DJ Carroll
Member
:deadhorse:.......!!!!!!
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- Thread starter Lou Zehnder
- Start date
Greg, I do respect your model. I have seen your operation and I know your track record is for real. I also know that the jobs your talking about are jobs built on your long standing reputation. We have those also that are higher because of the relations with the client. DJ has no relations with the clients. He is basically brand new, this puts him in the commercial world on a different platform.
Aside from that its a simple question? Would you pay a guy (DJ)to mow your lawn 300 per hour of let me do it for 150?
Second: most here do not realize i get calls from all accross the nation on refferences. Someone called someone to ask me who would you hire. Greg without a Doubt in my mind if your bid was higher or even if I didnt have the info your the guy I would pick in almost any lineup. No sucking AZZ just telling you Respect goes along way.
In the commercial world this confidence gives you a direct advantage. DJ was bidding agaist a fireman, you dont think Lou plays that card. Plus he is 20 years older than dj at 22.....he has a tough battle in commercial or even residential agaist any vetran contractor. I remember when I was younger I lost jobs to a guy called hydro and another old guy that was a mason. Its life....grow a long beard DJ
Lou Zehnder
New member
Dj I don't have a full time job as a firefigher....I work pt up too 25 hrs a week, no benefits ........I haven't worked in a month there because of how busy we are. I might not work there till next spring again.............Depends on if I land 3 more complexes(1300+doors) tomorrow afternoon. Please find out the facts about me before you type, it makes you look bad. As far a professionalism.........that's in the eye of the beholder. As far as slashing your prices ........You don't have too. I can't do them all. Theres plenty for you to get but I plan on getting alot.
Ps xtra is spelled EXTRA......it must be a Carrollton Ky thing. I really hope you use spell check on your professional proposals......:clapping:
Lou, relax a bit...I feel the pain when I bid agaist police officers. Especially when then cold call wearing the badge and gun. One mang told me I should get one. So I hired my Daughter. Told her to go get one and then she had a job working for me. LOL
Lou Zehnder
New member
Ron I dont pull ...........look at me I'm a firefighter ever to com customers. I might only say that to a Res customer after we do the job. I never meet my res customers before the job because I do the selling over the phone. If it works for the cop in your area maybe I should start doing it ...........:angel: Maybe the property managers would love to know the company owner they just hired is ex military with honorable discharge (from first gulf war era) and a public servant fireman. Personally I just don't do it......I told you that the other night.
I believe you, I did have cops making calls with Badges and guns. It was funny, even ran into them once.
Greg Rentschler
New member
Thanks Ron - we'll be there to do your deck on Tuesday :sarcastic: for (in his best Dr. Evil voice) 1 Miiilllllllllioooonnn dollars
Lou Zehnder
New member
If the owners of state, pwi, tgs, pulled together it could......that's the big 3. the others would follow. its just a thought, Bob wouldn't have to close the site but maybe certain parts..... ron like bob would loose money too buy going private ......maybe the fees would help even it out. Just a one time fee of 10 dollars might help. If you are two cheap to spend that you are to cheap to buy professional equipment anyway. ........ I know I personally wouldn't spend 10 dollars at the snow plow site if i wasn't planning on making it a living.......It might keep the guys with the Lowes machines from looking around and getting info......
Clean County PW
Active member
Greg thru the net I've known you at least 10-11 yrs now. You have always done nice work and you use to show alot of your equipment and sprayers and trucks that you used to do your work. You had employees, you were young and the lights were bright. I think you may have also started the Woodcare bb or whatever it was called back then. You were from where I was at one to watch and learn from. Also that woodcare bb now goes up for sale. I was friendly with a mutal friend in Mike Hughes. Because bb's in the format which yours was set-up then(Similiar to what they are today) were so cutting edge there was value to them....Kind of like a Dot.com..almost. Mike Hughes tried to buy that bb then for $15,000 from what he told me but of course he needed the investors to do it. Common in the business world. He asked me to be one of those. I thought long and hard about that because in the 90's me and some friends did start a small investor group to snag IPO's. and since we 11-12 guys in this our investor rating was over a Million and only because we were able to combine our credit together. None of us really had any money above the average guy. Mike new this about me somewhat so he asked if I would be interested in investing in the purchase of that wood site.
Damn near did it. Instead I gave Mike some start up money for him to start the www.guttersource.com which he did. It was a grand idea but the net was catching up with everything very fast.
End result Mike who was an administrator here on PWI is no longer in the Powerwashing business. His Guttersource was grand but it failed. He paid me back in full the money I lent him(Mike as I guessed back then was a stand up guy).
The reason I'm telling you this Greg is because you were a leader and letting people know how to do GOOD WORK and you also had the vision to be able to sell to some of them also by selling stain products etc.
SO today you have now taken a different turn and believe me I understand it. I'm not debating that. What I am debating is this. Most of your info is already out there and its been processed by many over and over because it was great info.
Thats the net. You can stop but if you look somewhere most likely in your town there are camara's watching you. There here where I live and for the most part there use for traffic Violations but they have been used if they see a crime on it. Thats a whole different story and a great debate.
This is the Net. The other part that you bring up is correct that we should have website to gain work and that is so very true. There starting to get so advanced that you have to stay up on them compared to yesteryear because your competitors are changing there up continously and spidering them out further. Even linking them with others to get higher in the ratings.
As for these bb's yes one should never depend on these for getting them work but don't be surprised that you made some good friends/Contacts from these bb' that you may get some decent and good paying work thru them. I could give you a few examples for myself as some others can but that again is for another day.
P/S- So how old is that kid of yours now in that Avatar?? At least 9-10 now maybe?? I think I remember when you had that baby... We are net friends
Clean County PW
Active member
DJ----He's light years ahead of alot of us. Where were most of you at 23? Some of us can't even remember those years:drag::barf::dance::alcoholic:
Lou hoods&more
New member
At 23 I had a custom upholstery shop and a small cafe in a Phoenix mall.
Lou hoods&more
New member
Reputation has come back to haunt or bless me in business, meaning I use to have a custom upholstery shop and well....I see the grief you guys give to landscapers who PW.
So I don't speak of upholstery.
Here's a chair I designed we'll be making a few pair of them, but Grease & Furniture make strange bedfellows.
:drag:
Clean County PW
Active member
Lou--I like your creative idea's and just because me or anyone else may disagree don't ever let that stop you from still coming up with creative idea's. Those for me I by far my favorite post because they make you think.
Now to what your saying even though I find it interesting I can't see it working. First off these big 3 bb's are completely seperate. All three are excellent but all 3 have different models. Bob alone has his store attached to his bulletin board. Bobs a smart guy no doubt to do that. PWI has always been a bb that is open to all....without counting ones who ended up getting the boot. TGS runs such a smooth operation why would they ever think to make it a moderators nightmare.
Your idea's are interesting never the less. You guys want to make it tough on the hacks and lowballers and even the OBAMA CARE thats possibly heading down the pike go back to PT state and read my long post on that.
I'd bring it here but I like to throw thoughts around on the 5 bbs I go to for the purpose of the people there to discuss it.
and.....its always fun catching Jeff L. somewhere on the net to pick his brains:yes4:
Greg Rentschler
New member
Thanks for the walk through memory lane John! Time sure flys fun or not
I have to say I miss Mike - used to talk to him quite a bit. I was never aware of your part in that whole deal - interesting to hear that now 8 years later. It's great to see there's still a large number of us still here after all these years.Yes my mentality on the forums has changed for certain. Back when I started deckguide the forum thing was still catching on. They existed but you had to really look for them as I don't think Google was even spidering them in those days. Today it's obviousely a totally different environment. You can't spell your name wrong without it being absorbed into the search engines. Back in 2000 households with computers sat around 50% now it's easily in the 90% or higher range and today we can access the net from our phones. Things have sure changed in 10 years!
Over that period yes I nearly had an open book on my business. At the time competition was virtually non-existant and my age and experience made me a bit naive for sure. Then again who saw all of this coming... the internet was just a fad back then right? Times have changed and so has my business model fortunately. Most of what applied back in the 99-2002 has to some degree become obsolete but it's there and works all the same even if its at a difference in efficiency.
Different things have happened over the years to really change my opinion about the forums but it started to really sink in when I had two different employees try and scab work while employed by me. I've come to realize that a simple search of my name / biz name provided way too much information with regard to the specifics of my business in addition to all of that put out there by fellow contractors. One past employee is currently a "lurking" member on the UAMCC site. He's made 1 post or I would have never known.
Another thing I see that really concerns me is seeing our industry being brought into other fields by present contractors. The same guys who post on the powerwash forums are carrying the information and links over to the painters forums, DIY forums and lawncare/landscape forums with no concern for the consequences. What about this makes ANY sense at all?? Industries that have been hammered to death with regard to price and profit we're now telling to come and learn to wash homes, refinish decks and learn to pressure wash. Lou is a perfect example for this - he's said so himself and started this topic about it with the very same concern.
You've seen where 8-10 years has brought us.. where does that put us in 8-10 more? If this share the wealth philosophy continues in this form I'm afraid the fair market value of our service will be hurt tremendously over the coming years.
Yep.. times have changed and the internet is here to stay. Our websites are going to play a bigger role in our success as time goes on. At the same time we all have to watch what we put out there that can potentially make our personal lives OR business vulnerable. You know privacy and confidentiality are becoming an issue when people are getting fired over posts on Facebook.
P/S- So how old is that kid of yours now in that Avatar?? At least 9-10 now maybe?? I think I remember when you had that baby... We are net friends
Yea its probably about time to update that picture
Nate is 10 now... have a 9 year old and 5 year old daughter now as well.
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Apple Roof Cleaning
Roof Cleaning Instructor
I had more money in my 20's then I do now. By age 32 I owned 3 retail stores in Seattle, but lost everything to a self inflicted disease.
Yes, DJ Carroll is a prodigy with a bright future ahead of him :thumbup2: