Here’s an interesting question that most of us have not actually thought of. I mean, we’ve thought of how much we should charge, but we’ve never really thought of our worth. And there’s a lot of things that go into it. A lot of things that add to what we’re worth. Now, just to be clear I’m not talking about you as a person, what I’m talking about is how much our time is worth to someone.

The great thing about the service industry, or services in general, is that our main expense is time. We don’t have a product we sell, we have knowledge we sell. When I sell an hour of my time I’m selling an hour of my experience. And this is a lot different than selling, say a tshirt.  Once we know our worth, we know if something is worth doing for the price.

“We don’t have a product we sell, we have knowledge we sell”

Credit: Joel Lamb

I know that if I’m cleaning Glass, I can produce $75 an hour and up. If I’m pressure washing I will do about $125 an hour. Each of those can be done by a tech. Someone who knows what they’re doing and can produce the same amount of work. Those people are then paid, say $20 an hour.  Us as a company will get the rest. So if I am the one doing the work I am only making $20 an hour. The remainder of the 75 or $125 an hour is always coming to me if I do it or if someone else does it.

Now Say I’m out selling. In one hours time I can sell potentially hundreds of dollars worth of work. That work may be done by us for the next 10+ years. Maybe that’s a $200 a month restaurant that I’ll have for say 10 years. That is $24,000 worth of new work. In theory, by me doing sales I am producing $24,000 worth of new work. That is in the same hour of time that I would produce $75, or $20 by doing the window cleaning. This is a pretty crazy concept. If you’re out there cleaning windows yourself, you were making 20 more dollars than if somebody else was doing the work. And losing potentially $24,000 worth of new work.

This is worth. All these years you may have been stepping over dollars to make pennies.  Maybe you thought it’s been too expensive to hire someone. So intern it’s costed you tens of thousands of dollars in work every hour you’ve been in the field. Now I’m no dummy, well that’s debatable, and I know you aren’t going to sell $200 worth of monthly work every hour you’re out there. But you’ve surely stopped your continued growth, to make $20 an hour. A company grows bye bringing in new work. The bottom line is growth. And maybe you’ve been killing that side of your company.

Ok, so say you have staff issues right now.

Maybe you’re a little shy on employees I can do the work. Maybe you’re working on getting new employees but this present moment you don’t have enough employees to do all the work you have, and you need to be in the field. What do you make the most money on? What does all of your experience bring in that your employees don’t? I know for a fact that I am the fastest window cleaner I’ve ever employed. But maybe I’m producing only 20 more dollars an hour in revenue. But what if I do a roof cleaning? You and I both know that roof cleaning is producing upwards of $250 an hour. Now if I needed to allocate myself to doing a job, a roof is the highest liability right? It’s also the highest profit. But does it make sense for me to choose the roof over a window because more is made. What you need to do is look at it as an experience. What can you do to make the most amount of money because of your experience.

 

Shy on Employees?

 

All of this said, it all really comes down to not doing the things that make you the least amount of money. Like I said before stepping over dollars to make pennies. A lot of us do it. I know someone who ended up having employee issues, and went from having six techs down to doing all the work themselves. They work 60 hours a week. I think that that is a better way for them to do things. But look at the numbers, look at your worth it’s pretty simple to find that your talents are much better somewhere else in your company.

 

Stepping over Dollars To make Pennies

 

If you haven’t gotten out of the truck, here’s your chance 2020 sucked. 2021 will probably suck too but hopefully just a little less. Get out of the truck already ~Jersey

Want to listen to a window cleaning business podcast? WCR Nation is the greatest window cleaning podcast ever produced, according to my mom. Maybe you will dig it too. At least it’s better than a cat video right? It’s found anywhere you listen to podcasts, and also on YouTube. It’s a weekly podcast that’s been going on for over three years now. There’s a ton of content to catch up on.

WCR Nation Podcast – Hosted by Jersey Josh