Barry M

It was for a house wash and a little concrete work like maybe a drive way or something. I don't know how big the house is or how extensive the work might be. I'll PM you both the contact info.

Thanks for taking one for the team Mike. Maybe Beth should delete the original post because if this guy has no credibility in the industry his post should be considered spam.

You were lucky Tony to start when you did - less competition, .99cents per gallon gasoline, better economy, and more understanding customers that haven't been Walmartized by cheaper is better. Just messin with ya, your right about technology these days ain't it great? Good talkin with ya the other day.

How To Squash Your Competion by Ken Fen

That's a classic!

All the one's that I've seen are pretty much a joke. The sad thing is, they were even a cheesy read when I was new to pressure washing.

Haven't read a book lately, I've gone to listening to mp3 downloads. I highly recommend Brian Tracy's Utlimate Goals Program.

Great advice Russell.

We also have a minimum charge for house washing as well as our other services.

Its funny how you have to clean trex with roof strength mix of love. That's just about what I charge them too, about as much as a roof : )

Nice work Fenner, you da man!

Is it just me, or am I starting to see a trend of composite decking companies leaving a bad taste in the mouth of consumers. More and more I hear people complaining about warping issues, fading, and mildew problems. I've heard it from customers that have taken the leap, family, friends, and just different people I've talked to in my area. Over on the Bob Vila DIY board there is post after post of upset consumers bashing composite decking companies like trex, geo decking, correct deck, and on and on. There are quite a few banning together over there to petition a law suit against Correct Deck. I hope people are starting to realize composite isn't all that. It certainly isn't maintenance free as we all know, and I think that is what's ticking the public off because its sold to them as being "maintenance free." For the past few years its been the thing to get, a composite deck and those cheap vinyl fences (which really aren't that cheap). I hope the trend starts coming back to wooden decks and having them maintained by professionals like us.

I like you Daniel I really do. You bring a lot to the board and we've had great discussions before and you've been helpful to me so I mean no disrespect. You just have a different mentality than I, that's all. I'm in business to make money not to work my a$$ off just to make a living. If and when the pressure washing industry gets that bad I will get out, its that simple. There is already other endeavors on my plate now, so its not like I'm stuck doing this the rest of my life. But while I'm here I will continue to be passionate about the industry and to express my feelings. I'm glad you can make good money cleaning composite decks, I can't. Not what I consider good money anyway. Now if there were ways to improve efficiency and the time spent cleaning composites and I could clean a good sized one in 20 minutes, like I can strip a wood one, then it would drastically improve the profit margin and I would be more prone to offer that service. I would probably also quit griping about people tearing down neglected wood decks and putting up plastic ones. But in my experience there is no fast way to clean a composite deck and most of the time they are a huge PITA, so I fight that by charging more and people don't want to pay that just to clean a deck. But yet they are angry at the fact that the deck material was sold to them as "maintenance free." So I still believe the root of the problem are these composite deck companies misleading the public just to make a buck. It's wrong and it should be considered false advertising and they should be held responsible. In the meantime I will let guys like you make what you consider good money cleaning them, because my time is worth more than that.

I wasn't even going to waste my time explaining it to an hourly rate mentality painter, but you hit the nail on the head.

Great info Tony and thanks for sharing your experience. That is mostly why I am so adamant about disliking composite decking companies, because they deceive consumers by pitching it as maintenance free. It just isn't right.

Well put Charlie, I agree.

Use the search feature for tons of information on house washing tips.

About 10 o'clock on the swivel there is a perfect little hole. I don't know if it was there before, if there was a bolt/plug in there, why it's there now, or how it even got there but all my water flow wants to spray out of that hole instead of my nozzles. Any help is greatly appreciated, thanks.

Got my o ring in the mail today from Russ. I replaced it and bingo, she runs like a champ. None to soon, I had a driveway to wash today. Thanks again Russ.

It's been a good unit for me Michael. Russ is a good guy, this isn't the first time he's helped me out. By the way I did gut the swivel and get to that o ring and it is deteriorated, so it looks like Russ was correct. It also gave me a good excuse to buy a set of snap ring pliers.....hehe. Thanks again Russ.

I called Russ, he walked me through the disassemble process and he's dropping an o ring in the mail. Thanks Russ!!

I did take the tips out and ran it without them to flush it out, and then put in new tips. Same deal, still didn't work. It's a whirl-a-way and I've ran the crap out of it so it's probably time for a new one. I don't even know where to get replacement parts for it, do you?

No really guys, who do you think will make it? ; )

It seems that CL works for some, if their ads are professional looking. At the MI RT Don M gave a testimonial of what he learned and applied from the STL RT, he said he did $7,000 from his CL ads, that's not bad for free advertising. On the other hand, my professional looking ads have never even yeiled a call. All I seem to get is spammed by fake banks and fake IRS scams.

John, Walmart did not become huge by the way they operate today. Read Sam Walton's book, Walmart is totally different now than when they first started up. Today they sell on price alone, like a hack, and everything else suffers....quality, customer service, employee wages, and so on. A fact I read awhile back in one of the business magazines is that Walmart has a negative impact on communities. IMO when someone has to use the bait and switch method to get their phone ringing it's because they lack marketing and selling abilities and also don't have a real perception of what it takes to operate a successful business. What's left in the wake is a wax perception of what PWing services are worth. Ed- from reading some of your old posts that Michael posted it's sounds like you gave up and have taken the easier way out in an attempt to get the phone ringing because you couldn't figure it out any other way. The misconception is that the number of calls you get shouldn't be a measurement of your success. The real measurement of a business' success is profits. It's equivalent to someone bragging about how many hits their website is getting or a retail store owner bragging about foot traffic, it doesn't mean squat! You have to have a broad knowledge about the numbers of your business. Scott makes a good point and I don't know about anyone else but it's pretty clear to me which way is better. He went from 700 customers to 300 customers (IE less headaches, less call backs, less overhead, less acquisition costs, and so on). His customer service improved dramatically because there were less customers to take care of so he could cater to them better than before. I'm sure they were also better customers and of better quality because they bought based on value instead of price. A business owner should know that if you throw a quality customer into the pot with great customer service you're going to get a happy more than satisfied loyal customer that's going to give you word of mouth advertising, which is 50x more powerful than any other kind of advertising. A customer like this will refer more quality prospects to you whom will be easier to sell and easier to make loyal, and the cycle starts over again. Now besides all that Scott mentioned his profits increased by 3x more than the previous year. So he got LESS calls and made MORE money by increasing his prices by 50%. It seems apparent to me that this is a more successful business model than trying to attract herds of price shoppers through poor advertising choices.