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I quit my Job

ChrisGav

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hi guys,

For those who don't know: I'm 21 and have started a pressure washing business in September.

I put my 2 weeks notice in at my day job. I work at a store called Fastenal.
I have now redirected my focus on my pressure washing business. Last month I made about $2,800 strictly from pressure washing. This was my queue to make the leap, I was only making $12/hour so it wasn't that big of a leap.

My next steps are SEO for my website and trying to get into the commercial side of things, or try and find another way to reach more homeowners.
Here's my website: Home - Wash Warriors feel free to check it out. Any tips/advice on SEO, marketing, or my web design would be much appreciated.

Thanks,
Chris
 
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ChrisGav

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Quick update, been slammed with business. Actually have a $7,500 job this weekend. Blew my mind that I could get jobs that size... incredible. What I’ll make in a weekend would’ve taken me 7 months to make at my old job.

I recently got a mentor who is a real estate broker who oversees 700 agents. He gives me tons of gold nuggets on marketing as well as general advice. This weekend after I get more free time I’ll post the nuggets he gave me this far to hopefully help other people on this forum out.
Thanks guys,
Much love
 

Johnny boy

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Appreciate the pointers will check them out thank you. And no, as of right now I’m a one man show. Was thinking I should wait until I’m entirely booked personally before expanding into employees as I don’t personally mind doing the work. Thoughts?

practice managing. It’s a skill. You’ll learn how awful people can be. Better to learn it now than later. I hired the second week of my business being started just for that reason. It changed how I grew the business because managing employees is a huge factor. It affects everything else. It’s like solving an algebraic formula without knowing one of the variables, it just won’t work
 
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Johnny boy

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How do you manage not having jobs to constantly keep them working? Does this encourage them to look for another job?

Well that’s a reason why we only sign regular maintenance contracts so they have steady work all year until I fire them in November and hire someone else from craigslist in February.

The quality of this labor is also the reason why we only offer basic services. It commands a pretty good price still but I only have to pay $12-$15 an hour or so for these types of people which are pretty bad but it works well.

Also, you’ll learn about a whole lot more. Mostly on why directions need to be crystal clear and you have to assume people will MISUNDERSTAND you any time you give them a chance. Every employee loves to say “i thought u meant”

Plus it will make you more assertive. It makes you into a man if you aren’t already. I’ve met 35 year old guys who weren’t men yet. So it’s not something that you just get when you’re 18. Looking multiple 40 year olds in the face and telling them they’ll get in “trouble” for the mistakes they make like not taking care of lawn care equipment properly is a weird thing, makes you feel like a babysitter for grown ups. But it changes your personality definitely. It’s very easy to let it leak into other areas of your life, which is good. I feel like I can handle anything.
 

SEBASTlAN

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Good looking site. I would include your service and the areas you cover in the title of your homepage instead of "Home - Wash Warriors".

While the video/interactive media is great, it does slow down the site quite a bit. Can you use static imagery instead?
 

francevalue

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hi guys,

For those who don't know: I'm 21 and have started a pressure washing business in September.

I put my 2 weeks notice in at my day job. I work at a store called Fastenal.
I have now redirected my focus on my pressure washing business. Last month I made about $2,800 strictly from pressure washing. This was my queue to make the leap, I was only making $12/hour so it wasn't that big of a leap.

My next steps are SEO for my website and trying to get into the commercial side of things, or try and find another way to reach more homeowners.
Here's my website: Home - Wash Warriors feel free to check it out. Any tips/advice on SEO, marketing, or my web design would be much appreciated.

Thanks,
Chris

I have an idea to promote your service!
Open a YouTube Channel and post oddly satisfying videos of your work.
Your videos COULD go viral and thus it could have a rainfall on your business by making it more noticeable!
 

ZCP

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@ChrisGav awesome!
(i did not read the whole thread, so let me know if covered above)
have you got procedures and training in place and a crew doing the actual work?
read Emyth Revisited
check out all @Johnny boy threads.....
nice work!!
 

Johnny boy

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It's so frustrating, isn't it? What the hell is wrong with people? Not only do they not improve over time, they continue to F*ck up the same mindless tasks they do every single day, despite having a checklist and a picture workflow chart.

I refuse to believe I'm that much more capable than the average person.

Sorry... /rant
It's been figured out by other people. Learn. That's what I say to myself when there's anything that's pissing me off. Many people have made millions and even billions of dollars before me, in tons of different industries. It's possible somehow so just figure out how to do it.

But that feeling of other people being stupid will just get worse and worse and worse.
 

broswoodwork

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Mostly on why directions need to be crystal clear and you have to assume people will MISUNDERSTAND you any time you give them a chance. Every employee loves to say “i thought u meant”
It's so frustrating, isn't it? What the hell is wrong with people? Not only do they not improve over time, they continue to F*ck up the same mindless tasks they do every single day, despite having a checklist and a picture workflow chart.

I refuse to believe I'm that much more capable than the average person.

Sorry... /rant
 

Johnny boy

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That is one issue I run into with this industry. How do you set up recurring business with pressure washing. It's the sort of thing you only need to do once every 6 months - a year, any ideas?? Also began to throw window cleaning into the mix to get some sort of recurring business but have not had any luck selling that yet.

The market doesn't want it. They won't sign up for recurring services (for the most part)

Which means your schedule is more random, customers cause more problems because each person is a new customer so you can't know who's a problem customer yet, each job is new so employees will make more mistakes, etc.

This means to compensate for these problems, you need to charge a high hourly rate. Its a formula. You have a bunch of predetermined constants, and different variables are being added to, subtracted from, and multiplied by different variables.

Do you hire skilled workers or cheap workers?
Depends on how it affects your bottom line considering all factors and how your business is set up, based on what the market says you should do.

Do you offer x services or y services?
Same thing.

A little about my lawn care company.

There's enough demand in this industry. Customers will always say "It's hard to even find someone who will call us back!" The problem is profitability and scalability. I can get away with setting up my business the following way and still filling up the schedule.

1. contracts only
2. for 12 months at a time, paid each month, even in the winter
3. only simple services on a simple plan on a regular schedule
4. high prices
5. hiring cheap labor
6. low supervision
7. not focusing on quality whatsoever, replacing people who complain

Our reviews are still something like 4.6/5 and we have the phone ringing.

I only get away with it because I pay attention to the market. I don't believe in feel good advice like "just do a good job and you'll succeed" or "pay your employees well and they'll take care of you". I look with my own two eyes at what's going on in the market and realized this would be the best way to set up my business, maintain profitability, maintain scalability, and actually enjoy running it.

If it was hard to acquire lawn care customers and my ads stopped working, it would suddenly become worth it to change our terms to increase our closing ratio for customers. Nobody signing up? I guess we'll start taking on different types of jobs, driving further, or whatever is the least costliest, most effective way to capture more customer sign ups.

Don't set up recurring services. Do it once. Make them all pay upfront with ACH payments, charge high prices, send people home if there's no work, and automate the hell out of it, rinse and repeat.

also, the article linked in the response before mine is very good.
 
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sosa067

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I think the site looks pretty good, especially the slider effect where you can drag the slider and see the difference. That's a nice touch!

There are definitely some UX issues, like when you're scrolling, there's a weird stuttering effect. The site also doesn't make it abundantly clear that you're located in Greenvile SC. For local services like these, it's extremely important to have your SEO revolve around your area.

I'd also focus on getting your social media pages set up, and get some testimonials on the site. Getting good client feedback and showcasing that feedback is super important.

Also, it's clear the site is made with Wordpress. There's a lack of consistency with the design. There are points where the site comes across as professional and well made, then on your next scroll, things break down (like your contact us icons are located all the way to the far left).

For a landing page like this, you really don't need Wordpress. Wordpress comes with a lot of baggage that affects your performance.
 
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Sadik

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Nice site. Love the before and after pics. If you can afford it, buy @Andy Black 's PPC course to attract more people who are looking for you to your site. If you don't have a budget right now, know that the gist is that people are probably already searching for a service such as yours in your area in Google. You need to run ads to target specifically those people to increase your business.

And all the best.
 

ChrisGav

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Hey well done. Awesome, your work and efforts are paying off!
I really like the before and after pics on your website.

You said you need to reach more homeowners. How are you marketing at the moment?
Thanks Liam. As of now I am getting most customers from the neighbors of people watching me do someone else’s house or referrals.

I’ve recently begun to go on Zillow and find homes for sale that look like they could use it and I call the listing agent/homeowner. Ive found that a lot of the homeowners don’t want to spend more money after the house is been listed so I need to catch them one step before the house is listed.
 
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Fastlane Liam

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Thanks Liam. As of now I am getting most customers from the neighbors of people watching me do someone else’s house or referrals.

I’ve recently begun to go on Zillow and find homes for sale that look like they could use it and I call the listing agent/homeowner. Ive found that a lot of the homeowners don’t want to spend more money after the house is been listed so I need to catch them one step before the house is listed.
Word of mouth means you're doing a great job, well done!!
Word of mouth through local facebook groups would be even more effective, maybe something to think about. Nice work though! Keep going!
 

Santi M

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Good concept thanks. What kind of videos? Just me pressure washing things with some sort of dazzle to it?
Hi Chris, I like @francevalue 's idea.

I think you could record with a camera the front of the pipe while washing (as you did in the video on your web) and maybe upload the video in a time-lapse so it goes faster. And then exposing at the end of the video the difference before/after.


I can imagine the video as one of those that goes viral cuz it's like comfortable to see.

Good luck!
 

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@ChrisGav look at if from the other direction ..... if they do what you are doing, what could you then do to help the business?
 

SEBASTlAN

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Thank you for the feedback. I know absolutely nothing about SEO. How do I revolve SEO around the location? Specifically saying Greenville, SC on the site itself?

Have you made a GMB profile yet?

And yes I was referring to a standalone picture for the sake of a faster loading time. But if you can prove it converts better it may be worth considering to keep it as is.
 

Fastlane Liam

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Hey well done. Awesome, your work and efforts are paying off!
I really like the before and after pics on your website.

You said you need to reach more homeowners. How are you marketing at the moment?
 
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ChrisGav

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My opinion:

Nice website; I'm not much of a tech or web guy myself but I especially like the before/after scrolling "toggle over the photos" option (clever and effective marketing; bravo).

Question:

Do you have a staff of employees who go out and do the work or is it just you? If your revenue and profit margins grows perhaps expansion into other locations might turn out to be a pretty fruitful endeavor if you can build a team and handle all the logistics (scale up!).

Anyway, best of luck and hope you keep any competitors scrambling to catch up. Looks like you do good really work.
As of right now it’s just me doing it!
 

Strm

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Great job! Hard work will pay off always!

Love the slider thing on your website! :D
 

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I'm curious what your pressure washing set up is.

What were the startup costs and what kind of equipment are you working with? Is the $2800 profit?

Is this something you can do year round?
 
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Visionary96

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Respect for putting your notice in man, that's awesome.

I really like the website, good colour scheme and the important info is clearly displayed. Looking forward to seeing what happens on your journey bro!
 

ChrisGav

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I have an idea to promote your service!
Open a YouTube Channel and post oddly satisfying videos of your work.
Your videos COULD go viral and thus it could have a rainfall on your business by making it more noticeable!
Good concept thanks. What kind of videos? Just me pressure washing things with some sort of dazzle to it?
 
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ChrisGav

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Word of mouth means you're doing a great job, well done!!
Word of mouth through local facebook groups would be even more effective, maybe something to think about. Nice work though! Keep going!
I like your idea of Facebook Groups. I'm in a Facebook group that is a buy/sell group in my local town. Maybe offering people free Driveway cleanings for them to post ads in the group or something along those lines?
 

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Great work, Ive always liked the idea of a pressure washing business, its actually quite relaxing / therapeutic as well sometimes, when I'm cleaning out the paths and such things around the house.

I agree that the 'oddly satisfying' video and before / after stuff is a good tactic, its very visually pleasing and will cause people to look at their own grimey driveways etc.

I'm no psychologist - (but am doing some work in a related area) - But one tactic could be to somehow start a job, or do one part of a house / business for free, or something, people with OCD or just a bias of somesort will want the job complete. no one likes the feeling of a job left unfinshed, so that could be a legit tactic (brain hack) that might work well. The key will be in the execution.

Another idea could be about 10% off discount if the client shares the pic on their instagram or fb feed.
Another idea could be about 5% off each for multiple adjoining houses, up to a max of x %. so if 5 neighbours get together, they can each save 25% off their bills. This means less travel for you, and you can knock over 5 joints in one day, or turn up with 2 guys and smash it out.

Lastly as you grow it could be a good business to add in some humour / story telling to build a memorable and likeable brand.

bonus idea - as the trust gets built you will be in a position for addon sales and services, for other related businesses or referral type things - such as surface painting, landscaping, outdoor lighting, letterbox guy, etc.

Good luck!
 

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