Retired PE teacher

Retired PE teacher starting a pressure washing soft washing business. Al retired may of 2020 after being a school teacher for 30 years

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Hey guys, I'm Jason Geiman host of the King of pressure wash podcast. I'm a self-employed entrepreneur. I grew my pressure washing business to a million dollar business in under five years. And now I'm here helping hundreds of pressure washer start, grow, be successful in their pressure washing business so that they can be the King of pressure washing in their area, too. Today's show is going to be an awesome show on the King of pressure wash [inaudible]

That's. All right, Jason. Hello everybody. My name's Al Bianco. I live here in Fairborn, Ohio. Just got done retiring in may as a school teacher. After 33 years have owned a deck restoration business, you know, for a summer job. A lot of us teachers, we have summer jobs, so I have owned a D deck cleaning and painting and re-staining and restoration business for over 25, over 25 years. So, and then a couple of last couple of years, I started to get into the the soft wash business. So

What did you do before this? What was your full-time job? What did you do as your full-time career of a job?

Well, as we said before, I was a school teacher for 33 years restoration business,

He teacher. So everybody loves her PE teacher, right? Nobody don't don't like their PE teacher. Is that correct?

Well, you know, we all have those, we'll have those one few in the class, but I think for the most part it would be like gym class.

And was you in high school or was you in?

I thought I taught 20 25 years in high school and I finished my career at the middle school level. And what

The two, did you like better high school or

High school? High school? Much better. So especially the, yeah, just let's just say high school much better.

Yeah. Cause the middle school kids, you know, they're just hitting that age. They don't know what their hormones are going every which way. And they don't know what they want this.

Yeah, that's true.

So what made you start to do a so you, how long you've been doing decks, you've been doing decks for how many years now?

Over 25 years I've been doing decks. So of course, if you do decks, I mean, when we mean do decks, we restore. So we take old beat up decks, take a pressure washer to pain them, staying on whatever they want. So I've always had a pressure washer in my hands. I remember renting one when I first got married, what was well twenty-five 30 years ago. And I remember how, how, how I,uthis is when I didn't even know what a pressure washer was. I remember how it could just take this Brown fence. It's old wooden gray fence that I can make it, pull it right back to its original color. So I started to think back, I said, you know, there's gotta be a market out there for this. There's gotta be a market. So I started do decks. You know, I do debt every a fertilizer for, so for, like I said, over 25 years, I've been doing the restoring outdoor decks. So as we know, or if you don't know that's work, that was hard, hard work. That is hard work. So the last couple of years, and don't get me wrong, the money is amazing. The money is great. The last couple of years I developed a soft launch pressure washing business. And, h'm glad I did it because it's the best thing I ever did.

Why did you start going decks way back? When did, was it to help supplement the teacher income or just to give you something to do in the wintertime summertime, or

It was, it was to help supplement the teacher income as you guys know, we're not paid the best, you know, especially if you're a young teacher in the beginning, you're at the, you know, young totem pole, you know, you're at the bottom of the pay scale. So it, it does, you know, that's what I did at four. So there was a market I said, you know, okay. And you know, I always did it. I always did it and I always did it. And what happened for me, Jason was anyways, we'll, we'll, we'll finish out later. Go ahead and keep asking your questions, brother.

You're fine, dude, that we can, like I say, we'll just talk this kind of like this and what kind of goes. So, so so what, what, what is the thing that really drives you to keep pushing, to keep growing your business as a pressure washer and company and stuff, especially now that you retired from the the school teacher side of things.

All right. What drives me is the market that's out there. That's available. Okay. So whenever I get in a vehicle, when I go anywhere, no matter where I drive, all I do is I see stuff. It's like, I see buildings, I see houses, I see concrete, I see different things. It's like, you know what? Our company has a product where we can service them, you know, we can service them. So, and that's why I do it. And I just loved it. I, you know, I enjoy it. The where you can take something that doesn't look very nice with a little bit of chemicals and a little bit of soft wash. If you need it, a little bit of pressure wash, if you need it, you can make something look brand new again. So

Some of you may not know or remember, but I had Al on a couple, well, he wasn't actually on the live he's on one of my videos or two, and his whole trailer is on my, my, I did a whole video series of, mf his pressure washing trailer. He called me up. Umt was probably what February March-ish time. And he's like, Jason, I need you to build this thing because I'm a PE teacher. I think you said you were a dumb PE teacher and don't know how to build it. And so man, so I got him all together and then, u,,, u,nally come down, picked it up and, u,s a nice little unit. Again, there's a ton, there's a whole video series on my channel, u,r this here. And so, u,'s, it's a good gig. Tell him, let's see. So I got somebody I'm going to read this here, tell him, u, contact me. I teach PE at a high school in my area and run a full-time successful pressure washing business. I think he does too. So, but, u, he called me up and he's like, Jason, I need this, u,ailer rig. And this was before you really started soft wash. And this year a lot, u,stead of, u, bought him, u, was in, what was you working out before, before you got your little van saying,

Oh and this is going to be good for you, young guys. Cause I did it for many, many years. I would take it. And I was thinking about that today. I would take that that pressure washer, you know, it's nothing but a nominal rig, four gallon per minute there, I think 33,000, maybe 3,500 PSI. I would pick that thing up each and every time, put it in Mike Knox. And MD's two sets of,uI'd have these two sets of high pressure cord I throw in there. I'd have my two sets of garden hose. I'd throw in their gas tank, everything else. It's just a, I can't believe I did it, but you know what? You can still do it. You can still do that. You can still do that same way. Downstreaming and out of a five gallon bucket, you can still do it and you can still make a ton of money.

How long did that take you versus having your whole trailer set up? How much time did that knock off by having everything pre-set up and everything.

It's it's it's the total game changers. What it is is it's a total game changer. So the way, wait, Jason, the way Jason designed my equipment. Okay. All the reels are on the curb side. Okay. So when I pull up that rig, all I have to do is pull out each reel. You know, usually I'm just pulling out a high pressure wheel and a garden hose reel. If I had to have a house job, if I have a house job, then I'll be pulling out the the chemical line real. So it's just perfect. It makes it, it just cuts the time and like, and half just cuts it in half.

So it takes a a three or four hour drive and put it in about an hour, an hour and a half. Doesn't it?

Yes, sir. There's no doubt. And then when you get home and Jason, when you get home, guess what? You're not tired. No, I'm tired. Anyways. I'll always going to be tired. When I get, when I get home, I don't have to take all the stuff out of the vehicle and put the painting supplies and the neck deck job stuff back in the Equinox. Right. Cause now I can, that goes into the cargo van, the new minivan, I got this winner. Right. So it was just, it's a total different game. So just a total different system I'm using right now.

Yes. And, and what, so what is with that being said, what, how has that changed from money-wise bringing in per year versus what you did before VR? Obviously the reason why I'm hitting this is, is the upsells and all that kind of thing. Tell me a little bit about that.

Well, I'll explain it like this. I always did decks. So I've done decks for, like I said, over 25 years, there's a lot of money you can make in doing decks. If you've done deck work before, you know, that's really, really, let's just cut to the chase. That's work. It's hard work. Nobody likes to do it. It's 95 degrees out there and you're sucking in those fumes. Okay. Uyou know, you're in the, nobody likes, you know, so anyway, so I started to think, I started to think about this soft washing because I've been watching it for awhile. Okay. I've been, you know, I've been watching it on YouTube for, and I'm thinking, you know, I think this is something I could do. I think this is something that I can incorporate into my business. And so,uI'll give you a, here's an a perfect example.

Do you know how I used to clean green algae off two story roofs? I would take a 24 foot extension pole. Okay. With high pressure. Okay. And try to sit there. Okay. After an hour and a half doing one side. Okay. When I'm done, you talk about a weight training workout. You talk about a workout. Okay. So I think, you know, I got, you know, the dummy, remember I told ya, dumb gym teacher. I said, you know, Hey, let's try this chemical stuff they're talking about. And then I said, it's like, what is a downstream injector? Umnd I've always, you know, I've gone through probably 10 pressure washers over all the years. So I find, and I've always had one because I always buy pressure, quality, pressure, washers. Every one's had a downstream injector. I didn't never knew you what they were used before.

So I said, let me try it. Boom. And then they said, okay, well you got to have a special tip. Okay. You gotta have a special Orfuss size hole where you're going to be able to get that chemical out, a regular pressure washer, tips, not going to work. Right. So I said, okay, well, I'm starting to, and I keep going over YouTube and Google and stuff and Googling stuff. I was like, Oh, okay. This is called a J rod, tell you, rod is X. I know I can take this stuff up and shoot it. 40, 40 feet up in the air. So the work let's say, let's be, let's be real Jason, rather how swash any day over a deck or any of that or stuff. Okay. I am a hundred percent. I would be perfectly comfortable with every job I had was nothing more than a house wash. I don't even well, and I told you about my roof system. Now I don't even have a problem with roofs. Now. I don't even have, if I could do a house wash every day. And if they, if I want to throw in their, okay, it's going to be high because I don't like doing concrete either. Then you know what? I can do that every day. So

I think there's some, so we haven't got to this part of the story, but there is somebody that is on this live tonight. That's watching. So tell me who your two helpers are. Well, I know you got more helpers than that, but tell me who your two helpers are because actually we have one on Allie's on here tonight.

Oh, Oh, my daughter is a, okay. I didn't know that Allie. Well, well, here's my deal, Jason, let me explain this to you. So, and this is kind of a blessing, but they probably don't think so because all I do is at them on no job. I'm screaming. I'm him. You know, I used to be a coach football coach, you know, played football in college. I got that little mentality. And you know, w when they're with me on the job to me, it's when I go to a job, it's kind of like going into a football game. Okay. And so,uI can get kind of like,uuI don't even want to say it. So I'm blessed that this summer, because my daughter who just graduated from UC,uthey had to postpone her employment. She has,ushe got,uemployed by a company in Boston, Massachusetts. So they delayed that process. So she was able to work with me all summer. And my daughter, Ella, who plays soccer at a high university, she was able to work with me all summer. So it was great. And they learn now, they know, I guarantee you, both of them can go to any house and do a roof, wash, a house wash and a concrete wash. No problem at all. Guaranteed.

So Allie asked the question, how does he go about training his employees? Is it the beating staff?

It is it's, we'll call it the psychological beating style. Let's just say that. Let's just say that that's pretty good,

But that is pretty cool to bring your daughters in and to help you out and all that kind of stuff. And the stories that I always like you tell me is how your daughters think it's amazing how you get $1,500 for one hour's worth of work. So,

Yeah, our and, and numerous. So let's give you a couple of daughters. Let's give you a couple since Allie's on here and she's going to be a smart I'm, I'll give her a little bit of work. Okay. So I can remember early in the summer,uyou know, we did our little flyers. I'd get on my segway. I'd put my little cards out. Okay. I put my little cards out and I remember we got this job,uand it was a, you know, normal, typical, four-sided just a four-sided house wash. Okay. So all you're going to do is take the, get all the organic off on the four sides. Gutters included. Okay. No roof. So delay and the lady charged me $500. Right. And I mean, that's what, that's what I charged you late. And we there for probably an hour and maybe 20 minutes, maybe tops.

And I remember getting in the car and I remember Allie saying, Hey, dad, what's up, what's wrong with that lady? So what do you mean? She just gave you $500 to do this. And I said, that's how it works. I mean, I said, and then, but you have to understand, this is what I tried to explain to Allie. And I started to explain to a lot of other people, there's a reason why she's paying me 500 hours. There's knowledge that I know. Okay. There's things that I can do. There's a service that I can provide her without killing any, any revegetation or anything like that, where she can't get other wear. And if she does, then she's probably gonna pay that kind of price. So, and that's what I try to tell my daughters. I said, it's not so much how much I charge them. It's the knowledge that I can bring there to, to get the job done to their satisfaction.

It's all about what I've always talked about too, is it's about finding the right customers, the customers that will open their wallet and pay it's about finding the customer. It's not about finding the $99 part customers. Cause we don't want those customers. We want the four and $500,000 customers, you know, and this was something that I had to work on out quite a bit. This year is, is owl was cheap lash. When I talked to him back in the spring, I'm like, how much are you charging for that claim? He's like $2 a square foot. And I said, you're crazy. You are crazy. Nah, dude, you can't just like how he's talking over here. And I'm like, dude, you gotta be at least five, $6 a foot. Nah, you can't get that out of it. So now that he's up to five and $6 a foot, now he's making some good money.

That's how you grow your business. You know, this is how we can go from not being able to afford, to do marketing, to having money, to pay people, to do it. Plus it also allows us to do marketing and to grow our business and the things that we need to do to move forward. You know, he's talking about getting another rig and, or upgrading his rig to an eight gallon a minute. You can't do that when we're the nine, $9 guy and then pricing, we have to be able to get to that next level. And the only way we can do it is, is to get those $500 house washes on an hour, an hour and a half job, you know, is that not correct there, mr. Owl?

That is correct. Yeah. Or there are other jobs that might take a little bit longer. Yeah. But you know, when it was all said and done, if you can get in and out on a house in an hour and a half and make $500, that's pretty amazing to me. You make that as a school teacher a week.

All right. So tell me some ways that you do to get customers. How do you do your marketing get customers?

Well, and that's a great question, Jason. I have a little bit an advantage over the next guy. Okay. And I'm just going to tell you the real, real quick, I have an advantage over the next guy because I've met, like I said, I've been doing these decks for years. So I've been, you know, I put my deck work out there on Facebook, you know, and people see that. And so, you know, like I said, I've been teaching for 33 years. So, you know, it's all about networking, that big network that we have around us. So excuse me, one of the ways, one of the best ways that I have found not only by Facebook by is, excuse me, is by using one of these postcards. Okay. And if you just go to your local printer, print them up, right. I'm just giving to give you a marketing strategy.

You've got a little postcard here. Okay. And you got your business. Same yada, yada, get a little bit of computer code right there on there. Okay. They, all they do is take a shot of that. Boom. It goes right to Al's hydro wash. They can see all the amazing work. And that's just one way. So you want to go door to door? Yeah. You can do that. Okay. I just want to give you, I want to give you a heads up and this is from the us postal service. Okay. When you go to mailbox to mailbox, if you're doing hand deliveries, don't think that you can put it outside their mailbox. Cause you can't, you can't put it into the flag. You of course you can't put it in the mailbox. If they have a slot underneath their mailbox for a newspaper thing like people do, then you can do that.

Otherwise you can't do that. Okay. This is just from the postmaster or you're going to get calls like I did, but there's a better way to do that. Instead of going door to door, you have to go to what we call the us postal service, direct mail. So I could take these flyers right here. I can go to the us postal service, whichever city I want to deliver them to. I want to say a certain, these are 500 homes. He is very, the exact 500 homes I want. Boom. That's all I want to go to the ghost, right. Just to them. So I'm not going to, so member, my target is like you said earlier, Jason, it's all about the type of client that we want. Okay. I want my client way up here. Okay. So I'm going to target those homes. So that's just one way.

So one thing somebody asked the question, actually she put,uasking who's his marketing manager. Marketing is everything. So Ali put depths, but since Allie's on here, I'm going to give you some advice because I told your dad this the other day. And that way you can, might be him out into this would really help out and grow things. And so the thing that I'm going to use is our has a network of people he's been in the school systems for 30 years. A lot of his students are, have well off jobs. You know, you wasn't in a very poor neighborhood school. You ran a nice neighborhood school. So a lot of the kids there got out families, they have nice paying jobs. And to be honest, this is probably something that you could probably do to really grow your business. And this is just one way.

And obviously Facebook is one, but this is LinkedIn. Linkedin could be a great resource for you. What I would do is to start going and finding a lot of those kids that you had in school and I would start following them and liking them. And what I, reason why I would do that is because you figure 30 years ago, some of those kids they're in their forties now, you know, they're, they could be in their forties at just point and or even maybe early, you know, they're probably in their forties. And so with that said is, now we can start you giving them people to do it because we have a network of people at this point that we can go out there and start posting into LinkedIn every once in awhile, you know, once a week, just kind of like, cause see, one thing that out does that is very good is he posts a lot in Facebook.

And so Facebook is a great thing. So those videos that you're posting on Facebook, we can go ahead and post them in LinkedIn. And then when we do that, that is going to help that algorithm fly around there and more and more people are going to see your stuff. So because in marketing, it's all about touches. It's not about one door hanger. It's not about one sign. It's about getting several touches in there. So where you have a lot of people in your network, a lot of people don't have that. You figure 30 years. How on average, how many students did you see?

I don't know, 500.

So you got 500 people that know you per year, times up by 30 years, that's a large network. And again, it's not like you're the English teacher that everybody hates or there's only a very small part of the, of the, of that. Or you're not the history teacher that is boring. You were the PE teacher, you know, people looked at PE is usually the screw off hour, you know? And, and so that's kind of what they're looking for. And so not only that, how many people have you coached over the years? You know, I mean, when you really think about as a childhood memory, you don't think about PE and that you think about that one coach that may have touched my life. You know, that one moment that coach did something for me and that right there has taken me to the next level, or that was my turning point.

You know, I was doing this and this coach said something and went from there, it made me turn and go there. So when we have this network of people, then we can sit there and work that out. And I'll, if I would be a Batman that you have a lot of students that either a owner own business or B they're in a spot that they can get you more work of apartments are plaques, who knows what could come out of that. So if I was you, I would really work on my LinkedIn network and I would be start hitting all those kids that you have touched through all those years. Does that make sense?

Hey Jason. Hey, do expand on that. That expand on your, just your comment right now tomorrow morning, you know, you talk about X students, okay. You talk about, you know, all the, all the networking and all that. My advantages, like you just said, like you just went over all the people that I've had, all the people that I may or may have not impacted their lives tomorrow morning, I get to start on a $10,000 job from a student that I had. That's 40 years old, who I coached in football who played football at Michigan state university. Okay. So, and get that. And this is a perfect example. That's a perfect example. I mean, when you talk, that's a perfect example. What's he do? He's a financial advisor. What's his wife do? She's an attorney. I mean, it's, it's a perfect example.

What does his friends do? What does his friends do? Most of his friends probably ain't poor. They're probably very well off. And you get into that network of people. Guess what? When they ask who, who is, who can I use? He's going to say my, my, my old, my old PE teacher. He does that stuff. He'll come clean it right up for you.

Hey, Jason, I'm getting ready to start on his deck tomorrow. Actually, we're going to do the pavers tomorrow to another, to another upsale job, but we're going to do his deck starting in the middle of this week, pavers tomorrow. But I think he's going to go with the exact same color that I redid my deck out here. And it's a slight black, but what you have to understand folks is he has five big, huge or good size decks. Okay. And so I think he's going to go with that slight back, but perfect example though, Jason X student of mine attorney lives in a million dollar home on a Lake. He has friends just keeps going out like that, just,

Yup. And that's the beauty of networking that right there, you know, a lot of times I'm not a big fan of kind of just the word of mouth, but that's really not just a word of mouth. You're actually networking in your network. You know, I I've heard it several times of your network. Your net worth is the size of your network. You know, if you have large network, you will have usually a large size of net worth. And that is so true because that is one thing that, you know, when we're trying to grow our pressure washing business, it's all about knowing that one person or getting to find out who building relationships, you know, when we build relationships and we're pining those people that we need to find, then that's when we can really blow up our business and get it to the next level. You know, a lot of people think, Oh, I can't do that. Well, get, get out there and get going. You know, you've gotta get going. You know, you've got to take action. If you don't ever take action, you won't ever get action.

Hey Jason, that's a great point. But you know, when you talk about networking, I'm going to give you another example of how it works. Okay. This is an example about my little smart daughter. That's I don't know if she's still on here watching or not, but my little smart daughter worked at Chick-fil-A for four years in high school, just like millions over the kids over, you know, worked at Chick-fil-A, you know, great company to work for yada yada. So I went, h went by there, like, I don't know, maybe a couple of weeks ago w grab a sandwich and you know, of course like everywhere I go, I'm looking at that's dirty. I need to clean that. That's dirty. So anyways, I'm going through their, through their drive through and I see they're dirty pavers or yada yada. So anyways, I come home, I started to think about it.

I said, you know, that company and they need my service. So I remember my daughters cause my my son worked there as well for a little bit until I got fired for not making chicken salad when he should have in the kitchen anyways. So my daughter tells me a little bit about the owner. Okay. And so I asked her to draw me up a nice little proposal, cause my daughter's really smart. She's has she just graduated from United? The university of Cincinnati was a business analytics degree. And so she could write that stuff down really well. Okay. I can't really, you know, I could probably talk it to you, but I can't really do it like that. So she writes us this beautiful proposal up and the guy ends up accepting it and we ended up starting the job today. I never would have thought a year ago I'd be doing a Chick-fil-A Chick-fil-A restaurant. And then I get to do it once a month forever until I blow up the contract, which I'm not because my work is going to be so amazing. So I just,ubut you talk about networking. This is just one aspect of it. My networking, my daughter networking, worked at Chick-fil-A networking, no CE owner. Okay. Has a good relationship with the owner. So it's all about, and that's just one little example of what networking is.

Yep. And that's, that's the important part of it. And that's how you can get, you know, who's to say you can't get other chick filets and you know, or any other things. And, and, and that's the thing, you know, a lot of times when we get in with business owners, most business owners are going to be friends with guess what other business owners, you know? And that's because most smart business owners that, you know, it's the saying, you're like the five people you're around. So, you know, if you're a smart business person, you're not going to be around five dumb people. You want to be around five smarter people than you. So then that way you get to that next level.

Exactly.

All right. So we talked about that. So tell me one thing that you failed in your business and tell me the three things that you learned from that failure.

One thing I failed, one thing. Oh, you price it?

No, no. You got one better than that. What happens when you put crap in your,uchemical tanks posts put in there?

Oh, Oh, I'll tell you this story. Real good. It's a good story. So, Hey, we all know what a sh is. So I have my nice little rig that Jason put together and he did a beautiful job. And so I've been using it fine. You know, it's a 55 gallon layer, no 50 gallon chemical tank. So I remember coming home from a job one day, normally back it up into my garage. I don't keep it outside. So I back it up in the garage. And,uI noticed when I, I noticed that there, there was like this Brown, like, like the first, you know, you know, how it looks like that. I don't want to say like, almost like that for us. It almost like this color, almost like that color, you know, chlorine looks in the tank, but I see this, like this layer of Brown up there, like, I'm like, what is that?

What's going on there? And so I don't really think about it much. So I go in the house, I mess around in a house for a few minutes. I come back out into the garage and I said, what the hell is going on? Okay. I see these fumes coming out. Right. You know, my little, my little valve puck, right. That means there's fumes coming. I'm like, Oh, what's going on here? And so what I had was some type of terrible chemical reaction that scared the out of me because if you've ever had this happen before. Okay. Uit would be like taking a row. It'd be like taking a quarter, take, take a,utake,utake a roll of pennies and throw them in a chlorine and tank and see what happens. Anyways. The chemical reaction I had really, really scared me because what it did is I actually looked down in there and I'm watching chlorine start to boil.

Okay. I don't know exactly how and I had this happened to me twice and I still don't know. So the only thing that I could think of was everybody uses a surfactant, just like I do. But I put in this extra thing called a lemon, like a lemon scent type of thing. And so my only thing is that that's the only thing I could think of, or it was the Jason, you know, we talked about this before, or it was the the I use that chlorine what do you call it? Remover or not remover a neutral,

Neutral on it. I don't think it was that. Cause I think it was the second time you didn't use that. I think it cause it was the lemon lemon extract stuff. Yeah. I think it was lemon oil that you put in there and I think that's what caused it.

I haven't had a problem with it. You shouldn't have, you should be able to put as much as a fraction as you want in there. It shouldn't have a problem. So

What are some things that you learned about putting the wrong crap in the chemicals?

What are some things that I learned? I don't know. I don't know, because what'll happen is you could have a serious problem where like I did, like I'm watching my chemical tank. You could not even touch the chemical tank on the outside with your hands. It was so hot. It even expanded it even expanded. And I'm watching this. So what are you going to do? It's in the garage. I don't want to hook it up to my trailer because I don't want to have this thing blow up right here while I'm here. So all I do is try to get my to another spicket, pull a hose to it, stick it down into the tank, put goggles on gloves, on, stick it in the tank and get the hell out of there. I just let it drain out like I did. And thank God I'm on a Hill. And so my in my driveway or my garage is slanted at no problem.

Yeah. He called me on that one and he's like, Jason, something's wrong. And he's like, I can't even got my grind. She's like, it's like fuming and stuff. And I'm like, first thing I always ask is what did you put in your tank? And this goes back to guys that you got to remember that we are dealing with chemicals and chemicals are very dangerous. And so we have to make sure that, you know, we are,ubeing careful with chemicals because chemicals is something that, you know, it can be very, very dangerous. And I mean even what that, what he had going on, you know, one good inhale of that could cause you to go down and you know, it's not, it's not unlikely at all. I mean, I mean, if that was a sealed container, it would have blew up. If it didn't vent, it would've blew up.

And that's just the fact of it, you know, when it's off gassing that much, it's going to cause it to, if it was enclosed and it was in a non sealed thing, it would cause it to blow up. And it is not pretty, I mean, he's like I had a, I got a quote or I used a helper one time and asked him to fill my bucket up for downstream he's um nine Barkus or fact, then haven't been a helper sense. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It can be very dangerous. You know, it is something that you can blow up stuff, you know, it's going to off gas. It's gonna, it can give you, like I say, it'll take your breath away if you're not careful. Um, that is definitely something that you have to watch and to be careful with. So, um initely be careful with that. Yes, sir. Um, in business, a lot of times we have to deal with mindset and we have to deal with fears and overcoming those fears. And some of our fears can be from, you know, I would never pay that, you know, that fear of fear of getting customers, fear of maybe starting, you know, w can I get business? Has there been any fear that you've had to come overcome in the last year or two, um,dg pressure washing and stuff?

I, this is going to sound for a lot of you guys have been in this business for a long while. This is going to sound really how do I say this? Know elementary or something? I have a Jason, have we spoken before? I have a problem with Heights. Okay. I mean, I can't get off the ground 10 feet and I start down my pants. Right. So what I,uwhat I would always do is this, if I ever get a, whenever I do a roof estimate you, okay, it's going to be high anyway. So, okay. Just because of all the precautions that you have to take. So I even added an additional cost on there is because I'm paying somebody to get up on that roof. I'm not going to do that myself. I'm just not putting myself in that position.

I'm not doing it. So that's just me. And so I don't have a problem with paying a roofer or somebody else, a couple of hundred dollars go up there for an hour, hour and a half and do it. What I have found out is for the most part 99% of the roofs I can hit from the ground. Okay. I mean, honestly, I mean, the way, the way, the way you design my system, the way you design my gas, driven chemical pump, the way he can shoot, it can shoot 45, 50 feet the way you've designed it. I got no problems. So you talk about a fear. That's over, I'm getting over. That's one of them. So we did this house the other day and I just did it from the ground. And I just did it by myself. And I didn't have to pay somebody else $200 an hour to get up there.

Cause that's what I was paying them because I think that's what it's worth. If you're going to, if I'm going to pay somebody to put their lives in danger, to get up on a roof, okay. With slippery suds up there, then I don't have a problem with paying them that. But if I can save that money and do it by myself from the ground, Hey, are there certain groups where there's no doubt I'm going to have to pay somebody to get up there? Of course, most of them, 90% of them I can hit from the ground. So that's a fear I've gotten over.

You might have to send the alley up is what you might have to start going.

Allie's too chicken . She's like her dad

Somebody put on here, they taught you in middle school, not to mix acids and bases. Then he put, they taught you how to whip that your way not to stick your head in a bucket in the middle school. But again, this is something that, you know it is definitely something you gotta be careful of. Rather you're afraid of Heights. There is ways to get around it. You know, a lot of times we have mental blocks or we have fears that, you know, our, our mind can do amazing things and it can terrible things with this. You know, it can tell you that you can't do this. You can't do that. And you know, if we allow that to happen, go ahead.

Hey Jason, here's a good, you talk about it as a little mind games. When we were talking about mind games and I was telling him that I have a young entrepreneur here in Xenia, Ohio, that I'm working with a nice African-American ex athlete of mine has a college degree, but you talk about your mind games and stuff like that. When I see these and I see them like every day, I see new ones all over the place where I'm driving around every corner, power, washing, power, washing, power washing. It's like, you know, and, and when, when I remember when I was him and he's just getting into the business and I'm trying to help him along, I remember when I was him, I'd get discouraged. And I see that and almost like, why am I doing this? Look at all these guys. You don't have to think like that.

People don't think like that. Okay? All you have to do is have a better product than everybody else. And when you have a better product to everybody else, then the business will come your way. Don't get. And that I tell, I tell them, I tell Tyler the same thing I say, Hey, Tyler, how many painters are out there in the world? Hundreds. They're all making money. How many guys have cut grass out there have lawn care companies making money, hundreds. It's no different. It's no different, you know, so don't get disturbed just because you see the signs everywhere. You know, even though it was, cause I remember I used to feel that same thing. It's like, why I ain't even doing this. Look at all these guys, there's too many out here. It's like, I can't compete with these guys. Yes, you can. Your work, your work is going to be better than theirs. You know,

A lot of your work is going to be,

Your word is going to be better than there. Your work's going to be better than theirs. If you screw up, come back and fix it.

A lot of times, if you just answer your phone, we'll get you more work than anything. Simple business process, job. The best thing I like doing is finding all these signs and start calling them and then just see how many people actually answer their phone or give you a call back.

Yeah. Right, right. I saw the funny, the funny one I saw the other day, Jason, I keep seeing on Facebook. I'm not mentioning any names, Tim. It must be around my local community. So, but I'm not saying any names and it's a nice size, big driveway, $99. I'm thinking, I'm thinking, okay, well, unless you have, unless I'm thinking he's going to $99 99 and he has a whole driveway right there. So I'm thinking, unless you have a, h6, what do you have? A 16 gallon per minute machine. Okay. Unless you have a 16 gallon minute per scene. No, I would not even. I mean, now it's like, no, that's not even gonna happen. So I just, I don't even, I, I, you know, my guess is he does that. My guess is he does that. And he tries to upsale them once he gets in. I don't know.

Just so put, answered the phone. We have, we have a broken window and it took three companies to give us one quote. And that's true guys, not just answering the phone, but following up with our customers. And that's matter of following up rather to see if they want to, to be able to get it or maybe need to follow up after two, just to make sure they're happy because you know what, it's all about. The little things going along, our sales journey of buying, u,essure washing. And when, what the little things will add up is to a five star review. And what a five star review will add up to is, is more jobs. Because when we try to work to get that five star review from the very beginning, and we do all the little things, we answer the phone, we give them a quote in a timely, fast manner.

It's not a week later that we give them a quote. We give them a quote either, right. Then email it right then five minutes, 10 minutes. And it's armed the next day. We're following up another little thing. The next day we are sending a text the next day, once they get the job, we're telling them what we're going to do and go through the steps and processes of how it's going to happen and how to pay and all that kind of stuff. And that way they're not like, what, what am I going to do? How do I gotta do this? What you're answering all the little questions as we set up this little journey through our sales journey and that way at the end, when we go to give them, and when they say to give a five star review, you don't have to tell them what to say.

They're going to be like Jason. He did, or Al did an amazing job. He's kept us in the loop and he did this and he did that and he did this and he did that. And you don't have to sit there and say, you know, we'll use gimme, you know, because they will do it automatically and work through that, that system. And so we really got to make sure that it's all about at the end of the day, it's all about the little thing. And so our does a lot of decks and stuff and debts are a pain in the tail for follow-up. I mean, they, I had one deck that it was about four and a half feet off the ground and it had freaking rock on the bottom of it. Well, some of the paint fell off and got on the bottom of it. And we had to go over there and buy a new rock because we couldn't turn them over enough, put down new rock over top of it all. And it was assumed by underneath there. But you know what? We ended up getting a five-star review and we got their neighbor's house and a friend of theirs house because we did what we needed to do to make that customer happy.

So again, decks can be great money. Owls done over your career. How many decks have you done in your season of decks?

I can say, I can honestly say hi. I've done hundreds of decks over the years, hundreds and hundreds. So it started on you remember the first one I did until the last one I did.

I mean, I've had decks that we did them all pretty and he had, he picked the color out and the wife didn't like the color.

Well, Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey Jason, good topic right there on the color. Okay. There, people always want to ask the guy. They think I'm like the color expert though. So I own a deck restoration of business, like clean your deck. I paint your deck the best anybody can do, but I can't pick the color off for you. You have to. So it was just like this couple that I'm getting ready to this couple that I'm getting ready to start on a 10,000 hour job tomorrow. They want me to pick them out of color. I said, I'm not going to do that. I said, I said, you don't. I said, I've I've I've I will never do it. I've done it before. I will never do it again. So you have to pick out the color. Now I will give them suggestions, but you have to pick out the color. So it's funny that you said that

Because I went through some, we conceal, this is one thing that Al does. That is a good thing to do that he posts pretty much everyday on Facebook of the stuff he's done. And I've went through some of them I'm like, that is the most God ugly color. I would never pick that, but you know what? That's what some people want. So guess what? That's what they get.

That's so true. That's why I stay out of it. And I said, that's your decision? That's yours and your husband's or yours decision. Not mine. Don't get me involved now. I'll give you recommendations, but that's it.

This is a good question right here. This is a good question. I'm going to answer here for you. What do you think about the monthly property protection plan, reoccurring revenue taking care of all their needs throughout the year? I think it is a good idea. And the reason why I think that four is a couple of reasons. One is especially cause like,udominant here is on here too. And I think he's trying to get this done,uis, and if you can do several things, so like if you do the house wash,uyou can do one, two, your house wash, you can do some driveway, concrete cleaning, and then if you really want to do it, you can get into two to three time gutter cleaning. So, you know, if you got, you know, if they, if you're going to gutter clean either twice a year, three times a year, and when we do that, what we can do is, is then that way we can break it down into a monthly reoccurring revenue.

And the good thing about that is, is obviously it's not a big chunk on their part, but they know that that's going to get done and you're going to take care of all their exterior stuff cleaning wise and it's going to be clean. And so it is something that for sure can work. And, and if you get that monthly reoccurring money up, then the, the beauty of that is, is once you do that, then you know where these people are and you can kind of schedule them all at one time in and bust them out. And the beauty of that is, is, you know, if you try to hire an employee, now we have reoccurring money every month that we know that we can cover these expenses or, you know, if you have a certain expenses that we can cover and that's how that can work for you. Uso that is definitely, and then anyone doing drain flushing, I haven't heard many people do on that. UI would

Think they call that Jenny

Jenny. Yup. Yup, yup, yup. Yup. So, but and what do you, that's a good question. What do you use or do you what do you use them for like a CRM and keeping customers and all that kind of stuff?

What's a CRM mean? I don't know. I knew

That was going to get to, that's why I want to say,

I don't know what a CRM is,

But wait, how much money are you making? Don't know what a CRM is. See, a lot of people think go down these rabbit trails that you got to know what all these little shiny objects are and it doesn't do you no good. You know, you can make well decent money and not have to worry about some of that stuff. So what a CRM is a customer retention management system and that it kind of, you know, like that basically use paying the paper docs. You what's that payment paper, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, but, but what I do on my big jobs, Jason, on my big jobs, like the, like the the job that I'm doing tomorrow, I kind of have a limit if it's over $3,000, I'm putting it in digital invoice. Okay. Simple to do. Okay. If it's under 3000, I'm handwritten. So just simple. That's over 3000. I'll itemize everything. If it's not I'll itemize it, I just won't itemize it. Like I would on a, on a typical digital invoice. So that's what I do. And, and, and, and, and guess, and guess who taught me this, my business, analytical degree daughter, Alexandria, Bianco,

He probably could, may set you up a whole thing of a CRM. And and, and actually she could make a lot of money off of it, to be honest. So,

Okay. I'm going to have her in here. I'm going to have her, and I'm going to have her look into that because she's all about making money.

So that could be worth a lot of money and I can help her set some up if she needs it. So my CRM is a 99 cent notepad and my cell phone. So that's what Illinois power Washington said. So so yep. Jetting for underground drains. I did a Facebook post and it has turned into about a $20,000 this month. That's nice. That's nice. So so I'm gonna look through some questions here, if you, so tell me if you was a new guy, what would you do and how would you start out what you would start with business wise?

The first thing that I would do, and I was telling this to my, my friend the other day, this a young, I mean my young X student, I had a Zynga. I was telling him the other day. I said, the number one thing you can do is instead of going out and spending $5,000 on equipment, which is for it to be like a nominal, tiny little rake like mine, instead of doing that, spend $200 and go out and get some yard signs. Okay. Go out and get some yard signs. Once you get the work lined up. Once you get that work lined up, then go ahead and invest some little bit of money. Okay. So he already has a pressure washer now, which is perfect. He has a fourth just like mine, a little tiny Gaye, little four gallon per minute, 3000 PSI. Okay. Same kind of unit.

I got he. So I said, but what you gotta do now is this. Now you have to go out and market that you have to figure out how you're going to get this business in. So once you get the business in, I always tell them, you guys get the business in first, buy the equipment. Second. If you want to go to Beaver Creek rental ran a pressure washer for 75 bucks for the weekend. Make sure you've got all your jobs lined up so you can use the whole weekend. If you rent it on a Saturday, then have to be back on Monday. Cause they close on Sunday. I think. So you gotta be like that. That's how I started. I started just like that same way. Start renting the equipment. I had to rent my first surface cleaner. I rented it. I rent and then I ended up buying it. I ended up buying it from the rental agency. I bought it from,

But wait a minute. I thought you had to have this big $20,000 trailer to make it.

You can either, you, you can make money on. You can right now, are you going to, if you want to, if you had a thousand dollars in your pocket right now, you could make money, period, period, no doubt. A hundred percent, 100%. Now you'll be putting it. Now you'll be putting it in a FA you'll be putting in an Equinox. You'll be putting in Equinox every night and you'll be hauling that in there every night. But you can do that all myself. I gotta be careful.

I love Al if you call him a little later at night, he gets wound up even more. So that's why I like call him just to

Trying to get it right now, Jason, you know, I'm trying to be good right now. Yeah.

30 mountain getting going. So, so tell me, so one thing that I always love when you would tell me this is,uuwhen I started getting on you about raising your pricing and, and telling me about, you know, about raising your prices and tell me what you always tell me. Actually, I want to get some lights on here, give me some likes on this and that way. And then he'll tell you what you tell me, what you, what you think about customers. Uif they don't like it,uhow you charge per job, that if they, if you don't like it,uI'm going to keep raising my prices until they run me off the, to the remnant off the job.

Well, this goes back to, this goes back to, I think it was, I don't know, January, February, whenever you were building my rig. Okay. I remember we were talking, we were in your garage. We were talking and you know, I was telling you what I did for how much I charged for people for decks and two bucks, whatever it was, this is me. You're charging too. You're charging way too. He says you need to up it up. So I remember, you know, so I said, okay, this year, this sort of, I decide, okay, this way, I'm going to take his advice. Okay? I don't like to do decks. If anybody, I, even though I can do a deck better than anybody in the Miami Valley, anybody in the Dayton area, I guarantee you and me and my crew can do a deck better than anybody.

I don't like to do them. I despise doing them. So when I go on a deck job, now I'm thinking I'm going to take Jason's advice. I'm going to say, you know what? Let's just Jack this thing up, you know what? This is Jack jacket up. And I, and I, I go, I go, now I'm about four or $5. And you know what? It doesn't even bother me if they, I expect them. When I get done to just laugh me off the property, 90% of the time within an hour, when can you start? I'm like, Oh . I don't like going up. The money is amazing. Trust me, the buddy's amazing. I just don't like doing them. But, h listened to Jason. I Jack my prices up and, u, doesn't matter. And it doesn't matter. I don't get offended if I don't get the job, it doesn't mean I look at it as like this people. I look at it like this. It's the same way. When I coached same way with my daughter plays soccer. You know, when I tell her to train, I said, listen, if you ain't training harder than anybody else, next one up. You're out there playing. If you ain't doing it next one up. Same thing. It's same thing. The same thing. I treat it. When I go on as house SMN or anything, any estimate I give, Hey, you don't want it. You're not my client. Next one up. You know, just the way I operate.

Absolutely. And so this is a good right here. He put central Illinois power, Washington set up, put out 25 signs on my motorcycle. This morning. Tired is as could be. Cause he works. He was a fireman at night, got a call at noon this afternoon and closed the $2,500 package by to keep hustling. Even when you're exhausted, you know, go put out them, you know, like a 25. Think about that, guys. He put out 25 signs and made $2,500. I know how much those signs costs. You can buy a hundred signs for. So he put out 75, he put out $75 worth of signs. Cause there about $3 a piece and made $2,500 off of a package. And that's just one day. That's not to say that he might not get another two, three Paul's off that. You know? So again, don't sit there and say, why can't get now work.

I can't get no work. Nobody. They don't work. Have you, do you put them out? How often do you put them out? Do you, you know, it's one of these things that you've got gotta keep going. And it's not one that we just do one and done it's you got to keep going because you know what happens when we keep going, I know what central Illinois clarifier or power Washington has made. Um,d he just started three months ago. He's done more than probably there for many years, all year long. You know, it's one of those things that, you know, you sit there, you listen and you take that information and I give you and you go out there and you do it and you will be able to make a, you will be able to save time and you will have financial freedom, like no other, if you sit there and complain and don't do nothing and don't try to make it happen and don't do nothing. Guess what happens? Nothing.

Yeah. That's so true. And I'll tell you another thing about marketing to you. Just talking about that. Jason is, you know, even when we're really busy, like we are right now, this is what I tend to do is I tend to forget about marketing. So even though I got lined up work for two weeks, I tend to forget about it. Cause I know what's going to happen next to what you need to do is to time when you're really super busy, even Jack up the marketing even more because what it's going to do, it's just going to push that window out more weeks more work. Remember we can only work until December.

Right, right, right.

So that's, you know, it's just and I, and I, I fall into that trap and just like I did, even though I got work lined up for the next two weeks, I already put in to, by men, that man press guy I needed, I need a thousand more of these. I need a thousand more of these. They'll have them to me. I matter of fact, they're probably going to be ready tomorrow, got to pick them up. And then the middle of the week, this week, when I take some time, I get home, I'll strategize certain neighborhoods. I'm going to go to the us postal service, wherever that city is, Beaver Creek Oakwood, Centerville, Bellbrook, big cities have some money and I'll find those neighborhoods. Bam, we're going to hit that. But then, you know what? I spent $200. No, no telling how many jobs are good.

So the compassion capitalists, what are you trying to close? I always liked that 50 to 60% range is a good spot to be at. I don't know where you're at Al because it's probably hard to track when you're doing it on pen and paper. But

What are you talking about? Clothes? What you're talking about, let me hear that.

How many calls? What's your close rate? So every time I go estimate every time your phone rings, how many what's the percentage that you closed it?

I would probably say about 80% just because I don't have, I don't have a ton of goals.

That means you're too cheap at that point. So you need to raise your prices some more. I'm going to get on it some more there. So that is definitely something that, you know, it is good to be able to do. And somebody was asking a question about Eric put, I have a job tomorrow, spring sh on a sealed gas line to my takeaway,

I'm going to go back. I'm going to go back and refract the reason why your comment before it was 80% was too low. The reason why it's 80% is because of my network is so good. Everything right now is like 90% referral based Jason.

And whenever we're talking referral brace, you won't probably get a higher close rate then that you won't get it from Google, Facebook, none of that other stuff. When you have a referral, you will end up getting a higher close rate. And that is true. So and you should, on that sealed gas line, you should be all right, I've done tanks and stuff, and I've never had an issue. The only thing is, is make sure, you know, if it has valves or something, usually they're covered, but if the bleeds get in them valves, they can sometimes corrode them up a little bit. So that's the only time I would worry about. So I finally did my first set of signs yesterday and got my biggest job, 825. And during this a little over a month, that's cool. All right. So let's give some words of advice. I know you kind of said a little bit, but any last words of advice before we get off here

For me, if you're a new guy, number one thing you should do, don't worry about the equipment. Don't worry about anything. You know, you can get a tiny little pressure washer with a little downstream injector and doing anything for the most part, get your little surface cleaner. Don't spend a lot of money market, put the yard signs out there, but the yard signs out there and wherever you can put them out there, once you get the business. And then once you start getting that business, maybe that first couple months, when you start getting some of that capital, then upgrade. Yeah, that's my, that's my biggest thing. And don't be as scared because there's so many people out there doing it. What you have to prove is you're better than everybody else. That's what I prove every day. I know for a fact, nobody in the Dayton area can do a deck like me. I know for a fact, I can clean a roof and a house wash and concrete, just as good as anybody else. So that's my, that's my advice.

All right, guys, that is all the time we have for today's show on today's King of pressure wash podcast. I know you find it as exciting as I did. If you appreciate the work we do here at King of pressure wash, be sure to subscribe. So you don't miss an episode and give this episode a share on your favorite social media network. And if you're looking to start or grow your own pressure washing business, to give your family financial freedom, be sure to sign up at pressure, washed up community today at pressure wash, help.com/free, that will give you 30 days free in the membership where you can start and learn and grow your pressure washing business today. See you in there.