for those of you who started your business part time

[drod17 14]

For those of you who started part time in this business, what are realistic numbers in this economy as far as income is concerned. Is 400.00 net a month reasonable at first? Or will i go through some struggling pains trying to get my business off the ground. I am planning on working in the afternoons and on weekends until I can go full time. I will market in the local newspaper and mail out about 500 postcards in the beginning. I will be running a fully licensed and insured company and I will be the only employee for now. I will be concentrating on residential only and i will price reasonably according to what professionals will be offering in the area. If anyone would share their experiences I would greatly appreciate it.

[4000psi 16]

Welcome, There have been alot of newbies wanting to start up now. The same question has been asked alot recently. Search around a bit. Take care man.

Also, fill out your signature so people will know who you are.

Thanks, Dane

[MattsPristinePW 14]

That is exactly what I am doing. I hold a full time job but I get done at 2. So I figured why work for someone else making terrible part time money. This is my first year and I am just putting out flyers and getting the word our best I can. Have you had any success yet??

[MudDuck 20]

Don't break the bank on advertising because at 400.00 mo your going backward not forward. What you bid make sure you charge on the upper end of pricing because you can't afford to just "break even", on that your waisting your time. There are lots of great margin jobs out there just market to them mostly. Save the "break even" jobs for family and friends for experience. Do some research on these bbs's and you'll find a lot of guys learn to make more money working less by marketing to higher end clients and not trying to compete with low ballers. I think that is good advice for start ups too. Gives you time to go slow and learn while not screwing something up. But for Gods sake don't take a job thats over your head. Start out 1 job a day and take all day if you need to. Resist the urge to start low balling.

Edited March 13, 2009 by MudDuck

[jetstream1 18]

For those of you who started part time in this business, what are realistic numbers in this economy as far as income is concerned. Is 400.00 net a month reasonable at first? Or will i go through some struggling pains trying to get my business off the ground. I am planning on working in the afternoons and on weekends until I can go full time. I will market in the local newspaper and mail out about 500 postcards in the beginning. I will be running a fully licensed and insured company and I will be the only employee for now. I will be concentrating on residential only and i will price reasonably according to what professionals will be offering in the area. If anyone would share their experiences I would greatly appreciate it.

400 a month you can make that in a day just starting out

good luck to you

[Scott Stone 604]

There are so many ways to look at this it is silly. In my opinion, you can make an easy $400 a month, shoot, you can make $400 a week. IMO, if you are not making $400 a week part time, you should start looking at what you are doing, and improve it. What you really need to do is figure out how much you need to make, remain competitive, and to charge market prices. Remember that your market may be different than everyone else.

[Joe Ortiz 14]

You can do 1 job and make $400. Its all up to how much you belive in your quality of work,and how u sell it

[rj242 16]

$400 a week shouldn't be a problem if you go looking for work. I am still part-time, and make a decent side hussle with this business. I can't wait to retire from my full-time job, so that I can do this full-time. Anyway, I started out with a couple of nice yard signs (18"X24") and placed them in yards of homes that I washed. The local paper here wanted more than what I wanted to pay for adds in the begining of my business. It will probably take a couple of years before you start establishing a customer base, but each year I have grown by about 25-35%.

Also there is some very good info on this site. It will help you and save you some headaches if you read all you can.

GOODLUCK!

[RMedbery 26]

I made $2800 in my first year in biz. The good thing about having good "day" job is you have the luxury of making mistakes that wont cause you to wonder how your going to buy food tomorrow.

[drod17 14]

Thanks for all of the input. I am a teacher by day and have the luxury of having the summers off (without pay). I also have two weeks off during Christmas and another week during Spring break. During this time, I will be focusing on pw. I will also be pw in the afternoons after work. Remember your humble beginings and keep the feedback coming.....

[Jeff Robison 14]

I am part time and grossing over $200,000. Be persistent, find your market, work it hard. It will pay off. It took me almost 5 years to reach this number.

Jeff

Clean Up Atlanta

[kcpowerclean 14]

I am part time and grossing over $200,000. Be persistent, find your market, work it hard. It will pay off. It took me almost 5 years to reach this number.

Jeff

Clean Up Atlanta

Is that as a one man show? Because if you have a crew that isn't quite part-time.

What's your definition of part-time?

[jnoden 15]

It depends how much you want to work. I basically have two full time jobs now even though I started power washing by myself PT about 5 years ago. I plan to do over $100k in sales this year. We only have about 9 months of a washing season here.

[kcpowerclean 14]

Jim, you have a really clean website.

Does it attract a lot of business for you?

[jnoden 15]

Thanks. Yeah the website does well since all my advertising including phone book has the address. Also it helps that I have it listed in maps and have been tweaking the adwords account for the last 4 years. I am still working on getting better organic search results but I do have it listed with other directories and registered with companies that are rated by google.

[jnoden 15]

Atually we usually only get about 8 months of washing per season. If we had 12 mos of washing I would have quit my FT day job years ago and would probably have 3 rigs out there by now. I am maxed out at this point with both jobs and may quit the day job next spring and put out another FT rig. I thought I was going to do so this spring but chickened out. Tough decision.