I personally look at 99% of houses. I’d love to deal with cookie cutter but not many in my area. Most are custom homes. I envy those of you who deal with square vinyl homes, gigantic neighborhoods with 3 or 4 layouts, & minimal landscaping. We must all play with the cards we are dealt though!
I take a picture of the house and ask the guys on the forum what they would charge. I get tons of replys.
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^^^ post of the day, right there. 
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This is the easiest way to do it, especially when you’re starting out. Have prices that go up depending on square footage as well as the type of service. It’s straight forward for the customer and, if you’re doing it on the phone, makes you sound more knowledgeable by being able to give a faster price rather than trying to do more time intensive math with whatever you could potentially charge per SF.
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How do you utilize Nextdoor? I just downloaded it and got my business account all set up. Can’t be seen quite yet because I don’t have enough recommendations but after I am, do you just post about your business?
That’s something that took me a while to hone down, and also based on my market and operating costs. Gotta figure your own pricing structure out that works for you.
Never randomly solicit your business on Nextdoor. It’s against Nextdoor policy, and is generally frowned on by most homeowners and other legit businesses. You can offer your services whenever someone asks for recommendations though. I have requests for reviews automatically sent out after an invoice gets paid. If that doesn’t work, the thank you cards that get automatically sent a few days after they pay usually do the trick. Sometimes the thank you cards will get me 2 or 3 reviews and several mentions. Also, if you network with lanscapers, lawn care companies, painters, etc on Nextdoor, you can bounce each others names back and forth when people ask for recommendations. It’s not overnight results, but compared to money I wasted on Google Ads with a company that targets pressure washing companies, Nextdoor has been absolute gold. I would say about 75% or more of my work comes from recommendations on there. The rest comes from a few 5 star reviews on Google, Facebook and HA. Don’t necessarily recommend HA though.
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Sounds like the area you live in works great for Next Door. My zip code is vinyl town with a hundred $99 power washers running up and down the street. If I quote 10 people on Next Door I’ll get 1-2 of them…even with tons of reviews on there. Theres tons of $99 bandit signs a every intersection. There’s a few towns near here I can easily get double for the same house I do in my zip code. I’ll have people post reviews on their NextDoor page which helps get me good business. NextDoor can be good for some if you live in the right area.
Love everyone’s response but you are answering the wrong question. The better question and answer is do you have a phone script and process to provide quotes by phone? We do, and so should everyone else. Phone sales are a thing, whole books are written about the topic. There are stages to the sales process; intro, qualify, build value, prepare and present offer, handle objections, close, perform work, and follow up. (Generally speaking)
Like it or not we are in the sales business.
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$89/house, no house under 2500sqft. Its working well for me.
Could you recommend a good book on the subject? I know I need to polish up my approach
Thanks
Joe
that seems really low. how long does it take you to do a house?
Pretty sure he is under 10 minutes per house. 
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Huh. I’m must be tired.
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I really like the for dummies series book on telephone sales. Eighty percent of the material you need in an easy format. Telephone Sales For Dummies Amazon.com
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This, by far, is the best answer… And how we’ve been selling Res. for over 8 years and close 80% of calls… Closing over the phone is kind of an art of salesmanship… I can’t tell you what we charge per sq. ft. and a customer doesn’t care…we’ve done this so long it just comes naturally… Saves time, fuel, wasted time with price shoppers… If I sent you 4 pictures of a home & the address could you give me a price? Would you have the answer to “Any” question I may have? Would you have an answer to any objection I may have? Can you “Sell” yourself over the phone? Can you “Sell” your business over the phone? Is your business “Visible” enough online to sell itself? … If you can Master the art of phone sells you’ll see your “Net” numbers soar…It’s all about efficiency.
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I usually wrap one up in a day.
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Find a sales seminar with a reputable coach for finance/insurance people and/or cold calling. If you can sell cold calling or insurance, you’ll have no problem when people call you. Working in finance for 3 years was instrumental in helping me sell pressure washing.
A seminar in person they’ll likely role play the scenarios and objections. It sticks a lot better than a book.
Then find a Cutco salesperson, sit down with them and let them sell you some knives. Record the interaction. They have one of the best sales training programs in the country.
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Thanks for the replies, I’ll look into those suggestions. I appreciate the feedback.
Joe
I love selling over the phone. I usually try and get the customer to laugh right before I give them the price. By breaking the tension it makes it easier to overcome price objections.
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