Scott, I have a proposal sheet made out in excel That I use for all my customers. It even includes a release they sign that my lawer wrote up for me. If you use excel I can send you the file. Let me know
Dale
Sparkling Detail
Tabernacle, NJ
Mr Oneness
Your outlook on getting the bids you put in, that you so graciously chalk up to as "It means the customer was happy with the price, with you, with how they perceive you and your company, possibly how you presented yourself to them, how well you sold them on the job" you pretty much summed it up in your first sentence. Everything else you say is just chit-chat with the customer.
And yes, down here in Orlando, the folks do have concerns with plants, cover them, problem solved.
Now that you have found a product that you really like, so how much time have you spent trying to find it at a cheaper price? Thats right, that same product or equivelent thru another distributer for less money?. All auto stores sell armor all, but who has it for the cheapest? The one who buys the most and gets the best deal.
I am really glad that you did find a soap to cut down your cleaning time from an absurd 3+ hours to 2 hours(which is still absurd). I guess this is why you have to charge a obsene amout of money to do a house, otherwise you would go bellyup, so this means you are the typical one man show with no insurance liabilities for employee's.btw, we do that same average home in 45 minutes, thats everything, roof, home, all flatwork, and they all call back every year.
For the record, the $80 house will exceed your $150 career job every time, how? simple, efficiency, efficiency, efficiency, and it will never be "sub-par" according to you. So if you are making $30 an hour, then you wont mind my company coming in and demanding $125 per hour, and getting it. After all, if you were a homeowner on your only day off, do you mind waiting around for a slow ass cleaner to waste half of the day to clean a house? No, I didnt think so. I'm on the phone if the cable guy is 10 minutes late for my appointment. Why?, because we all pay for convenience these days, plain and simple. So if you think that you are doing such a incredible thorough job that will go unnoticed as soon as you pull out of the drive, you are severely naive or senile, so sit at the end of the drive and watch those people load up their jet ski's and rush to the lake for the few remaining hours left of sunlight since you wasted the whole day at their house, simply because you just have not discovered more efficient methods of cleaning with the exact same results.
and yes, I am also glad you are not in my area, but I am in YOURS, maybe you would like to come watch a professional company in action when we come to Gainsville every year to do apartment complexes in a day and a half?(that would be 7 weeks on your time frame, kinda like dog years.)
Our # is 407-760-Wash(9274) LOOK IT UP, We are members of the BBB, and have NEVER had any complaints, EVER, , take a look at our website, psipressure.com, when you can chemical clean tile roofs 70ft off the ground and NEVER damage a single plant, the you can step up to the plate and preach about your "quality of work", until then, go get your horse and buggy, then load up your pump and go to work and ignore the world that is rapidly passing you by.
PS, these days there is a thing called high-speed connection to the internet, but there are people who do still use the old dial-up method, just a thought for you...
Naw, guys, let the jerk rant. He has such a high opinion of himself, and absolutely no respect for anyone else.
Phil:
You contradict yourself...you say that the owner is ONLY concerned with price, and then you say they are worried about their plants. Sounds to me like you think you've gotten it all figured out. Glad you think so.
No, I've never searched for this same soap anywhere else cheaper...Don't plan to.
As far as coming up to Gainesville, great. There's plenty here to clean. Which complexes do you wash (answer quick, without looking any up on the internet!)?
You seem to have a lot of issues with smaller contractors. Of course I don't have employee issues or WC insurance etc. I AM a one man show...happy with that, hope to stay that way. I'm sorry you think my $150.00 housewash in two hours is absurd both in pricing and speed. You know what's great though? The people's opinions who I actually give a rat's ass (the customers, not some jerkoff keyboard cowboy) about are more than happy with the time it takes (most aren't even home when I do it, so don't know what the hell you're talking about wasting someone's day off), the price, and the quality of the work.
I didn't mean to imply that you do sub-par work, if that's how I came across. There ARE many lowballer's such as yourself who DO do sub-par work. You apparently are a lowballer who does excellent work, at least according to you.
To wash the roof, clean the house, and the flatwork in 45 minutes AND do a top-quality job is something I'd have to see to believe. HOw many guys does that take?
As I mentioned, we must have different type of folks here...I get letters all the time with my checks thanking me for doing such a good job...I get folks going out of their way to comment on how much cleaner things are than they expected. You can degrade someone trying to do a good job, and that is fine with me....Just makes you an a**hole. You can doubt what I say, and that's fine too. I really don't care if you believe me or not.
Oh, don't worry, I'm not going to bother calling...I prefer to spend my time talking to productive members of our industry, not those who think they have it all figured out and anyone who disagrees is just an amateur and is "being passed by". Sorry. Maybe one day you'll really get it all figured out. Until then, go on lowballing and hurting the industry for the rest of us.
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