CCPC

If you knew what was on here, and have been doing your due diligence, you wouldn't be asking such broad questions about roof cleaning, and so on.

yep. typical landscape guy helping to ruin the pressure washing business. Thanks!

Nice Work Larry. That Tampa, FL YMCA must be really pleased with the pressure washing and roof cleaning job you all did.

Hey, I sent a roof cleaning lead your way earlier today. Just wanted to let you know.

I like it, but it suits my personality as I'm a visual person, and the women is pretty hot. Seriously though, I'm a fan of it as long as it isn't to overwhelming, and i hate when live actors repeat over and over again. I had no problem loading it, and not a single glitch as it was playing on both sites. I have a DSL connection, and a kick ass computer.

That's great, but I'm a little confused. How did you clean it without the lift?:confused:

Those buildings would DEFINITELY require the use of a lift. Using a good lift, some extension poles, and pump up sprayer, you should have those buildings banged out in a couple of weeks, easy.

I wouldn't touch that roof.

Pressure washers shouldn't come off the trailer anyways, only the hose and gun/wand should.

Well, I’ve finished my latest upgrade. Since I started down streaming again (which I love, by the way), the only thing that really got on my nerves was having to walk back to the trailer, and shut off the ball valve every time I wanted to rinse with low pressure. Well, those days are over. Thanks to the help of my father and brother (both electrical engineers) I finished my remote valve shut off device. Now I can shut of the draw line to my injector from anywhere on a property with a touch of a button. I helped my brother put together the circuit board that contains the receiver, and my father and I enjoyed an afternoon putting the rest of the box and wiring together. The ball valve is a common 1/2” pvc, powered by a motor off of a retired Shurflo pump. All the electrical is 12v so I can simply hook up to the marine battery I already use for cleaning roofs. I’m looking into refining the design of the motor and ball valve to a smaller 12v motor and a smaller ball valve. The reason for the ½” ball valve was because I needed a valve that could handle the torque of the Shurflo motor. When I first started looking into this I thought about an electric powered solenoid valve, but to find ones suitable for chemical abuse, they were upwards of 200-300 clams. The great thing about the motor and ball valve idea is that the ball valve is separated from all the other equipment, so if it goes bad, all I have to do is buy another $3 ball valve and I’m back in business. Another possible use for this (now that I can shut off the chem. line remotely), is to put a shurflo pump in the draw hose of my injector for the ability to drastically increase the chem. Strength. I plan to experiment with this over the weekend. Who knows, maybe with the right shurflo pump inline I can increase the chem. ratio enough to clean roofs with my injector. We also went with a keyfob remote that has extra buttons so I can add other remote upgrades in the future by simply adding a few components to the circuit board. Project cost analysis: Electrical components - $60 Ball valve - $3 Plastic container, assorted nuts, bolts, fasters, etc - $15 Shurflo motor and other mounting hardware – on hand Time – who cares, it’s quality time with the old man and bro.

I like that idea of taking photos of every property that is cleaned. I've never thought about the benefit of that before, but I may start doing it now.

On site estimates can add a lot of time to a job too.

Two hours for a dbl wide sounds slow to me, especially if it is vinyl like I'm assuming it is. In the past, even cleaning ones covered in funk and it would take no longer than maybe an hour or so.

Interesting. I already quote many jobs using Internet and satellite technology, but this is the first thing I've seen that is specifically designed for it.

After a slow start to the year, things have been great the past couple of months. I haven't done the books yet for this month, but last I checked I'm actually on course for a record April. Can't complain about that, just hope it continues.

I don't necessary include screened in porches. I ask whether or not the homeowner would like it to be cleaned and price the house as a whole taking the screened in porch into consideration. Sometimes they don't want the interior done, but I tell them that they should at least let me wash the screen, and exterior trim around the screen room. I ask them to move the furniture and other items back away from the screen about 5' or so, and I use one of my patented cleaning techniques where I apply my mix to the screen at a sharp angle so the cleaning solution soaks the screen, but doesn't go through the screen getting on everything inside the enclosure. I then will clean the trim above, and lastly, I will go into the screen room and rinse the screen off from the inside out, and then do a quick perimeter sweep-wash of the floor around the edges. Done deal. Clean screen, without having to remove all the items from the porch. I still prefer, and reccommend that they go ahead a let me clean the whole interior, but sometimes they just don't want to bother with it.

I did the cart thing as well when I used to "waste time" X-jetting, but now we also "save time" by down streaming like most around here.

We prefer to soft pressure wash vinyl Fascia and soffits. It makes the job go much faster than cleaning them by hand.

Nice to have you here Darl. I like the name, it rather catchy.

OH yeah, one last thing. The other thing that I use as a tool, or a guide is that I have pre-printed sheets of information that I use to sell my customers over the phone. Basically kind of cheat sheet of information so I can stay on point when listing out the benefits of my services and what not. You can't do that when your standing right in front of them. ;)

I would say it's about 50/50 on closing the deal on the first phone call. As for differentiating my service from others, I've stated an earlier posts that most of my new customers are coming by way of my website. Although I don't have the nicest looking website or anything, it is loaded with information. Far more information than any of my competitors. My web presence and website sells most customers for me. Look at this way; If a person wants to search for my services, and they choose to go about that via the Internet, they will find my website because in my area of searches you can't miss it. They look around on it, and their is pages of information about my methods, services, blah, blah, blah. Then lets say they decide to check out another website in my area. Well, there isn't any that rank high that come anywhere close to mine in the way of information. Many are just one cheesy page with a list of services and a phone number. So I'm one 10 steps ahead of the competition before I even talk to them. Another example would be its like someone going to the phone book to look for a pressure washing service and they find 15 companies listed. All of them have little in column ads that give little information about their company, but there's one company out the 15 that has a four page, full color ad full of information. Who do you think most people would call first? The other reason, like I stated earlier, that I think I have good success at selling customers over the phone is by simply being a good salesman. I present my self with confidence, not arrogance, and I don't sound overly eager, or standoffish. Sometimes it seems like the more I act like I'm not concerned about losing their business, the more they want to hire me to do it. I had a guy the other day who wanted his house and driveways washed. He found me on the Internet. I talked to him for a bit and gave him my price, but he said he liked what I had to offer, but wanted to look at a few more companies. He had two other companies come out on-site to give him estimates, both were almost half of what I was charging, but he called me back and asked if I could come down some. I told him that I can't, and won't and gave him the reasons why. He said he would have to think about it. He called me back the next day and told me that he wanted me to do it. He said the other guys were a lot cheaper, but he felt more comfortable with me, because he said I seemed much more knowledgeable, and he had more confidence that I would give him the workmanship that he was looking for. This happens pretty frequently. Also, keep in mind I was the only one that never even went on site to meet with the guy. I sold him over the phone.

I also wanted to touch on a few things in your last post. You were talking about wasting our time. I don't get what you point is. The hole reason for of selling work over the phone is to save you, the contractor time from having to spend countless hours driving around doing estimates when you can accomplish in the same thing right at your desk. Also, I think we may be talking about two different things here. I agree that the hole mailbox estimate thing is riduclous because now you've waste the time going on site for the estimate, but weren't even able to take advantage of meeting the customer face to face. Therefor, your service is nothing more than a price. What I'm talking about is something complete different. I'm talking about selling the customer over the phone. I take detailed information of what they are looking for, explain my services, processes, etc. look at picture of the property via email. This is selling, believe me it's just done in a more efficient manor which benefits me, and the customer both. The technology is available, and it's stupid not to take advantage of it in my opinion. Successful businesses are the ones that learn to adapt, and use every resource to it's fullest, and that's what I'm doing.

You obviously failed to understand what I wrote. Basically, your wrong in your assumption that because someone doesn't care whether they meet you face to face that they are looking for the cheapest. I explained that in my post. How do I know this? Because I've done it both ways, and have noticed no difference in being able to sell them my service even though I'm higher priced than most of the companies in my area. You can sugar coat your service all you want to make it seem like more than it is, but the reality is that the Doctor who's house that you clean doesn't care about anything else except that you will provide a quality service at a price that he feels has value. End of story. That can be accomplished just as easy on the phone as it can in person. Maybe I'm just the exception to the rule. Maybe I just possess superior salesmanship skills. I don't know, but the one thing I do know is that the only thing that a person is to gain by insisting to go on site for every estimate is wasted time, and wasted money. If someone is looking for cheap lowballers, That is likely not going to change just because you meet with them in person. Sorry. Customers will realize your worth after you do work for them the first time. You can tell them how Superior your service is all you want face to face, but it doesn't mean anything until you prove it to them with quality workmanship and quality service.

I used to have that same frame of thought about wanting to meet every customer face to face, but now I realized a few things. Not every customer wants to meet you face to face, and not just because they are cheap, unloyal customers that don't respect your craft, or just because they are looking for multiple bids to pick out the cheapest. They simply have busy lives, and don't want to spend 1/2 their evening, or most of a Saturday morning meeting and dealing with the company that's going to clean their house. I have many very well to do customers that just simply don't have the time, nor the desire to do the meet and great thing. They find my by way of Internet, trust our abilities based on what they read, I sell them on the phone, and it's a done deal. Since I started doing many of my estimates over the phone, the response has been very positive. Most seem relieved at the idea that I can quote the job without having to go on site, meet with them, and waste their valuable free time. ,They feel that they have already saved themselves a few hours of time and aggravation right off the bat. Of course I still have the customers that want to meet face to face, and I'm happy to oblige them as well, but if I can, I will always quote jobs of site. I'm saving myself a fortune in time, gas, vehicle ware and tare, etc.

I do most mo my estimates for standard house washes and roof cleaning off site. Fortunately I don't have to many guys posing as home owners just to get an idea of what to charge. I have a theory that most of the these jack legs that you all are hearing from are finding your numbers via yellow pages. I don't advertise in the yellow pages anymore, and ever since I stopped; I don't get hardly any of those calls anymore. Most of my new customers find my by way of the Internet, and I'll tell you, the quality of the customers and jobs I'm getting from that avenue are top rate. I hate the yellow pages. Cheap, Cheap, fishing, cheap. When I do get calls like that, and I of course I usually know it's someone fishing for information, I will either call them out, or I'll give them a hugely inflated price on the job in question. I figure if they want to know what they should charge to TRY and do what we do, I might as well give them some lofty goals to meet.