Part Timers

[Mike 64]

This question is for the part timers out there. I am not trying to pry in anyones business, but for those who care to respond I was wondering why do you choose to work part time?

Do you have another job for pay? benifits? stability?

Are you just working part time until the chance comes for you to go full time?

Do you just enjoy doing this part time and have no plans to go full time anytime soon?

Or any other various reason?

I would have to say my reason for doing this part time now is a combination of benifits and the fact that I am trying to do slow, and correctly, not wanting to jump in over my head and make huge mistakes. My goal is to one day do this full time if the business is there, how about you?

[RyanH 14]

Part timer here. I have another full time job with benefits, good pay, and very stable. Working part time because I enjoy the work, but work primarily for referrals and past customers. My rig ain't pretty but the combination of equipment I have allows me to be more efficient than many full-timers and handle any situation that will come up with residential cleaning.. I love being outside and working on the weekends, the money is good, so I keep it up. There are enough full-timers out there....I enjoy my day job so much I wouldn't think of leaving it, and I also don't want to disrupt the full-timers work. I charge a little more than a "pro" also, so it makes it worth my while to keep it up.

[Degraffreed 21]

I agree with Ryan, I to have a 9-5, that I have been doing for about 18 years. I love the distribution industry. It is never the same thing. I also like the SALARY and benefits. I would like to one day MAYBE go full time. I treat my business like a business and come to think of it, I have not paid myself in over a year. I continue to reinvest my profits into more equipment, better chems and I just invested some earnings into equiptment for new fence staining and decks from Wooddefender out of Texas. Spent two days in Texas last month. If this goes good. I will sell my Rig for Powerwashing. Alot more money in staining. For any newbies looking into staining and sealing. Contact Brent or Todd from Standard paints out of Mansfield, Tx. Class act guys. Never tried to be pushy salemans or tried to sell me anything. Offer the 1 day fences staining and I was sold on the OJT. Look at there site. WWW.Wooddefender.com

Any one in the Atlanta area need fences stained.?

Degraffreed.

[PLD 14]

I agree with Ryan, I to have a 9-5, that I have been doing for about 18 years. I love the distribution industry. It is never the same thing. I also like the SALARY and benefits. I would like to one day MAYBE go full time. I treat my business like a business and come to think of it, I have not paid myself in over a year. I continue to reinvest my profits into more equipment, better chems and I just invested some earnings into equiptment for new fence staining and decks from Wooddefender out of Texas. Spent two days in Texas last month. If this goes good. I will sell my Rig for Powerwashing. Alot more money in staining. For any newbies looking into staining and sealing. Contact Brent or Todd from Standard paints out of Mansfield, Tx. Class act guys. Never tried to be pushy salemans or tried to sell me anything. Offer the 1 day fences staining and I was sold on the OJT. Look at there site. WWW.Wooddefender.com

Any one in the Atlanta area need fences stained.?

Degraffreed.

Send me a card. I hate stain work.

[Jeff Robison 14]

I am part time in my second year. I started it out to make a little extra while the wife was home with the kids. She is going back to work as a teacher this year. I love the business, I love service type businesses in general. The satisfaction from a job well done brings me joy.

The part time money cannot be beat as well. I typically after paying my helper still average $90-100 an hour. It is nice to go out after work and make $200-300 a couple nights a week. I will make about $1200 this week from what I have booked. My salary and benefits would be hard to replace right off the bat. Plus I really enjoy what I do full time. This time of year it would be tempting to go full time, however I remember this winter when I did not fire up the machine for 5 weeks in a row!!

I use professional equipment, good chemicals (Thanks SunBrite), and charge probably higher than normal rates. Having the steady income makes it easy to just walk away from the people that try to get you way down on price, or just the real pain in the butt jobs. I really don't need the money to do what I want to do and live a comfortable life without the pressure washing money. But, the extra pays for anniversary trips, my daughters high level soccer league with travel, and pays to have the yard maintained by a lawn service (I despise yard work)

I plan on staying part time, but on a bigger basis. I am training a younger guy who seems to enjoy the work and I am almost confident enough to unleash him on a job on his own. This has always been my goal, for me to market and run the business and use someone else's labor.

That's my story

Jeff Robison

Titan Exterior

678-360-2518

[Craig 111]

Full time as of November of 2004. It took me over two years to get there though. When I was beginning to make more pressure washing than I was at my full time job ($70,000 yr.) I found I was losing money by staying in the "Salary" zone. I now enjoy full time work with employees labor (plus a LOT of my own!) and a comfortable living. I recently am involved in creating a new business in concrete coatings and just unleashed the dogs last week to install 3 flooring systems. We are now installing epoxies, acrylics and doing acid stains.

[Degraffreed 21]

Jeff, what going on bud? Glad to see you posting. Have not talked to you if a while. Keep in touch.

Degraffreed

Dolittle hit me via e-mail.

Degraffreeds@bellsouth.net and I will send a card. New fences or deck staining.

[Jim Carroll 14]

Many of the same reasons here. Also with my full time job is how I find most of my jobs. Made more on the side last year than at full time job as a sales rep for a construction supply company.(Craig I sell epoxies, acid stains, acrylics, patch material for concrete and much more) That is a good addition to pw. You should also check out stenciled overlays for concrete.

I plan on going full time. I hate looking at my paycheck every two weeks and it is less than what I can go out and make in a day or two cleaning and stenciling driveways. Wife said I could quit once we close on our new house (07/08/05). So we will see how business goes. Like mentioned above there are times that I loose money because I choose not to take a job because of not having enough time to complete in a reasonable manner or either by not bidding on larger projects because of that reason. To give you an idea most of my work starts at about $1000. I clean mostly brick on new construction and it can be rewarding once you get a system set up and are able to get some good production.

[timbertramp 14]

Mike, I am a high school special education teacher, football and wrestling coach. I am doing this part time for extra summer fun money and to set my own work times. 2 days work, 5 days fishing in the mountains. It does not really work out that way but its a start. Kem (timbertramp) If any of you get to Sheridan Wy, Lets go fishing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11

[PLD 14]

My first year I was PT for about 3 months in the fall. Last spring I quit a 65K/yr job to wash houses full time. I added one full time with one employee this year and did little washing myself. I now have two employees until school starts Aug 1 when I will go back to one. Taking on staff is much more expensive and time consuming than I had planned. Expenses did not scale linearly and my first employee performed like a machine which set unreasonable expectations for future employees.

All said and done, I will make just a little more with two employees than I did solo and spend alot more time and effort making it. Keeping employees productive is very time consuming and IMHO not a very rewarding part of the job. But, I am learning as I go and hopefully next year will be better. I may go broke, but I refuse to go backwards.

For those interested in going full time: Be prepared for lean times and long days. Despite alot of work, I'm certainly not getting rich (yet). Presently no money is being put aside for retirement or college (4yrs away). The winters are very tough on my psyche and savings, but I will persevere until I am successful.

FWIW, my 5yr goal is to have three crews/rigs of two men working their butts off 6mo/year (mar-oct) and 1 crew working the balance of the year. At that point, I expect revenues of $9k/week and earnings of about $2k/wk. By that point I plan to stay dry all week. By the end of year 10, I want to be seriously investigating/coordinating an exit strategy.

[JFife 14]

Timbertramp,

Were you big Roulon's coach?? Wasn't he from Sheridan?? Screw those Alaskan crab fishermen, I think I used to have the world's most dangerous job......I drove boxvan deliveries from Denver up I-25 through Wyoming.....about the scariest thing I've ever done!! I don't know how many times a wind gust would blow my van up on two wheels, man it was awful!! Constantly seeing 18wheelers laying on their sides in the median or ditch.....i did it for about a month and couldn't take it any more.

Part-timers----think long and hard before quitting your day job. The $100 an hour stuff doesn't last, trust me. As Doolittle said, it won't scale linearly with employees, and you'll need about six guys before the money starts growing much higher than what it was when you were just a lone washer out there.......I chuckled the other day, some newbie on here said he made $250 doing a two hour house wash, and that is more money that doctors and lawyers make!! It takes a few years, but you'll finally realize that you are not going to make more than a decent amount of money, unless you have over 15 employees and the biz is running well. Not trying to be a downer--just don't expect the money you make part-time to be nearly as high once you are full-time. If you are doing this because you absolutely love it, or because you absolutely hate your day job, that is one thing--but if not, I'd keep it up part-time, charge high, and keep your family feeling secure with the fulltime gig.

[PressurePros 248]

Having a job is dead end. Period. You will never ever achieve finacial independance working for someone, I don't care if you make 250k/year. I'm realistic, I understand bills still need to be paid and for many a gradual transition to running a full time business is more prudent. Having said this, having a full time job with some degree of stability and health benefits and doing this for extra money may be the best of both worlds if you can stand the hours and workload.

To elaborate more, I agree with Jon 100% . Pressure washing/exterior cleaning is not the lucrative cash cow some may believe it is. This end of the business is a foot in the door for me. Having done the commercial end for several years and now the residential for a couple more I am ready to find my niche. Talking with Bob Port over at Restoration Direct has enlightened me as to what end I may like to pursue. Consultation, sales outsourcing and franchising are also areas I am exploring.

I love cleaning houses and restoring decks but it's feast or famine in the northeast. July will end up around 28k .. November 30-Feb 28th will be zero.

[RCBill 14]

Good thread, thanks.

[JFife 14]

test test test test

[Celeste 341]

Unless you have very good self discipline with money management, it doesn't matter if you make $3K a month or $3K a week....it's all going to go away until the next check. For whatever reason, even though we've made more the last six months than we did for the 18 months prior - we're still broke :) The more you make, the more you have to spend in order to make it. The workload increases and you're faced with paying someone to help you or turn it down. Chem costs & gas increases cut into the bottom line. Equipment maintenance becomes paramount because downtime is lost money. I think the lack of benefits (insurance, disability, etc..) is the scariest thing though. Youngest fell off the monkey bars at school in May and broke his arm. Talk about an unexpected expense!

(Now if we could all find a way to make money posting on bbs, we'd all be rich!)

Celeste

[timbertramp 14]

NO such luck to be Roulon's coach. He is from the Star Valley area by Jackson. He is a great guy. Has been to the state wrestling tour. every year after he won gold. Nice guy. He is a PE teacher. Thanks for the info. I will keep part time as I really like teaching and coaching.

Timbertramp,

Were you big Roulon's coach?? Wasn't he from Sheridan?? Screw those Alaskan crab fishermen, I think I used to have the world's most dangerous job......I drove boxvan deliveries from Denver up I-25 through Wyoming.....about the scariest thing I've ever done!! I don't know how many times a wind gust would blow my van up on two wheels, man it was awful!! Constantly seeing 18wheelers laying on their sides in the median or ditch.....i did it for about a month and couldn't take it any more.

Part-timers----think long and hard before quitting your day job. The $100 an hour stuff doesn't last, trust me. As Doolittle said, it won't scale linearly with employees, and you'll need about six guys before the money starts growing much higher than what it was when you were just a lone washer out there.......I chuckled the other day, some newbie on here said he made $250 doing a two hour house wash, and that is more money that doctors and lawyers make!! It takes a few years, but you'll finally realize that you are not going to make more than a decent amount of money, unless you have over 15 employees and the biz is running well. Not trying to be a downer--just don't expect the money you make part-time to be nearly as high once you are full-time. If you are doing this because you absolutely love it, or because you absolutely hate your day job, that is one thing--but if not, I'd keep it up part-time, charge high, and keep your family feeling secure with the fulltime gig.

[EmpirePW 14]

This question is for the part timers out there. I am not trying to pry in anyones business, but for those who care to respond I was wondering why do you choose to work part time?

Do you have another job for pay? benifits? stability?

Are you just working part time until the chance comes for you to go full time?

Do you just enjoy doing this part time and have no plans to go full time anytime soon?

Or any other various reason?

I would have to say my reason for doing this part time now is a combination of benifits and the fact that I am trying to do slow, and correctly, not wanting to jump in over my head and make huge mistakes. My goal is to one day do this full time if the business is there, how about you?

I have another job working in a resturaunt waiting tables. I wouldn't give that job up anytime soon because I have it good there. A good friend is the GM and he understands my power-washing job. He knows I work in the resturaunt to fill time and meet new people but he knows I work hard while I am there too. Also I am DBA Empire Pressure Washing so at the end of the year the gov't wants their money. The taxes I pay at the resturaunt help reduce that amount significantly.

I work part time too because my resturaunt job is flexible. If I should come across a lot of work that will keep me busy for a while I can get some time off from the resturaunt and nobody complains. I plan to eventually go full time in the next year or two. My mother is getting laid off from her job next June and is getting a nice severence package, my father is a real estate broker and is trying to sell all his property in Michigan right now, my brother and his best friend (who is also like a brother to me) want to move down here to North Carolina and get out of michigan. So when mom gets fired and dad sells some houses all 4 of them are moving down here. Dad is going to find work for us since he can sell glasses to a blind man, mom is going to keep the books, my brothers are going to come down and do the labor with me and we are going to turn Empire into a family business. That is when I fully intend to go full time. Until then it is all about what work I can scrounge up while working part time and learning how to do it right.

[Mike 64]

Good thread going here, thanks to those of you that are chiming in. Jon & Ken make very good points about this not being a "get rich quick" business, if theres one thing I've learned in my time is that it takes hard work, dedication, and money to be sucessful in this line of work. It does not happen over night either. There are those out there, myself included that have full time jobs for reasons like insurance and various other reasons. I would like nothing more then to escape from the dreaded "working for someone else" kinda life and I will one day! :)

It's nice to see theres a mix here of those that want to work full time and nothing more, those who work part time striving to become full time, and those that are full time and not looking back. I encourage those that were part time and became full time to jump in here and tell the rest of us about the pros and cons of doing so. I also would like to hear from more part timers and why you do this part time.

[Aplus 525]

I started out doing this part time for the first six years. At first it was just to make some extra dollars, but by year three it was starting to get out of control. Summers were nothing more than work every day, from dusk to dawn. I couldn't get away to even see my kids ball games. It started to be too much.

By the fifth year, I knew things were going in the direction of full time, but I didn't have the guts to give up 17 years in the computer biz, with bennies and 4+ weeks of vacation. During the sixth year, things took a bad turn at the day job, and it became apparent that gig wasn't going to last much longer.

So I resigned, at my own timing and my own free will, and pursued power washing full time. It's been four years now, and I'm so glad I did it. Of course it's been a struggle, because afterall, medical insurance costs a fortune, and now I have to pay it all by myself, AND make a living.

The big things I didn't understand was just how much insurance, workmans comp, and related expenses was really going to be. Add to that rising fuel costs, and it becomes tough to squirrel enough away to make it thru the off season.

And then it's tough to accept that even though the work is coming in faster than ever, and revenue is increasing rapidly, that I'm not seeing any more dollars in my pay check. That's because employees cost so darn much money and they somehow manage to eat up a good portion of the increased revenue.

Having an extra crew is basically break even, or maybe make a few more dollars. I'm thinking 3-4 complete crews would be the point where significant increases in my income become feasible. It's an economy of scale thing, I think. Don't know for sure, I'm not there yet.

[JFife 14]

You are exactly right Tony, 3-4 crews is where the money jumps, up to that you may as well be the Lone Ranger out there. I believe you've mentioned you have a family, and I cannot imagine what ins. costs for all of them.....that would scare me. .....And also your dead winters----i definitely respect your risk-taking nature!

[GymRat 14]

Part timer myself and have only been in business from the beginning of this year. Started out slow and has really picked up in the last month. I have been in my full time job for 27 years and could retire in 3 years.

I have been so busy lately that I leave straight from my 8-4 job and have trailer in tow straight to my pwashing evening jobs. Last week grossed over $1700 in the evenings.

This lifestyle is a little to busy for my likings, but I know it is a seasonal thing , and expect things to start slowing down anytime.

I don't see myself going fulltime until retirement- if the body can still handle the physical stress (don't see to many 60 year old power washers out here).

More power to those who give up the 9-5 and venture out to make a good living for themselves and families. I just don't have the %$*@" to give it a go at this late in my career.