Brandi Harper
This edition of AWC Magazine we are interviewing Brandi Harper. She owns a company called Haylo and she’s truly “A Most Interesting Person!
AWC- When did you start Haylo?
Brandi- I started Haylo in 2010. This year is our 10th anniversary!
AWC- What services do you provide?
Brandi- We are heavy on commercial window cleaning, both route work and larger campus-type projects. We provide residential window cleaning, power washing for both commercial and residential, and some soft washing services like awning cleaning, sign cleaning, and siding cleaning. We also do surface vent cleaning.
AWC- How big of a coverage area do you have?
Brandi- We are headquartered in Georgia. Our CEO, VP of Operations, and Administrative Officer all live here. We cover much of the Southeast US from that office. Our President lives in Pennsylvania and manages operations from Virginia to Maine. Our VP of Business Development lives in California and oversees some west coast projects from there. We have jobs each month from California to New York, and will travel throughout the US for special project work. We cleaned windows in 30 states last year! Within the last three months, we have completed special projects in Chicago, Dallas, New York City, and Augusta, Maine. Our next scheduled special project is a hospital campus in San Antonio, Texas.
AWC- Where is home base?
Brandi- We’re in Americus, Georgia.
AWC- What have been some of the struggles you have had building the business?
I haven’t had many pain points with building the business. I intentionally built it very slowly at first because I wanted to remain a stay-at-home mom until both of my boys were in school and then be available to them outside of school hours as much as possible. I started Haylo Window Cleaning when Hayden was 4 and Logan was only 18 months old, so it took a while for us as a family to get to a place where I felt comfortable growing bigger. Rather than that being a struggle, it actually helped Haylo establish a very good culture and operations style. It let us really hone our window cleaning skills before announcing ourselves as industry professionals.One struggle has been making the transition from a sole proprietor business to a more mid-sized window cleaning business with employees who need worker’s compensation insurance and other expenses that come along with that kind of growth. Haylo keeps a very small footprint and operates with very low overhead traditionally, so the extra cost of doing business has been an adjustment. We have had to identify profit margins for the different kinds of jobs we do and make sure that our portfolio of work is diversified enough to both keep techs busy and to guarantee profitability.
Definitely my biggest frustration is the disconnect between the safety of the window cleaning profession and the risk assessment of the insurance companies.
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