Mathew Johnson

Dan, Kudos to you.... I have to say I am impressed :-). You have put much more analytical thought into this than I am even capable of. Nice! I did not increase my budget this year; actually cut some capital expenses (skid purchase for one and 12X20 storage building also). We had a pretty decent year and added both back into the budget last month. 2010 - We are going to run with 2008's budget. By doing this in 2009, we were able to blow by our break even point and the net profit percentage actually increased. When we submit our third quarter figures to the accountant he generates a P&L statement and advised me on end of year purchases for Tax Benefits. FUEL cost had a huge positive budget impact this year I still think it is appropriate to be conservative with sales projections. I think the economy remains a bit labile and will have its ups and down for the next year!

You have many hurdles ahead of you. Ken gave you some good advise. It will be very hard to start it up with your budget. I am not saying that it cant be done... I started my business with a little over 1200.00, BUT 275.00 of that paid the deposit for my liability insurance. Call me if you have more questions 607-435-5539 Matt

Check Northern Tool

I agree with Adrian.... Get hooked up with a distributor and get commercial grade chems and detergents, plus - HD chems are $$$ and doent work as well as some. Find a local distributor for 12 percent bleach.

Be careful about window sills. It is easy to blow water in around the windows. You would benefit from having a dual lance or different size tips to control your pressure. Roofs are a whole different animal. You need different detergents and they can be cleaned with low pressure. The concrete blocks... It would help to know what you are cleaning off of them to select a detergent. With high pressure you can inadvertantly remove the mortar if it is in poor shape. We clean most substrates with low pressure (less than 2000 PSI), highest volume GPM as available and with the appropriate detergents. I hope this helps.

Congrats and welcome to the industry.... remember the key to staying in Business is charging enough for your services, doing excellent work and providing excellent customer service., As far as the nervousness and forgetting to turn the switch on.... wait until you start the machine and forget to turn the water on! You will hit a few bumps in the road... learn from them and move on. This BBS is a great resource. Just be careful and dont bite off more than you can chew. Most successful contractors here in the BBS started out the same way as you. Again... congrats!!! Matt

I do not rely on SEO rankings and internet acquired jobs at all in my business model. I pick up some work from the net, but it is above and beyond what I target. We have gotten good rankings on the net, but I target my multidisciplinary marketing program to my service area and it seems to be working pretty well on the return. This year we planned on spending 10 percent on marketing based on projected sales. We actually only ended up spending just a hair under 7 percent, 6.8 to be exact, due to the increase in total sales - year to date.

It looks pretty good and I like the gradient blue. The one thing you may want to think about is how well it will silkscreen when you want to get shirts, hats and jackets made up...... gradients do not screen well. Good Luck. Matt

Dan, I hope you arent packing it in for the winter. There is a lot fo good weather yet to come. You can generate a lot of work this time of year cleaning gutters and such... Of which have are some of our highest per hour work and we quote them over the phone...1$ per linear foot 1st story and up accordingly, min 120.00 to get a crew there. I agree, the weather was crappy but we are getting used to it here upstate. We washed houses and prepped decks on days the weather channel called for 30 percent or more rain and srainf on days 20 percent or less rain forcast. We used the 10 day forcast to assist us in scheduling and it worked well..... we got burnt only 2 days all year. Good luck with your down time. We do the same as you and market our a$$ off all winter so we can hit the ground running in March, MJ

We use a 6X2 foot piece of aluminum flashing left over from when we had our house done. It works great during the striping and during the washing of the deck to protect the painted siding. Matt

We use coress extension wands for projects like these. They are light and easy to maneuver.

Stop posting and start pounding! Start pounding the pavement and pounding on doors, flyers under windshields, or what ever you have to do. We just did postit notes on the front page of the local newspaper yesterday, something we had never tried before. It worked well, did 8 quoted and closed 6 jobs so far. Keep at it Dan, things will pickup if you just keep trying new things!

Rick, Why is it the hired help always gets the girl?

Thanks Beth!!!!

Same Here.... It doesn't look good right now. It is sure to be a great event!

Beth and Rod, Do what you need to do. It is a great forum. In reference to John's post above, will you let us know when it is time for us to pony up some $$$ for the forum again?

Call me, I have both setups and I will give you the pros and cons of both! Matt 607 286 7458

I got the email too. Wow!

Best wishes for you and your family Scott, Thanks for your time spent working on the ***** TT. I hope to catch Phoenix again this year. Matt

Alan is right on the unloaders, I tried to put machines together a time ago with mixed unloaders. When the man on the machine with the pressure unloader stopped spraying, the flow unloader machine would cycle, once fixed, it worked fine. I think delco sells a setup to hook two machines together MJ

What is your weakest area in your business operations

I understand how you feel.

We use regular antifreeze and recapture it when we start to wash again. We antifreeze just the machine, unloader and bypass lines and use a compressor to blow out the hoses and trigger guns

I do a lot of repair for a hardware tool rental here in upstate NY. Their inspection was likely a limited one - something like, has pressure, no leaks, engine runs, - time to sell, The most common issue I fix is the fact that many homeowners that rented them did not have enough gpm flow off of their hose bib to feed the machine, or they would let the machine run without spraying water for an extended period of time or the best one... they would run the machine without turning the water on. You are at the same place that I was when I started my business. Looking to start it cheap as possible. Beware!!! I ended up spending more in the end... I burnt up the first machine I owned in the first house I washed, my first trailer lasted about 4 months. Your two biggest start up expenses are a machine and trailer. Many businesses fail because they get screwed on equipment they bought and are not capitalized enough to get them repaired or replaced. Good Luck MJ

Check the size tip you have in the end of the wand, It should have a 5 or 6 orifice tip for maximum pressure, Do you have a pressure or flow unloader? Check the unloader. Is the engine running at full RPM? Hope this helps.