Good pressure / soft wash / roof cleaning training for newbies

Just starting out and was wondering if anyone could suggest some training courses from $100 - $400?

Right now I’m looking at:

  1. “How to Wash, the Complete Guide” with Mike Vidan, Coty Yarbrough, Aaron Parker and Justin Rogers $400 How To Wash The Complete Guide
  2. “King of Pressure Wash” $100mo. Membership Landing Page - 2020 - new prices
  3. Southeast Softwash “Softwash 101 Training”

Any recommendations would be appreciated. Thx

You joined 2 years ago, logged on twice and have 8 mins read time. My advice is to quit kicking tires and spend the rest of the winter reading on this site hammering the search bar. Fast tracking on a “school” is actually backtracking. What I mean to say is, search out answers here and in doing so you will find answers to questions you didn’t know you should have. Then, come spring, you will be way ahead.

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Save your money, don’t be a scam statistic.

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Concur 100%, with the exception of if you can get someone/something that gives you hands on experience with guidance, then I’d say it’s worthwhile. I won’t pretend that this site is the only option for learning, but it is a very useful resource to be sure.

Where are you located? What are you looking to learn (from your list of potentials, it sounds like you’re wanting technical/process basics). All of these things play into what folks may recommend to you as well.

This site is way more valuable than courses. Read like crazy here. Never attended a training class. Most of what I learned was from here. Also find some guys to network with. Spend your money on marketing and equipment when you are ready.

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So, while you’ll never find a better value than free…it’s a pretty ridiculous thing to tell someone to never attend a training class on something that they want to learn about… I mean, ideally you find someone to shadow for a day or two, but pretty much everyone here would recommend some type of hands on training, and as much as you can get. If you can’t find anyone to show you the basics, I think most would advocate paying for a decent reasonably priced day class from someone who really knows what they’re doing (not a self-appointed guru, but someone who has actually done the work anyway).

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Very trust worthy syndicate this one is, no gimmicks here. Not only do they issue their micky mouse “ECP” certificates in a largely unregulated industry to proudly wave in the face of the customer and fool them into thinking it’s some nationwide standard of achievement. But they’ll also throw in the wood cleaning mastery course at the value of $149, absolutely FREE but be quick offer only lasts 15 minutes of course!


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But wait there’s more to this amazing deal. Have a look at what our “ECP” certified techs have to say. Yes! Alex Johnson and Chris smith, the identical twins with 2 different fathers and surnames.


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Oh! And @GIANT how much are these YouTube cowboys paying you for the SEO push?? Just curious what these charlatans are paying you.

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Interesting take, but I highly suspect either of the guys in those links that I’m familiar with would pay him for the push…maybe they are acquaintances, IDK. I do know that for whatever it’s worth, both Jason Geiman and Coty Yarbrough are legit knowledgable (dare I say) “experts”. Both have a track record of building successful businesses, which makes their info worthwhile in my book. They both have quality content on YT that can be of great help to newbies (and of course they’re monetizing their skills, aren’t we all). What you want to pay for a formal course, or what you get out of it depends on you though. There’s absolutely no replacing hands on experience, but hands on experience with a knowledgable pro at your side is exponentially more valuable anyway you slice it.

I know a lot of you guys on here bootstrapped it and learned from trial and error over dozens of years, but I fail to see what’s wrong with someone wanting to invest in themselves a little in order to jumpstart that process a bit. I think weeding out the junk out there is also a worthy endeavor, and I typically don’t name names in a public post when people ask for a referral to a local experienced guy or instructor just for these reasons (everyone assumes ulterior motives), but if we’re talking names, I’ll give an opinion. Those ads you posted sure make those guys look scammy, but not everyone offering courses is a scam by default. Some universities are a scam these days, other are quite legitimate…

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nice testimonial. But touch on my findings, what do you disagree with?

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So I guess if we’re talking specifics, I’d imagine that you don’t really know any of the guys named in the OP…I guess I’d take issue with the “charlatans” categorization, which seems like a generalization of anyone that posts stuff on YT and also sells training in any fashion (or maybe just anyone that sells training at all, I can’t tell for sure)…your given example certainly looks suspect though. I mean, are we “charlatans” because we sell “magical, chemical based cleaning processes” ILO good ol’ “brute force” cleaning? Or because we charge for our services & expertise at all? Now if I (with 1 year of desk only time in this business) decided to start teaching “how to softwash” courses, then I’m with you, I’d be a charlatan. If I started offering business accounting & marketing courses (something in which I have mutliple degrees and decades of experience in), then I’d take umbrage with that classification, just bc I chose to monetize my knowledge. Like wise if I proposed to teach it to someone with equal or greater qualifications even…but to offer a course to someone new?

I guess what gets me roiled up a bit (and I’m not saying this was your intent, but is how the earlier reply from @ExpertPowerWash came accross) is the intense distaste in this forum for anything that isn’t the way of the people here. I’ve found some answers here that I haven’t been able to get from other networks I’m a part of, but it’s not the be all and end all of properly PWing, or business building. There are guys here that have forgotten more than I will ever know, to be sure, and I respect that to no end. But the attitude of “this is the only way to do it” is patently ridiculous.

Can you learn this by sheer experience, sure…is that the only way? of course not
Can you build your business w/o dedicated marketing strategies, sure…will marketing speed that up? virtually always statistically

Who has the most technical knowledge here? In my short time, I’d wager Racer or IBS… would I trade a single day of solid, guided, “hands on” experience for every post they’ve ever written in this forum? probably not…

Distaste? I was being nice. Simply stated that this forum is more valuable than classes. That is my opinion due the value I’ve received over the last 3-4 years. Anyone is welcome to disagree with that statement. I see a lot of shenanigans out there when it comes to training. I’ve never attended a training class. That is a fact. The comment was my opinion and experience. It will be different for everyone. @JAtkinson you may have misunderstood my comment.

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Ehh, I respect what your saying and here is my take. A day or two of hands on isn’t very much help when we are talking about building or running a pressure washing business. A softwash “school” may help shorten the learning curve on operations, sure. But nobody will sell me on the idea that a washing school will get me successful faster than studying here. Cleaning stuff is not that hard and all of the info is here.

A pressure washing business requires at least some knowledge (excluding William) of; equipment options and uses, operations, safety, chemistry, purchasing, maintenance, sales, seo, marketing, web building, insurance, customer service, finance, taxes, personnel management and organization. A week long class would have to be pretty intensive to effectively cover so much material. Then, these subjects each have regional differences. The hands on part would be about 5% of it.

I know if a person really, and I mean really wanted to get education in these areas they would be better off going at each subject individually. I’m talking subject specific classes or schools. This would be expensive, time consuming and very much worth it! But its not necessary to clean stuff and make a living at it. Guys on here have done these “certification” classes. No matter where the material was learned, if it works its already being discussed here. There are no secrets.

My point is, these schools cannot offer what this forum can. A softwash school will not make you an overnight entrepreneur.

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Or, I may have entirely misread it :wink:

I read it as advice to “never attend”, apparently it says “never attended”… I apologize. Perhaps I need a reading course, or one on not jumping to conclusions, lol. I’m a work in progress :joy:

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Perhaps again my perception, but most guys aren’t going at it saying “I’ll start my business in a year, let me learn about it”. Typically there is a need, either a hole in the market, or a hole in one’s income. That’s the norm amongst the guys that I know anyway. Granted most are already of the entrepreneurial mindset (which often includes experience in the marketing/business/people managing aspects of things.

That said, I don’t see a lot of that in this forum at all. Most everyone in here seems to still be “on the truck”, and likes it that way. Most of the guys who weren’t already of the serial entrepreneur mindset going into it, aren’t likely to find the info and encouragement in this forum to get off the truck and scale themselves into a managerial role, because it doesn’t seem like many here really want to be there themselves. There’s nothing wrong with that either, it’s just a generally different approach. I’d send anyone here for technical knowledge (although I think you’d be better capable of washing a house on your own tomorrow if someone spent today with you showing it to you), the odd things that one encounters in this business are probably best handled here for sure, but IMO I’d never recommend this as a primary place to find business knowledge education. We all share a lot of opinions, but some of that stuff is just statistical fact that is best learned from a focused course on that subject (which I guess it sounds like we all agree on). I don’t think any of those guys really offer that in one stop either (although I really have only seen the product of one of them 1st hand). To me, the more perspectives and information one can gather, the better.

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You’ve touched on all the fluff but haven’t addressed the misleading, worthless, unrecognised “ECP” certificates issued to fool customers that don’t know any better, blatantly fake testimonials, against the grain spam posts with one of the charlatans impersonating a newbie that we’ll never hear from again to drive SEO and sales. How can you defend these dishonest people and shady business practices. What is your idea of ethics?

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I believe I clearly agreed with you (from what you presented) on the case there…never heard of them, and it looks suspect at best. I’d stay far away.

I thought I was pretty clear in defending guys who actually are out there, building/running businesses, and offering training to newcomers. I specifically named (and again, only bc they were named in the OP, and appeared to later be referred to as charlatans) Geiman & Yarbrough. I know first hand that they have built successful businesses over time, and have a lot of knowledge to offer, especially to a newbie.

Maybe I’m jaded, or you are, or both…but I hesitate to accuse someone of having signed up for an account 2 years ago of doing so only to use it to spam now for SEO gains…it simply doesn’t seem to make any sense at all to me. Seems like someone who is doing what everyone here seems to suggest, by doing all the legwork for a long time, and waiting (probably far too long) too pull the trigger on doing something with it.

So the newbie with 18 minutes of read time, that’s read 7 topics is ready to pull the trigger and has a budget of $100-$400 to spend on a course, of course he has. Boy have we got a deal for you! Click the link below!

I feel like maybe you fell for this one once upon a time…you seem pretty militant about it! lol
I’ve honestly never heard of those guys anywhere before.