easiest way is to not change the post card, just put at the top, left - 2nd notice (for the second postcard, Final notice (for the last postcard).

That usually keeps me booked with all the window cleaning jobs I want.

Wow…it has been over two months since I’ve posted anything.

I could bore you with tales about how May, and June got busy.  However just about any window cleaner waving a squeegee around gets busy that time of year.  So, I won’t

The motivation was just not there to post…and once I got into the habit of not posting it became easier to just let it slide.  The last couple of days I’ve been thinking about starting this back up again.  However I kept putting it off.

This morning I got up and decided today was the day.  My goal was to get this done before I left for the day.  I’ll get back on a regular schedule, and have some more great tips coming your way!

 That’s it for now…Off to clean a customer who is 10 minutes from here!  You gotta love that commute!

Today I was not paying much attention to my computer.  However tonight I checked my email and found out some tragic news. 

Gary Halbert has passed.

When I read the news was stunned.  Gary passed away in his sleep on April 8th.  The sad news started getting around earlier today.

 Gary’s influence can be seen, or felt all through the marketing world.  Many people list him as their influence, or mentor.  He will be sorely missed.

I did not know Gary, but felt like I did through his writing.  He was someone I studied and learned so much from over the years.

Gary’s best friend John Carlton wrote a fitting post on his blog.

Farewell Sir Gary Halbert.

This time of year I can feel it in the air.  What is it?

Spring!  Winter is leaving, the temps are rising and the days are getting longer.  It could only mean one thing:

Window Cleaning!  Of course window cleaning means raking in the cash.  All that pent up demand from the customers to get their windows cleaned.  This time of year I could work sun up to sun down everyday…and still turn away customers.  Does that get you excited or what?

 Of course to get that busy you need to have a back log of customers eager, ready and waiting to get on your schedule.  And once I cracked the code…it was no longer a problem for me to get and stay as busy as I wanted.

I always send out a special offer to all my past customers to fill up the schedule.  I like to give them a special incentive to call early for their window cleaning.  This is the famous CTA…also known as Call To Action.  An effective CTA’s will get the phones to ring.

All your customers know they want to get the windows cleaned…however they like most of us tend to put things off.  A Call To Action gives customers an extra reason to pick up the phone and make the appointment.  They don’t want to miss out on a good deal.  In fact most of us do not like to miss out on a good deal.  The thinking is “If I going to do it anyway…why not also get the special offer…after all it won’t last forever!” 

And that is what makes a Call To Action such an effective trigger.

How are you going to make this work in your business?