I did something a couple weeks ago that I’m pretty plum proud of. I started a window washing business! Find that amazing?! Surprising? Inspiring even? I’ll freely admit that this bashful buckaroo certainly does. It’s an idea I’ve been kicking around and putting off for I don’t know how long. But that’s usually standard procedure for me when it comes to big and ballsy decisions. It’s not just about the money and supplementing my meager art earnings but because I need to be doing something that gets me out of the house and out meeting people lest I turn into a hermitic kook. Art will always be my calling and my passion but if I’m going to get anywhere with my art then I really (REALLY!) need to build up my name recognition and social connections somehow. There’s just no two ways about it and running a business is a superb way of getting myself more engaged and socially active. Being 50 affords me the luxury of being a little more socially daring than I ever could have hoped to have been when I was a younger man. Life is all about experiences and, surprisingly, I’m finding that the experiences I used to fear in the past don’t rattle me so much anymore. Perhaps I am finally becoming the man I was meant to be!
So how exactly did I happen upon my choice of cleaning windows for a side hustle? That’s a fair question since dirty windows and cleaning dirty windows is one of those activities that’s so dull and boring that most guys I know, and myself included, try to avoid thinking about it. But despite my near total ignorance on the subject I have learned that window washing is actually a thriving industry these days. Who would’ve guessed? Years ago I recall seeing a fellow who looked down on his luck going around town toting a bucket, some rags and a squeegee doing the windows. He seemed to stay busy, so much so that our local paper even took notice of this street trooper and wrote a piece about his community service. I got to meet him when he stopping by the Electric Gallery one day and offered to give our windows a cleaning. I found him to be a friendly bloke who was happy to talk about anything, including his life story. While giving our windows the final wipedown he revealed to me that there was money to be made washing windows right there in town for anyone willing to work and hustle for it. For a cow town as tight-fisted as Bedford I wouldn’t have believed such a thing had I heard it coming from anyone else. But clearly he was succeeding at it and living proof that it could be done, tho I don’t know what he was netting after paying for gas and keeping his clunker running. I’ve long forgotten his name and haven’t seen hide nor hair of him in ages. He did his window washing circuit for a year or two and then disappeared to parts unknown about a decade ago. I’m guessing he probably gave up washing windows and has moved on to other things. No one else has taken up the mantle so maybe there’s an opportunity to be tapped there?
I don’t know beans and bananas about the window washing biz nor how to go out and find those who need to have their windows cleaned. I’m a simple-minded kind of guy so I engineered my business plan to be equally simplified and to the point. I’d hit every establishment that’s got a window and spring my line on every owner/manager that I could talk to about my side hustle and ask point-blank if perhaps they just might be interested in a good (and cheap) window cleaning for their business? Keeping my pitch brief and polite is as good a way to make an entrance as any because success in sales really just comes down to numbers. The faster I can make my pitch and move on, the more places I can hit up which should bag me more sales and business at the end of the day. Or one would hope. You learn fast that in order to make any sales in this line of work that you had better be ready for a lot of walking because you’re going to hear a lot of no’s before you find someone who thinks you’re an answer to their prayers and actually says yes.
That first day of hitting the streets was a hot one and the going was every bit as rough as I’d imagined it to be. I lost track of how many businesses I hit up only to hear “Thanks, but no thanks” each and every time I queried them. I can handle a few no’s but it soon becomes downright demoralizing when that’s all you hear all day long. Going into the afternoon I was really questioning if I wasn’t just flat out nuts even trying this and if I actually had what it took to really succeed in this? Was my approach all wrong? Was there even much demand for this sort of thing? I had no way of knowing. All I could do was keep pushing and hope that someone somewhere would need me and hire me.
By the middle of the afternoon with nary a nibble all day I waltzed on over to this nail salon that was being run by a gang of Asians. I popped in and made my sales pitch to the guy who was running the place and for the first time all day I found someone who was genuinely intrigued by this middle-aged hayseed window scrubber. He gave me the go ahead to do his windows, I think out of curiosity more than anything else. Hallelujiah! I bagged my very first window job!! Now what?!
Well, the first thing I had to do was hike all the way back out to my car just to pick up my cleaning supplies. And of course my car would be parked way down at the far, far end of an adjacent parking lot while I made my rounds. Getting to my car and bringing it by the nail salon took a few minutes which allowed me some time to work out a battle plan for getting this job done. The nail salon was your typical strip mall joint that I assumed shouldn’t take terribly long to complete. But, as with anything you plan, you soon discover that any and every job you tackle is going to require double the time and triple the work you originally guessed it would. Taking care of the zillions of spots and splatters and all the other icks that windows accumulate takes tons of elbow grease to get that glass clean. When I finally got back to my first customer I got right to work squirting and wiping away every bit of grime I could find starting from the top down and working from the far left to the right. I was Mr. Perfectionist and huffed and buffed the glass down just to make it clear and pretty. I worked the window as well as the door and entry which was also glass, plus all of the sills make which are often much dirtier than the windows and so that it look like I actually did something. When I was done it sparkled like diamonds in the sky! It left me amazed and plum pleased at what a good cleaning job can really do for a place. The difference can be astounding.
I don’t know about the other window washers out there but I can’t just leave the outside of a window cleaned up without doing the inside too because leaving anything half done just doesn’t fly with me. If I’m going to start anything, by golly I aim to see it through. And I doubted I was going to get much else done that day so might as well go all out and make a whale of an impression on this guy because I’ve no idea how many yokels he has had come by to do his windows and I sure don’t want to be remembered as just another amateurish rube out hustling for a buck. If I’m going to be remembered for anything besides my art I want to be remembered as a guy who did good work. It’s the artist in me I guess. Always the perfectionist!
By the time I got everything buffed and pretty I had put in over two hours of sweat labor and maybe even pushing three hours. I can’t exactly remember now but it took quite a bit of grunt work and a few rags to get the inside and outside in shape. That’s one thing I’ve learned about window washing, you can never have too many rags! When all was said and done the whole gang was quite appreciative of my work and remarked how much better their windows looked and even paid me ten dollars extra as thanks. So my first day of hustling came to a pleasant and profitable end despite my having to hike high and low all day long just to net a sale. But a sale is a sale and I’ll take it any time and anywhere I can get it.
Now let me tell you the rest of the story because I’m sure you’re just dying to hear it. And if you’re not then brace yourself because I’m going to tell you anyway. Over the course of that first week I managed to bag a total of seven different sales with more in the works for this week. Most of them I anticipate being regular clients of mine that will want their windows cleaned a couple times a year if not more often. Having a pool of dedicated customers you can tap for years of future business is pretty peachy, no question. Not too shabby for a dude who has scarcely cleaned much more than a bathroom mirror his whole life.
