Today we’d like to introduce you to James Riley.
Hi James, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
We started in 2015 we were a house cleaning company me my wife and my brother almost at the same time as we started we were asked if we did window cleaning we were doing a bunch of Denny’s which is a post construction account we had at the time and we would go in there and clean everything up when all the contractors were done And we were like yeah Windex and paper towel of course we cleaned the windows but they said no they want it professionally done I reached out to some of the big industry suppliers and found some really good mentors across the country and started learning from their advice I watched a lot of videos a lot of Google and hours upon hours practicing where I rented at the time there was a commercial space behind my house they had extremely dirty windows but they had a lot of windows and I would go there every day after work and I would practice window cleaning honing my technique Fast forward a little bit My family grew wife and I had five kids She became a stay at home mother and we decided we didn’t want to do house cleaning anymore so we subcontracted a lot of that workout and me and my brother focused on the window cleaning portion of it and we grew it to what it is today we pride ourselves in the idea that we are a small family company we’re not out here trying to make millions and millions of dollars we don’t want a huge huge business we want to provide high quality affordable friendly service A lot of our customers have been with us for 11 years I guess you could say we have family owned business vibe but with the high quality our customers need without the corporate overhead I’ve personally been pretty big part in the industry A lot of the suppliers and big name companies know who I am i’ve been on the cover of American Window Cleaner magazine I even helped create some of the tools that are on the market to make window cleaning better and faster and safer for people I’ve worked with a lot of companies testing new tools and products before they even hit the market and We have won many awards for being the best window cleaning company in our area
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Definitely not starting out with no capital and little to no money winters were very scary I would frequently take on part time janitorial jobs to float me through the winter and that kind of made me a little complacent Probably one of the best things that ever happened is I ended up quitting a part-time janitorial job that I had’cause my boss was very rude and I said I need to focus 100% on my business and that’s what I did Another hard time was nobody knew what was going to happen It was scary at first unfortunately for many it wasn’t an ideal time but it actually turned out really great for us We ended up doing a lot of exterior work with people working from home and what not people were noticing that their windows were dirty so we had a huge uptick in exterior services. Even today things can be very tough with AI AI obviously can’t replace the labor aspect of washing windows but it’s definitely made advertising much harder because of cov there was a huge influx of start window cleaning businesses It’s a very easy business to get into but it does take a lot of skill and we see a lot of businesses come and go Some stick around but most fizzle out before winter. AI is challenging because we’re always thinking how can we use it but still be authentic We want to be true to ourselves so that our customers can see that we’re real people we’re their neighbors were blue collar working class just like a lot of them and I think people resonate well with that
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I kind of mentioned all that and the other questions but I work in my business and I love that As far as I am concerned I would like to wash the windows until I retire maybe even longer if my body will allow me to do this till I’m 70 I hope I am I think the customers enjoy that I enjoy what I do some people just start businesses purely for money Which don’t get me wrong money does help But for me it’s the freedom and meeting new people so being an employee in my business as well as being the owner is awesome ’cause I get to be a part of every job every interaction and the customers get to know me and they love that they love that you’re the guy that shows up to clean the windows Sometimes customers can have a hard time if they expect one window cleaner employee to show up but a different one keeps showing up every time
We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?
I never really thought about it much but when I was a child my grandma had book restoration business here in Provo and it was a family thing I never thought Owning a business was for me until I look back and realize I was kind of built for this my grandma ran her business out of her home my mother helped and my mother did a lot of the bookkeeping ends as well as a lot of the service and me I would tag along I learned a little bit but only as much as a 6 year old could but I remember always driving around with my mother and grandma Sometimes it would be just me and my grandma Either way I enjoyed it with whoever was with me but we would drive all over Utah County sometimes the state we’d go to schools colleges libraries pick up books and then we would take them back work on them make them brand new again and make sure they would last my grandma used to tell me I had three options I could get paid or she would take me to Mcdonald’s for lunch Or she would buy me a new toy for my help me being the 6 year old I was I always chose Mcdonald’s cause the thinking process was I’m being paid so I would use that money to get me lunch and I would get a toy from Mcdonald’s so I would essentially get all three But my mom and grandma always went above and beyond and a lot of times they would pay me and Take Me Out to lunch and even sometimes get me a new toy lol
Pricing:
- Interior and exterior window cleaning is $10 per pane for inside and out Our minimum starts at $200 this 20 panes
- Exterior window cleaning minimum is $150 This covers up 25 window panes Anything over that is $6 per pain
- Are biannual customers receive 10% off per service for twice a year
- And our quarterly customers receive 15% off per service
- Monthly customers receive 20% off
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.zenwindowcleaners.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zen_window_cleaning/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/zencleans
