Squeaky Clean: David Cotter, owner of Fish Window Cleaning, does a job at a Pizzeria Uno across from Warwick Mall.
Do you have streaky windows at your business? Then David Cotter, a professional window washer, is the man for you.
In September 2004, Cotter opened the first Rhode Island franchise of Fish Window Cleaning to serve clients in Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts. The bread and butter of the national company, founded in 1978, is ground-level storefronts, restaurants, banks, churches, schools, homes and office buildings with up to three stories.
Beyond Cash Donations: How New Forms of Giving Are Transforming Not-for-Profit Accounting
Evolving Funding Landscape for Not-for-Profits Not-for-profit organizations are being asked to do more with less,…
Learn More
Cotter was a computer engineering executive, but said he always wanted to be his own boss. Now instead of sitting in front of a computer all day, he is outside making glass glisten.
He was first introduced to Fish Window Cleaning by a cousin who had bought a franchise in the Boston area. Owning a franchise, he said, seemed like a safer way to open a business, rather than doing it all on his own. Furthermore, he said, the franchise is recession-proof.
“There are windows everywhere,” he said, “and [people] want them clean.”
Fish Window Cleaning is also a particularly successful franchise, with locations in 37 states. Last year, Entrepreneur Magazine ranked it 322nd among the nation’s top 500 franchisers.
Cotter said window cleaning is a good market for repeat business. He has several contracts to clean windows for clients twice a week and others on a weekly or biweekly basis. Most clients are on a once-a-month schedule.
Cotter started promoting his company by going door to door to businesses and giving free estimates. Now, most of his clients find him either through the company’s Web site, through his ad in the Yellow Pages, or through referrals. He is exploring the possibility of hiring another employee to oversee marketing and advertising.
The commercial side of the business – with 300 to 400 regular clients – keeps up year-round, Cotter said, while his residential clientele are more seasonal, interested in his services primarily from the spring and fall, when he will have four or five appointments per week.
Jobs can take as little as 10 to 15 minutes for a restaurant with four windows and a door, for example, but most commercial jobs take about two hours, Cotter said. The company does book larger jobs that can take several days.
Work is priced based on the size of the building, the number of windows and the frequency of return visits. Restaurants, his most regular customers, pay from $20 to $100 for each visit, Cotter said. He added that he’s in the process of calculating an estimate for five buildings, three stories each, with more than 1,200 windows.
For residential projects, Cotter will visit the house and provide a free estimate. Most jobs average a couple hundred dollars, he said, but a recent job on a large home on the East Side of Providence cost about $1,500.
There is a system to properly wash a window.
“Everyone thinks it is easy to just pick up a squeegee and clean a window,” said Cotter. “To get good at it, become fast and to do a good job takes practice.”
All employees without prior window-washing experience go through a two-week training program where they accompany a more experienced worker to learn the trade. The company has three full-time window washers in addition to Cotter.
Each employee is armed with a bucket, two sizes of mop attachments, and squeegees in a variety of sizes. Extension poles can reach as far as 45 feet, and the company uses a boom lift to reach points as high as about 66 feet.
All high-rise work is referred to franchises in Boston that are more equipped for the jobs and have the necessary insurance, he said. Cotter’s franchise carries more than $1 million in liability and worker’s compensation insurance.
Now, with spring approaching, Cotter is looking to hire another full-time employee to handle the expected increase in residential work.
