how wide is your service area

how wide is your service area

  • in town only

    Votes: 1 0.8%

  • up to 20 miles

    Votes: 11 8.3%

  • 20 to 40 miles

    Votes: 17 12.9%

  • 40 to 60 miles

    Votes: 30 22.7%

  • 60 to 80 miles

    Votes: 16 12.1%

  • 80 to 120 miles

    Votes: 18 13.6%

  • state wide or multiple states

    Votes: 26 19.7%

  • 120 + miles

    Votes: 13 9.8%
  • Total voters
    132
I will soon be doing a 300 mile round trip for $750. After expenses for fuel I still net out about $600. The way I see it making $600 beats staying at home and making $0. This customer also has local properties that I have done. If I stayed within a 50 mile radius of home I would not be able to stay in business.
 
Doug,

I hear ya. How long have you been in the pressure washing end of your business? Do you advertise? Is your area very rural?

I'm more curious than anything. I didn't realize guys traveled so far for work (the commercial high volume stuff I can understand).

PS: Doug, you have to shrink your pictures on your website. Pic files should be under 100 kilobytes. Yours are 2 megabytes plus. They take forever to load and I have a very high speed connection. I would think slower cable and DSL people would click right out. You can use a program called Paint Shop Pro which has a free fully functional trial. Open your pictures in that and click Images then click resize. Take the resolution down to 72 dpi (or lower it doesn't really matter) Your goal should be to shrink the file size. Your pictures should end up about 350 pixels wide. When you then click "save as" there is an option to optimize the picture further with compression. Its very easy to do though it sounds complicated.
 
Doug Dahlke said:
I will soon be doing a 300 mile round trip for $750. After expenses for fuel I still net out about $600. The way I see it making $600 beats staying at home and making $0. This customer also has local properties that I have done. If I stayed within a 50 mile radius of home I would not be able to stay in business.
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Doug I like the way you think , agressiveness is an A+ in my book , no need to sit around crying " go get it " ! I hear ys bro
 
I normally like to say 20-40 miles, but I have a job this Wednesday that is 48 miles away. Drove there today to give an estimate...it was a risk, but was well worth it.

I also have two HUGE wood jobs planned for the fall that are about 110 miles away.

But normally no I wouldn't travel more than 20-40 miles.
 
Ken,

I have been in business about a year and a half. The county I live in has a population of just under 100,000. The town I am in is about 27,000 residents. Still rural areas in the county but plenty of development also. I do advertise and business this year has been better. Still working on the marketing angles. Currently I do residential and commercial. I would like to get more commercial accounts.

Thanks for the advice on the website. I have been doing it myself and don't have much experience at it.

Thanks for the encouragement Russ. I should mention that I have no employess at the moment which makes me more willing to travel because I pocket all the profit. Hopefully in a few years I'll be able to build this thing up and have others doing most of the work and I can run the business. In the meantime I take work where I find it as long as it makes me money.
 
How do you guys work estimates for jobs that far away? I would hate to waste the time driving for an estimate hours away and then not getting the job. If it was big money I wouldn't mind doing the work so far away, but I would rather have the guarantee that I actually get the job
 
bigchaz said:
How do you guys work estimates for jobs that far away? I would hate to waste the time driving for an estimate hours away and then not getting the job. If it was big money I wouldn't mind doing the work so far away, but I would rather have the guarantee that I actually get the job
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I had photos of the properties and I personally knew the owner. That was for four house washes in a day that involved a 400 mile round trip. As I said in an earlier post, better to be on the road making money than sitting at home earning zero.

For commercial jobs I make the trip to quote and eat the expenses which amounts to fuel to drive there. A possible $4,000 building wash is worth $30 of gas. Same for a commercial flatwork job that is a guaranteed payout each quarter. To me it is not a waste of time but some of the most productive time I have.
 
Ditto

Scott Stone said:
It depends on how many dollars there are. If the money is there to justify it, will go just about anywhere that I don't stand a big risk of getting shot at...
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I go where I can make the money I need. I have a customer that has manufacturing plants that need frequent shut-down cleans. One in Omaha, one just over 120 miles away in Iowa. I do both.

In the opposite vein, I just turned away a car dealer that promised "loads of more work" if I'd do 100 cars (on two lots) in a town 30 miles away. He was at $1.35 per. I figure I need twice that for that job to pay, and not particularly well at that.

I told him that I was sensitive to his desire to get value, but that I'd revisit the volume discount when the volume showed up, rather than before.

We did not come to agreement.

I'll travel for money, not to just run the machine.;)
 
Nope, Still a Dope!

pressurepros said:
Scott, you no-good-dirty SOB, did you take a wise pill this morning? Those Zolofts are making a huge difference. How is little, almost Fenner, doing? (I obviously havn't read that thread yet)
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I wish I new where to get some wise pills, I've had some candidates this week!

Joe is growing like aweed, and the nights are starting to be 5-6 hours long. The problem is they are in the daytime!;)
 
Usually I stay within a 15 mile radius.
Last week I gave an est. about 1 1/2 hrs away.
It was a good size job, Food lion store and a 10 store out building,
so I took the drive.
I hope I get it, good pay for 2 days work.
David
 
I have found Google Earth to be a pretty cool program to get a very basic idea of a job. It may just be more fun then practical, but if you use the "ruler" function you can get an idea for square footages for large jobs. It looks like it's pretty accurate, I've measured some past jobs with it where I already knew the square footage. It's not quite good enough to look for gum spots though... :( Like I said, it may just be more fun then practical, and I'd never give a solid bid from it.
 
I drive here there and everywhere.. Done Jobs from Senatobia to the Gulf Coast, Been as far wide as York and New Augusta , ALABAMA and West to Hammond Louisiana... However I only service fire equipment in Mississippi... Because I am not certified in Ala or Louisiana.. Oh Well.. Sort of like if you got the money I got the time.....
 
40-60 miles here. We are fortunate to be in a favorable socio-economic area of New Jersey compared to other parts of the state. Travel time included with the difference in pricing zones makes it not worth it to go beyond 60 miles away.
 
At one time, I washed Sted Ex for all of Arkansas and Louisiana. Not anymore, I wash for another company though that is state wide, I wash 22 locations in the Northern half of the state alone each month. A lot of driving, I usually break the state up in quarters since I am central and each Sunday hit a different quarter. I usually travel 350-450 miles and spend at least 150 in chemical and fuel each Sunday.
 
Try to stay close with the high cost of travel. There are 3 nice size cities within 60 miles that I travel to.
 
We have traveled up to 3 hours. Though we are looking at Nevada. We do have allot of work right here in N. California.

It hard to travel more than 3 hours when you ask your guys to work (3) 20 hr shifts. That is what we put in on this last job. 58 hours in 3 days.
 
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