Second-time-around entrepreneur learns from mistakes and grows window cleaning firm to 12 employees

We’ve all heard the expression “I don’t do windows.” Some of us may have even said it in jest.

But someone who has never said it is Bob Serwas, co-owner of Serwas Window Cleaning Service, an Oshkosh-based company that services a good portion of northeast Wisconsin. Serwas has been doing windows practically his entire life and can’t imagine doing anything else.

Established in 2004 to promote the professional image and reputation of the window cleaning industry, Serwas Window Cleaning Service was not Serwas’ first business. But it’s what his lifetime of experience and education in the business school of hard knocks led him to.

An early start

Serwas first began washing windows at the age of 13, when his mother owned a janitorial service and he worked in the company. When it merged with another service in Minneapolis that did commercial as well as residential windows, Serwas learned how to clean high-rise windows. And at the tender age of 15, Serwas got his first high-rise cleaning opportunity in downtown Minneapolis.

“It was the 52-story MCI building,” he said. “That’s pretty much when I knew I was going to do this for the rest of my life.”

Serwas worked with that company until he was 19 and moved to Wisconsin to attend school for electric mechanical technology. He moved in with his father, but within the first year of school, he met a girl and they started a family.

Plans to further his education were derailed at that point, but it was during this same time A&A Window Cleaners was looking for a skilled professional. Serwas began working for them and one year later became their high-rise foreman. He remained with A&A from 1988 to 1995, during which time the business went up for sale twice. Even though he would have liked to have purchased it, a lack of financial backing prevented him from doing so.

The second time his employer came up for sale, City Wide Window Cleaning bought it and Serwas worked for them for one year, but left over some philosophical differences with his new employer, Serwas said. He then began his own business in 1996, called Residential Window Specialists. By his third year, Serwas reached $1 million in window cleaning sales, but now recognizes he had grown too big, too fast. At the time he didn’t understand what that saying meant, but he later came to understand it – after his business was gone.

“I had too much work, didn’t have enough employees to do the work, and the ones I did have were basically ripping me off. They’d punch in in the morning, then go home all day and play (video games), come back around 4:30 or 5 p.m. to punch out and tell me the work was done. We’d bill the work out and 60 to 90 days later chase after the accounts trying to find out why they weren’t paying,” he said. “So the whole time I was making payroll for it, but they were never out there doing the work. That was my Manitowoc-Sheboygan-Two Rivers crew, and I basically fired all of them.”

That led to other problems and the business folded, after which Serwas said he “swore to God” he was “never going to do it again.”

“I lost everything – the phones, all my vehicles, my personal vehicles, my home. I lost everything in that swipe,” he said.

On the rebound

Following the closure of his business, Serwas started working for Fox Valley Iron and Metal in its scrap yard so he could earn money to pay back some of his debt. He was living with his father at the time, but within the first month of working at the scrap yard, some of Serwas’ former residential customers called him at his dad’s house asking him to come clean their windows – they wouldn’t let anyone else touch them. Serwas started out doing a couple of random jobs here and there, but word spread so quickly that he never really had the chance to fully quit running a window cleaning business, as he’d intended.

“I was working seven days a week. I even taught my wife how to clean windows,” he said. “So I’d get done with work, we’d go clean windows until dark, and we’d do that every day, and on Saturdays I’d work at the junkyard in the morning and go clean windows all afternoon. Sunday we’d get up, go to church, and then clean windows all day,” he said.

After continuing that rigorous schedule for four years and digging his way out of debt, Serwas decided to give it up again because he was never seeing his kids. But family and friends, including his current business partner, Chris Mathias, helped persuade him to go back to cleaning windows fulltime. Before taking that step, though, Serwas knew he had to buy a house then if he wanted to own one at all, because getting a home mortgage would be easier if he was working for someone else than if he was self-employed.

So on his birthday, July 12, 2004, Serwas closed on the loan for a home purchase, quit his scrap yard job, and started his own business, again. This time, he did so with only $500 in his pocket.

“So away we went again,” Serwas said, adding that it’s much better this time. The difference is he’s going slowly.

Back in the ring

When Serwas started up a business the first time around, clients were lining up to have work done by him. Eager to please and reluctant to turn anyone down, he took on as many clients as he could.

“But I didn’t have enough guys, and I didn’t have enough experience to teach guys. I just jumped out two feet and said ‘I’ll take all of it, and I’ll do it all.’ But I just didn’t have the ability to do it,” he explained. “This time, we grow as we need to grow. It’s been a continual growth every year and my guys get better and better as we go along.”

In 2010 the company recorded $110,000 more in revenue than 2009 without having to add any new people on the payroll. This year he’s added two new employees already – bringing the total number on staff, including himself and co-owner, Mathias, to 12. Not bad, considering in 2005 it was just he and Mathias. He also just purchased the equipment from one of his largest competitors, Citywide/A&A, which effectively went out of business in early May.

That’s another difference this time around. Serwas said he’s using financial resources more appropriately, when necessary. In the past, he said, if the company didn’t have the money to buy something it needed, they didn’t get it. But now – with opportunities like buying out a competitor – he’s finding reliance on a bank more of a necessary means of doing business than a problem or something to fear.

Certainly, dealing with unexpected growth has been a big challenge for Serwas over the years, but finding qualified employees with a good work ethic, as well as dealing with Mother Nature, have been the toughest obstacles.

“Everything else we can get around,” Serwas said, adding that he sees a lot of middle-aged and older job applicants coming to his door, happy to do anything for $7.50 an hour. Yet, the job is so physical, it’s not always possible for them to do it. Conversely, Serwas said far too many young kids have an attitude that the world owes them something, they want $12.50 an hour and they don’t want to do much for the money.

“It’s really frustrating.”

Spreading out

The present business started out doing window washing, pressure washing and pest control, for which it is state-certified. But those are mostly seasonal services. To make up for the loss of revenue from those services during the winter months, they added snowplowing to their repertoire this last winter.

They also clean chandeliers and ceiling fans, clean gutters, install holiday lights and decorations on rooftops and gutters, and decorate taller Christmas trees. Some of the services were added because there was a need that no one else seemed to be filling in the region. Others, like snowplowing, came by accident.

About two years ago, Serwas and Mathias installed a plow onto one of their trucks to clear their own parking area and ended up clearing customers’ property as well. It went pretty well.

“So last year we added a second truck with a plow, and every year I see it getting a little bit better,” Serwas said, adding the new service offering helped because this was the first year they were able to keep their heads above water financially during the winter months. Beside being slow for window cleaning during the winter, the company also spends a good deal of money maintaining and preparing its seven vehicles for spring.

Serwas and Mathias have no iron-clad plans for the future of the business. They’d rather just let the business determine what path it goes down.

“We don’t really look into the future. We take it day by day and we just keep going and deal with whatever each day brings. We don’t project anything, and as long as we’re not losing money, we’re happy,” Serwas said. “What we do know is what we do, we do really well and we teach our guys to do it really well, and we’re having a good time doing it. This is really the only thing we know how or want to do. So as long as my body allows me to keep doing this, I’m going to keep doing it.”

Cheryl Hentz is a freelance writer from Oshkosh with more than 25 years experience. Her articles have appeared in several newspapers and magazines and cover topics including business and economic development, minority issues, family pets and animal rights, finance, politics and women’s issues. She can be reached at 920.426.4123 or via email at cheryl.hentz@gmail.com.