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John Doherty

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Posts posted by John Doherty


  1. I'm with Ron, unless you have someone in the hospital or are expecting a baby I follow the same cell phone etiquette as in any other situation.

    If it rings I reach down and hit a button and silence it, I never look at who's calling, how rude. Is there really anything that can't wait a few minutes, the caller will leave a message, or at least your caller ID will have their #.

    What ever happened to common courtesy? If your with a group of people and talking to one person and a second walks up, do you just turn away from the first person and start a different conversation with the second?


  2. Dane, you put a float valve in the tank, so you hook up and turn on the faucet when you get there.

    As the tank fills the float valve turns the water on and off while you work so it doesn't overflow, you don't mess with the faucet again until you're done.

    The first few times you may drive away with more water then you want to.

    After you get the hang of how much water you use on a job, you'll know when to turn the faucet off during your rinse, that'll bring the water to the level you want to drive away with.


  3. Figures are annual.

    In most states no biz broker license is required unless real estate changes hands, then you need to get a licensed realtor involved.

    As a seller, I'd be looking for 50-75% of retail equipment value, excluding vehicles, and 50-100% of prior yr gross sales.

    This is strictly for commercial accounts only, residential gross sales hold very little, if any value. I'd say for residential you'd pay or get anywhere from 0-10% of prior years gross sales.

    As Ron said always get a non-disclosure, and add a no-compete (don't want someone trying to poach you customers while your trying to sell).

    I'd get some $ in hand before you hand over the meat of your info. too.


  4. I have bought and sold a p/w business.

    As a buyer of a solid, established business I would look to pay:

    50% of the retail value of the equipment (excluding vehicles), and 25-50% of gross sales, dependent on the strength (profitability and retention) of the accounts.

    Business brokers are worse than used car salesmen, and in the States generally unregulated, stay away, you need a good accountant and good lawyer.

    I hope anyone with a 1 man op. is not planning on funding their retirement by selling their business and using any of the pie in the sky #s people throw around. You'll be washing until your last day.


  5. We've got a 75-99 avg house guy here, his crews do 15 houses a day. Never need to do an estimate, give the range and bill on arrival or pull the sqft info from the county web site. Puts em on a maint plan 2,3 times a year, etc.

    Then you plaster advertising all over the place, schedule the 15 houses all within a 5 mile radius, 2 guys with some ladders and a blower.

    Guy is making bank, from here down to Maryland.


  6. This summer I bought a used '02 F-250 with 160k miles, it was used for parts delivery, and was an ugly green color.

    Brought it to Maaco had it painted white for $450, looks brand new. If I get 20,000 miles out of it with no major repairs I'll be happy.

    I'd spend no more than $10k, and use the $15k for something else.

    That's just me, I don't want to be truck or equipment rich and cash poor, I'm too insecure.

    I agree with Scott, minimum 3/4 ton.

    Good luck!


  7. I have a well established $179 house wash guy here, 2 guys 30-45 minutes splash and dash. I have a few $99 guys also, they come and go.

    They are Walmart.

    I'm trying to be Neiman Marcus.

    I'm not selling the same thing they are. The people who use them would probably never use me.

    I can't waste my efforts trying to change them or be pissed at them. I need to use that effort to find that small segment that understands the value of quality. Find them, target them, sell to them, service them, have them sell for me, service them again, etc.


  8. Last week I was buuying an extension pole at home depot, put a brush on the end and had it fully extended all the way to the cieling and pushing it along a girder to see how it'd hold up for gutter brushing.

    HD employee walks up to me and says, sir we're going to have to ask you to leave the store.

    I was mortified/pissed off trying to explain why I was doing what I was doing. The guy starts cracking up and tells me the store just got a bomb threat so everyone had to leave.


  9. I'm still here and I'll post what I did overthere too.

    Adrian, I had one yesterday, roof job, just the front 1/2, bid $375. Client says '$375 you're crazy, xyz did it last year for $175'. I said 'if you'd called me last year it wouldn't need to be done again this year, good luck with xyz' click. I just hung up on him.

    IT JUST GETS SO FRUSTRATING SOME TIMES!


  10. Kevin all the 'call in' or 'via PC' are generally considered non-qualified, to throw in more confusion there is also a blended rate. The blended rate is between the 2 rates and comes into play if it's a non-qualified transaction but you can provide additional info like the 3 digits on back of the card.

    The difference in the rates is because of fraud risk, there is less in person card fraud then there is via phone order or internet.

    The monthly fees will always be there, for example the QB offer has a $17.95 monthly fee. There is also a $20.00 monthly minimum for the collection of the rate they charge.

    So if the rate is 2.44 (the current rate) and you do $1000 in transactions they take $24.40 and don't ****** the minimum.

    If you do $100 in transactions they take $2.44, and at the end of the month take another $17.56, because they didn't get their $20.00 minimum.

    As far as the rates go, QB's current is 1.72 for qualified (card swiped) and 2.44 for non-qualified (via pc or phone).

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