Hey everyone I’m new to the forum. I’ve been reading for the past few days and am interested in starting my own business within the next year. I have a few questions if anyone would be kind enough to answer:
Commercial or Residential?
Is it good to have a pressure washing business in a big city like London?
Advertising? I was thinking about leafleting to get business but I also thought about going up to businesses that have big car parks etc… And offering my services, say to around 100-200 places a week.
Anyways welcome and read read read
I don’t know of anyone recent in England that’s on here but
Tons of universal info is just a search away. @BuzzLightyear can help with the translations!
There’s a guy that created a softwash calculator app and does videos in the U.K. On YouTube. I’ll see if I can find him. It seems to be a slightly different process. For example he softwashes with a battery powered pump sprayer.
Half commercial. Half residential with the exception of the last two months of the season. Almost exclusively commercial. One was a $25k job, a few $6-7k jobs, and the last one was $10,950. I also charge more than most on residential.
I’ve been incredibly lucky. Thanks for the kind words.
People hate when I say it, but almost all has come from HomeAdvisor. A development company that hired me 8 months ago kept throwing $2-3k jobs at me each month that took a few days each. They found me on HomeAdvisor. I’ve got 3 apartments on perpetual contract all came from HomeAdvisor. The $25k job came from HA.
Only one job in October came from anything but HA. It was a business to business referral from the rental company I rent lifts and hot water pressure washers from.
I kinda want that “dewalt” soft washer now. I can’t think of anything useful to do with it but I really want one. Not tge extentions though thats kinda scarry looking.
Could you link me to your profile on there so I can take a look? Don’t know if that is a thing in the UK. Do you think approaching commercial businesses would be a good way to generate work. If you actually approached businesses as well as homeadvisor then you would probably be with too much work right?
Not exactly. I tried knocking on doors, networking groups, cold calling, the list goes on. When I signed up for HomeAdvisor the leads came to me and I quit delivering pizzas at night since revenue doubled.
In the last quarter, I’ve been getting a lot more website hits and website requests. My website sucks so I can only attribute that to being around awhile, getting reviews, and sharing pics via google+
That’s crazy to think you get that much business from there. What do you think about if I approached say 100 commercial properties a week explaining my business and leaving them with a flyer/business card. If 1 bites per week and I’m looking at 1000+ per clean? Opinion
Every market is different. Some are going to be complete opposites from my market. For example, the guy we sub window cleaning too use to run his business in Denver. He says it was exponentially easier to get jobs from cold calling than in Kansas City. Different market. Different attitude. Different marketing experience.
If you approach (cold call) 100 commercial properties a week, get a business card or take notes about where you went, their attitude when you approached, if you closed business or not, etc. Then you’ll have a better idea of your ratios when you look at the data you compile over say 6 weeks.
The good news is that you’re in a huge market comparative to Kansas City. London: 8.8 million. Kansas City metro: 481k. With outlying suburbs 2.2 million.
You may find in your market that 50 approaches net 2 jobs. If 50 approaches net 10 jobs, you probably aren’t charging enough.
Don’t explain your business. Go in and say, “we were passing by and noticed your walkway/building/etc could use some love/has been neglected/could use a heavy cleaning. If that’s something you’re interested in we typically charge $X for commercial jobs of this size.”
Your flyer should leave the estimated cost behind with it. If they have questions then or later you can iron that out, but assume they’re going to hire you.
Every knucklehead and their dead cat drops off cards and flyers and says, “yes ma’am or sir… I’d love for you to contact me later if you decide when I’m gone that I could maybe be of use to you.” or some other passive mess that people forget right away.
I just did a $1000 job today because I gave them a price on a cold call. I have another $1000 job that, weather permitting, i will do on Thursday…because I gave them a price on a cold call. I have 2 houses coming up because I gave them a price on one house on a cold call…they called the next day and said they wanted their other house washed, too.
Since you are already there…give them a price on the work that you see that needs to be done.
BTW, my quotes were not on anything fancy…they were written on the back of my business card. If you have a tablet, have it in hand and show them pictures of your work…people always like to see your work…and it makes it not seem like so much of a “cold call”…if you know what I mean. Showing the pictures seems to be a good ice breaker and gives you time to talk with them while showing the pics.
