Don The Window Cleaner

Having your own small business is a blessing and a curse. It gives you a better income than working at an hourly job, and you have some flexibility.  Sometimes the curse is in the flexibility.

It’s the flexibility that can give you problems in the early stages of getting your business started. You may be struggling with getting enough work, and you start doing some other service to fill the time. If you aren’t careful, you may lose your focus and fail to do any effective marketing in any one area of your business.

Many years ago I branched out into full janitorial work, and hated every minute of it. I hope I never strip and wax another tile floor again. Fortunately, this was a brief detour, and I only wasted about a year struggling with this.

Today, I am at a point where I have a very well established business. In the next few years I will be forming some kind of exit strategy. I was thinking about setting a target of working about 20 hours a week in the future. I don’t really ever want to retire. But I would like to be taking it a bit easier.

But this past year I did something unexpected and ran for Mayor. I have been politically active for the past 10 years, and I never thought I could get elected in this college town, but the recent showing that I gave has changed my mind. I lost by 42 votes, scared the Hell out of the local power structure, and I now find myself gaining support for a future run at a city commission seat. This changes things.

I will be running next March and I expect to win it. It will be hard to do, but I believe the timing is right. It means I will be changing some things. A city commission seat is a part time position, and it doesn’t pay well, so I will  keep my business a few days per week after I am sworn in, in the event that I do win. Up until then I will  be very busy, and I have to figure out what else I will be doing with my other interests.

Another thing that has changed is that the number of people who call me and email me for advice on their window cleaning business prospects has increased. As it goes right now, I don’t have time for that. But, I would like to make time for it if it could be done profitably. So far, it’s just been a good deed. I don’t make enough money off products and advertising for it to be worthwhile. And as long as it’s just the occasional person who wants help, that is no big deal. But the volume of calls has forced me to think about going back to a paid service, at the very least to thin the herd. Otherwise, I cannot afford to talk to everyone who wants what amounts to be the same information over and over again.

So, in the near future I will be creating an email new letter. It will be an annual subscription. When questions are asked, all subscribers will get the answers. Any videos I make will be for subscribers only. I will leave up the old videos on YouTube, although I may clear out all the ones with Squeegeesbymail.com ads because I no longer own that site and I no longer sell equipment. That was not worth it even a little bit.

When I figure out a price point for the newsletter, I will announce that here.

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You may have noticed that you can now be reminded that there is new stuff here via text message. On the left sidebar you can enter your mobile phone number and choose your provider from the drop down menu, and you should be notified whenever there is a new post here! That way, you don’t have to remember to go to your favorites and come here to check it out. Whatever you are charged for text messages by your cell phone provider will also apply to these messages, so keep that in mind.

If you are a twitter or stumbleupon or Yahoo Buzz user, you can also share these postings with a click below!

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As you can tell, there is a new look at thsi site. There will be other changes, too. More stuff for sale, and a more holistic approach to self-employment. After all, if you are self-employed, you have chosen to take control of your destiny in a way tht most people have not. This is a lifestyle choice, and a philosophical shift that will challenge your security-minded, wage-earning mentality. A failure to do this is why some people never make it, even though they may have the professional skills and some education.

Sty tuned!

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This site will no longer be a paid membership site. It is simply not worth the endless nuissance that it has been to use the Memberwing WordPress plugin. It makes work for me, gets me pissy messages from some of the people who don’t have their membership automatically activated, and breaks down easily. I will be seeking an advertising based solution to my issues here, and refunding all April subscription fees. I will then be taking down some of the premium stuff I am selling on other sites. Thanks for yoru patience.

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I have been fairly sick for the past week. When I haven’t had a fever and diarrhea, I’ve had a constant cough with congestion. I have gone to work for four of those days because I really needed to make some money, and because it’s spring and I have customers counting on me to get them done before Passover. So, even when I could drag my body out to work, I have not felt much like writing, other than ocassional twitter posts and facebook updates. I’m sick, but I’m not dead.

Well, I feel good enough to start going back to the gym tomorrow. And I do feel like writing again. It is likely I will even have some audio and video up this week, even though I am behind on so much. So stay tuned!

During this down time, I am also revisiting the idea of buying a water fed pole system. I have been reading up on it to see exactly what I need. The first thing I have to do is test our local water. If our water is high enough in Total Dissolved Solids, and I think it is, I will probably need a reverse-osmosis filter to use ahead of the deionization tanks to get the pure water I will need. This makes the whole setup more expensive. I also need to find out if there is a local company that can recharge the DI tanks. Anyway, I was hoping this could get done for about $2,000, but it is looking unlikely. Between 3 and 4 thousand is more realistic.

I am heading in this direction because I am concerned that a big company could come in and suck up all the available work by launching an outside window cleaning promotion at a low price. Then they could just upsell the labor intensive inside work to a ready contact base. If someone does this, I want it to be me.

Well, I am getting ready to spend some money. Remember, if you are thinking of getting into this business because it’s cheap to do so, that is correct. But you will have to spend some money sometime. Being in business is not free.

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Finally, we are ready to get started. Although the downloads section is a bit sparse so far, it does include my brochure templates that have been selling at lulu.com for $10, so you are already ahead of the game if you join dontwc.com at only $3 per month. There are also a bunch of old audio podcasts I made a couple of years ago, but took down. They will at least amuse you.

I am now going to create a “mailbag” page where I will answer all emailed questions. Anyone can email me. But only members can read or hear the answers. Yes, I will do audio answers whenever I can!

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During this development stage, I have decided to take readers with me. That means I am going to make all blog posts part of the free content at all times. Premium content will be for Gold and Silver members. A Gold membership will be $99 for the entire year and make all premium content available at all times. Silver membership will be $10 per month and only new content added that month will be available on a month to month basis. That seems reasonable.

This also means that I will be posting here often. I will need to in order to promote the blog in general.

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