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| 5 Star Window Cleaning employees are the only employees you’ve ever met that are paid on customer satisfaction. Your happiness determines how big their paycheck is! Just another way we prove that we are a customer service company… that just happens to do windows! |
You may remember a blog on Curt Kempton & his window cleaning company; 5 Star Window Cleaning in a blog post a few years back? The time has come & a unique opportunity is waiting for the right person to own the best window cleaning company in the World!
You can own an incredibly unique and awesome business: An Amazing Culture... That Happens to be an Amazing Window Cleaning Business. Curt Kempton talks about selling his business & the reasons for doing so...
It's bittersweet to get to this day in 5 Star Window Care's history. When I first started the company I thought this would be the last business I ever worked at. I loved it, and because of that I built it to be exactly the kind of business I wanted to retire with. When I graduated from Arizona State University I took every bit of learning I had gained at the WP Carey School of Business and began building my legacy. And let me tell you, this is a sweet business. Really sweet. But in a world filled with hype, I feel like I need to explain what makes this company WAY different than any other window cleaning company you've ever heard of.
A really different (public) approach to selling the company
- I have decided to open up the sale of the business to the public for several reasons:
- I don't have to sell it, but it's the best thing for the company.
- It's not about the money at this point, I need to find the person who can carry on the legacy and I think I am more likely to find the right person this way.
- I need to be able to determine if the new owner is going to be a culture fit.
- I will be sharing numbers down below, but you MUST understand the premise of this sale before even considering this sale.
A few things that make this a really a cool company
- What we are: "A customer service company... that just happens to do windows" a tagline that we live and breathe every day
- A company-wide vision: "The absolute best customer service to ever enter our customer's homes" And we purposefully improve ourselves each day for that.
- The best owner responsibilities ever: "To improve our people so that they can do their jobs better than anyone ever has"
- This commercial we made
- Our customer parties (celebrating our customers)
- Our incredibly awesome monthly team meetings
- Our certification program (the BEST and most competent employees you'll EVER find in the industry)
- Our unique pay system to incentivize employees just like owners
- The most pristine reputation of any company (We have a trove of internal and external reviews I can show you)
- Our company is just one big game for a greater good-- we are not simply window cleaners. We have a much higher purpose, and our culture proves it.
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| Not only do we live by the ’5 Star Standard’, but we were recognized by the International Window Cleaning Association. |
Why would I sell such an amazing company?
If you're anything like me, you are reading this and thinking to yourself: "Whatever... if this company was so great, he'd keep it forever or just hire a manager and continue on with it indefinitely." I thought the same thing... I have tried that. For 3 years. I have basically given this company no more than 3 hours of my time per week for the last 3 years. And if you look at the graphs on the next page, you'll see what I mean.
But before we get to the numbers of it all, let me explain why I have wrestled with this for so long, and why I am finally taking these measures. I have built a culture of responsible, incredibly competent, pleasant people who do what they do like true professionals. About 3 years ago my software product (built for window cleaning professionals) started taking a lot of my attention. I would spend hours a day polishing, building, and expanding a tool that originated on our website as an online bidding tool, and has transformed into much more.
This software started taking over not just my attention, but as I started helping lots of business owners with the tools I was building and then consulting, I found that my heart was also being sucked into this new direction. I want to make it clear that even though I was running out of time in the day, my love for 5 Star never waned. In fact it started amazing me that the company was doing great things even with minimal input from me. I was really proud of what was being accomplished for the first time in spite of me... and not because of me.
It was in some ways like watching a child grow up to be independent. But I felt guilty. I was noticing that even though the company was doing ok, it wasn't growing. If I was doing what I should have been doing, like going out and selling, networking, meeting with customers to collect referrals, energizing the community (as a company like this could) there should have been exponential growth.
We had an incredible base... in fact we grew right through one of the hardest hit economies during the big housing crisis. Our business' foundation was solid, but we weren't building anything new. We were just living comfortably in "the proverbial house" we built in 2011. And I was robbing the company. I was robbing the company of my time, but I was also using money from the window cleaning company to fill in the deficits we were facing in my software company... using 5 Star Window Care like a piggy bank.
Everything I did was legal of course, but I should have been rolling the profits of 5 Star Window Care into mailings, online advertising, or whatever, but instead I was using it to make this new software venture keep it's head above water (Code is expensive, you know... and it's not like I was selling to a very large audience). So I had this constant guilt riding on my shoulder, but I was doing what I knew I needed to do in my heart. And I'm glad I did.
But, it's now time. My software life is only getting more busy, and I am not on any trajectory to ever give 5 Star Window Care what it needs. Not to mention, that the software company is now cash positive and I don't need this "piggy bank" anymore. I need to set it free. Free to grow. Free to expand what it can do. Here are the goals I would like the new owner to be able to achieve that I personally should have over the last 3 years:
- A new truck should be going on the road every 6 months.
- Customer parties should be planned, marketed and made meaningful for months & years in advance.
- This company should be making $1mil in revenue annually. Easily.
- Employees should have cooler benefits. I have always given what I could, but I know that growth and focus could double anything I have done up to this point.
- The owner should be visiting job sites and shaking customer hands no less than 70% of the time.
- Safety training could be overseen more often (min 6 months, but probably more often) by the owner (we have pretty awesome stuff in place, but we could be better and more frequent)
- There is more, but I don't want to overwhelm you. Yet.
So you see, I'm doing what I know is best for the business. The business has firmly been planted on the figurative rails, but it's stagnant and the employees deserve to have an owner that is stoking the engine and barreling down the tracks to allow for growth. We are in an incredibly competitive market, and we stand out. Our employees deserve to feel progress and forward momentum. As the owner my job has been to be the best support to the employees that they could ever hope to have, and in turn be "A customer service company... That just happens to do windows." And our higher vision is simple: "To be the absolute best customer service to come into our customer's homes". It's time for an owner to come on board who will not have the paradox of saying one thing, but whose actions show another. I'm tired of the contradiction I have become (which I never meant to be) and my 5 Star family deserves better.
Ready to learn more?
Do you want to learn more about the specifics of what makes this business so amazing? Are you interested in understanding more about what makes it such a wonderful opportunity, for the right person? Awesome! I would love to hear a bit more about you, as well. Please fill out the form below, and I'll share with you a whole bunch more information about our financials, services we provide, websites, company timeline, and the cost to make this unique business your own. In order to share more, I'll need you to to simply sign the following "Non-Disclosure Agreement" and I will contact you as soon as I can.
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| Click the picture to digitally sign the agreement. |
