Celeste

This dialogue should probably be somehow re-posted or something over on the PWNA site as it is a PWNA issue. I'm not saying that Rod & Beth's board is not a good place to discuss, that would be their call, but it seems to me that this topic could possibly be more appropriately placed on the PWNA site. Then you'd have to ask and answer questions twice! ;) Celeste

Mike, I'm finding that sometimes you just might have to do things then tell someone about it so that your good intentions & motivation don't get overlooked. A positive action is harder to ignore. Celeste

In another non-profit I was involved in, memberships that were generated by local chapters benefitted both the national, state and local chapters. Broken down, if a local chapter member recruited a new member, the membership fee went 40% to the local chapter, 30% to the State chapter and 30% to the national chapter. If a state chapter recruited, they would assign the member to the appropriate local chapter but the local chapter did not receive funds until renewal time. It gave everyone a reason to recruit new members as it would benefit all working facets of the organization. Fund raiser profits, which is probably a mute point here - all remained at the chapter level that earned them. The national level had a huge dinner, similar to a convention, that tickets were sold for but your ticket purchase also put you in a drawing for something of value as well.

Mike, make the drive......we've not been to one of Tony's cause it's really too far from NC, but we've gone to Georgia and Maryland.....You won't regret the drive, I promise :) Celeste

:lgjump: :lgjump: :lgjump: :lgjump: :lgjump: :lgjump: A most Happy Birthday to you Reed! Roger & Celeste

Call Steve Rowlett! There's probably nothing that man doesn't know about Hooters :) Celeste

Congrats Ryan.....I know you all have been looking & contemplating for awhile, signing the contract is a huge step in the progress!!!!! We've washed two houses with Hardi-Plank. The first one was over 10 years old and had your standard age dirt, some mildew and came clean easily with our house wash mix. The second one we cleaned was new construction - we were there to take care of the brick front not really do any more than just rinse the construction dirt off of the new. (It was being put on a new $300K+ home). It seems to be quite resiliant - in speaking with builders, it seems to be a good product. Best wishes for you & Amanda and your new investment! Celeste

Rod - only thing I can think of are drop cords and portable heaters, unless you've never had to deal with properties without electricity and heat (lucky dog!) We also carry some miscellaneous crap like WD-40, spare vac belts, bags & filters. Oh, and nitrile gloves and white plastic putty knives. We love the blue micro-fibre rags that you can get in the paint department at Lowe's.....they may seem pricey at first but they are such good scrubbers that we have been able to reduce the amount of chemical necessary. Don't even have to use anything to get the paint off the window frames. Brian, How many people will you be starting with? With just two of us, buying all of our start up stuff at Lowe's, we were below $750.00, not including insurance. We have gradually added more vacuum cleaners and shop vacs. Each one of my cleaners has a tote bucket with each cleaner that is needed (whether they use it for their area or not), a shop vac, rags, scraper, trash bag. We keep a larger bucket in the truck with the jugs of chemicals to be able to mix bottles as necessary. Celeste

Beth, You will be missed - In the months that I watched before deciding to join the PWNA, you were a key player in our decision. We'll keep you in our prayers for a quick recovery - in the meantime....enjoy your time (brainwise anyway) - it is well deserved:) Celeste

I was: scuba instructor, paralegal/law student , mortgage broker & still frazzled mom of 4 - just love trading all of that in for cleaning toilets! Roger: Former marine, General Electric x 12 years when he gave up all of those bennnies to work for us!!!!

This is a great topic - We've wanted to have one in North Carolina but have hesitated because of questions like you posted.......Beth & Rod have had successful round tables, as well as Everett - Cujo is having one in a few weeks as well as Scott Karvonen. Maybe these kind people will pipe up with their plans of attack :) Celeste

Desi, When we first started out, we actually avoided the per hour mind set....we concentrated on doing the best job we actually could do without putting pressure on ourselves to make x dollars per hour. The more jobs we did, the faster we got without losing quality so then our per hour profit went up. At first, we also were not doing multiple jobs in a day (as we both had other jobs) so it was no big push to do a speedy job - point being, if we weren't washing, we would not have been doing anything else so what was the big deal if it took us longer to do a job? Being on a job site in a neighborhood is free advertisement. Since going full time without the " regular job paycheck safety-net", we do try to stay within a reasonable parameter of time in doing a job, however, it is still difficult to put a price per hour as some of our clients pay us quantity rates. Example, we have a driveway & sidewalk "contract" for $145.00 each...period. Some are bigger than others, some are nastier than others, some we can squirt with a water hose and are done in 15 minutes. I'm not at all saying that setting a per hour goal is a bad thing....we just found that initially it did not work for us because we were a bit unrealistic and got frustrated when we did not meet the goal. To answer your specific question (since I got sidetracked) we try to make somewhere between $65 - $125 / hour depending on the type of job and whether there are two of us or not. Celeste

Oooh, remind me not to have the need for an ambulance......I just thought it would stand to reason that they would be some of the best maintained vehicles in the use truck arena...guess not! Celeste

oooooooooo.

So, Mike, are you gonna share the name of the company or product at least since Tony is being stingy with information (;)) Celeste

Here's our fireplace that I've been "refacing" for awhile now....it's my biggest resolution for this year - to get it finished!!!!! Beth, I did our girls' bathroom with tissue paper....crumple, uncrumple, paint/glue mixture to wall. It looks like old plaster, nicely textured.....hides wall imperfections (like badly removed wallpaper) very well. Rogers project is in our bathroom, and kitchen, and basement, and back foyer, and garage, and yard......glad I'm not him:) Celeste

LOL, like sift through two boxes of receipts that are in the filing system you swore you'd never use again!

It's also going to depend on if you counting the hours in that you're doing the paperwork....I don't know about a lot of you since we're relatively new to this still (just over a year) but my brain doesn't ever seem to stop thinking about business...what I can do to promote, what kinds of folks to target & how to do it, when to try to schedule classes, where to look for employees.... I voted 21-30 hours because we try really hard to make those hours count so that we can be at home with family (that was the whole reason for becoming self-employed) but if I literally count the number of hours that I work toward business....about 30 hours a day would just about cover it :)

Hey Beth.......where do you think we can get those french maid aprons? Ryan, I'll bet you'd look pretty cute in one of those too! ROFLMAO!!!!!!!! Celeste

So Jon.....did you get that fixed? What was your final resolution? It does look really nice :) Celeste

Inner Peace.. I am passing this on to you because it has definitely worked for me...and at this time of year we all could use a little...calm!!! By following the simple advice I read in an article, I have finally found inner peace....the article read: "The way to achieve inner peace is to finish all the things you've started." So I looked around the house to see all the things I started and hadn't finished...and before starting my work this morning I finished off a bottle of red wine, a bottle of white, the Bailey's, Kahlua and Tia Maria, my Prozac, some valium, and a box of chocolates. You have no idea how darn good I feel...you may pass this on to those you feel are in need of Inner Peace... Merry Christmas All! Celeste

We have toyed with the idea of wearing uniforms (current dress is Levi's & logo'd t-shirt or golf shirt) but have found them to be a little pricey unless you get ALOT of them. I found this website in a magazine and thought I would share in case anyone else might be interested. http://www.usedworkclothing.com/ Celeste

We've thought about painter's pants as well, however, the red mud here is horrific. I'm at the point that there is no good option except rubber suits!

Aww, Henry, You set theim up so well.....so much so that I haven't had to learn how to do it! Have a great holiday! Celeste

This should probably be a new poll (Henry), but when you speak of increases, how much are we talking........2-3%, 4-5%, over 5%??? Gas prices alone would seemingly justify slight increases.....they're certainly making everything else go up. Celeste