Jeff

Got some cool decks in Texas, great job

Im with you ! I wouldnt do anything for free, stain & wood wear and one year on some with traffic.

Actually my 5.6 gpm will shot further than my 3 & 4 Gpm machines. I think its just because its a stronger stream of water

Don, Yellow Pages. I've never targeted restaurants, fast food places etc. I may someday. I get around 4-6 calls a year from YP from rest & fast food, This is the 1st one I landed, I guess my rates are to high usually JL

I Love it!! Went to do a estimate on some brick pavers, concrete & paint removal. Guy was from my home state Mass and we talked for quite a while, real nice guy the PM for large condo tower. Told him Id get back to him on price. Just called him told him $800 , over the phone he said " you can do it for under $1500" I said did you hear me? He said ya he only has $1500 in the budget TOTALLY COOL GUY Love it when a plan comes together. Sometimes the small talk pays off. I also asked him about his 5 story parking garage he said give him a price he'll put it in his budget for the fall COOL They just did 12 million in renovations so I guess he doesnt mind spending Just wanted to share how small talk can pay off. Unreal got to love PWing JL

Great!!! good luck with it all. It can be a long slow process, get some kind of mailing, phone call, donuts whatever in their hands every 2-4 months and you'll get some calls sooner or later A list of 100 thats great!!!! Try 30, 60, 100 then mix it up over the next year or 2. Overwhelmed maybe , maybe not. One good PM or PM company can bring you 10's of thousands of $$$$. in the next month I have $11,000 worth of gutter cleaning and its from 1 PM company it will take 2-3 guys about 8 days to do. These PM's are my money and can be yours Keep us posted how it goes & dont forget when you do get one job ask them for another and a referall I'm excited for you I want to know and watch how it goes for you over the next year or 2, persistance pays off Good luck JL

Call them direct Andy higgins 1 800 925-8958 . They dont stock it regulaly but do get it for me and probably would for you, I would think? Sorry good Luck

12% is going up in price around here its from $1.98 to over $3.00 a gallon. If you come here I can still get it for $1.48 a gallon. I buy 40-140 gallons a week so they still give it to me for the old price I dont know what ICE sells it for, beware of them JL

The rate was good, The guy just liked talking to another guy from Mass and this was a referall . JL I wish all my customers would say double my quote

Dustin I dont know where Lexington SC is but if your ever coming to Myrtle Beach call and I can get you OX real cheap, I usually have a extra bag or 2 JBS here delivers to my house for free and I get 55 lb bags for $42.00 If your in the area call JL

Phil I'm surprised your having these problems. Mines 2 years old and the only part Ive replaced is the skirt and the fitting at the gun. I like the bar on the Big Guy, because it is one piece. Are you talking the spray bar every 3 months . I try to stay away from stonesbut have hit a ton of them and my tips have never fallen out and the threads are still fine, I change them every so often. I have no complaints at all with the Big Guy Its to bad your having these problems mine is nothing but a work horse JL

You got that right! I'm not to big on this kind of work compared to the complexes I do, but I would like it for the regular schedule and guaranteed money Any Contract I could look at would be helpful jlecours@sc.rr.com if someone could email me one Thanks JL

Don your on your way to being the King, Congrats. I remember the 1st good sized job I got it was $1800 and I was so excited, I finished the job in a day and a half with a helper. I thought then this is the biz for me. You know just the other day I was thinking how for a few weeks Ive had a lot of little jobs all between $1000 - $2500 and no bigger 5K, 6K, 10K jobs. Then I thought how cool is it that I can say that a $2000 job is small. Don good going landing the work and keep that brain working on Ideas & ways to keep getting the work. More post cards in the same neighborhood right before you do the jobs. Sell Sell Sell JL

One home demo for free. I would have said I dont work for free and told her I will do it for my regular price then start a discount by volume. The hell with them , dont send them another email, dont call them again and if they call you or email you, I wouldnt respond, screw them I never work for free unless I want to. Ive done a few PM's homes for free and I was happy to , they given me 10's of thousands worth of biz, they've tried to stuff money in my pocket and I wouldnt take it just like I wouldnt take it from a friend A sample is just that, a parking garage I'll do a 10X10 area to sell them on doing it all, but Im not going to do a whole level as a sample Please pass on this and if they say the free thing, tell them no thank you:lgwave: :bullistic and walk

Heck I know a guy up the road that would blast the hell out of that deck with pressure and put a cheap water seal on it for $150, He calls it a "hard wash" He's been in biz years and screwed up a lot of decks, but you know I actually know that some of his customers are happy with the job, go figure I dont do much wood, but I definitly dont do "hard wash" I dont like the small decks becuase of the fact you have to go out 2 days to wash & seal $350 up would be what I charge. I just had one about the same size no railings had a couple benchesand I quoted $450 it was 45 minutes away and with gas for the estimate and 2 trips I wanted to make it worth my while. They said to much and that was ok with me JL

I spend anywhere from $40 - to $100 a day on 2 trucks 3-4 machines

Experience level, sometimes you just have to bulls--t a little. You read and learn a lot right here on these boards use it when talking to customers.If its residential , take pictures of everything you do and put together a photo album, do family house take pics, do friends house & deck take pics, do your house & drive take pics. you can fill up a small photo album quick and it can look impresive to customers. JL

Ken good stuff as usual!!!! I'm not great with the numbers but I am trying. I'm way ahead of last years #'s and of course it because of more work that I've gotten, but I do and am trying to cut cost without cutting quality. Some simple things, better time management getting my guys out working quicker, shopping for price & quality on chems, replacing parts before they wear out and cause problems, grouping jobs(residential) one neighborhood one day and another a different day As for time estimates Ive also gotten much better with that and I've had to increase some of the prices on some jobs. Ive lost a few jobs because of it but Im making more per job for less work. If you aint growing your dying, very true!! The past years Ive double or almost doubled my gross, this year it wont be double but my #"s are great and hope to have my 1st half million year in 2007 or 08 Target marketing works, I like and make good money with PM companies so thats 80% of my marketing. I've decided not to drop residential and may even start targeting it some in upcoming months for a couple reason, it fills in some slow times and theres a need for it in this area so I figure why not help fill that need. I usually dont make as much doing residential and its more time consuming doing the estimates and everything else involved, but I can still make a good days profit Ive definitly found theres more to biz than just the actual work and you know I enjoy most of it and I hope someday that I wont be doing the actual work. I wish I had a better business mind and was better with the #'s but you have to work with what you got. Good stuff Ken we all learn from each other Thanks JL

Theres no problem Barry, like Mike & Lance said. What ever works best for the individual. I never put down downstreaming because Ive never really done it. I just state what works for me. I do so many complexes and have to run so many feet of hose and need to pump that chem on fast every single day that I just stay with my xjet for now. Im the old story of its hard to teach an old dog new tricks. Hell I hooked up a chem injector a few weeks ago and couldnt even get it to draw so I gave up. Maybe one of these days I'll get one of these downstreaming guys or you to come set me up the right way and I may convert, until then its the hose & bucket routine and on to the next complex. JL

Whats everyone paying for Workers Comp and do you know the code your listed under? Me & my insurance agent are having a battle with the carriers of South Carolina comp. I dont have handy the actual codes comp goes by, but my agent used to list PW companies under a certain code# and the discription stated building maintenance, window washing etc etc and it cost a little over $5.00 per $100. Now I had a different agent carrier last year and I was paying just over $13.00 per $100 and I was listed under a different code, but the discription was "concrete construction" ???? but if you look further into the decription for Concrete Constuction it says building washing. My newest agent who listed under the $5.00 rate was told to change that isnt for PWing of buildings and now he has to charge the higher rate & code. I spent some time in his office and he made a few calls and the agency that governs the codes said he has to go under the Concrete Construction one, its the only one that says building washing. Now concrete construction is a much higher risk, alot of the discription states buildin of walls, pile driving etc etc much riskier than washing a condo. Now the WC company I just left is doing the annual audit on me and the lady doing it called and asked me some basic questions, then she called back and asked why Im under the code for concrete construction and I stated that we dont think its right but thats what we've been told we have to go under and I told her if you look further into the description for that code you'll see it states building washing. She said its a lot higher risk factor concrete construction and she said she was going to check into it further. She called yesterday and said the code was the only code that states building washing and she was told we are in the right & only code. Now everybody agrees that PWing isnt concrete costruction but thats what I'm stuck with. The rate under that code varys depending if your in assigned risk or not but its from $12.51 to $13.88 per $100 My question is whats everybody else paying is it arounf $12-$14 or much lower??? I'm going to try to research it more but just dont have the time. Basically they dont have a code for just PWing and Im stuck paying what I'm paying and it sucks. I'm paying almost $5500 this year JL

I wish I could explain it, I still get a ton of chem and it cleans fast, but with 3/8th I used say 2 & 1/2 5's compared to say 1 & 1/2 5's when using 1/4" line. I'd like to show you what i mean, there s a big difference and its lesser amount of times you have to fill the bucket. I mix 2 - 2 3/4 gallons 12% & soap and top off the 5 with h2o. Get plenty of chem.

Great work Barry, Im just so used of using Xjet, maybe some day I'll try downstreaming , I just worry I use up to 300- to sometimes 400ft of pressure line For those who use Xjet, I put 1/4 inch line, barbs & shut off valve and I use a lot less chem. I mix 2 gallons of 12% soap and the rest water in a 5 and I can do a 1200-1400 sq ft house with the one 5. I have no clamps on my xjet hose or the at the shut off. I just apply chem pop off line at shut off and rinse it takes a second and then rinse. Converting to a 1/4 inch xjet hose saves a lot of chem and does the job

Head eng, head of maint. Procutrment Dept. Colleges have web sights, look for Dept heads and call & write them ask to meet with them. Most or all work at Universities have to have 3 bids I got on a univ. list for all their bids for washing, I called head of maint. asked to meet with him, brought in a couple dozen donuts, list of references and we talked and gave him sales pitch. It took almst 10-12 months before I got 1st call to bid and it was in the form of an email Ive bid on 3 projects and got one so far, a slate roof on a large building. If you get a meeting do follow up calls every 3 or so months They will do a lot of the work when students are out on breaks also Look for the websights gget some good info sometimes JL

That roof looks GREAT, I'm sure the HO was happy, congrats on a job well done JL