For the longest time I’ve in general been focusing on getting work soft washing houses and I’d pretty much not marketed the doing of driveways since I didn’t have equipment that has enough power to make it worthwhile to do them. But now I’m about to have that equipment. And that got me to thinking: Maybe I’ve so far had it all wrong, and I should be concentrating on doing driveways. There are just way more driveways that need washing than there are houses, when you get down to it. But it’s finding and contacting people with houses that need soft washing that are the relative time-consuming, pricier-to-find needle in the haystack. Very few houses really need washing when you get down to it, why not go for the easier to find, easier to do, less liability-risk-y driveway/masonry action? Any thoughts, anyone tried this?
Not sure where you are located. Here, every house needs to be washed at least once, if not twice a year. People don’t really care about the driveways
I agree with @FATJOE, most people around here don’t give a crap about their drives. They’ll spend decent money on cleaning their homes, but trying to upsell tham even for a good price like pulling teeth sometimes. Depends on where you live I suppose.
Not a lot of house washing around here but I up sell driveways all the time. As soon as Ms. Johnson (not her real name) finds out that black stuff on her sidewalk, driveway, flagstone etc. is mold she wants it off. I usually do the driveway etc. when my helper is cleaning the fence. Two a week pays his wages.
Driveways are ad ons.
Where you can make a good margin on your over all service.
Surface cleaning, at least for me, is harder on your back than doing a home.
I clean the walkway that leads from the front entry to the driveway, with the house wash. It always leads to the upsale of the drive.
That’s how I sell driveways if the client is home. I try to show ppl before and after pics if they’re not going to be there during service.
Yep…
Smart man here
I know people who need a haircut twice a year. It doesn’t mean they can either afford nor want one. 
I do the front walkway and steps, if they’re masonry, with every house. It’s an added, free touch that customers appreciate, especially if they’d been quoted already by someone else who didn’t say they’d throw it in. Oc course this is if the walkway is within reasn as far as size; I’m not going to do a mile-long walkway. But if that’s the case, I’d not do it for free.
I do not know the relative size or age of your business, nor the gear you rick, but I’m still thinking that it may be an ignored income source to do driveways in themselves and not as add-ons. Of course this would not be to ignore the soft washing or structures, but let me tell you, I can drive through the average Charlotte neighborhood with 30k sq, ft, houses (the usual size my typical customer’s house)and see maybe zero to two or three houses that need a wash, but they all have driveways, and out of ten of those driveways, maybe two have been washed recently enough to look clean compared to the rest. Those clean ones will almost do the work for me when I door-knock and offer a reasonable price to make theirs look just as squeaky clean as their neighbor’s. Like I said, there’s a heck of a lot more-and easier to find-driveways to do out there than compared to the houses.
It is generally recommended to get ones hair cut every 4 weeks…lol…so
30k sqft homes? Wow.
A regular driveway is about 30 min.
Am i going to drive to do a 30 min job? No
Unless they pay good.
Like Racer said most people around here dont give a crap about their driveways.
Let us know when you start so we can start a countdown to when you’re back to doing houses.
Someone said “make them think the upsell was their idea” and I did that today and laughed in my head when it worked. I “wanted to test my surface cleaner” since I have a big job tomorrow (really do) and washed his walkway for free. About 12 foot and it was black as night. When I got done and turned around his jaw was about to tickle the grass it was so low lol. He said that’s amazing! What would you normally charge for something like that? I said oh $20 or so. He asked what I would charge to wash the concrete under the roof by the door. About 5x10 area and I said $20 and he said do it! In all honesty I probably would have done it all for $20 since it took me about 5 minuets. But if I hadn’t shown him the difference he wouldn’t have agreed to it!
If I would have given him a quote of $20 and told him it would look better he likely would have passed. He felt like he got $40 worth of work for $20.
I don’t like upselling like that but it makes a huge difference in the appearance of the house.
And 20 dollars is 20 dollars lol
There’s nothing wrong with up selling. Profit is not a dirty word. We provide a service. Most people do not think about everything we can clean. You’re not just up selling you’re educating them on what can be cleaned and how we can make their home look better.
He also was the director of the towns EMS building. He asked if I would stop by and quote washing and sealing all the bays and huge driveway. So the $20 may turn into a much larger conversation.
