In business, the top number never really matters; gross numbers are great, but ultimately, it is all about your net profit. And the best way to get that net number higher is efficiency. It comes before you even open the door and start your operation.

Let’s start from the beginning; you work for yourself, and no one is making you get out of bed in the morning. Are you getting up on time and out of the door to make it to the jobs you have on the schedule? Whether you work out of your house or a shop, do you have all the essential tools in stock and ready to work? Are you up to date on everything from soaps to rubbers to water filtration filters? I like to have shelves with labels so I know I have everything I need before I run out.

When running a truck, the longer you are on the job site, the less money you make. Obviously, you want to do a good job, but this business game is all about efficiency. When it comes to traditional cleaning, I believe stack ladders help a lot when it comes to inside cleaning, you can bring them in and just use what you need, and also put them in places that you normally could not fit a ladder safely. Also with those ladders leg levelers make it safe for you to just slap the ladder up and get to cleaning.

Also with traditional window cleaning, the better you are at pole work, the faster the process of cleaning windows (in and out) will be! Inside windows; if you have some tall windows with a ledge you can get good with ledgers. Or if they are not super dirty you can throw on some pure water pads to buff them out. That will save you time from having to bring in ladders.

When it comes to water fed cleaning a lot of guys want to start with small cheaper systems which is fine if you want to roll the system around the house and change water hook ups, but that is not efficient. It took me a while to get into high flow systems but it was WORTH IT. When you get a system that is at least a gallon per minute, you have that opportunity to either run two poles to get the jobs done faster, or run one pole through a couple hundred feet of hose. What I do is I never move my system, it stays in the truck and I run 250 feet of 3/8 hose and 100 feet 0f 5/16 hose. I like to just keep the system in the truck, roll out my hose and get to cleaning. The use of hose reels are a great way to keep things organized and easy to roll out and roll up, and also keeps you from spending 10 minutes untangling the hose.

When it comes to commercial cleaning with traditional tools, upgrading to bigger squeegees can shave hours off of a job site, if you are using an 18 inch squeegee and now use a 24 or 36 inch, the more swipes you save the more time it shaves off. With commercial water fed, some of these commercial window panes are HUGE, maybe switching from a 12 inch brush to an 18, same concept its a huge life saver. Also when it comes to water flow, 5/16 hose is great don’t get me wrong but I keep half inch hose on me so that I can have a dramatic difference in water flow, the more water you have the faster you can clean and the faster you can rinse, even small things like adding a rinse bar, or swivel to change the angle less can be key in efficiency.

Pumps are a huge help for me and my business, I keep a 12 volt pump and 110 half horse pump on my truck to make sure I can run 1-2-3 even 4 poles if I really wanted to, or slap an extra couple hundred feet of hose and still have the water flow and pressure I need. efficiency keeps you in the green in your business, everyday you are getting better at your craft, and you are never to old to learn new tricks to help your business.