The next 30 days: sell holiday light installs to the customers you already have
Holiday lighting fills the gap after the pre-holiday glass rush. How a window cleaner can sell it this month with the ladders, crew and list already in hand.
Your pre-holiday window jobs are booked or close to it, and you can already see January coming. Most window cleaners spend October squeezing a few more glass jobs onto the calendar. There is a bigger play sitting in your customer list: holiday light installation.
You already own the ladders. Your crew already works at height on these exact houses. Your customers already trust you on their roofline. The next 30 days are when homeowners decide who is putting up their lights, and most of them have not decided yet.
Why it fits a window cleaning company
Holiday lighting is a natural add-on for three reasons.
Same customers, same houses. The people who pay for window cleaning before the holidays are often the same people who want the house lit up for the holidays. You are not finding new buyers. You are selling a second service to people who already said yes once.
It fills the dead weeks. Installs run from early November through the first week of December. Takedown runs in January, exactly when glass work dries up. That January takedown visit is also a natural moment to book spring windows.
The tickets are good. Residential installs commonly run $400 to $1,500 depending on roofline footage, height and whether you supply the lights. Many companies lease the lights and charge one price for install, maintenance and takedown. Compare that to a $250 to $400 glass job on the same house.
What to decide this week
Lease or customer-supplied. Leasing commercial-grade LED lights to the customer is cleaner and more profitable, and you reuse them for several seasons. Hanging the customer's own lights is cheaper to start but brings more service calls when their old strands fail. Pick one and stick to it for this season.
One simple price. Price by linear foot of roofline, then quote a flat number. Something in the range of $5 to $12 per foot, installed with leased lights, including takedown, is a common starting point. Set a minimum, $400 to $500, so small jobs still pay for the truck.
Insurance and crew. Confirm your liability policy covers holiday lighting work. Most window cleaning crews already work at roofline height, but walking a roof to clip lights is different from working a ladder. Decide who does roof work and who stays on ladders.
The 30-day plan
Days 1 to 3: tell your list. Text every past residential customer. Short and direct:
Hi [name], [your name] with [company]. This year we are also hanging holiday lights, with installation, takedown in January and any fixes during the season included. If you want a quote, reply with your address and we will send a price within a day. Spots fill fast after Halloween.
Send to everyone who has booked in the past two years. Your existing customers are the warmest list you will ever have.
Days 4 to 7: quote off satellite imagery. Measure the roofline on a mapping tool, apply your per-foot rate, and text back a single price. Do not drive out for estimates unless the job is large or complicated. Same-day quotes win.
Days 7 to 10: update your Google profile. Add "Holiday light installation" as a service with a starting price. Post one photo, ideally from a past install or a mockup on a customer's house with permission. Update your business description to mention it. The Google profile guide shows where each of these goes.
Days 10 to 20: bundle at the door. Every pre-holiday window job is a chance to sell lights in person. While the crew is on site, the lead says: "We are doing holiday lights this year, too. I can measure your roofline before we leave and text you a price." That is the easiest sale you will make all season.
Days 20 to 30: lock the schedule. Book install dates, collect a deposit of 30% to 50% to hold the slot, and set takedown dates in early January at the same time. Every takedown visit should end with a spring window booking.
Do not drop the basics during the rush
A new service brings a burst of calls and texts, and this is exactly when companies start missing them. The median window cleaning company has 7 reviews, and 68.4% of listings show no hours, so being reachable is still a real edge. Set up a missed-call text-back before you announce anything. The missed calls guide has the message, and the calculator shows what a missed light-install call is worth at your ticket size.
Ask every lighting customer for a review after the install, while the house is lit and they are happy. Reviews that mention both windows and lights make your profile look like a full exterior company.
What to skip
Do not add a pricing structure you cannot explain in one sentence. Do not run paid ads for lighting in the first year until you know your install speed. And do not hang on roofs your crew has not been trained to walk.
If you want help setting up the texts, the Google profile changes or a lighting service page, any service is available as a free 14-day trial, no card. Text or call (801) 515-4729.
Steven has spent the last several years running growth campaigns for local service businesses, window cleaning companies among them, and builds the benchmark datasets on this site from public Google listings. About the editor