By being organised you can improve your reputation for reliability and professionalism and receive the full potential earnings from your work.
Scheduling and frequency
Much of your success in being organised and reliable depends on the arrangements and commitments that you make with your customers.
Scenario 1:
Let’s say you have a domestic window cleaning round with the majority of customers being 4 weekly in frequency. One or two customers feel that 4 weekly is a little too often and ask that you call every 6 weeks instead. If you agree to this you will find that your round becomes disjointed and to keep your commitment you will need to make a special trip just for the sake of a couple of houses.
Solution:
Explain that you come to this street every four weeks so the choice would have to be 4 weekly or 8 weekly. It is likely that if they have asked for every 6 weeks then they would choose 8 weekly. Perhaps the customer is asking you to come less often because they feel the price is too high.
Scenario 2:
You are getting more work all of the time and are now finding it difficult to get around your work on time. You go through a period of being continuously late and are setting a pattern of going every 6 weeks instead of every 4 as planned. If you continue like this for long your customers will be trained into a 6 week schedule and it will be difficult to go back to a 4 week schedule in the future without some customers feeling that you are back too soon.
Solution:
If you have too much work to get around on time then you need to either refine your work and prioritise or consider taking somebody on. The latter solution may require taking even more work on and depending on how much more work you need, it could be a good time to buy a round rather than to time consumingly canvass it.
Example of how you may wish to organise your window cleaning round:
For the purpose of illustrating a point, let’s say you’ve recently started window cleaning and that your total window cleaning round is worth £1200 per month. You intend to work 5 days a week (20 days per 4 weeks). We’ll use easy figures and say your average daily takings are £100. That means that you could complete your work in about 12 days.
Now let’s say that your round is based in 3 areas or towns and most of your work is based on a 4 week schedule. We’ll call the areas Oldtown, Uptown and Newtown. Oldtown is well established and is worth £600 per month. Uptown is worth £400 per month and Newtown is a new round where you are picking up new work and is worth £200 per month.
By assigning a specific day of the week to each area, your customers will have a better idea of when you are likely to come, it will help you make appointments and we’ll aslo see how it can help you prioritise and refine your work.
We’ll say that you work 5 days. Oldtown is worth £600 per month so it will take 6 days. Uptown will take 4 days and Newtown 2 days.
So we could divide the Oldtown round in such a way that it is done each Monday, meaning you would get about £400 of it done and the other £200 you could assign to two Tuesdays. Uptown is worth £400 and so by working it every Wednesday you can cover the round. That leaves Newtown which is only £200 and can be completed in 2 Thursdays.
So your schedule would look something like this: (Notice how the intention is to fill up each day to its maximum realistic potential. Concentrate on doing your best jobs first in the day so that if you don’t finish everything, it is the poorer work which is delayed. Instead of going back the next day to finish off, do your best work assigned for that day or canvass new better work. The scraps of work which don’t get done during the week could be ‘mopped up’ on Friday if you don’t have a larger job or one off appointment booked in. Gutter cleans and the like could also be assigned to this day. In case of really bad weather, use it for canvassing or administration and just pick up your normal schedule on the assigned day you return to work. If your customers are not happy you to work in the rain and they know which day you usually come, then they will understand that you have not come because of the weather and will expect to see you return the same day the following week. (If this happens twice in a row, you may wish to do the work on the Friday.) By using this system, rather than picking up where you left off, you will find that your round remains intact and does not become disjointed. Instead of having to finish off part of one area before moving to another, you can start the day doing your best work in a specific area on the assigned day - the day those customers expect to see you.
Week 1
Monday: Oldtown (£100)
Tuesday: Oldtown (£100)
Wednesday: Uptown (£100)
Thursday: Newtown (£100)
Friday: Other (Reserved for larger one off jobs, ‘mopping up’ work or administration work etc.)
Week 2
Monday: Oldtown (£100)
Tuesday: Oldtown (£100)
Wednesday: Uptown (£100)
Thursday: Newtown (£100)
Friday: Other (Reserved for larger one off jobs, ‘mopping up’ work or administration work etc.)
Week 3
Monday: Oldtown (£100)
Tuesday: Canvass and work new jobs in Oldtown.
Wednesday: Uptown (£100)
Thursday: Canvass and work new jobs in Newtown.
Friday: Other (Reserved for larger one off jobs, ‘mopping up’ work or administration work etc.)
Week 4
Monday: Oldtown (£100)
Tuesday: Canvass and work new jobs in Oldtown.
Wednesday: Uptown (£100)
Thursday: Canvass and work new jobs in Newtown.
Friday: Other (Reserved for larger one off jobs, ‘mopping up’ work or administration work etc.)
Try to organise your round so that 8 weekly work is equally balanced. In other words if in Oldtown you have 6 jobs that are 8 weekly, split them equally as regards time (perhaps 3 the first time and 3 the next time) rather than doing all 6 at the same time.
By taking note of how much work you do each day in each area you can set realistic targets of what you want to achieve on each day of the schedule. Once you have enough work to fill your schedule you can start to refine the work, dropping poorer jobs as you replace them with better jobs. In time you will find that you will exceed your initial targets for each day and maximise to its full potential the time you have set aside as work hours.
( See are you in the Zone? )
If you would like to improve your reliability and organisation then we highly recommend the Microsoft Excel based round management system, Round Tracker v4 which incorporates the some of the above suggestions in its design. Designed by a window cleaner, for window cleaners this program does exactly what it says on the tin and keeps you on track with your round.
If you have no set idea of when you intend to be in the area again you will find it difficult to make solid reliable arrangements. Using a software program or spreadsheet such as Round Tracker v4 is a good way to get organised and maximise your round’s potential.
Learn more about Round Tracker v4
Refining and organising
If your round is 4 weekly and you consistently get round in 6 weeks then you are carrying 2 weeks of excess baggage. As noted above your reputation will suffer initially as being unreliable and your customers will likely start saying things like “I would have left the gate open but we never know when you are coming!” Sound familiar?
Rather than allow a 4 weekly round to settle into a pattern of being 6 weekly, take a good look at your schedule. Are you going backwards and forwards to the same streets or areas to accommodate customers with access issues? Do you regularly get a late start in the morning meaning that you fall behind for the rest of the day and week? Then maybe it’s time to refine your round and organise your schedule.
Take a look at your work. Where do you earn the most and where do you earn the least for each hour that you work? (Round Tracker v4 has a feature of grading your work so as to see how best to refine and prioritise your work).
Could you sell off the poor work leaving just the cream of the work to get around in 4 weeks instead of 6? Those 2 extra weeks just mean that the houses are getting more dirty creating more work for you and slowing you down.
Window cleaners that work alone may find motivation to be a problem from time to time and this can lead to getting behind with your work. Why not make an appointment each day with customers that have access issues for first thing in the morning, perhaps before they leave to go to work. Not only will this avoid you having problems with access issues but having a commitment early in the morning will give you that extra push to get out of bed on those dull, cold winter mornings.
Having a fixed time to start work each day is essential to maintain your schedule.
By following a schedule similar to the one shown above you will know exactly what you need to achieve each day. Setting such targets is another motivating force to keep you going once you get out to work.
Your round has a potential monthly average value if all jobs are done on time. Do you reach that potential value or when the end of the month comes have you missed quite a few jobs meaning lost earnings?
Prioritising
The key to successful time management boils down to this one word -PRIORITISING.
To make the most of your time at work try to organise your work so that you do your best work first and your worst work gets left until last. If you don’t manage to finish your work by the end of the month start again with the best work and leave the poor work until next time or use the next available catch up day to mop it up.
If you have a large commercial job that takes the most part of a day, could you slot one or two of these jobs in to just finish off the day and boost the days earnings?
Time set aside to organise your work is also a priority in your work schedule. At the end of each working day set aside half an hour to get organised. Recharge the battery, fill the tank, make routine checks, wipe the van down, do your scheduling and accounts etc.
Even if it means finishing half an hour earlier, this time is an investment. Obviously if your battery is flat or the tank is not filled then you will suffer a loss of earnings the next day. Think too about your accounting. If you leave all that to the end of the year, you’ll likely end up having to take time off from your schedule to sort it out. If you don’t have accurate records then you could be missing out on tax deductible expenses that will lessen your tax bill. Plus, by having neat orderly records on a spreadsheet you will make your accountant’s life a lot easier and that will be reflected in his bill.
Round Tracker v4 allows you to quickly organise and schedule your work. It uses a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet to record and itemise your expenses and earnings so at the end of the year you can just hand the spreadsheet to your accountant.)
