Like i said… i thought it was a requirement.
But i would like to know your contact info, if you want to share it, just pm me or through FB
Some are naturally good at this, i remmember when i started i did lots of reasearch, spent money where i shouldnt, but who hasnt gone through this.
I like your post.
But some will have to spend money and try new things out, and fail on their own to learn
I will share it sometime in the future with you. We may become friends on here and maybe meet up sometime. I have plans to meet up with a few of the members this spring / summer. Not sure about Jim Gambles convention this year, but if he has one next year I will be going for sure. So I am sure I will meet some people there from here.
You have no idea how much money I spent that was a complete waste. Not a little waste, a complete waste. I made a lot of money last year and still ended up in the negative because of mismanagement of funds, lack of knowledge, taking advice from the wrong people. I am by no means a natural at this. I spent four years learning marketing and a bunch of other business related things, worked directly under high ranking people and tons of other things. I have been building up to running my own business for ever 8 years now. I know the struggle, the defated mentality, giving up, all the other crap that goes through your mind when you want to start a business. I have spent countless 14 hour days in front of a computer researching, lost friends, ruined relationships, you name it. I also can’t count the times I have cried from frustration and being over worked. I am the farthest thing from a natural at this. The only thing that separates me from everyone is that I am willing to give up almost everything in my life to realize my goals. I will work 24 hours a day if I have to. If there is no work for me to do and I have lost inspiration I will come on here. You guys see how much I post and sit on here. I wan’t to win and will stop at nothing to do it.
Dedication
Never been to a convention.
Will go if it happens to be in Charlotte, NC
For me its a bit different, i do PW as supplement income, i have a residential cleaning business.
Been lucky never been on the red.
During the PW season I get really busy.
PW allows me to do more stuff on my free time.
Good luck to you.
I would agree that the information here for the most part is pretty darn good. I think you’re foolish to not have a plan, but I live and die by checklists and checkpoints.
What gets measured gets improved.
I would disagree that keeping your business information under lock and key is about “reputation management”. it’s borderline slimy to expect folks here to trust you and heed your advice when you could reasonably be awful in business and just blind leading the blind.
I would just urge anyone here to take my advice or any other advice without verification and your own testing of it with a healthy grain of salt.
Good info for the most part, but you’ve got a long way to go before you convince me. Which I’m sure doesn’t matter to you, but honesty matters to me.
I strongly encourage everyone to take my advice with a grain of salt and figure out what will work for them. You seem like a good guy, a bit disagreeable with my methods, and that is okay.
You are also right about me being possibly bad at business. I did go into the negative the first year in part to wasting money on things that were completely useless. I did however learn a lot and now have a system in place where I can expect x $ for x amount of marketing in x location almost down to the cent.
Business check lists are good, but huge documents outlining every detail of a business that doesn’t even have a cash flow is another thing. I simply think it’s a waste of effort when a person is just trying to get their first few customers. What I have ended up with when I did that was a very nice checklist and no money.
We very well may meet up in the future one day. It’s your call, you can see if I am a lair or not and decide that for yourself.
I think you missed what I was trying to say.
Anyone who wasn’t around for your first trip through the forum may have no biases and that’s good for you.
But those of us around for awesomewash1 may have a difficult time jiving awesomewash2 the business guru with awesomewash1 the lunatic.
Glad you’re back and playing nice. But it still feels strange to read your posts and know brand new folks have no context.
I was not in during part 1
We all grow and learn, but to bring up ones past when they have moved forward is a tad regressive.
I am happy to see you are agreeing with the majority of what I wrote. As you can tell there is nothing from me to gain from spending my time attempting to help others. I am just so happy that I finally got my business off the ground and want to do whatever I can to help others.
I made an ■■■ out of myself and got banned for acting like a child. I circumvented the ban and created and account with instead of a 1 at the end there is now a 2, which also made people upset.
People are coming around to me now and feel that while I am eccentric, secretive, and offensive at times, that I am as harmless as they come and genuinely want the best for the industry and do what I can to help everyone that asks a question, no matter how basic it may seem to those with more knowledge. I was there and in many cases I am still there, but I still love to help when and where I can.
All i can say is G/L with #2
It’s been going well. Lots of good discussions and all around good times for the other members and myself.
I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who has sent me messages saying that my advice has finally given them the motivation to start their businesses! I am so happy for you guys! I know what it’s like to be in the position of a crappy job, over worked, under paid, stressed while some guy is just living his dream. Please if there is anything I can do to help, let me know!
Pretty solid advice… Sometimes the best advice can come from someone with little experience, as they are knowledgeable with the times. We all know the guy whose been pressure washing for 20 years and has zero clue what SH or DS or an Xjet is…at least in my area there are tons of them.
I agree, and also think the reason why my advice may help some new comers more than a more experienced person is because many years have passed since their starting stages. I just went through a big portion of it and I am still going through a lot of it as well. It’s all about relevance, and that is the reason why I am connecting with the people starting out and not the people who are veterans in the industry.
So you told your clients not to have a website or any other social media, not to post anything on line
AWII, New & Improved!!!
OK, I agree with Brodie that it may be too soon for you to give advice, but then again if you can encourage and enlighten more power to you, You DID disclaimer your limited experience in your post, but failed to acknowledge the “lunatic” AWI, and that’s OK. There are things about my past of which I’m not especially proud.
I’d like to encourage you to update this thread each new year and let’s see how it evolves over time.
Clients meaning my customers for power washing or reputation management?
I do post things online, I do have a facebook, I do have a website, I do have tons of online marketing going for my business. I do not however have any of that linked to where I get advice, and I try to separate my personal identity from my business identity online in the places where I am not considered an expert. If you were to see my linkedin profile, I appear as an expert and there is no one around to say otherwise.
For reputation management, I was usally given a business that had a ton of negative things about them posted on the internet. I would then have to do negative SEO, come up with replies to 1 star reviews, attempt to get things removed off the internet, among a few other things that were specific to each client. Sometimes people gain ownership of a google business location and post horrible pictures on there etc.
I would also have to coach them in the whole, just because you are a good lawyer, does not mean you can say what you want about your divorce online kind of thing.
As long as I am in business this time next year and I don’t forget I am more than willing to update, or start a new thread linking them all together.
It’s nice to see so many people get inspiration, motivation, and passion from something I wrote.
Beats the hell outa what AW1 used to write, doesn’t it?
I personally think @awesomewash2 is adding to the wealth of this site. It was a Rocky beginning for sure but he has shown humility and grace in his return.
I appreciate hearing thoughtful, explained ideas like this post. We grow through our experience and he is showing tremendous growth.
