Know Thyself - said Socrates.  Easier said than done - wrote Benjamin Franklin.

What does this have to do with finding customers? Everything! You need to find out your likes, and dislikes. What kind of jobs you enjoying doing everyday. What type of customer you want calling on your business. Once you get a clear picture of the type of window cleaning business you want. The picture of your ideal customer is much easier to figure out…And Find!

Answer the following questions and see if you can find yourself.

· What type of work do you want to do?

· Residential, commercial, construction clean up, route, lo-rise, hi-rise, a combination?

· Are you going to have any add on services?

· Are you going to clean windows by yourself?

· Are you going to have employees?

· How many days per week will you clean windows?

· What are your hours?

· What level of service do you want to provide?

· What type of tools are you going to use?

· What is your pricing level? High? Medium? Low?

· What type of weather will you work in?

· How long do you want your season to last?

· What is the income level of your customers?

For example lets say you decide you want to do residential work. You want to have employees, you want to manage, no weekends, and regular business hours. You want to work in upper middle class neighborhood. You want to provide great service, and price above your competition.

Now armed with all this information you are ready to go out and find your ideal customer. How? Well now that you know thy self you will know who to go after. You will no longer be floating along taking what ever work comes along. You will be able to turn down jobs which do not fit you profile. And concentrate on finding the work you want to perform.

Most people want to skip this part and run out the door to find customers. Two years later they are standing around scratching their heads wondering where did all these customers come from? They want to do only residential jobs. And are always getting calls for CCU. I’m always amused by people who complain about their customers. Hey, you went out and got them!

I remember a couple of years ago driving between jobs I saw another window cleaner packing up his truck. I stopped to talk and introduce myself. (You do the same…Don’t you?) As I was admiring his pressure washer he mentioned that all he ever got was pressure washing customers. We talked about window cleaning, tools, customers, and our pricing. However, he couldn’t answer any of the questions I asked him about his business. He seemed to just keep getting pressure washing jobs. When he wanted window cleaning jobs…didn’t know why

If you cannot come up with a clear definition of who you are…you will have no control over the quality of customers who choose you. You will leave to chance the type of customer you acquire.