Need new sales plan

John B

New member
I am a hood cleaner and fire equipment guy.. But hey I still do concrete. All is still going good with the homemade surface cleaner, it just needs to be used more. In Mississippi we have a serious ( CHEAP GUY ) problem .. Most of the convienece stores use a garden hose to clean there concrete. Or they use the guy ( that I have seen all over Jackson) He has a real nice chevy truck and about a 10 ft trailer.. About a 250 gallon water tank, a 13 Hp Honda cold water pressure washer.. about 100 ft of hose and (A) WAND. Thats it...

He Charged one of my hood cleaning customer's $ 45.00 to wash the drive thru , sidewalks and dumpster area.. . The manager of this restaurant that I clean the hood . said he did a great job.

So here is my sales plan.. I think I am going to hunt this guy down and hire him.. He must be smarter than me .. He is able to spend more money on fuel and water and time than he actually makes and he is still in business..
Maybe I will build him a surface cleaner .. It would beat the crap out of that mickey mouse 3 ft backbreaker wand..

OR I got threaten him ( Tell him I will take all his jobs for nothing if he doesn't leave mine alone ..)

Or do like my buddy did .. He pulled up to clean a sidewalk for at an Indian owned gas station.. and there was a guy already there cleaning so he pulled out his equipment and started cleaning too.. When he got thru with a pretty good large spot he walked in the convienece store and told the lady there that there was NO CHARGE ... ( This is true I heard this straight from the owners mouth when I cleaned it last month)

Any other ideas would be helpful .. My 57 little concrete accounts have widddled down to about 21 now...

I still think Hiring him is still the best option..

We actually have a fire equipment company here in jackson that hires people that :
1} have there own truck
2} there own equipment
3} buys there own products to resale

This is stupid ..

But this concrete cleaning guy might be better off working for me .. And if he says no.. I guess I will go clean his account for the price of a lunch..

Welcome to Mississippi..
Customer's here seem to be happy with the concrete cleaning as long as your CHEAP , do a half ass job and attempt to get a few pieces of Double Mint off of the front door concrete.

The last resort is to offer everyone of my hood cleaning accounts and fire equipment accounts a discount price to clean there concrete..
i.e ( How much does the other guy charge ? ) $ 45.00 ( Oh I charge $35.00) when I clean your vent Hood or Inspect your fire equipment....
 
How much work can you aford to give away ? Go to all his accounts and tell them you will do them for the same price but you will do this mo.'s cleaning for free. Then when he shows up theres no work for him. Or atleast do that for the hood accounts you have were he is now doing the concrete. Then after you haven't seen him for a few mo.'s start going back to your normal pricing ( slowly).
 
I once told a guy in Jackson that started taking my fire equipment accounts that if he didn't stop lieing to my customers about me and taking my accounts that I would do all his accounts for nothing..Guess what I did ? I took about 100 of his accounts for nothing in my spare time during the day.. Thats been a while back.. Now they are paying customer's.. This is what is so good about offering alot of services.. The hood cleaning and pressure washing part of the business has always supported the fire equipment business.. The fire equipment company that I took these accounts from is no longer in business.. On his way out he even offered to sale me the business.. But my theory is why buy when you can take..
To steal Service is not a crime it is called free enterprise.. If my service is better and I have to do it for nothing to show people that my service is better then it is a sales tactic.
I actually have 3 or 4 fire inspectors for certian cities that call me weekly to tell me about delinquent fire accounts..
Basically what happens is I find out who is the biggest company in town .. I spend one full day looking at accounts in certian cities.. Then I go in and meet the local fire dept . guys.. I give them a bunch of cards and B&R Fire pens and if I have some left I usually give them B&R Fire Protection Caps. I spend the night . The next morning I pick 10 to 20 places and go in to these stores and offer a free fire extinguisher inspection..
As of today we are pushing close to 600 fire accounts in 23 cities in Mississippi.
So what happens on the next inspection they call me and I makebetween $ 20 to $150 dollars per account depending on the equipment that they have..

Here is the catch the inspection tags cost me .14 each ....
When I change out fusible links ( Only 2.25 each )

I believe the rule " you got to spend money to make money "

Oh By the Way I found A good Deal on Hose reals yesterday I ordered 5 of them .
Here is the link
http://www.replacementpumps.com/350Reels.asp
 

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Free Enterprise

I have an Idea... Leave him alone... You said it yourself.... FREE ENTERPRISE...Did he do somthing to you or hurt your business? From what I read you are a poor loser man. Now lift your head and be the better man.
 
Yay Capitalism!

Walter is right. He did nothing illegal. And it doesn't seem like he tried to take your Hood Cleaning Account. The man is just trying to make a living like you and I. He's just doing it cheaper. Look at him as a Wal-Mart. He's offering service to the cheapos who wouldn't have paid your price anyways.

We all need to realise that 1 day pressure washing will be like Lawn Care. Everyone and their brother's cousin's mama's aunt and uncle will own a Pressure Washing service.

I hope I can get established enough as to where I won't have to worry about Competition before all this takes full swing. But if it does happen. I'll find another way to make money. There are only a billion different ways to make it. You just have to find it.

Also you must be doing very well to be willing to take time out of your day to do someone's concrete for free just to get back at some guy. As for me. I don't have the time, money or the hatred to do it.

And another note: If you do pressure wash someone's place for cheaper, free, or even the same price as your competitor your doing much worse damage to the prices than that guy is. Becuase soon everyone will be expecting 1 month for free.
 
Got the accounts.. Picked up 6 Backyard Burgers , and 5 more Mcdonalds this past week. Hood Cleanings, Concrete Cleaning, Fire Inspections and recharges..

You know I drive myself nuts, I get mad alot , and sometimes I am just plain crazy..
I guess I am Human.
 
smittie1984 said:
We all need to realise that 1 day pressure washing will be like Lawn Care. Everyone and their brother's cousin's mama's aunt and uncle will own a Pressure Washing service.

.
And those of us that have been in business a while already feel that way.


Scott Stone
 
SS. It is knowhere near what lawncare is. I live in a neighborhood of about 30 houses. There are 2 lawn care companies. And I'm actually fixing to get into some of that myself. (Need more cosistant work).

Here in Georgia or mainly Atlanta lawncare is huge. Even the border jumpers are starting lawn business. Big ones too.

I hope that I'm able to get my name big enough before pw gets too big. So far I have noticed very little competition among pressure washers. Or the ones with their names out. New business like me there is competition because we are trying to get our name out and where having to work for the cheapos and idiot customers in hopes that I will recieve better paying customers later on.

Just have to tough it out for now.
 
Business

As long as you are a legit biz you will make it (regardless of the people who will work for free). I don't even pay attention to the compitition because they are not in the same class as me. Its the basics that keep us alive. Take care of your customer or someone else will. Its not always about price but about giving them somthing no one else can. You do that and you are the winner.
 
The reason I have to deal with the cheapos is I advertise in cheaper advertising. I can't afford the nice Yellow Page $1,000+ a month adds. Though I wish and dream. Shows how exciting my life is

I advertise in a cheap newspaper add which gets me some business. For $60 and a 30 day run I usually would manage a few jobs out of it. Which means I made more money than I put in. But those people seem to be hard to deal with. I had a guy thinking I'd do his driveway for $20. And another person thought I'd clean a 2story house with open basement, deck, patio, sidwalk, and driveway for $120. And a $525 job for $160. I've already mentioned that. I'm still waiting for the customer who calls and says "I want my house, driveway, sidewalk, deck, fence, dog house, and neighbors houses pressure washed and I don't care what it costs just leave the invoice in the mailbox and I'll ship you the cash plus tip." Then hang up before I can talk. That is another dream :eek:

Right now I have a full time job installing billiard tables. Which is cool because I'm able to talk to customers and give them my card. Free advertisement. I got a $325 job out of that.
 
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