MMI Enterprises

Am confusicated here...."ex-husband"??.. Marvin, you a girl with a guy name, a guy that needs a girl name,.. ...or are ya just coming out the closet? :lgbonk:

Since it gettin drug elsewhere, might as well do some linking and let everyone see other outsider thoughts. My latest in respect to timelines of both version: :)

Hi Slightmold....you that Randy Travis fella?. He from there itn't he? :)

Hey Chris.. did ya get souced and into some desert after da smooth brylcream shave? ..people lookin fer yer souce over at the other site.. :)

Customer service is key. 12 years ago I had a major problem that almost put me out of business. It was our 3rd year and we grew extremely fast. That year we did 700 Deck Restorations. Back then we had very little competition and it was easy to grow. The problem, I wasn't make any money and my customer serivice and quality was declining fast. The only way I could stay in business was to increase my prices by 50%. The next year we did about 300 decks but profited 3 times as much money while giving superior work and excellent customer service. So just to be clear..let me get this straight... BNR went from $99 wash to a $297 wash and Scott took 3 years of lowballing/low expense situation to finally go from $99 to $148 for a wash....Ok sounds good, just wanted to be clear. :) ..carry on.. :lgbonk:

Well said as usual Rich... we could move on from business practices to safe practices. Here enjoy this series of works people. They play one after the other..gets better as you go along: TSG TV: Video Clips From The Smoking Gun

His inventory items (which I like about his site) do not read as such..maybe he changed them today..His front page read "FROM .25" since the beginning of the site being pointed out though so I doubt his main inventory pricing in his store was as low as your saying. Regardless, they are his prices no matter how low they be and he is welcome to them. You can use it as reflecting badly on the industry if you like but it don't make it so. Customers are not dumb and can read the "from", or the error of using the word 'horizontal' in his item descriptions when he means to measure it all, i.e- "Horizontal Surface Area (Deck floor, steps, & hand rails) is less then 500 SQ FT" His type of advertising doesn't much allow for eyeballing and let's customer know up front that when they ask for a 500 sq. ft. quote for a deck wash that it won't result in wasting their time in recieving some out of line $500 quote. After all they just getting a wash and not a stain. So to answer your question, no his advertising is not bad for the industry. If anything it is good as it leads towards consistant pricing IF he can provide results at them rates that is. I suspect you don't mind his type of advertise but rather the price of his advertise. I just see a few error that could use address to keep customers clear on pricing. Moreover though I don't really call his advertise as mattering so it not good nor bad on the industry. Bad on the industry is when jobs go unfinished or consist of subpar work like in that artwork thread of that deck getting all scarred up. Maybe most are into the whole estimate estimate estimate mentality until ya got one on the hook. I prefure being upfront with pricing for the more simple stuff and get them done and over with without all the ad funding and efforts in securing the big fish. Hope Ed don't mind if I model my site after his someday.

true Jarrod. you meant there where yer at.. But fair enough to ask it of this here forum too as Shane obliged. personally I a bit lost at this point and asleep due to not having clear definition of what the $99 amount applies to. Does it apply to a min. amount to show up?.. a 1.5k shack of a housewash or a 2.5k or what exactly? It comes off by the way you address it Jarrod that it don't matter and if the job is less than a c note the guy must be a lowballer. I'll start the washer for $80 if I am there or on a scheduled routine but that don't mean anything but a min. to unroll. It don't apply but for a small area of crete usually as an add on to other work. If I had 10 $99 driveways tomorrow I would be there and make some good bank.

HMMM..thought it was clear by other discissions that low price don't equal lowballer..always thought of lowball meant the guy who undercut the next guy just enough to get the job...90% of people here do that?.. don't think so. Who here offers to change their rate for what they already may have quoted based on customer giving up anothers rate as a bargaining chip?.. I just try to help them out on what they might offer compared to I and if it turns out I do more than I may decide to offer to do less for equal amount... This thread is as usual leaning towards abuse... can't you all just get along without insults?....haha. nah me neither...screws to all you 10% folk...you know to batten down yer hatches...lmaof..:umbrella:

they probably like stain and all made by same mother manufactures :)

Was worded as a test, but hey his test didn't work out as he got no marklet there for house washes. There is no lie on this Ed's part. Could conscrew leaving prices up that waters down the other folks market but hey I bet this Ed would have went out and fullfilled the ad price if he was put to it.

oh wow... you wanna them old Hammy guys ahe?.. when the world is dead stopped due to strife, fammon, catastrophy or war there will always be the Hammy's to help things out...ahh what can be had in the airwaves, bet you know Charlie or Dave too eh?.. :)

My dad used to wear that old spice cologne ..powerful stuff.. He was first on block to have the foam heater. Wonder if they still make them. They were tan plastic with a couple lights and buttons and were like 6x9" sized. Ya just stuck yer can in the back and out comes hot foam out the front...Last time I saw one was maybe 5 year back at a yardsale.

Thing is since there is a limited amount of available customers willing to buy we must see that the ones actually building a business is gonna be at the expense or leaching on the ones not building or growing anything that might just be after keeping status quo or feeding faces. How do you explain yerself for coming into an industry only a year ago or 7 years ago with big aspirations of getting it all and try to demand people that been doing their small business much longer to change or up their prices when they have no need to?...oh that's right the pressure washing industry is young and invented and owned by the supposed seniority minded/but new folk...not!!. it owned by the hundreds and hundreds of washers that are just as professional but don't have a need or bother to come here. We aint all that. For every one of you that think you represent your big city there be hundreds of professional run businesses doing so called lowball prices. Where as you think you set the standard and create the pricing it is they and their customers making the prices in their specific market and they been doing it just as long as you or longer. You just want more money and to work less..that fine and all and am all for it... just don't pull the wool over the newbies coming in. They will be eatin up not by your high prices but by the low prices of their fellow pro's that have no time for this silly forum stuff.. Yea there are more people in the world everyday so newbie is needed and welcome to fill gaps but again I'll imply that to label a low priced option as non-professional or wrong mainly serves the goal of those wanting it all or not able to cope or manage... If an industry such as retail or grocery heard your gripes they would laugh at you and I both at what we expect our profit margins to be. Other industry is almost straightup socialistic far as distributing wealth and profit. Bigger the business the more the profit gets spread about to the little man doing the work. At some point they become corporations with the regular folk doing the labor underneith being the shareholders and wreaping whatever margin there is available to that perticular industry. Since when is the world of cleaning a high profit industry?.. since roof cleaning and pressure washing is when. Would say that all the corporations ( the people) will eventually own ya and be able to offer $50 housewashes if it not for big box store having the world trade ability to provide HO with cheap pressure washer. The service field is not like the retail field of being able to import goods and therefore not limited to goobermint effects of trade. Happy HO can't call up China and have them send over a few pair of pants for Johnny so we are beholding to the corporate influence upon goobermint to get the stuff in off the waters. In this case we can blame HO theirselves for inspiring the box stores to have the cheap washers produced or shipped in. But hey they and the box stores been gearing up for that as long as there been pressure washers so you can't really say you come first...evolve, adapt..take up a new business as everyone knows this one is old and not the big thing to get into like it was a decade or more ago. The money has always been and will be in your actual professional trades requiring many years of college education. You know like doctors and lawyers and such.. :)

yup I hear Ya Chris.. A disposable world of disposable product is going to last how long? After things break there will be no decent quantity of repairman trained to fix what only the big huge service oriented warehouses do...or rather don't do..Surely they take things back in on warranty and just replace many a things these days with it's disposable counterpart. Depends on industry and replacement costs. Electronics is sometmes that way but I can attest that somewhere in every region of the country they got service devisions that will tear down a vcr or audio receiver and actually do a repair to it. Where that applies to industrial equipment or chems, etc,. I can't say. I can say that repairmen are not on every retail corner like they used to be though and so we are becoming beholding to this disposable mentality. Regular folk used to be more able to afford the repairman but now not only is there too many regular folk but their wage earnings are hardly on the side of making them profit let alone retirement and it all goes out the door to pay for them higher priced professions, medical, or oil... too many people inthe cookie jar.

ps.. Hi Chris.. you should venture out more into the other sections.. they get quite informative if not entertaining.. :)

What Jeff said about America turning into Walmart is interesting to me. Some view the influx of big low priced business actually being able to deliver product is a foriegn idea that goes against hometown America and the old ways of small store keepers...kinda like an Andy Griffith scenario. Others in bigger congested areas may just never seen or experienced such influx due to the corner guy being closer..after all there is or was only so much space until other business gives up the locations. My percpective out West is that we always had space and stores offering competitve pricing and there became somewhat of a change to that just prior to Walmart coming on scene. We had stores like Gold Circle, Gemco (target), Kmart ever since I was a kid that beat the doors off Sears or Monkey Wards, etc. Am talking the 70's through the 80's. I see the whole Walmart thing as a rollback to what things used to be like and that the price increases in the bigger towns just before Walmart came in were becoming over inflated. Maybe not in your small town or more rural areas but hey those places are and always have been inflated hence keeping the store keepers the big bisiness in town. These days it is the small convience stores that overinflate and they make their business off lazy people not willing to drive further or to the drunken party scene. Funny thing now is that there really is no need for frugal minded folk to shop for some things like clothes at these Walmarts or Targets in order to get good pricing. You can get way better clothes same or cheaper at Sears or Mervyns type places when ya add up all the price cut and store card incentives. Things like food and diapers are no different as we get way better price and product at Costco warehouse type stores. Main things I get at Walmart these days is some their cheap chems, toys, and some their cheap electronic accessory type stuff when it don't matter about quality. They still better in quality than say Kmart stuff. To me it's almost like I am greatful that retail is still competative when professional, medical, and oil is not. Instead of yelling at Walmart we should be yelling at overinflated pricing of other industry. Only reason we got to charge so much is for to be able to afford what they sellin..When it comes down to it it becomes about pricing such things comparative and competative to the world market effects and competition for goods in a world more full of industrial players. Kinda sucks to have to pay more for gas cause Asia is on the rise..Boiling it down our problems in Amirica become more about trade issues, laziness, and somewhat is our own fault for teaching other countries to want what we got..sorry rambling now..:)

Mr Sqweegie, The 'condition' is easy to state. Instead of Housewashes $99.. you say HOUSE WASHES from $99 or you use * referencing the fine print if ya like. Use both..

Oh and now he likened to not being a professional?. If being a professional relates to pricing and hence means charging more than a non-professional for same job then we have new deffinition... Rick, How does mortgage co. tactics relate when this fella actually supposedly provides his service as advertised?. If mortage co. did provide you 1% you would be taking them up on it right?.

Wow..Am I reading right??... Ed is not a real contractor that sends out a perception to his customers which can not be satisfied? He is apparently also a lowballer, makes disgraceful ads, makes for a crap situation, does not deserve respect, is likened to being a moron, and is prone to be acussed of pissing in pools, is a hack, and doesn't need his phone to ring... Good golly he may need a tar and feathering... Nah, is a free wide open market and far as this pool goes...it is a community pool and I fail to see him popping out #2 floaters. :)

Yea if ya think about it I suppose there are up and coming young folk that may not know how to shave due to not having male figures around. The older ya get the rougher it gets and soon enough most figure out that some hot water prior to the foam helps. Hot water on the razor inbetween strokes not only cleans it of course but it also does something to make the edge last longer. If I got a hot date and know I'll be having desert after then changing things up in going against the grain may be on the agenda. Makes for a bit more rashy feeling on you but you'll have better chance at being asked back for desert again. :)

Smoothest combo I found is the Gillette Fusion tripple razor (vibrator off) on that green gel...forget the brand, maybe Edge. Probably don't matter long as it has lanolin. I got no problem with Barbasol or Colgate though as they don't clog the razor as easy as the gels.

Depending on what dilution and what yer mixing it with it seems the silicate can be a penetrating seal or a contributor to certain cleaning mixtures both concrete and wood. Ken and I was discussing such earlier today...Maybe he'll pay a visit and offer up anything new he may have on it's possable uses.

I made that one posted.. I just consolidated info's found around the net as well as a few similar charts into the format I thought best. Disclaimer: It may be inacurrate and incomplete. :) ps- I'd like to get some more on there like phosphoric acid or maybe a few popular branded chems on the bbs, or maybe a collumn about safe practice.

For headlights, telescope mirrors, optics of all sorts, or even your various hard stone surfaces just make a polishing lap... Melt enough tree pitch in a soup can for to be able to pour about a 1/2" coating onto the surface of a suitable sized saucer or disk to be used as a tool for the object to be cleaned and polished. Jelly jar lid should work fine as a tool for headlights as example. Use masking tape around edge to contain the pour. Don't boil it and don't expose to flame or you'll have to put out a fire. As it sets up take a razor blade and cut waffle or crosshatch pattern V's into the pitch every inch or so. This allows polish to move about, for debri to clear, and also prevents suction in use and allows for the next step of pressing the tool into a matching shape of what your to polish. So before total setup of the warm pitch, take the tool and coat it with thin mixture of polish (cerium oxide or ferrous ixide, or rouge and water). Press onto surface to be polished for it to take shape of object to be polished and let it setup until cool and hard as it will get. Takes a few minutes to take same shape. Now goto town in hand polishing back and forth,turn, then repeat in a consistant pattern keeping surface wet with water and polish until object is once again like new.