SolarCleaningBossPro Blog — Running a Solar Cleaning Business

The Solar Cleaning Business Owner's Checklist: Everything That Has to Be True to Grow

This series has covered a lot: starting out, pricing, recurring plans, safety, hiring, billing, marketing, weekly numbers and growth. This last guide pulls it into one checklist. Go through it once a quarter. Every item you can honestly check off is something that will not hold your business back when the next busy season or the next truck arrives.

How to Use This Checklist

Most of these items exist to prevent the traps in Mistakes to Avoid When Growing a Solar Cleaning Business. Do not try to fix everything at once. Pick the two or three unchecked items that hurt most right now, fix them this month, and come back next quarter.

Be strict with yourself. “Mostly” is not a check. If a procedure is written but nobody follows it, it is not done.

It helps to go through the list with someone else: your office help, your senior tech or a trusted owner in another trade. Other people notice the gaps you have stopped seeing. Keep each quarter's marked-up copy so you can look back and see how far the business has come, which is easy to forget in the middle of a busy season.

Pricing and Services

• Prices are written as a service list: per panel, minimum charge, story and steep-pitch add-ons.
• Extras are priced on their own: bird proofing per panel, critter guards, inspections.
• Every quote is built from the service list, no matter who builds it.
• Prices have been checked against real costs in the last year.
• Customers approve estimates online, and approved estimates become scheduled jobs.

More detail: Pricing Solar Panel Cleaning for Profit: Per Panel, Minimums and Add-Ons.

Records and Recurring Plans

• Every customer is in one system, not in notebooks or texts.
• Every address has panel count, mount, stories, pitch, extras and access notes.
• Customers with several buildings are one client with many addresses.
• Recurring customers are on plans with minimum days between visits: 90, 180 or 365.
• Every first-time customer is offered a plan.
• Overdue pins on the Waiting List are cleared every week.
• Customers are tagged (Residential, Commercial, Twice a Year) so you can count and filter them.

Safety and Procedures

• Roof safety rules are written: fall protection, ladders, weather limits, never walking on panels.
• Every tech has been trained on them and has the right gear.
• Cleaning methods follow panel makers' guidance.
• Standard procedures are written for arrival, cleaning, add-ons, completion and skips.
• The office has its own written daily procedure.
• Procedures are reviewed with the team at least twice a year.

People and Trucks

• Every tech has a personal PIN and a truck assignment.
• New techs follow a training plan with ride-alongs before running solo.
• The owner rides along with each truck now and then.
• Office help has a user role with the access their job needs.
• No important knowledge lives only in the owner's head.
• Routes are split sensibly by truck, such as homes and commercial.

Customers and Money

• Customers get reminders before each visit and on-the-way and arrived texts.
• Office texts are answered the same day.
• Before-and-after photos are taken on every job.
• Most residential customers have a card on file, charged at completion.
• Declined cards are followed up within a week.
• Past-due follow-up goes out for unpaid invoices.
• Property owners with many buildings are on Monthly billing, one statement for every site.
• On-site extras are added to the invoice before the day ends.
• Happy customers are asked for reviews and referrals.
• Cash is set aside in busy months for the slow ones.

Weekly Numbers and Growth

• The owner checks the same numbers every week: due, overdue, completed, skipped, unpaid, open quotes, plan count.
• The recurring plan count is rising.
• The owner has a weekly routine: numbers, sales, quality, planning.
• There is a written growth plan with the numbers that trigger the next stage.
• The next truck or hire is planned from savings and recurring work, not hope.

Notice that very few of these items are about working harder. Almost all of them are about putting information in the right place and keeping simple habits every week. That is good news, because habits are cheaper than trucks and easier to fix than a damaged reputation.

If most of this list is checked, your solar cleaning business is ready to grow. If not, you know exactly where to start. The whole series begins with Running a Solar Cleaning Business: The Complete Guide for Owners, and every guide is listed on the solar cleaning business software page. SolarCleaningBossPro supports nearly every item on this checklist on plans of $59, $89 and $199 per month.