PressurePros

Has anyone tried this form of marketing? I am looking for examples of letters sent to a newspaper that resulted in getting an article printed.

What's a fax machine? I had an old one that kicked last season and I haven't replaced it. If you have it in a .doc format you could email it to me. If not I can send you a S.A.S.E. I appreciate your help, Carlos.

You can probably tell from my posts what I am up to today. I have done a bunch of research on Google Ad Words and I am still on the fence. I have heard some horror stories. The complexity of the algorythims, link backs and Google's overall rating system is overwhelming. I am about to turn it over to an SEO company. Any feedback is appeciated. note: This is for a venture outside of pressure washing. The ad words campaign is the one where sponsored links show up at the top and on the sides of a search.

It's really too hard to generalize. We have done ranch houses that were 4500+ sf (exterior wall measurement) I generally charge .20-.50 per sf (vinyl siding to dryvit, to two step cleaning of aluminum siding)

All the good stuff happens down south. :vroom:

5.5 gpm. Jarrod, maybe we have a communication gap, which is my fault for not being more clear. It takes me or my crew nowhere near that. That time is for a new guy. I based to time on not only my beginnings in wood resto, but at clocked rates of guys I have watched doing it while they are inexperienced. We would probably take about 2.5-3 hours to strip a deck that size. If you tell me you do it in an hour, you're full of sunshine. :sunshine:

Matt, I love those kind of jobs. The difference is so dramatic you step back with pride and just admire yuor work. Great work.

Don't trust my science on this Lance but I think you are on the right track. I think you could split one downstreamer into having two draw hoses and increase your chem ratio. Somewhere I remember seeing something like this called a "double gulp" maybe?

Hey John.. It's 8 pm here. 8pm-8:30pm: respond to email and catch up on TGS..LOL. Never be ashamed to be an idea man. Like we talked about on the phone, task work is tedious and left to 9-5'ers. Balance. Stay strong.

I feel bad that certain areas have to continue to follow the idiots that set such low prices. I honestly would find a different business if I had to deal with that. Deck restoration (performed properly) is hard work, tedious and requires a certain level of craftsmanship. My only suggestion is to continue to educate your consumers. The time quoted was actually eight hours. I have had at least five guys come with me on jobs (contractors with little to no experience) and that rate of cleaning is very accurate. I am a pain in the azz about details though. A six hundred square foot deck is usually over 1200 sf of wood.

1) If the rails were a single sided flat surface you would be right. You have to count the top and bottom rails and the four sides of the ballusters/spindles. The floor square footage of a deck is roughly doubled by a deck that is surrounded by rails on three sides. 2) My definition of a severe strip would not be determined by the chemical. HD-80 makes almost everything easy and the price per s.f is the same as EFC-38. A higher priced strip job would be determined by factors such as length of dwell time for chem, how much pressure I need to use, obstructions such as landscaping, other risk factors like aluminum siding and the height of the deck. There are too many variables to really get into in one post but many things determine overall pricing.

Yaz, On my proposals I break it down to actual square footage and list prices for each service. A simplified example (this is what my customer sees) Deck surface: 500 s.f Rails on three sides 480 s.f Benches: 135 s.f Steps with rails, risers and stringers: 100 s.f 3 planter boxers 24 s.f Trellis: 230 s.f Lattice: 190 s.f Fascia: 65 s.f Total: 1724 s.f Stripping/brightening (.55 sf) = $948.20 Sealing (.40 sf) = $689.60 Sealer 13 gallons @$35 =$455 Stripper 15 gallons @$4 = $60 Brightener 6 gallons @$4 = $24 Total for Job: $2176.80

How are you measuring the deck? What is your square footage based upon? If you are going to try an get those rates for every square footage of wood you will have plenty of Play Station time. If you mean that you are going to measure just the floor then your prices are in the ballpark(as long as you don't encounter more than a few steps or benches or trellises). I have some additional questions for you. These aren't meant to berate you but prepare your readiness for the coming season. 1) How are you going to determine your maintence schedule? If you are planning on selling your service with an implied guarantee of 2-3 years you have listed a product or two that will not last for more than one year. 2) What would you constitute as a "heavy strip"? I ask because $2.50 can be way too low 3) I am assuming your prices cover materials such as soaps and sealers. Maybe this is just me but it takes longer, requires more muscles and finesse and more expensive equipment to strip then it does to seal. You are charging $1.25 per square foot to apply sealer ($1.50 minus $.25 for sealer per sf) I only mention this because if you list these breakdowns on your sales proposals you are going to find yourself performing a strip job on a 600 square foot deck that may take you eight hours and you will be earning $300.

My pleasure, Jeff. I have a feeling with your work ethic, integrity and dedication JL will indeed one day be huge. Best of all to you.

I pretty much agree with Jon. From a profit and marketing perspective certifications are only as good as the name (or mandate) behind them. One caveat about that though.. I think the public(including myself) has no clue what all the various "certifications" mean. If a contractor came into my home and his business card had various certification logos that looked professionally designed, I am almost embarassed to say I would assume he was more competent than Joe Pro the Handyman.

I received this email this morning from PayPal. It looks official enough so I click on the link. The server is PayPal.com. I get to the site and the first thing it asks me for is my account password. Okay I enter it. The very next page it asks for my credit card information. I thought that was bizarre. I did nothing at that point. Help. __________________________________________________________ Dear PayPal, We recently noticed one or more attempts to log in to your PayPal account from a foreign IP address. If you recently accessed your account while traveling, the unusual log in attempts may have been initiated by you. However, if you did not initiate the log ins, please visit PayPal as soon as possible to verify your identity: https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr? cmd=_login-run Verify your identity is a security measure that will ensure that you are the only person with access to the account. Thanks for your patience as we work together to protect your account. Sincerely, PayPal ------------------------------------------------ ---------------- PROTECT YOUR PASSWORD NEVER give your password to anyone and ONLY log in at https://www.paypal.com/. Protect yourself against fraudulent websites by opening a new web browser (e.g. Internet Explorer or Netscape) and typing in the PayPal URL every time you log in to your account. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Please do not reply to this e-mail. Mail sent to this address cannot be answered. For assistance, log in to your PayPal account and choose the "Help" link in the header of any page.

Jeff, you're business(commercial) is a shoe-in for a salesman. Here are some suggestions for getting started without having to hire a full time guy right away that is going to cost you 30k+ per year. 1) Talk to your guys. Are any of them competent and well spoken? If you think you have a guy that can represent you well offer him added incentive on making sales in addition to his normal work. Tell him he will become a "partner". Offer him a decent amount of any sale he makes.. 20 percent of the net profit from any work he gets would not be unreasonable in my opinion. To add to his incentive set a smaller amount for every time that account needs work. If the a maintenace job is 3 grand he makes maybe $500 on the first round. After that he makes $150 every time the account is serviced. Let him know when he leaves your company all the accounts are 100% property of JL. If you don't have a guy on your crew that can do this, hire a part time salesman that already has a regular job and offer he same thing (no salary, all commission) 2) Join local business networking associations. I just started going to breakfasts with a local chapter that has builders, painters, mortgage broker, real estate agents and property managers. Check out www.bni.com for local chapters. 3) Read every marketing, sales and closing book you can. Attend seminars. Learn how to overcome objections. If you become a good salesman you will then be able to teach your staff good habits. I do not mean this personally in any way especially since you and I have never spoken but I will tell you from experience that most people that consider themselves excellent salespeople are actually very weak. You can never get enough education in marketing and sales. 4) Watch your profit margins. maximize your advertising budget. Get as much literature as you can on the streets and into key hands (sounds like you do a great job with that already) 5) Make sure you have good staff so you can handle exponential growth and do like you said.. PR work instead of holding a pressure wand.

This is by far my favorite place to visit. I frequent another board but that is to mainly pass along stuff I have learned here and in my business. I enjoy my time on TGS and thank you Beth for keeping it an informative meeting place of some great minds and personalities.

I vote go with Delco. Machines are a dime a dozen. It's the after service that makes the difference. You'll forget all about saving a few dollars the first time you go down and have nowhere to turn.

I don't believe there are any benefits to upstreaming. I am a fan of downstreaming but there are plenty of threads available via the search engine about that.

They got me because I am in the process of opening a business account and gateway with PayPal so mixed in with he fake mails are legitimate ones and they look identical. Scary. Thanks for all the heads up on this.

Yeah I figured as much. Just in case, I had already changed my password directly after I started smelling a rat. Unbelievable.

Great posts, and I'm certain many will agree with all the above. Interestingly though, someone posted in another thread that typing about deductions and such on this BBS is risky business. I try not be paranoid but government bashing as a business owner is equally risky. It's a shame one has to censor his or her thoughts in a public domain but it's prudent to err on the side of caution.

Shane I got a really lousy image. Did you have any better luck?

Initially, I want to agree with Don, just price it very high but here is where that can backfire. When I was doing kitchen exhaust cleaning I was asked to bid an Oriental restaurant. The hood and flue were covered in three inches of shellac. A normal hood this size would take maybe three hours I figured this one to be ten hours. I could have bid $1200 but due to the kind of grease and not wanting to really do the job I bid $2000. The owner politely declined and I moved on not thinking twice about it. Forward three months and I am bidding another job. I hand the owner the estimate and he is surprised. He says, "That's not as high as I expected it to be". At first I was happy but upon further explaination he tells me I am not cheap but that at a PA Restaurant Association meeting the owner of the Asian restaurant had bad mouthed me to many members telling them that my prices were ridiculous. It turns out this group was very tight nitched and referred contractors to each other. I joined the association and rectified the situation but I learned a lesson. I think it is better to fully communicate with your customer. If someone calls me in May and wants paint/solid stain stripped from a deck I explain the time and energy involved and decline the job.