Don’t overlook marketing when starting out. If I don’t know you exist, I can’t call you, make sense?
1 Like
Absolutely, I’m hoping to have an ace in the hole on the marketing side. 13 years selling paint means I personally know just about every builder and painter in the area, along with half the real estate agents. When I’m ready to go I’m planning to mention that fact to each and every one of them. Ive sent out very careful feelers and feel pretty optimistic on my chances of landing work.
3 Likes
Your already steps ahead of someone starting out, just put it into action, the rest will follow
1 Like
Nope.
1 Like
I show you number, you call me lol.
2 Likes
How much do yall SH slingers spend on marketing per year ?
Find local service companies to put out flyers for you while there already at the location.
Lawn companies/ pool companies/ pest control/ maid services/ pay them a cut or just a fee for there time. An extra $100 cash can for put a smile on someone’s face very Friday.
It’s a great way to pin point customer that are willing to spend money for services. And having another company put out your flyer with there invoice is very similar to them recommending your service. Also it by far the cheapest way
7 Likes
My father-in-law owns a pharmacy and does the exact same thing. Has stacks of checks on his desk that he never deposits. Almost everything he buys goes on a company credit card anyways.
1 Like
I more often than not give work away rather than look for it. I dont want anymore growth, headaches. But to answer your question it was about 15-20k a year in the earlier days
1 Like
‘Pay myself’…we take the checks, deposit in the bank, pay the bills. Repeat.
1 Like
Just wondering why you are not considering a painting and pressure wash field as opposed to primarily washing? You have so much knowledge about coatings that to me it almost seems like a waste to not consider the possible directions you have available.
Just my opinion and I guess you have already weighed that up .
1 Like
Just a weekend side hustle for me. And at the moment I usually only land 2-4 houses a month so small potatoes here compared to most of the guys here. The idea of my business was to assist with everyday household bills, and that’s exactly what it’s doing. I bought box store equipment, put it all on a consumer credit card and paid it off over time. I not stating that this is the way to go, but it’s how I did it. At this point, there’s no backup equipment fund so it’s all about taking care of what I have and trying to make it last as long as I can until I decide to upgrade one day.
2 Likes
Multiple reasons, primarily profit vs time and materials. Now I know when I start I wont be finishing houses as fast as squid and racer but I want to get that efficient. Once my tools are paid my actual expenditures on chemicals per house should be low, and even if it takes me half a day it will still be faster than Painting. I’m not saying that ide never stain a deck, or put some DTM on a section of gutter if needed. BUT I think that at times offering to many services is distracting. Ide rather get really good at a few things then decide of I want to branch out.
I know it sounds weird to turn down an add on or do something for “easy money” but I dont want to get in a situation where I’m repainting some lady’s bathroom for the 3rd time because she cant decide if she likes the color or not… time I could be using to wash 3 more houses. Do I make sense?
4 Likes
Crystal clear
1 Like
Executive summary of the book here with a link to purchase. Book Summary: Profit First by Mike Michalowicz
3 Likes
I’m currently reading this book. It’s fascinating! One question, with all the separate accounts, how are you doing the bookkeeping? It seems that it would be complicated to run Quickbooks with profit first.
A lot of the stuff in the book is really aimed at corporate types of business with book keepers on the payroll, us pressure washers don’t need that kind of book work to juggle a pressure washing business. The book does open your mind up a bit, but I’ll take the criticism and say a lot of it is just common sense.
3 Likes
I agree the executive summary is really the meat of it. Same for most books of that type. Which is why most CEO’s and Executive’s use the “executive summary” too busy otherwise.
2 Likes
Great refresher though, well worth a read.
1 Like
