Hey,
Thanks for all of the feedback. I'd like to try and respond to as many points as possible. Starting with the obvious, Price!
- Are they expensive? Yes, absolutely! Anything in life that costs $200-300 is expensive in my mind! I came up with this idea years ago. I contacted a bunch of different welders and machinists and nobody wanted to touch it, except for ridiculously high numbers. Companies don't want to do one-off "custom" work; it’s just not worth it to them. However eventually I found an expert, a retired 20-year surgeon, who runs his own welding shop. For him, there is nothing but perfection and quality work. But it’s an expensive process. First, its 7lbs (appx.) of 14-gauge steel. We all know how expensive steel has gotten. We tried plastic and other materials, and while other composites are not ruled out for future versions, steel faired the best and offered the greatest longevity. Unfortunately, the plasma cutting is not just fire and forget. There's a lot of time involved. There's setup time, cutting time, sanding time, coating time, more sanding time, etc. I think if you compared it to your own hourly rate for pressure washing you'd see that were actually below in our cost. But, the most favorable concept on the pricing, is again, its longevity! While I can't guarantee that these will last through out your lifetime, they can be used over and over and over again, until the application cost becomes pennies.
- A reverse stencil? Great idea! We actually did consider it, but it’s not nearly as effective. The read distance is greatly diminished with black lettering as apposed to white (cleaned) lettering.
- How many customers say "stencil my property"? Well, it depends, what are you stenciling? I don't think many customers would want you to stencil your name on their deck, however, they may not care if its on their curb, bottom corner of their driveway, or sidewalk. And if you offered some promotional piece to this, they might be a lot more inclined. But, that's only one opportunity; I believe a greater one exists with strait out promotion or advertising. Last season, we created one for a residential customer for their kid’s birthday party. We created 2 stencils, "Happy Birthday" and "Sweet 16", we put them all around the pool and on the front walkway, and on the concrete pad under the deck. We did them as box stencils (where everything else is cleaned but the letters and box). We weren't selling the stencils at the time, so we only charged them for the application. We charged $100 for each initial application, and $25 for subsequent
applications. We made $600 on the applications. We also went back a week later and cleaned them off for an additional $250. There really wasn't much to clean, so it took us less then an hour. On the commercial side, we've done a few "Thank You"'s, and "Welcome"'s outside of retail, and a few other custom ideas. Bottom line, is its the "WOW" factor! Our customers were telling us that their customers were walking into their store and asking them about the stencil. Who did it? How do I get it? etc. They thought it was so cool! That's literally what inspired us to start selling them. Sorry Henry, I really didn't understand your second question.
I realize there's going to be good and bad thoughts on this, and the truth is I want to hear it all. You won't hurt my feelings and I know that as a group we'll see a lot more opportunity then I alone could possibly imagine. Right now were in negotiations with a major restaurant chain to stencil all their patios with "No Smoking" (can you believe it, no smoking on the patio, where the heck are we supposed to smoke).
Thank you for your thoughts. I have already seen that you can get some great advertising and make money applying these. And I sincerely hope everyone who purchases one does.
Please feel free to contact me.
Best regards,
Marc
Marc Cantor
http://www.PowerWashStencils.com
