Growing to the next level!

L

Lenny Schrecengost

New member
I agree with what Welder's said in another thread so lets expand on Josh Cronin's post on earnings. (I also enjoy the mindless blabber.)

Josh asked about what pwer's gross earnings range was. Lets use this to post something that will help another PWI member increase their gross earning to the next level. We all have something to offer. I myself have not posted mush other then answer a few questions however I look at the board every day so here is a start.

At the UAMCC convention George Hadley spoke about organization and having systems in place. I had heard almost everything he said before but from different places and times. When I heard them all put together a light bulb went off in my head. I NEED to get organized and put systems in place if I want to grow. These are all thing that the large businesses have with big names like SOP's, Lean Sigma six to name a couple

With the help of my sons, we have started writing our sop's, standard operating procedures, This is our first step in growing. My goal is to have 6 crews on the road by the end of 2010. They include, pressure washing, window cleaning, porter services and deck refinishing..

I hope this helps someone. Does anyone else have anything to offer?
 
I've had business plans for all the businesses we've started up. At first I tried to follow everything I learned in college. :ignore: Then I quickly realized most of that stuff is junk.

For what it's worth (I'm sure not much) I'll expand on what is important for a startup business IMHO.

First. START CHEAP. You don't need a 40 ft long super rig to start this business. If you are doing commercial concrete try to find a used machine at least 4 gpm and a surface cleaner of some sort. Don't be afraid to buy a used machine like I was, I lost a lot of money buying new at first out of fear. If I had known that Russ Johnson was out there I'd have bought used right away and saved the new for later and probably bought it from Russ for all the help he's given me.

You don't even have to have heat at first.

And don't start till you can pay cash. (This is what we did with all three of our businesses except Sonitx - and I still believe with the R&D needed for Sonitx cash startup was just too high and would have been impossible)

Once you've purchased basic equipment you need to:

1) LEARN ONE aspect of your product.
a) READ (example PWI)
b) WATCH your competition (even if it means following them around nights ----BELIEVE IT OR NOT THIS IS IMPORTANT)
c)ASK questions to your market (i.e. spend hours and document calls to property managers posing as "research" and ask them what they look for in cleaning companies.) You'd be surprised how candid they are if you are not selling anything.
c) PRACTICE (do free work till you learn NOT DISCOUNTED, FREE)

2) Once you've mastered one thing (i.e. plaza sidewalk cleaning) blast off a lot of email and mail to your target market (mail if you can afford it). Get out and POUND THE PAVEMENT! Meet your next customers face to face. Do this over and over again.

Regardless of what they told you in college, you can start a million dollar business with as little as $200 in printing and a good pair of shoes!

Don't worry if nothing happens at first. It will come.

Meanwhile:

3) LEARN the next aspect of your product. (i.e dumpster cleaning)
a)Do ABC over again with this while the work trickles in from aspect #1.

Do this over and over again until you have a rich variety of services you have mastered. By now you should be doing a great job on the services you are providing and are beginning to see that you can make a decent living.

Once you have the work mastered the work begins. Now you have to streamline the work to give yourself an edge over your competition just in case you have to bite the bullet on price one day because of the economy.

1) At this point you use some of the money you've been making to purchase equipment that will make you work faster.
2) You experiment with different methods for speed and consistency.

Make it where you have a buffer zone in pricing so you can withstand any economic downturns and still have enough hours in the day to make your nut.



This is in regards to a single, one man startup. This was just thrown together over a few minutes, but it works. It is a system. There are other systems for advertising and other things but this is a simple system for startup.

This is ONLY for commercial work. I don't know anything about the residential market. I've never owned a company that marketed to the residential market. (Only a few months early on with Sonitx) We didn't even market the dry cleaning company to the residential market, but got bulk signups for residential delivery at large office centers.

That's what has worked for me in the past.
 
Tony Shelton said:
I've had business plans for all the businesses we've started up. At first I tried to follow everything I learned in college. :ignore: Then I quickly realized most of that stuff is junk.

For what it's worth (I'm sure not much) I'll expand on what is important for a startup business IMHO.

First. START CHEAP. You don't need a 40 ft long super rig to start this business. If you are doing commercial concrete try to find a used machine at least 4 gpm and a surface cleaner of some sort. Don't be afraid to buy a used machine like I was, I lost a lot of money buying new at first out of fear. If I had known that Russ Johnson was out there I'd have bought used right away and saved the new for later and probably bought it from Russ for all the help he's given me.

You don't even have to have heat at first.

And don't start till you can pay cash. (This is what we did with all three of our businesses except Sonitx - and I still believe with the R&D needed for Sonitx cash startup was just too high and would have been impossible)

Once you've purchased basic equipment you need to:

1) LEARN ONE aspect of your product.
a) READ (example PWI)
b) WATCH your competition (even if it means following them around nights ----BELIEVE IT OR NOT THIS IS IMPORTANT)
c)ASK questions to your market (i.e. spend hours and document calls to property managers posing as "research" and ask them what they look for in cleaning companies.) You'd be surprised how candid they are if you are not selling anything.
c) PRACTICE (do free work till you learn NOT DISCOUNTED, FREE)

2) Once you've mastered one thing (i.e. plaza sidewalk cleaning) blast off a lot of email and mail to your target market (mail if you can afford it). Get out and POUND THE PAVEMENT! Meet your next customers face to face. Do this over and over again.

Regardless of what they told you in college, you can start a million dollar business with as little as $200 in printing and a good pair of shoes!

Don't worry if nothing happens at first. It will come.

Meanwhile:

3) LEARN the next aspect of your product. (i.e dumpster cleaning)
a)Do ABC over again with this while the work trickles in from aspect #1.

Do this over and over again until you have a rich variety of services you have mastered. By now you should be doing a great job on the services you are providing and are beginning to see that you can make a decent living.

Once you have the work mastered the work begins. Now you have to streamline the work to give yourself an edge over your competition just in case you have to bite the bullet on price one day because of the economy.

1) At this point you use some of the money you've been making to purchase equipment that will make you work faster.
2) You experiment with different methods for speed and consistency.

Make it where you have a buffer zone in pricing so you can withstand any economic downturns and still have enough hours in the day to make your nut.



This is in regards to a single, one man startup. This was just thrown together over a few minutes, but it works. It is a system. There are other systems for advertising and other things but this is a simple system for startup.

This is ONLY for commercial work. I don't know anything about the residential market. I've never owned a company that marketed to the residential market. (Only a few months early on with Sonitx) We didn't even market the dry cleaning company to the residential market, but got bulk signups for residential delivery at large office centers.

That's what has worked for me in the past.
Click to expand...

Tony shelton Quote;
"This was just thrown together over a few minutes"

wow... come back in hour with chapter 2 ...informative and motivating with lots of common sense thrown in....(you should have been born a motivational speaker) :wave3:
 
offdutyfireman said:
I agree with everything Tony said, except the start up equipment. If you spend money on small equipment, you will be stuck with smaller jobs and will have to buy good equipment when you can't stand it anymore and want good work. Bite the bullet and buy good/tough/commercial equipment and build your business around it.
Click to expand...

I agree with that when a certain business is closely related with machinery and equipment, if you start with cheap parts and score big biz, you will end up upgrading it very soon. So, better safe the money and buy a good, reliable and long lasting equipment with perspective.
 
I bought my 1st welding machine of my own back in 1983. I financed it through Lincoln. I debated for a week whether or not I could afford $89.00 a month payments. Then I thought about this point.

At the time I calculated my hourly rate @ $25.00 a hour. 4 hours or a half days work to increase the odds of my reliability of equipment. To me it was a NO brainer.

I had No excuse not to go make money. I never bought a used machine that was going to be used hard and every day. I just never thought it was worth it.
 
I do think that you need to work a plan. It is best if the plan is written.
That being said, I have systems in place, but I think that I am going to start documenting them, as part of a continued training process. At the current time, all my employees have been doing the same basic task for a while. They are going to have to step up because of contractual obligations that have changed. I look at it as a great opportunity for progress in my little company.
I also am going to have to develop systems and decide which of my various operations is the most basic, thus the easiest to build on. It is going to be interesting, though my wife told me today that "I just want you to get over the idea you are ever going to be able to stay home and not work. You are not wired that way, and would go crazy."
Workaholic? Me? Never... okay, maybe a little bit...
 
The small equip. is a double edged sword. IMO you need to start small to learn the bizz then upgrade with the growth of your Co. Ive seen it too o much down here. You can have the 30k rig and manpower but you do a crappy job and end up loseing the jobs you have becuz of poor work. but if you have only a "HD" PW you will get a big job offer and have to sub it out and make less $$$ or rent. So my question is what is the so called Perfect start up PW package for comm. work?:indecisive:
 
In any business you start up, you must first know the business you're getting into.

Before we started our business, we did over a year of research before we bought our first Rig. Took business courses at the local college, researched Distributors, chems, equipment, target market, customer base, lurked the boards without posting, attended 2 RT's, etc.

Starting a business is easy, building and growing a business, is the hard part.

You have got to prepare yourself, and be prepared for business, or your doomed to fail.

You Have Got To Have A P-L-A-N!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
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Join a org with Co-op
 
Now I know what to do next. Thanks Tony. Guy....Give me a call when your not busy, I have a question for ya about well water and vinyl siding. 919-820-6715
 
The single best thing I ever did in this Business, was to stop selling Pressure Washing. Pressure Washing in and of itself isn't worth much. Not enough to be profitable and folks simply don't want to pay much more than that amount for it.

Look around and see that folks pay MORE for WANTS than NEEDS. (A WANTED piece of Harley chrome sells for more than a NEEDED Brake job for your car) The Building owners NEED the sidewalks cleaned. They WANT hassle free service. If your maketing approach is focused on thier WANTS, you can obtain higher margins.

In my case, it is Home owners that NEED the mold/mildew gone. But they WANT more Free time to do other things. They WANT Hassle free service. They WANT reassurance of protection of thier property. Etc...

This is how we have been able to be profitable selling what other percieve as a service that "anybody" can do or that "it's just spraying water"
Selling the WANT side of it, allows us to sell at a price that is ripe for profit and growth and covers realistic expenses including above average salaries.

Anyhow, that was when we noticed that things changed and we started actually making money versus just working alot and being dissappointed with what was left over.

Hope that helps with this thread.
 
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