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House Wash Volume Discount?

Carlos Gonzales

New member
As a house washers would you offer a volume discount for a neighborhood that agreed to go in under one contract?

For example if your house wash price was at $400.00 and you had the opportunity to do ..mmm..15 houses. Would you offer a discount for all 15 houses of say ...10% off!
 

James Foley

New member
If the houses are similar in size I think discounts are ok. When you get into a development of 4 to 6k SQFT houses I would not. There all different and are not worth the discount.
 

plainpainter

New member
I don't think residential deserves volume discounts like commercial does, unless you have you have already priced in a 'volume' model to begin with. You go to a cul-de-sac with 7 homes and give them a 15% discount if they all sign on. How are you going to get paid? What if two people don't pay altogether - are you going to ask the other 5 to pony back up the discount? Not to mention - will they sign up for a service contract, thus guaranteeing future work like commercial does?

Residential is residential for a reason - it's not commercial. Treat is as such. Last thing I want to hear is about how someone with a million dollar home wants a discount. And on what planet do folks in upper middle income class neighborhood all converse to each other and organize a 'mass' washing day? I have years of relationships with clients - and they tell me all the 'meat'. For starters they don't know half their neighbors, sometimes a cul-de-sac neighborhood, for instance, 'matures' all the kids have grown up and are in college. The mommies no longer hang out at the bus stop to chat - and folks lose touch.

This problem of whether or not to give discounts to whole neighborhoods is one problem I don't think I will be faced with anytime soon.
 

Ken Fenner

Active member
Dan, I arrive at my discount based up several factors.

1. Lower acquistion cost. The cost of attaining that job (marketing, selling, etc) is spread over multiple customers.
2. Less windshield time = higher efficiency and lower payroll
3. The customer has buying power. This is not really a tangible but if I hard line my single home price, there are legitimate business people behind me that have assessed their costs and are willing to offer discount.

Normally I could care less who offers discount, my price is my price. But in this case, expenses are lower so I can discount and maintain my margin.
 

Scott Davis

New member
Ken, everytime I go to post something, I read what you just wrote, and you say the exact same thing I want to say.

I offer 10% off 2 homes, and 15% off 3 or more. While neighbors may not go to each others houses for dinner, if you tell them they can get a 15% discount just by having 2 others get they're housed washed. They will knock on the people they know's door. Chances are if they're house needs it so does everyone elses and nobody likes living in a dirty house.

Same discounts for roof cleaning. Our average job is 40-60 miles one way so not having to drive that far for a neighbor we usually end up making more money or breaking even when we get 2 houses even with the discount.
 

Jim Chesmore

New member
Yep, I will give discounts to neighborhood contracts.

I look at it this way. Everything Ken said plus:
If Donald Trump eats at a restaurant, most of the time his meal will be comped because he is very likely to tell others in his "circle" about the place and the great service.

I have done a few of these big/expensive homes (1K+ for washing) by myself and they have led to other homes in the same price range. If I had a helper I could have knocked out two homes in one day easily with very little travel time.

For the sake of keeping things simple, lets say I did both homes for 1K ea. that means I would have given a $200 (2 homes, 1K ea = 2K) discount, which equals a $1800 day!!! I'll do that all week long, all year long!!!

Even if it was a smaller home in the $400 range, I could do more in one day and the numbers would not be as good but still much better then if I had to travel all over town to get from job to job.
 

Jeff LeCours

New member
I don't think residential deserves volume discounts like commercial does, unless you have you have already priced in a 'volume' model to begin with. You go to a cul-de-sac with 7 homes and give them a 15% discount if they all sign on. How are you going to get paid? What if two people don't pay altogether - are you going to ask the other 5 to pony back up the discount? Not to mention - will they sign up for a service contract, thus guaranteeing future work like commercial does?

Residential is residential for a reason - it's not commercial. Treat is as such. Last thing I want to hear is about how someone with a million dollar home wants a discount. And on what planet do folks in upper middle income class neighborhood all converse to each other and organize a 'mass' washing day? I have years of relationships with clients - and they tell me all the 'meat'. For starters they don't know half their neighbors, sometimes a cul-de-sac neighborhood, for instance, 'matures' all the kids have grown up and are in college. The mommies no longer hang out at the bus stop to chat - and folks lose touch.

This problem of whether or not to give discounts to whole neighborhoods is one problem I don't think I will be faced with anytime soon.

dan it is a problem you could face if it was marketted. Dan you would be crazy not to offer a discount to say 3, 4 homes. What 10% pull up and stay all day and do them. Heck what about a whole neighborhood, why not discount.

You can actuallly target some HOA's they are looking for group discounts SOME ARE not all it may only be a few, but if you could line it up WOW GREAT DEAL. You dont really market to individuals, you market to the HOA and the HOA puts it out there in emails and newsletters

There's a company in Hilton Head the guy has an entire neighborhood of Million Dollar plus homes. I forget what he charges it was either $750 or $1000 a home. He gave a nice discount. Not one home takes more than 3 - 4 hours. He has over 100 homes and he does them every SIX (6) Months YUP 6 months. . Even if it was annually he has a real good thing going. You know what he isnt even a PW company, he' has a large window washing company. This may be rare, but it happens

Think outside the box and win
 

CWheeler

New member
I like the idea of being in the same neighborhood all day. Less travel time, decreased fuel cost and you could run a couple crews at once and keep a better eye on them if they are in the same area. Bring them on!
 

Carlos Gonzales

New member
I like the idea of being in the same neighborhood all day. Less travel time, decreased fuel cost and you could run a couple crews at once and keep a better eye on them if they are in the same area. Bring them on!

Thats right Clint....bring it on!!!!

As Jeff stated, thinking out of the box with your sales and marketing is going to get contracts in front of you.
 

Greg Nash

New member
Yes you give a discount you would be stupid not to, Its called running a business. How many 5000 sq ft houses do you think you can wash a month. my crew can do 100 a month easily we sometimes do 10 a day. my company does a large neighborhood 600 homes once a year if I didn't give a discount I wouldn't have the contract. If I wanted to thats all I would have to do all year and still make great living. you can talk business numbers all you want but if you don't work you don't have a business.
 

Jeff LeCours

New member
Yes you give a discount you would be stupid not to, Its called running a business. How many 5000 sq ft houses do you think you can wash a month. my crew can do 100 a month easily we sometimes do 10 a day. my company does a large neighborhood 600 homes once a year if I didn't give a discount I wouldn't have the contract. If I wanted to thats all I would have to do all year and still make great living. you can talk business numbers all you want but if you don't work you don't have a business.

600 homes thats great, wow what a very nice contract. I dont really do resi work, but give some of those types of contracts i would do them all day long
 

plainpainter

New member
dan it is a problem you could face if it was marketted. Dan you would be crazy not to offer a discount to say 3, 4 homes. What 10% pull up and stay all day and do them. Heck what about a whole neighborhood, why not discount.

You can actuallly target some HOA's they are looking for group discounts SOME ARE not all it may only be a few, but if you could line it up WOW GREAT DEAL. You dont really market to individuals, you market to the HOA and the HOA puts it out there in emails and newsletters

There's a company in Hilton Head the guy has an entire neighborhood of Million Dollar plus homes. I forget what he charges it was either $750 or $1000 a home. He gave a nice discount. Not one home takes more than 3 - 4 hours. He has over 100 homes and he does them every SIX (6) Months YUP 6 months. . Even if it was annually he has a real good thing going. You know what he isnt even a PW company, he' has a large window washing company. This may be rare, but it happens

Think outside the box and win

Thinking about offering volume discounts is such pie in the sky for me at this point. Guys like you forget - I am on the other side of the aisle, I don't do commercial whatsoever - my days aren't filled with thinkging about how much to dicount volume. Volume by my definition is getting one lead through my marketing and two subsequent referals in the same location. And I still have to meet with these folks and do my sales - if someone ever presents me with a 26 house contract to do every year - I'll consider volume discounting - but I won't hold my breath.
 

topcoat

Contributing Member
There is definitely an economy of scale, even just going from one house to two. We have had very good luck doing "clusters" of neighbors who were looking for the same services at the same time. We had one call us last fall and request deck wash/restain jobs for themselves and their neighbor. I estimated them both the same day, and we performed the work on both during the same week. It worked out well because the exposures of the decks were such that one was getting morning sun first, while the other was an afternoon sun, which we had to work with in the chilly fall mornings. It was nice to literally have my crew be able to walk 100 yards from job to job. In both cases, we also picked up interior paint work as a result of the washing. This is a situation where if we are inflexible and rigid, we could lose alot of work.

Anytime there is the opportunity to cluster jobs, it is silly not to explore it. Thats what we work so hard to achieve through yard signs and proximity marketing. When they fall right in our laps in clusters, its a really good thing. I'm not even talking 16 or 26 units. The whole small market domination concept revolves around securing as much work as possible in a confined and targeted area. There were several times last year when we had 3-4 projects happening within a half mile of each other. Great way to have high credibility and exposure in an area. Many of us are small businesses and this is such a great way to stimulate sales in a particular area.
 

Ken Fenner

Active member
Dan, this is the kind of work you want to promote. A simple one liner at contract time might be the ticket for you:

"Okay, lets get this contract signed and put you on the schedule. Do you folks know of any neighbors that may be interested in having their deck done as well? We offer a good neighbor discount of 10%. For the referral, I'll give you an extra 5% off for a total of 15% savings. On your deck, thats $150 in your pocket."

Nine times out of ten, they will purse their lips, roll their eyes to the left and start thinking who they could refer. A real good salesman will then ask the homeowner to give those people a call to see if you could give them an estimate right there and then :)
 

Greg Nash

New member
Jeff it is not a resi contract its all through a Pm. we also do all the flatwork in the community also all the condos. we were approached with ten houses and it snowballed into everything in the community. If I did not give a discount for them someone else would have this contract instead of my company.This is a very large contract that we wouldn't have if I had a closed mind to volume discounts. Like someone else said you can't be so rigid in business you need to look at the big picture not just the one job.
 

servicemark p.w.

New member
I've done it before. usually 10-15 % for each house, min of 2 houses. makes good sense to give a discount, than to waste driving when you're already there. I don't give discount if I have work booked after the current job and have to schedule it for andother day.
 
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