I wish gas stations operated like you.
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It was also at the perfect timing, as it was my the neighborhood I lived in, so I knew that the HOA letters to clean the driveways were going out. I simply did a flat rate, but as I was just starting, I got screwed on one of the driveways as it was a corner lot, so I essentially lost money due to the amount of Sidewalk. But that was a lesson learned, so now I simply offer a percentage discount, rather than a flat rate discount. Like I said though, only one complained about my standard price rate after the fact. So I consider it a win.
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Second job is booked. Itās with my great aunt and Iāll do it before the large family get together she has for Christmas. (70-80 people) ā¦ So it may be a good way to showcase my work. I obviously gave her a steep discount. But itās business lol.
Got in touch with my old apartment manager for some apartments I used to live in before buying a home. They may use me, they may not. And I also may decide to not do the work. It just depends. The buildings are rectangles and are around 8,000 square foot eachā¦ She said in the past theyāve basically never paid and wonāt pay more than $200 a building. Which leads me to believe some guy with a Troy built did them for his fix lol.
Would be a lot of work. 12 buildings on just one property. At $200 eachā¦ .I might decide to pass on that. Not much in it after chemicals.
I misspoke. Iām a sole proprietor right now trying to form a business lol. I have the insurance quotes and one I plan on using. All I have to do is pay the man. Im just trying to stay afloat right now with hours being cut at full time job and not getting much work with this venture. I wanted to to a few small jobs here and there in order to take the money earned and put it directly to the insurance for a year and be done with it. I know itās not much but Iām spread really thin right now, so it is a lot to me at the moment. I had extra money but itās been exhausted with all of the things Iāve had to spend money on. Iāll be ok.
And @Nashvillewash I guess the only thing I have questions on is how you got started. The leads, the getting your name out there, getting people to call, etcetera.
Iāve been doing so much. Maybe, like Iāve said before, I just picked a very poor time to start up.
I have one job coming up, my great aunt. And that will be probably Saturday. I also have two prospective jobs coming upā¦ One driveway cleaning, and one total house and driveway and patioā¦ After the first of the year.
These are jobs from family and other Co workers. I have only the one jobā¦ My first job, that I got from someone I donāt know. I got it through Facebook groups.
So here are my thoughts Brandon:
- Word of mouth and facebook til spring. Get good at it. Im not, and Im sure Im missing out on opportunity
- Make flyers and go door to door. Go flat rates, it easier for you and your customers to understand. See my site if youd like. Its my name .com
- At most, $5 cl ad.
- Build a website.
- Dont buy adverts, especially Google cpc yet. Its just other companies clicking to be jerks, usually not potential customers this time of year.
- get to know your equipment, buy spares
- read, read, read. Use the search bar at the top. While searching for one answer, you will accidentally find answers to questions you didnt know youd need answers to. (Im sure you are doing this already)
- ask intelligent questions here
- be looking for neighborhoods now, you want to canvas in March
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I split all that nonsense off from your topic @bdurham9951 and moved this back to the public since I felt it was a valuable conversation for people to see.
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Iāve been doing Facebook groups as well as few Facebook ads. Havenāt spent a ton. Maybe $30 at the moment on Facebook ads. Iāve been handing out business cards Iāve already almost given out the 500 paper cards and 500 magnetic cards I purchased on sale at Vista print. I have been going to real estate offices, insurance offices, a free local small businesses. Dropping off cards and I have been to several neighborhoods but Iāve been rolling through and picking the dirtiest homes and placing a magnetic business card on the outside of the metal mailbox. I have hung some flyers but they arenāt easy to see really from the road. I have not gone door to door with flyers yet. Iāve placed a $5 Craigslist ad. Iāve placed ads in the local papers as well as bulletin board. I have a website, itās from my Google my business but itās www.brandon-s-durham-llc.com I obviously purchased a domain name. I had placed an ad with Google adwords but really didnāt amount to much. Got 3 clicksā¦ Which were probably bogus and was charged like $20 for them total.
So I have been busy. And Iāve been reading and searching. I may not have but like 21 hours read time but itās been spent wisely. I learn from almost every post/thread. Of course there are a million ways to do anything itās great to read how everyone does it and then make my own new hybrid way of doing it to suit my needs and that works for me.
Iām thinking of getting yard signs to place in strategic places.
But, on the flat rates note. What do you do if you get a home that is one story and itās 5k sq ft. Vs a home that is one story 1,500 sq ft? You going to charge the same flat rate for both?
Thatās why I figured price per square foot would be best. But Iām great at math and itās simple to me. I can see where others wouldnāt really be that Keen on putting the price together.
1,500 square foot = $150 before any discounts. I thought that was kind of straight forward. And in line with pricing Iāve seen with other companies around here. I just canāt see doing a flat rate of like $199.99 for a 5k square foot home. Would you make up for it on the smaller homes under 2,000 square foot since it would be essentially over charged?
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Go to my site and see how simple what Im saying is. Basically pick the few common home sizes and price them. Use area app for custom homes. I did it my way for auto booking and simplicity. You do it yours. Remember, customers give you the living area sqftg which doesnt include garage.
You say you advertised to the dirty homes. They are dirty because the owner is a slob. They dont care. Find the middle class vinyl wrapped subdivisions in hoa. Hit the hood hard with flyers.
@squidskc preaches 5 arounds. If you do a job, flyer the homes on each side and the 3 across the street. Get rooted in an area.
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5-arounds are easily where I got half my residential work this year. Around 60 houses a month average. A little slower in March and April, but gangbusters the rest of the year. Commercial has been slow this year for me, but I donāt really care.
Thanks to 5 arounds I super rarely go 20 minutes outside of home base and I virtually own Parkville through Gladstone and into Liberty. Middle class HOAs like Matt said.
(Not half my residential work. 30% is more reasonable. Still a fantastic return on investment. In June, I started subcontracting for a painter who sends me 20-30 houses or so a month to wash for paint prep.)
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@squidskc BNI has been successful. I have tripled my initial membership investment. In the larger picture of things thatās not great, but if Iām not losing Iāll consider it a success. Atm Iām staying busy 5-6 days a week and I canāt find the time to take advantage on BNI with 121 and other social events. I have to tend to guaranteed scheduled money before potential money. I know Iām missing out with BNI. From what Iāve experienced you get out what you put in and I havenāt been putting in much. I would recommend BNI to anyone, especially someone with some extra time to donate.
@bdurham9951 as soon as you can get insured and looking like a legitimate company join a good BNI group and your local chamber of commerce. But donāt do it until youāre insured, have cards, professional looking website and a clean uniform. Image is everything.
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A painting company just joined my BNI group and we are talking about doing the same thing. I might have to talk to you about whatās expected with paint prep vs regular wash and your pricing strategy. Iāll do some reading first but Iām sure youāll have some pointers
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Your on the right track. I think most of us have struggled starting out. In the beginning you wonāt find any one venue the end all. It will come from a culmination of all the efforts. Eventually youāll find one area that you should devote more energy to.
Most of what i have now has originated from two things. If I wasnāt working I was on the ground canvassing entire neighborhoods with post cards. In the beginning these were printed at home. Eventually I got my post cards printed professionally for .07c shipped. Iāll be happy to tell you how. Donāt just pick dirty houses, pick a neighborhood and donāt skip a house.
If I was working I was investing in eddm routes. A lot of guys here arenāt fans of eddm but I found value in the initial 1-2% success rate by using the 1-2% as a stepping stone. The 1-2% were just a way to get started. The true value is realized later for free. Word of mouth, referrals, 5 around, yard signs, and just having the opportunity to be seen working.
Iām in my 10th month Iām comfortable and busy. Iām not getting rich or as successful as others but thatās not important. Iām headed in the right direction and so are you.
Itās not going to happen overnight and you did pick a bad time of year but youāre on the right track. Keep on keeping on and read.
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Great advice ^^
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Thatās the best scenario Iāve heard. You explained it perfectly.
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I checked out your site. I like the look and feel of it. Simple but gets the point across.
And I see how youāre structured. I guess it always does help a customer if they just see a price in stead of having to calculate it up by sq. footage. And donāt have to think about it.
The areas I was in were $250k - 400k. Some with the no soliciting signs. I didnāt really put many in that area for fear of getting in trouble for soliciting. And Iām glad I finally have a clue what 5 arounds are lol.
Iām not sure what BNI is but Iāll look it up.
My honest to God dream is to do this full time and work for myself. Or the customer as it should be stated. But Iām a long way from that. I really appreciate everyoneās help and input.
I went around to about two neighborhoods this evening after getting sent home early yet again. 30-35 hours a week at $20.37 an hour just isnāt cutting it. Business has been slow for my full time job and itās been hurting. I planned and budgeted my bills for a 40 hour week like everyone has always suggestedā¦ But what I never budgeted for is less than that.
I hope to gain my loyalty by quality. I honestly donāt care at this point how long it takes me to do a jobā¦ As long as I do it with quality and integrity and that the customer is completely satisfied. I know long term that may not be as profitable as needed but for now I want to have each and every single customer feel appreciated and that I did my very best. My first customer highly recommends me. And I want to continue to that with every customer. If I take a little longer to make it perfect, to me, thatās fine.
As soon as Iām able to put next earnings on insurance I am. 1 million coverage. Although Iām not sure the amount some places make you have. Iāve read some want 3 million. But 3 isnāt feasible at the moment.
Iāve recently realized I have a good bit of small guy setup competition there. Like I have the best step of most of the competition. That I know of. There could be someone lurking that is just laughing at me. But most are small time and donāt have that I have as far as setup. But they have prices that are hard to beat! Theyāve gone the flat rate route and are killing it. You just have to bang out a ton to really be profitable.
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BNI is a world wide organization with local chapters. Itās a referral group. Iāve done really well in the past being involved. I may look into in the spring. Basically members refer each other. Look for one with a high producing realtor and get in good with him/her. We are currently doing flat rate pricing but 95% of the time upsell the patio and driveway so itās been fairly profitable so far. But every market is different. @SurfaceMedic works in a neighboring community with a more exclusive customer base. I rarely go up there unless Iām called. Call it professional courtesy. I mainly focus on the county Iām in but I will be launching a fairly large eddm campaign come spring. Focus on condensed areas and youāll do fine. You might have to venture out of Millbrook and Prattville a little but I believe even there you can make good money. Hit the eastbrook area hard. I use to do all the Walmartās and kmarts in Prattville and Montgomery and picked up a lot of residential work in the process
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Thanks for the info. I didnāt know you were located around this area. I was going to ask if anyone on here is familiar with my area.
I have been hitting Millbrook hardā¦I have hit some of Prattvilleā¦ mainly Realtors offices. I used to live in the Eastbrook area for years. Iāve been focusing on the higher end neighborhoodsā¦I guess my thought process of people in higher income and higher real estate values would be more likely to spend might be kind of wrong. Probably need to hit the older neighborhoods in the 50-130k home values. Since those are most likely to need cleaning. Most of the 250k+ areas homes are just not that dirty. Maybe because they arenāt that old and thereās very little vinyl. Most homes around here are brick and Iām doing my great aunts home in Tallassee tomorrow. Which is mostly brick, so it should be a good learning experience for me on the differences cleaning brick vs vinyl. Any advice on brick? Iād hate to have to high pressure most of itā¦ Would take forever. Soft wash isnāt as effective on brick, right? Maybe the 8.25% straight with my surfactant will do the trick.
And getting commercial jobs is a thing Iām kinda nervous about. Obviously insurance is the must have. 1 million should suffice? Iāve talked to a few companies and they tell me I have to get in touch with corporate and go that route to get a local job. Thatās just the process for most large companies. I think I looked up CVS recently and how to get the one here in Millbrook. Itās filthy. With them I have to fill out some application online and show proof of insurance and then get in touch with the regional director or whatever and get their approval. They require 3 million in coverage. But the way they have it set upā¦ Youāre basically applying to be an approved contractor. Even though all Iāll be doing is pressure washing the curbs and sidewalks and washing the building. They still would treat me the same way as if I were replacing their sign or remodeling, etc.
