John T

Beth - I think you may hold a record with the Cleaner Times magazine. Is this the 9th straight issue your in writing that article? You go girl:)

Congrats Beth. You have always been a respected Individual and a valuable commodity to this Industry. I remember it well when you spoke in Dallas at the PWNA Convention around 2004 about marketing during that session when they were judging who had the best presentation contest....... Which of course you won:) You pretty much swept the awards that year. You know that CETA/Issa event might be right before or after the PWNA Convention in Orlando... Very cool. Maybe I'll treck it out there and catch both events again like I did in 2012.

I seen all the Mole & Jersey shows except for the last 2. Hope to watch those this week. There a bit cutting edge which I always liked and there by far the most entertaining "Industry related" show I ever seen. There also open to discuss most anything that's Industry related which is very cool but like anything else, "You can please some of the people some of the time but you can never please all of the people all of the time". They Rock:)

Jim- I wish I could see you coming up in that session your doing In AC with Everett. The next best thing is if the Mole &Jersey show looked to interview you for their show. Your one of the very few wood restoration artist I know of in the Northeastern seaboard. If you lived in Long Island you could be the go to guy in the Hampton's for the caretakers of Paul McCartney, Jennifer Aniston, Brad Pit etc. to keep their Hampton wood sided houses in pristine condition. You sure know your wood!!

Beautiful work Tim!! I bet those chairs are going to look unbelievable after their stained. If you think about it post the finish pics of those chairs after you stain them.

I could see you 2 snowbirding down the road. Especially you Ryan. 173.5" of snow so far--Thats sick. When I get my FLA house down the road I may make it party central for guys like yourself to come sit in the sun in the smack of winter....ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh:)

Hey Beth-- I'm hating snow so much that when my kids are out I'm definitely going to snowbird. Hello FLA!

We work on marketing in the dead of the winter such as now and we set goals for this upcoming year. I also tweak some of the equipment to get everything ready to roll once it's warm enough and the phone takes off.

Hey Tom-- I was in the mid 40's then and your right Memphis was in 06. I'm not that active in the PWNA as much as I use to but I was told that I am the only member who request their minutes every month so I can stay abreast of what's going on with my membership dollars. Good stuff coming out with them soon. As for Epoxy floors go the best way to find out who does that is to start a separate post on here and maybe a few other bulletin boards to see who excels at that and go from there. For some odd reason I think Everett Abrams does epoxy coatings but I may be wrong on that. You could reach out to him to double check on that. Either way I am not much help for you on this topic but the best of luck to you anyways on this.

Hey Tom-- in 2007 I just finished my term as the PWNA treasurer. I was in Memphis if thats the Convention your referring to. The above names you mentioned are all excellent people who inmost part I learned a ton from as well. My question to you and I'm being honest and hopefully you don't take this the wrong way, but what's holding you back to get to that next level? Why is it you want to have a mentor at this stage of the game to work with them? Are you sure you want to be your own boss and not just work for someone else like most of the population does? Nothing wrong with that of course. What I would suggest for you is to redo your business plan. Try to join some groups such as the www.PWNA.org and re introduce yourself and look to network network network. Answer this because I really want to know more about your determination. What's holding you back the most to be Successful on your own? Sorry in advance if you think I'm being to blunt but it's the way I roll to help if I can.

At times it does stand to reason that a good bulletin board can be as influential if not more so then an org is IMO. I say this because so many more people can interact on a bb then they can thru an org. on a regular bases. What's your thoughts on this?

Today will be my first real day back at the gym in over 7yrs. I'm going to try and slow down my aging process or die trying lol. Hardest part to me is always just getting there. I took a 7 yr break so now my body is saying "Hey you lazy SOB get your azz to the gym"..lol Who's been working out and who's going to start like me?

Good morning. Today's the first day of the rest of your life. Make it count:)

I've been going out at night at times this past month to do some commercial accounts my guys can't get to because they were loaded up with residential work. I always loved doing flat work. Using heat, Stronger Pumps and surface machines. To me its like exercising and getting paid:) In the past I had these following things happen when dealing with my machines and burners. The worst was causing a propane Sonic boom while in my box truck yrs ago to having a burst valve suddenly not work along with the unloader which was continuously building pressure. I just unhooked my hose from that Unloader when it suddenly shot upwards at least a 100' in the air. I also had a few hose break off where I got my hands smacked and including my face once where I had a nice size bruise on my eye lid and far head. I also burned myself a few times dealing with higher heat in the past. Dealing with homeless people and drug addicts is another story. But lately I'm turning into a bit of a chicken. I keep thinking the way my guys beat on my machines that one of the quick connects are just going to fly off and Knock out a few of my teeth. (Must be an age thing). We generally deal with 8+ gallons a minute and in the range of 3500 psi. I'm no wimp but just the thought of one of these things popping loose and if it happens you couldn't react fast enough. So what's your biggest fears dealing with your Powerwashing machines and burners?

Whatever happened to Global warming....I'm freezing.

Action is the Key to success so get started.

One day closer to retirement.

For a few moments there I thought maybe Rick really did split and he went to Holland to drink some freshly brewed Heineken... Man doesn't that sound cool:)

That's an amazing and also inspiring story Ryan. Thanks for that. Now I'm even more motivated.

John Tornabene www.cleancounty.com

John Tornabene www.cleancounty.com

The org's do get RFP's and companies/people sometimes go thru the org's to look for a contractor for a specific job. That's how I got the trex decks to be serviced after they lost that class action lawsuit. Trex came to the PWNA where I made aprox $15,000 in a week and some other PWNA members made as much as a $100,000 in just a couple of months. But from my perspective a solid bb like TGS over the years was probably more influential to the masses then an org was on a consistent bases. Heck look today-- there are some leaders selling on the bb's to saturate cedar shakes with bleach and pretty much do nothing else to the wood so now you see numerous newbies doing just that cause they were influenced to do so from the bb's.(this is what I call a negative mass influence that can happened on a bb's as well)

That's a good question as well. What I can say is I did my best networking when it came to going to events/Roundtables/Conventions where I met the contractors.

Not so much of which one is better but which is more influential to the masses of contractors. As for which one is better an org or a bb that would be more of a personal choice.

LOL.. thats some funny Monkey/Football analogy..lolBasically it's what the title says. There are some examples of this which is what Alexy is stating about the GP site. I think for years TGS was as if not more influential then the org's were to the "masses". I have another good thread starter that can resonate from this thread with a similar topic but it would read along these lines: Orgs with their own bulletin boards, what is more influential between the 2. That would be interesting because there are many groups who think a bb is counter productive where other groups think the exact opposite.