Making $100,000 By Being A Part Time Pressure Washer

And today I met this guy, actually, we met a long time act. We've never really met in person, but he has bought some stuff off of me and he's always asked me some questions. And so today I have Brian Tompkins on here, he's up in Indiana and I actually got to meet him in person at Washington. He came to Washington this year. And and so we're going to talk tonight about how a school teacher. Yup. Al's not the only one a school teacher is going to do over a hundred grand part time. And yes, you can do that. I know some people think that when I say that I'm doing it for clickbait, I'm not, there's people, you can do a hundred grand. We just talked to I just talked to Nick, not too long tonight, right before this. And if he didn't get hit by a car and on his motorcycle, he would've did that over a hundred grand his very first year out of it. So Brian, tell me who you are. What, who are you, where are you from? You know, do you get kids, family, that kind of stuff. Yeah. Brian Tompkins, I'm up in Goshen, Indiana. It's right on the Indiana Michigan line close to Notre Dame. Yeah, I'm married my beautiful wife, Laurie and I have two kids. One's a sophomore in high school and one's a junior in college school teacher just a shop teacher at split time between a high school construction class and a middle school woodworking. Awesome. Awesome. And so how did you become a, so you were a teacher. Did, did, how, how long have you been teaching for? Gosh, this is like my 24th year in teaching. Awesome. And how did you get into teaching it? Is that something that when he was a little kid, you want it to be a teacher and just go out there and he was just smart enough to go get that stuff. Or I think I always loved shop class in high school. I had a really good shop teacher and you know, profession when you have the summer off, always sounded good to me. Awesome. And so as a teacher, is that, that you love to do to help, you know, kind of help kids these days? Cause you know, they don't always get that father figure of knowing what a hammer is pretty much, you know, or, you know, what's the difference between a metric and a standard, you know, adjustable wrench. So is that something that you kind of liked to do and just to help these guys out and stuff? Absolutely. when dealing with kids and you know, if they've never used a hammer before or a mat or reading a tape measure, trying to get these kids today, to be able to read a tape measure they're used to too many shortcuts on the phone that they should be able to look that up, but well You might take measures with like 16th and quarter and all that stuff And I've ended up buying those per class. We get a lot less mistakes that way. Awesome. So what made you start to want to start pressure washing? What was the thing that was like, you know what, I want to start a pressure washing business. It's kind of a funny story. Well, one, I've always done side work, I've done construction, I've done just different types of work like that. But my for my daughter's graduation party my gutters on my house were absolutely horrible and I was either buying new gutters or figuring out how to get them clean and honestly did some YouTube work. And I don't know what the guy's name was at. Dan's Dan's blog. I found Dan's blog and he showed how to clean gutters. So I went up and tried that and actually worked great. And at, during her graduation party at docked, a few people and I had a couple asked me to come do theirs. And from there, I think I found you shortly after and learned how to downstream and from there it just took off. Awesome. Awesome. So so when you did this, actually, this guy's not too far from you million dollar landscape guys he's up in Gary Indiana. So he's not too far away from you. So when you started pressure washing, you know, what was the thing of, was this something that you thought you could make a business out of? It was you just trying to make some extra side cash or what? Oh yeah, definitely. Honestly, trying to pay for my daughter's college. This was my way of paying her tuition. And I mean, I started out doing handyman type work and got into this and then honestly thinking about scaling a business, it's a whole lot easier to teach someone to spray water than it is to do handyman work. Yeah, it is again, you've got to read the tape measure and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. So so when you started pressure washing I know you had contacted me, I believe it was in the spring or last year about, you know, make sure valve and all that kinda stuff. Did you build your own rig or did you have one bill or what? Oh yeah, no, I built my own rig. I've actually, it's almost ready to come out. My first set up. I've got, I did it out of, you know, I'm a woodworker, I made it out of wood plywood and two by fours, 12, 12 by 12 is going over the edge to Mount my hose reels and just use the ladder rack to hold my ladder. So Are you running out of the back of your pickup truck? Yeah. Yep. I'm running out of an F-150, I'm running two 65 gallon tanks in there. One you know, one my water and water one mix. Gotcha. And then are you just got your hose rails up on the side there and that's it or you got a four gallon, eight gallon tank. I run five, five and a half, Five and a half gallon pump. Awesome. And so when you started to pressure wash, how did you start getting customers? Did you just go, obviously, you said you did it there, but how did you start getting customers Facebook? I started off with just started a Facebook page started posting there every day. Then I started, my first signs were horrible, but, but started using yard signs and I, I put out a ton of yard signs. You know, if I don't have the time I pay someone to go out and put them normally it will tell them where I want them. And you know, I'd say invest, if you're going to do sign, invest in a good sign, this one service and put your phone number as big as you can. So, so last year, when did you first start pressure washing? Was that last year, 2019 or Right at the end of 2018 season for us. So probably August, September of 18. And so then I went kind of full time, you know, the up here in the North, it's kind of pretty much all of 19. And then this year was when I really hit it hard. What do you end up doing in 19? I don't have those numbers. If you're asking me to guess, I'd probably say man, if 30,000 tops, So you went, so you $30,000 your first year, what was the thing of, I want to S Jason says you can do this. What was the thing that make you really want to hit that? What was, I guess the first thing, what was your goal for 2020 when you started in the beginning of the year? Know, I haven't been good at setting goals in the past. I, you know, and I think going into this year, cause I don't start planning really my, the season out until probably Well season starts And and with the whole COVID thing, I had no idea what to expect. Didn't know how much money I should invest because I wasn't sure what the market was going to be like and April hit and they shut the schools down and the phone just blew up. So, So the phone blew up in April and then, and then you're gonna, it's gonna be a good year for you. What so when you doing this, what was your, what was your kind of thought behind this? Is this something that, you know, I can really make this happen or, you know, that kind of thing In 2019, when I, when I started doing more and more and actually put a truck together and that I had one customer that called me out for a job, and it was one of those calls you up, you know, the Saturday before Memorial day and says, I've got a Memorial day party and I got to get this done. And when he told me that, I don't know that the big dog in my area was booked out until the end of July. He was over 12 weeks booked out that told me that there was a market in my place and a lot of money to be had. So that's a good point. How much competition do you have in in in little Elkhart, Indiana? I think right now, I mean, there's one big big company that runs about four box trucks and everything else is, you know, guys pretty much you know, doing it for beer money and so forth. So up there how what's like the pop, do you know what the population of what you're? I would say no, I was going to compare it to Cincinnati, but we're way smaller than Cincinnati. So, So you're probably about half the size of Indianapolis aren't you? Oh, not even that, not even that now. And in my particular area, South bend is probably half of Indianapolis and that's about 30 minutes West of me. Alright. So once you started that and you got going there you decided to come to wash at Dawn this year and I, that I'd never met you. And I w I was kinda, I was glad to meet you. And so I'm running down the reason why I'm saying that my class isn't full this weekend, you can go to pressure wash up or King of print. You go to this website right here, training dates, and cause somebody is asking that question, but what have you learned? What did, what was the, some things that you took away of Washington that, you know, will help, you know, a new person taking off or getting along that way? What's, what's some things that when you came to Washington, what was your kind of thought behind it? And then when you left, what was, you know, that kind of thing? I think my biggest one going to Washington was just, I think it was relationship building. I wanted to be around people that have done more than I have. And I went to Washington thinking I was going to be the little guy, a little guy there and just kind of learn from everybody. And man, I'll tell you what Washington, in the sense of getting those meeting people that have some similar mindsets and getting to know presenters, the presenters made themselves so available for one-on-one communication. Heck I got in the hotel the night before went up, I had to do a couple of quotes and all of a sudden Bobby's posting live on on YouTube and I'm like whipped out the estimates as fast as I could and shut down. And man, I, there were three of us there. One-On-One with him for, you know, what, two hours, and then you guys showed up and I think we stayed what I'll just talk in in the main lobby for until 12 one o'clock. Yeah. And that's the thing that, you know, anytime you go to a live event or my trainings, I try to do the same thing. Sometimes my is a little bit harder, cause we're not all at the same hotel, but I do try, like when I go down to so Elkhart is about 52,000. Thank you, Steve or Scott. So your Elkhart is not very big at all. Cause Cincinnati is actually 300,000 people. So when you compare that to that, that's not a lot of people when you compare it. So that's, that's actually awesome. But getting back to it, you know, Washington is something that, you know, or any in person training is something that, you know, that is how you get your business to the next level. Do you think by coming to Washington, so you're going to do a a hundred thousand dollars issue. Do you think that by coming to Washington, you'll be able to do more than that next year? Yeah. I mean, you know I mean, one thing I couldn't do this year is Google my business. I had well, if you want to explain it, I had a serious mess up with Google, my business, where I couldn't even get reviews all year long. And you sat down with knew what, 15, 20 minutes maybe, and grabbed his computer, did his magic and next thing, boom. And now, well, what I tell you today, I was at 46, five star reviews and ranking, you know, towards the top and most of the categories. So Brian comes up to me and he's like, here's my phone. Okay. I did not. You said, give me that thing. I can't get my Google, my business to work. Now he's been working on this since spring. Cause I've been trying to talk him through it since spring. And it's kind of hard to talk through things when you're dealing with, you know, trying to, you know, somebody that not saying it's just, somebody don't know what Google my business is and how it works. You know, I'm trying to tell him, so he comes to Washington and he gives me his phone and I'm doing shopping. I give myself access to it. And about 10, 15 minutes later, I'm like, all right, you're done. You know, so what happened is, and this can happen sometimes is, you know, is what can happen is you get too many Google my business. He had two different Google my business in that, in the pressure washing one, they actually canned it. And so they wouldn't allow that one to show. So I had to go and change the other one and do some other things. I changed his website for him and all that kind of thing. And I, when we did it, you had 24 reviews or 25, right? I think it was 24, 25. Yeah. And then when we came on, I told him he had to get two 50 reviews. So he's at 46. So that's pretty good. I still see them coming in. I'm going to have to get all fair. Cause if he keeps getting too many, five star reviews, so I don't have to see all those, but you know, that's something that I think that, you know, that right there alone. I mean, how much do you think that's probably worth to your business right now? I, I can't, I mean, honestly it could be $50,000 easily. And so they, you told me where, where are you ranking at right now when you looked it up? Right before we got on, I did a, you know, a power washing near me. And I was at the top. Be careful when you're doing that to make sure you're going in and checking into that to school, checking the different places and see where you're ranking at, just because you do that. And we also want to make sure you're doing it in an incognito mode that way. If your phone is knows, it, it will just come up even. But I do know that you are coming up cause I actually searched from here and it was coming up from here. So I know that it's working and all that kind of thing. Yeah. All of the information you gave me too, with naming the pictures before uploading them, using your key words, using your keywords in your response to your reviews. And that's something that you do really, really well. Your responses are amazing. Like I wanted to steal some of them just because they are so good and I'm not even joking. You do some very well keywords and you and you and you write out a lot of stuff. And I got them up. I got them actually up here right now and one of his responses. So, you know, the guy gives him a good review. He says, Robert, thank you for the kind words, power washing or soft washing a home can bring that polished. Look back your home was a great example. The deck cleaning was my favorite part of the job. We replaced a few boards and then cleaned it. It was amazing transformation. I look forward to our next service roof, cleaning and driveway cleaning in 2021. That right there is an amazing response. If you're not leaving responses like that, you are leaving a lot of, you're just, you're just, I mean, and he's doing this to all 46 responses. And so that is what we want to do, you know? And, and there's other things on there, like thank you, Donna. It was a pleasure completing the work with you, pressure washing fence, cleaning, house washing and window cleaning and so, and surface cleaning. And so, you know, these are some really good responses. These are things that will make other customers be like, man, he is amazing. Brian is the King of pressure washing in his area. And that's what we want at the end of the day. We want people, you, we want people to come look at our reviews and be like, I want that guy right there. Now some things that I would suggest for you to do is, is kind of get some pictures of you, pressure washing, because you don't have many pictures of you. And the reason why we want to do that is, is we want to build that know like, and trust and then they'll buy from us. And so that is something that, you know, is definitely something you want to do at the end of the day. Yeah. My hardest thing with that, working by myself so much, it's hard to take picture of myself. They make the you've made enough money. They make this thing called a tripod that you can set it up and shoot either stills or all kinds of things. And like I said, they make the thing called a tripod thing for 20 $30. It's not going to break you. And go from there. I could use that GoPro Evelyn. Huh? Yeah. Or the GoPro you bought any of that. Yeah. Cause GoPro makes it real easy to pull a snippet out of it too. And so that kind of thing. So you somebody is asking, and this is a good question cause I don't, you know, do you what CRM are you using? I'm using the customer factor? I would say it is, it was a little difficult at first. I felt, I found it hard to use at first, but the more use, the easier it gets. And I mean, I guess it's like any good technology though. The more you work with it, the easier it gets. Yeah. And that is true. It is tough. It's a little clunky. The customer factor can be it, you know, it's just, it's just kind of, it's a simple, old technology. I feel like they're, they're a phone app is really behind I, I like it, but if I don't remember to put the customer the job on the day I have to go into my web browser and actually go into the customer factor and, and schedule the job if I had forgotten to do it. And so just not as easy, not as user friendly as I would like, but it is a program. Yeah. And so that is one you know, your, any, that one you got housecall pro jobber, any of the ones of the lower end you're going to be at that. You're going to be that 40, 50 bucks a month at the end of the day. Jason, great words of wisdom, love the show. No reason anyone to completely following tech. So, so we get into a hundred grand this year and I'm just pressure washing. Now, are you working five days a week or how are you working? When, what days are you working and how you working to be able to get to that part? I'm mostly just right after school. I get out of school at three o'clock, so I work three right now. I'm trying to, you know, at least get one job a night done. But I will say our way it's really slowed down. Obviously with weather and so forth, Going to work school, and then you're doing some in the afternoon and night or afternoon. Do you work much weekends or do you take the week? I try not to, but a bigger jobs. I think last weekend I did a big Rufin house last weekend. So maybe one Saturday a month. So you're pretty much working part time then. Oh yeah. But I kept, but you know, I bust but over the summer. Right, right, right. So we, we run hard. I, I take a helper on over the summer and so yeah, we, we, we I make the majority of my money over the summer months. Yeah. So what let me come back here cause I wanna make sure, Hey, while he's doing that job or guys for free CMR to get started with I would it was a good one for me to get started, not jobber joist. Joyce was one that I was a free one to get started, but definitely get a CMR when you start get those email addresses. So you've got a customer it's so important to have. So I mean a free one is better than nothing. So one of the guys put here late to the show, but a shop teacher. Wow. I haven't seen a school with a shop in it since I was in high school 20 years ago, assuming you're teaching high school and younger and he's got all his fingers. He's got all his digits too. Yeah. We we actually have brought it back in our area just two years ago where we're teaching full construction at the high school and actually doing woodworking now at the middle school. And that's something awesome because you know that there's a lot of money for these kids that can make a lot of money doing the construction and shop side of things that, you know, a lot of times you're not taught this anymore. You know? I mean, I worked at the firehouse and we had guides that had never mowed grass, never used a lawn mower. Didn't know how to turn it on. Didn't know nothing about a lumber. Yeah. And now it's between both middle school and high school. I've got one kid now he's a sophomore and I've had him for years straight. So yeah. You know, there's money in the trades. There's a lot of money that they can go out there and make a good living, doing this stuff at the end of the day. You know, if you're not afraid of working hard, there's a ton of money to be made in it. And that's one reason our schools brought it back. I mean, if you know, Elkhart, it's RV capital of the world. So the job market up here, there's, I mean, there's tons of work. I mean, every place has a help wanted sign out right now for the RV factories and so forth because they can't get workers. Good workers [inaudible]. So what has been the way to get customers for you? I, I would never say don't use Facebook. I think I've got a lot of good customers from Facebook, but the yard signs are my go to you know and like I said before, one service on the sign, phone number as big as you can and make them look nice. Don't buy a cheap sign. There's too many companies out there that sell them at a good price. But you know, you get a bad sign out there. I can put one of my signs right next to it. And I guarantee they're going to call mine before the others this cause I spend a little bit extra. Well, a lot of times you don't put all the extra crap on it either though that's, you know, they want to put, you know, I seen one today or I seen, I actually took a picture of it and they paid the high dollars for the signs and they put them up high and they've done all that stuff in his first batch of signs was good. Well, this sign, he got house washing, but then he had to go put all these other services on there and then a phone number, which made the phone numbers smaller. And now you can't read the phone number. You can see how squashing, but you can't read the phone number so far away. You gotta be right up on it, you know? And it's like, get rid of all that other crap and just focus on that phone number and one service. Well, they're gonna to drive by and take a picture of it. And when they're there, take a picture of it. And if they can't read your phone number, you just lost that customer. Yup. 100%. And that's something that, you know, you don't want to lose, you know, that's money in the bank at the end of the day. Yeah. And I'll tell you the other is I, I mean spent the money on a, on a wrap for my truck and I've actually got a job or a call in like a McDonald's drive through Khartoum to back from me, calls me while I'm still there. Hey, did I get it? You know, can you come look at my house? Give me an estimate. So we were taking lunch and shot over and did an estimate right after that. So somebody was asking, should I get square at credit card reader? If you use if you use the CRMs, usually you can pay through the CRM and that's kind of takes care of all that kind of information. You know, I did get the square reader. It's not something that I did a lot. Because a lot of times we never see the customers and you know, honestly I like not seeing the customers. That's always nice. I do have a squirt reader in my truck and I've had people that have insisted on using, they want the points, so I've got it. Doesn't cost me thing. And honestly, when I first started, I would charge them the percentage of 3%. And this year I stopped doing that. Let's talk about that because how have you gotten your prices up to, are you just a $99 guy or $199 guy? Or what is your, do you know what your average ticket is right now? My average ticket from last year to this year, I would say went from about two 50 up to this year, probably around 600. And it's all because the package has guys, I mean that, and I added a window cleaning, I got a water fed pole and that thing is just a cash cow. I mean, you add it on edit as a package and I mean, it takes, you can do a big house in less than an hour. So you're talking about exterior window, clean exterior. I don't, I do not go inside and do any windows. Your average ticket is $600. Yup. Okay. So packages, how important are packages? Is this something that we just do on some jobs or do we need to do it on all the downs? Every job I don't care if they call and ask for, I just want the house wash. That's fine. Well, next year, when you want to upgrade, here's the price. So you've got it for next year, whatever it is, at least add something extra to let them look at. Yup. And packages is definitely, like you said, you get it up to 600. I mean, that's, that's the key, you know, is getting that average price up. So that way we don't have to, we can do less jobs and make more money. You know, a lot of times people think, Oh, I'm just trying to get in business. I just, I, you know, I'm going to just be cheap so I can get customers. And that's the worst. It costs me money. I've only got so much time every night. I can't go do a job for 150 or $200. I that, that timeframe is, is too valuable. And you know, is it better to do, you know, three, $200 jobs or one $600 job, I'll take the one $600 job. And it probably takes you just as long as the other three jobs or one of the three jobs are taking the first place. When you get, when you get running, right guys, you can make, I mean, a 1500 square foot house should be at least a $300 bill before any of the upgrades and it should be done in hour and a half at the most. So Brian has a secret package. I'm not going to give that package away. Cause I love that package. That's going to be a package that is going to be in my membership only spot because that package right there is is, is the bomb. So it's the basic premium and pro. Yup. Yup. And, and, and, you know, you do want three packages whenever you're bidding this stuff, you do want three packages. You really, if you get four or five that can, you know, you can do four, but three is really where you want to be at. And, and even for you, what's the most common package, the bottom, the middle where the top one Middle is always the most popular, but you're going to have some people that always want to want the, they want the best job you got, You picked the lowest one. Usually Only, only the people that are searching for prices. Yup. And so I would say it's probably, I bet it's only about 15 to 20% that are going to pick that small one. So, you know, they call for a house wash and now we've done upsell them for that middle package that is two, $300 higher than, or a hundred, 150,000 whatever than that low package. Yeah. And guys figure out rust removal. Okay. I mean, when you show up to a house and you see a little bit of rust on a house, know how to take it off. Okay. It's not a hard process. Most of the time, it's just a small area, 15, 20 minutes. You've made another 75 to a hundred bucks. It's just getting that high ticket up there. Aren't you A deal got done with a full house wash. And I said, you got some rest over in this area. What was it while I'm here? Is that, that Cody saying, I can take care of that roast for you. So you always have your rust removal material in your truck. So, you know, I talked this stuff and you know, a lot of times I don't think people believe it, but is it hard to believe devil come with the money in your pocket from the, as well as pressure washing is, would you, would you have ever thought being a shop teacher to think that you can make that kind of money this spring? No way. No, I wouldn't have guessed it, but yeah, it's, it's amazing. I mean, but I tell you what you wouldn't believe how many people will pay, what they pay for, what we do. And they're thrilled when you leave. They're absolutely happy to pay you. Tell me a little bit about that. How, how do you find these customers and how do you I mean, I know we talked about it, but how do we want to talk to these customers to make them want to feel thrilled and everything? Well, you gotta make, make them make them know that you're upping your, your property value. I mean, your curb appeal for a home is everything. And when you know them, when they come home from work and they pull on that drive, I mean, they see the, the gutters just bright white, that they don't see algae on their house or they look out their window and their windows are clean. I mean, one of the worst things you can do is leave soap, streaks on a person's window. Because even though they were happy, when you left, they go to their kitchen window and look out and they see that soaps straight down the middle of your window. Yeah. Then, then they're second guessing what they pay Right now. Do you do in person quotes or just Yeah, that's, that's a tough one for me. And this year, actually with the COVID thing made, it made me learn how to do them and have, has made me more efficient. I mean, I'm doing 90, 95% of mine virtual go on to Google earth. Always ask the customer phone number, email address, how many square feet is your home? Get on Google, look at the house. I mean, once you start doing it, you can look at a house, you know, it's 2020 500 square feet. You've already got it in your head or in your S or your CRM. And I'll five plug it in. You know, I got preset prices, pretty much set any size house. Awesome. Wow. Awesome. so what, tell me one thing you failed in your business and three things that you learned from it. First thing was no CRM CRM. The first year that just killed me. I didn't do, I didn't get anybody's email. I thought the best thing was to do a text. And I did everything from text and not having that, that almost that first, probably six months of I lost all those emails where I can't contact any of those customers. Second probably not getting Christmas lights set up for this year would be another one I've messed up because I'm probably losing a ton of money this year, not doing Christmas lights because now that I've got that customer base and all those emails, you know? Yeah. So those are two. Is that what you wanted to, or do you want one? Yeah, no, you're fine. And well, and what did you, and what did you learn from the failure? Obviously, you learned that you can't send emails and stuff and you lost money and left money on the table. Yeah. And honestly, even if I was you, if you wanted to do Christmas lights, I would still look at buying some signs. Don't want them out there and see if you can get some work from it, to be honest with you. Yeah. Yeah, that training you did at Washington was I never, I never knew you could cut the lights like that too, you know, so you can personalize lights for a house like that. And if you went and did one house at night and made, you know, two grand and that's no joke, you know, our average ticket is $1,800 Donovan. His average ticket is $1,700. So, you know, if you could go do one Christmas site and make 1500 to $2,000, it's not your man. Yeah. You're training on, on installing lights. There were three huge nuggets in that in there too, for installation that would save you a ton of time and, and safety the safety portion, a couple of things you shared in there and doing trees, that little pole set up you've got. Yep. And so talking about that, you can go to King of pressure, washing.com/training date. And I will be having a training on Christmas lights in Raleigh, and it's going to be even better than that because it's all hands on, you get to do it, you get to do. And whether it's the pressure washing side or it's the the Christmas site side of things, you get to do it, you know, that's one thing that Washington you don't really get to do is, is you don't really get the hands on. Cause we're talking 50 people here. And so, you know, that is one thing that you can go in and handle and do it. And that's important. You know, I was, I had stayed late on what was at sun Saturday. And the right. Yeah. That was when, before we, and we were showing, I was kind of showing my boxes and everything that I use in my box. And, you know, there were things that, you know, that the shop teacher has been doing this for a year and hasn't made a hundred thousand and never changed the no ring out. And so Take care of your equipment. You don't have to. Yeah, I was, you know, and that's something that I teach because a lot of people don't understand or know how to get that out of there and that kind of stuff. So but yes. So that's something that you can definitely go check out and see that also. Can I jump in one thing, you said mistakes, people get paid. I can tell you right now, all the work I've done. I think I told you I've got a wood set up for the back of my truck. I probably, my entire setup costs less than $4,000. And that's including the enclosed trailer that I normally tow with me of, you know, 5.5 gallon, a machine, two tanks, a couple of cheap hose reels. And then I've got a roof, a box I made my own roof pump. And also don't overspend for equipment until you, until you're making the money. Right, right. No, that's a, that's a good point because that's something that, you know, a lot of times I see some people go and they spend a lot of money on equipment and they go spend all this other money everywhere else. And then I'll be like, well, how much are you spending on marketing? Well, I spent $500 or, you know, it's like, no, I would rather, you spend five grand on marketing and $500 on equipment at the end of the day, because you know, you can, you can't make money by having the most beautiful equipment there. It's not going to bring him money at the end. Yeah. Your equipment to make your phone ring. No. And that's the whole thing at the end of the day is how do we get that phone to ring? So, And I did a heck of a lot of work with a three point something to start off with three point a gallon, 3.2 gallon a minute, you can wash a house with it until you got enough money to buy a bigger pump. So in business, a lot of times it's about mindset and the mindset is, you know, how do we overcome mindsets and things that we encounter in business. So tell me one, th one fear that you had to overcome to be able to be successful in pressure washing business Pricing. At first, I just wanted to get every job I bid and I mean, you know, and in the mindset of thinking there's that $99 guy out there, and over time, I've realized I don't want the customers that are going to pay $99 to wash the house. I want the customer that is going to pay for service and the experience over price points. So what you're saying is, is you are not your customer. Yeah, no, I'm not my customer because I wouldn't pay my prices for, for washing my house. So who is your customer? Lag customer is someone that they're worried about what their house looks like more than what it's going to cost them. You know, and that's not always the houses in the biggest neighborhoods. There are people that will pay a good price for customer service for you re re answering your phone for doing what you say and over, you know, Oh, don't over promise what what's the saying under promise over, deliver over deliver. Yeah. I mean those things and being upfront and honest, and if you have a problem at a house, let the customer know, don't let them find it later because that, you know, it'll come back and hurt you. J rod goes through the window or something. Yeah, Yeah. Something The stupid lawn, the lawn lights fall over and all the time you break them. Yeah. Pull your hose through the lights. Yeah. No, that is really good because, you know, at the end of the day, we are not our customer. And you know, that is a huge fear that rather we are pressure washing, we're going Christmas lights, we're going, other things, pricing is one of the hardest things that people can not get their head over. And so you do handiwork and a lot of times in the winter time has that pricing pricing. It, does that kind of go up now since you are a know what your worth is? Yeah, definitely. I mean, from learning what I've learned through power washing and pressure washing yeah, I mean, it's just made me more aware of what my time is worth and, and being more organized with that, you know no getting to know your numbers is everything. And that side, if anybody's going to do handyman type work you know, charge a service call to come out for the first half hour, then, you know, then D and then price your jobs accordingly. It's always better to price your jobs versus working hourly. So I always charge an $85 service call for the first half hour. And normally then I'll have my prices for different things set up. So I try to let them know before I get there. No, that's perfect. So somebody there's, another school teacher on here was saying how do you answer your phone at school? Can't answer your phone at school. Somebody put very quietly. Thanks. Yeah, no, I mean, I will say my, in my situation, not, you know, being in the shop and everything, it does make it much easier. You know, I get my, I do my demonstrations from my students. I get them busy. I kind of sit back and let them work through it. Cause I'm not there to help them through every little problem they have. I want them to work through their problem. So try not to in between classes, I'll reply to a text, but I won't answer my phone during, I mean, not even during my prep hour, I, I may have calls that I make during my prep time, but I won't answer my, And there's answering services out there. And, you know, there's answering services out there. Jill's office bid, slot, different things that you can use to help do that kind of stuff. I think moving forward, he's talking about, you know, hiring somebody or putting your brother in or somebody in there to help take that way. He can answer that phone. And that might there might help who knows how much more to get you to the next level. You know, Because I mean, in person doing in-person estimating is always going to be better for you if you can, because you can see what they need, that they may not know they need like the rust removal when I'm onsite. If I see rust, I can say, Hey, I can get you a price on the rust removal are, I won't even ask. I'll put it in the quote anyways, I'll do my packages. Then say, I noticed this, if you want this taken care of, you know, I can take care of this, but for the window washing, well, you actually told me to change up my, my pack, my, my pro package a little bit with adding the window washing into that higher, and then adding the driveway, cleaning as an app. Yeah. That way, if you get to the driveway, cause unless you love doing dry waste, which I don't you know, I want to make sure that for them to get that driveway, it's going to cost them a whole lot, you know? So that way it went from a $600 package to a thousand dollars package for them to get that driveway clean. So yeah. I always try to make my packages. Well, I guess, depending on the house, I try to get that my, my highest package up into that eight, $900. So it'll settle back into where I'm, where I think it'll fall. Where, where I think they'll go for it. Now, do you give discounts at all? Or other than just the package discount? The packages are my discounts discounts Me neither. It's not worth it. I mean, I give a discount because I mean, it looks like a discount, but it's going to be in my package deal. Yeah. That's how my, I basically, my, my packages are my physical. Right. And so if you was a new guy starting all over from the stuff you've learned from the last year and two years, what would you tell you? What would you tell yourself right now? CRM Spend more on marketing than equipment and answer your phone. That's I don't know if I've ever said that or not. I mean, it's like I say it every week, there are the three most important things you can do. Haven't listened to for a while, man. Okay. I tell you what, the more, the further I get along the last one's the hardest answer. Your phone. It's hard. I mean, it, it, I mean, cause I work as fast as I can on a lot of houses and to stop and answer that phone is hard. Yeah. And that's where, like I say, you can use Jill's there's services out there. You can, maybe your wife, you know, if you really want to get good clothes and get a, have your, have a female answer that phone that will actually help your close rate go up quite a bit. You'd be surprised by having a female answer the phone. That is something that I've seen it over and over and over that a female can close, usually a higher percentage rate than a guy can. And so I know that sounds silly or stupid sometimes, but you know, and, and here's the other thing about a female answering the phone. A lot of times S guys want to try to sell the female that we're trying to sell to. We went to, we went to sell them something. Cause you know, we have this thing that we can sell them and they don't want that. They just want their house cleaned. And you know, if you can go talk into them and a female can talk back and forth, they'll sell it like that. Because in end a FEMA, don't usually always care about prices. You tell them a price. Like if we set them up on a range of this is this, this and this, you can bump it up and they'll just keep selling at that. Cause they don't know no different at the end of the day. And they don't see the time difference and they don't know any of that kind of stuff. And so a female will usually sell higher and they will sell more at the end of the day. So that's something that I see it over and over and over. All right. The hard sell is telling your wife, you need to spend more money on marketing. That's where you got to not spend as much on equipment sometimes and make sure we're spending it on marketing, Ask her if she wants the phone to ring or if she wants you to work in more. Okay. Right, right, right, right. So let's see. What, how long we been, we've been on here 45 minutes. See, I told you go fast, dude. We got to get seven people in here. He was white death over here in here, Ryan. No, I really enjoyed wash Washington Dawn down there with you. I like I say, and like he said, I sat there and we talked shoot, I bet we talked probably 10 hours over the two or three nights of, you know, hanging out there, you know? And that was a lot of one on one time with me and some of the other guys just sitting there, hanging out and giving you information. And, and honestly that's where you learn a lot. And even if you're a brand new guy, maybe, maybe you're a brand new guy and you don't know how to, you know, you don't want to ask questions cause you don't want to feel stupid. You know, a lot of times when you get three or four guys around and you're all learning together, somebody will say that question that you're thinking of it, you know, listen, just listen. You know I'm trying to think the guy that was familiar with that Judd, was it Judd or Jeb? The dude that was familiar noise that he had never pressure wash. He had never, you know, he was a horse guy. He, he, Oh the horse trainer dude. And you know, he was very quiet, but you know, he was, you could just see him sucking all that information in there. And I would sit down and talk with him and kind of get to know who, you know, where he was at and all that kind of thing. And so that is the thing that will help you get further because like I say, you know, especially if you're all new and you kind of get to that point of what I did this, or I did this and at work, I did this and it worked. And, you know, as an entrepreneur, a lot of times we don't, we're usually kind of out on our limb by ourselves. Anyway, we're kind of that we're in that point of, you know, a lot of our friends are doing the nine to five job and we're hustling and you know, we're working after school and we're trying to do the billing and we're trying to do marketing and it happens all day and all night weekends and that kind of thing, which, you know, we want to make a work life balance. So we don't work all the time, but you know, my wife's always like, Jason, do you ever turn your brain off about work? Nope. I'm always thinking about something that I can do. You know? And, and like we had Greg on here on the earlier one and you know, Greg is the same way now, you know, he was, he never thought of it. And now you just keep thinking. I mean, do you ever not think about pressure washing and business and stuff? No. I was always trying to find more ways to get the phone to ring or calls the better it is. And so that's the great thing about pressure washing and being an entrepreneur. It is something that you can set your schedule. It is something that you can set, you know, is it easy? Has this been an easy journey for you? No, there's there there's bad days. There's you learn from your mistakes? So tell me about that's a good one. That's a good question. Tell me about that a little bit. Tell me, you know, tell me how it can be like a roller coaster. Sometimes, you know, you got your one day, you're like, woo, the next day that everything breaks down, you break stuff and all that kind of stuff. Break some or kill, kill some plants on a roof wash. I tell you what I mean, Washington was my first thing I've went to, right. Just sitting and listening, like you said, I mean, I, the little nuggets you get from those conversations are, can be the, can be worth the money you pay for your training or Washington, or, I mean you and I'm not gonna forget who said it, but they were talking about the tips for their, for their roof cleaning. And I, because I didn't know better. I was just my two story. I was using my regular J rod for my roof cleaning. And these guys are like talking about the tips and different open. I mean, I was like, huh, well sudden, next thing, next day, you're handing me a tips. They tried this and Aaron said, no, use the point, you know, different. And I'm just that, that to me was worth every penny because I paid a few bucks up this year for a couple of plants and I'm not going to do it again. Right. So how does that new blue tip? Yeah, It works great. Last week, last Saturday I used it. It was perfect. So I had a couple extra and I was like, here you go. I said, I gave him my, one of the the adjustable nozzles and I was like, this makes life a lot easier. So Alternative to changing the J rod out. It's not always the best thing That way all you gotta do is turn it and, and go with it, Learning curves there, turning left or right. And figuring out which way is the right way. Yup. Awesome. Awesome. So one last thing. Any words of encouragement for new guys From me, from you guys, you know, dig in, I mean, you can hear all this information and you can, you know, do all the research and everything. Just, I mean, don't be scared, go do it. It's still, you know, you're going to see job. Don't be scared of jobs. You know, plan accordingly. Don't try to, don't try to fill your schedule too much when the phone does start ringing give yourself enough time to do those jobs. Once you get to the point where you can, you know, work, work on efficiency and speed, worry about that. Then right now I'll get jobs booked, you know, just do it, just do it. You don't have it. Doesn't take three months or of YouTube research to learn how to clean the house. Figure out what a downstream her is, have a machine that can run off your down the streamer, then go out and do it. I mean, that's the best way you're going to learn And you know, why are you going to fail? Probably you'll make mistakes. Are you going to learn? They bloods? Yeah. Yeah. The first time you make the mistake. Yup. Yup. All right, guys, that is all the time we have for today's show on today's King, a 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 and grow your own pressure, washing business, help support your family and give you financial freedom and time freedom. Be sure to sign up at pressure wash, help community. So you can become the King of pressure washing in your area.