I’ve been mildly successful landing residential jobs since starting pressure washing 5 years ago. I’ve had close to zilch success with hoas and property management companies. I haven’t pursued them. I also have been a solo operation until now. Before hiring, I’d like to have a decent schedule of work. Residential doesn’t start up until late February and by that time I’m too busy working to train someone. Customers don’t appreciate a December call for next spring. Do you guys find prop management companies and HOAs to be more of your wintertime marketing target? How do you approach them aside from in person? I wouldn’t feel right going into a year with someone on payroll, having nothing lined up until mid February. Thanks for any tips.
Not too busy to train. I meant to say too busy to search for good help.
I’ll try to keep this as short as possible.
HOA’s are my least favorite, way to many people involved in them. Net 30 or more with HOA’s sometimes. They usually go with the lowest bidder.
Focus on commercial for recurring business, Like monthly accounts, Residential is seasonal but they Do bring the biggest ticket… I shoot for commercial to keep me thru though months
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Ive not even started yet but I was testing the waters . I spoke to a property maintenance staff, and it turns out they hate pressure washing. They have about 50 properties and invited me to put in a bid in the spring.
Best advice I’ve seen on here is that the answer is no to every question you dont ask.
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Thanks, what kind of commercial work do you do if you don’t mine me asking?
from a commercial account point of view I’m not really sure there is a “set strategy” (so to speak), from my experience landing commercial work has everything to do with whoever is in charge of managing the maintenance side of the commercial buildings within the business. I remember having a certain commercial building I was doing bits and pieces on every fortnight until that maintenance manager was replaced by someone that thinks the previous work I was doing only needs to be done once every 6 months, and now the third maintenance manager that replaced the second one thinks once a year quick rinse is sufficient. Sometimes it’s a road to nowhere with commercial.
True, But that also goes for HOA’s… Even Resi sometimes they cut back on servicing so often.
In my experience all work is temporary no matter what! Good clients go sour sometimes also… You make the best of it but you always keep looking for new work to come in! Only way to survive at least here in socal maybe a small town is different
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Well said! Customers don’t need a reason for anything, one day they will recommend you to 5 people and the next day you’ll never get a call back from the initial customer.
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@RnR when you say you’ve been mildly successful at landing residential jobs since you started 5 years ago, explain that a bit more, are you full time or is this a weekend gig that you’ve been trying to get off the ground for 5 years to turn into a full time company? How have you approached marketing and on what scale? “5 years” and the word “mildly” makes me believe you need to work on the bread and butter residential side of the business before attempting to secure HOA/commercial projects. Here to help bud.
I started this business part-time while going to college. After 3 years of paying my way through college with it I decided to go full-time with it following graduation. Business has come to me via Flyers: 20% Word of mouth or follow-up calls: 60% Google ads: <1% Facebook Page: 5% Vinyl lettering on trailer makes up the remaining 10% or so. This isn’t exact. I do now make a living from residential washing. I wash around 275 homes over a 9 month period. Thanks for any tips and help.
I’m sorry not 275 homes but 275 jobs.
