Dave B
New member
Hello all. Been a while since I've posted.
I'm still a newbie, started summer of last year. Kinda late in the year to be starting from scratch on a shoe-string budget, but I was doing okay IMO averaging about 1-3 jobs a week. Well, about mid-November, everything came to a dead stop. Now, I expected things to slow down due to the season and holidays, but I did not expect it to completely stop. No matter what I did to try to drum up business, there was nothing. No business since mid-November until this week. Between that and moving into a new home, things got really tight really fast. So tight I even recently had to let my website go.
When we moved into the new home, we joined a "water cooler" facebook group for just the residents in the large but young community. However, the rules stated that we were not allowed to advertise our business on the facebook group.
Fast forward to about 2 weeks ago...
The community had just signed a contract with a local street sweeping company to clean all the streets in our neighborhood. We were even encouraged to rake the leaves out of our yards and into the street for the cleaning company to pick up. This started a buzz of excitement on the facebook group and everyone was in a cleaning mood. I saw an opportunity and I was going to figure out a way to make it work. I cleaned my sidewalk in front of my house, stopping at my property line. I then snapped the picture below. I then reached out the the owner of the facebook group. I explained to him that I wanted to find a way to help people with their desire to build upon the clean streets, and asked if there was any way to use the group to do so. He told me that, as long as I didn't mention my company name, link to a website, or talk prices, I could post and if he wasn't okay with it he let me know. So, I created a post in the facebook group, uploaded the below picture, and said After cleaning the leaves out of my yard, I realized my sidewalk was dirty, so I pressure washed it. This is the result. I own a pressure washing service. If you with to have your sidewalks or homes cleaned as well, let me know.
I posted that on facebook on Thursday of last week. As of today, I've had placed 2 quotes, landed both of those jobs, and have 4 more quotes to give this week. I will also be talking with the HOA about possibly doing some cleaning around the public areas.
It's amazing how one little idea can turn things around. I'm still learning how to sell this service, but this has been my proudest moment so far.
I'm still a newbie, started summer of last year. Kinda late in the year to be starting from scratch on a shoe-string budget, but I was doing okay IMO averaging about 1-3 jobs a week. Well, about mid-November, everything came to a dead stop. Now, I expected things to slow down due to the season and holidays, but I did not expect it to completely stop. No matter what I did to try to drum up business, there was nothing. No business since mid-November until this week. Between that and moving into a new home, things got really tight really fast. So tight I even recently had to let my website go.
When we moved into the new home, we joined a "water cooler" facebook group for just the residents in the large but young community. However, the rules stated that we were not allowed to advertise our business on the facebook group.
Fast forward to about 2 weeks ago...
The community had just signed a contract with a local street sweeping company to clean all the streets in our neighborhood. We were even encouraged to rake the leaves out of our yards and into the street for the cleaning company to pick up. This started a buzz of excitement on the facebook group and everyone was in a cleaning mood. I saw an opportunity and I was going to figure out a way to make it work. I cleaned my sidewalk in front of my house, stopping at my property line. I then snapped the picture below. I then reached out the the owner of the facebook group. I explained to him that I wanted to find a way to help people with their desire to build upon the clean streets, and asked if there was any way to use the group to do so. He told me that, as long as I didn't mention my company name, link to a website, or talk prices, I could post and if he wasn't okay with it he let me know. So, I created a post in the facebook group, uploaded the below picture, and said After cleaning the leaves out of my yard, I realized my sidewalk was dirty, so I pressure washed it. This is the result. I own a pressure washing service. If you with to have your sidewalks or homes cleaned as well, let me know.
I posted that on facebook on Thursday of last week. As of today, I've had placed 2 quotes, landed both of those jobs, and have 4 more quotes to give this week. I will also be talking with the HOA about possibly doing some cleaning around the public areas.
It's amazing how one little idea can turn things around. I'm still learning how to sell this service, but this has been my proudest moment so far.