So Many BBS, So Little Time...

P

Paul Freeman

New member
Okay, I’ve been wondering about this for a long time...

Does anybody know why there are so many Pressure Washing Bulletin Boards?

I could understand if different people/companies participated on these boards but that’s not the case. It seems like every board has for the most part, the same members, the same moderators, and even uses the same software. The largest of these boards has well under 2000 members and I speculate that most of them are long gone.

I sometimes wonder if this could or will be sending the wrong message to the ePublic? After all, if a search were to reveal ten PW boards and the surfer did a little investigating, that individual is going to find exactly what I just stated above.

Perhaps vBullenin should write a program to consolidate them! Seriously though, in addition to possibly creating a negative ePublic image for ourselves, it’s kind of sad because eventually those of us who are owner-operators are simply going to run out of the time it takes to keep up with them all. Conversely, those who are just trying to break into the business may never find that one individual with the answer to his/her question that makes the proverbial light come on.

I hope that this isn’t construed by anyone as me being flippant, because it’s not so. I’m asking because I’d like to know what others think about this.

Finally, I’ve have to admit I’m as guilty as a fella can get, because I just joined another one this evening.

Happy Easter to all.

Paul
 
I think these boards are a great tool. When I first started I only knew of one board and since then this is the third that I post on. Each board seems to have a feature or forum that seperates it from the others. Even though you'll see alot of the same contractors posting on these boards the questions and responses will differ. I've seen alot of good questions and advice exchanged on these boards and are great places for someone to start out in this biz.

Just my thoughts :D
Thanks
 
Paul,
Thats the way I feel also. I wish some of these bb's would combine. Its getting nuts out there!!

I guess when people start new bb's they think they can do it better then the last guy and what they really do is get guys like me who think they have to read all of them because somewhere the magic info that we all seek could come out on any one of these bb's.

So what am I going to do about it?? I have an easy answer to this. I'm not joining any more bb's unless down the road I hear that it is the ultimate bb but I will not spend anymore of my valuable time Helping any New bb get to that point.

Another thing I'm going to do is eliminate one or two bb's that I go to. I am going to stick to this bb, Powerwashnetwork(Dans), Deckcare(Greg's) and Guttersource(Mike's) and thats it.

It would be great if they just would combine all the above but for many reasons which are all obvious they never will.

But as I said before I am not joining or helping any new bb get started. This can all become addicting and enough is enough.:eek:
 
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Well, the bbs scene has changed over the last few years.

Several years ago, Delco's board was king.

Dan Flynn got booted off Delco's board for some dumb reason, and started his own. The evolved into www.powerwashnetwork.com

Then, Ron got booted off of Dan's board, and started this one.

Now, we also have a wood only board, www.deckguide.com which is awesome, I go there for all of my wood questions/concerns.

Also, lets not forget my own bbs, www.guttersource.com which covers the gutter/roofing industry.


Any more boards than that, I feel is a waste. I will not be joining the board you did tonight, Paul. I feel that the above mentioned boards is enough, and all that I can handle!

Enough is enough!!


Oh yea, in the wintertime, I read www.plowsite.com (snow plowing) and a private board on www.sima.org (the Snow and Ice Management Association).

Maybe someday we'll work on getting the PWNA's board back up to speed.
 
John, that is too funny.........you and I must have been typing at the same time.............and we said almost the same thing!
 
Paul,

I realize that you may be lost going to all these BBS. I thought I would answer your Question WHY?


When I started on the BBS scene a few years ago I thought that most where out strictly for profit. That’s OK because everyone needs to make money. The problem with this is that your focus of what your original intentions gets clouded by the $$$$$$.

A friend of mine (Mike William’s) sent me Dan Flynns BBS the day he opened it. Back then it was powerwash.net. Now that’s his personal web site. Anyway, I got the feeling that I was home. The people where the same folks that are on today. These folks give selflessly to the industry. I won’t mention names because I would forget a whole bunch.

My user name on Dans BBS was Ron Marshal, At the time I was paranoid about identity theft. (Maybe I still am LOL) I was a leader on Dans BBS I had more posts than most and I was a bit controversial.


When Dan first started his BBS I liked the format. Slowly over time it changed and became geared towards the advertisers. I didn’t really care that Dan was trying to make money it was I just worked hard to keep things interesting because I wanted the BBS to succeed. I adopted it as my own. I found out that the BBS was not mine as I had originally perceived. I was under the impression that it was for contractor and we all where a family. (Sometimes brothers & sisters fight lol)

I still promote Dan Flynns BBS whether I like him or not. I spent two years promoing Dan’s BBS. I brought members like the WIZ & his biggest advertiser Mark from Easy Clean. I literally told tons of folks about his BBS. Dan didn’t even realize I was doing this and still may not believe it.

Getting KICKED off,,, I was in the process of starting my own BBS at the time and continuing to post on Dan’s BBS. In my opinion my posts had not changed it was just I had started the process of opening my own BBS. Then one Day I pissed off a member and friend of mine Named Bigboy. (Larry) Poof I was gone couldn’t access the BBS anymore. I was thrown out. I was hurt for awhile but it was only three days and OUR BBS was open. I had research the software for about 8 months and decided to use the V board.



That’s pretty much the story of how this BBS came about. I was building it way before I was ever kicked off. Mike H & Jon could verify they saw the BBS way before I was booted.

I didn’t open this BBS because I was kicked off. It probably gave me the motivation to make it work. I started the idea of opening our own way before anyone ever considered giving me the Boot.


Paul, I see your points about customers and the BBS. I have invited potential customers to the bbs and I have had success. I think you should never post anything that would be embarrassing to you or anyone else. I have adopted and attitude of being proud of the things I post. Adopt the attitude that you’re a member of and organization for bettering the industry and use this BBS to your advantage. Customers respect the fact you’re learning and sharing inf.


Paul, not enough time. Paul I suggest that you pick a couple of BBS instead of ten and post more on those instead of spreading yourself around.

I could understand if different people/companies participated on these boards but that’s not the case. It seems like every board has for the most part, the same members, the same moderators, and even uses the same software. The largest of these boards has well under 2000 members and I speculate that most of them are long gone.
Click to expand...

I realize that many people are the same on most BBS. I don’t agree that OUR community is the same. We have no distributors that pay to advertise. We have more distributors participating than any other BBS. We have the only forum for a national organization.

The links above cannot be posted on other BBS. Most of the other BBS edit and remove web address unless they are paid advertisers.


We have more links available than most. We also use other sites like delcos for reference info. If theirs a great posts on another BBS someone else or myself would direct you to that post.


Paul it’s not about who is better, I just believe we have a forum that has a little more freedom.


I support anything that is positive towards this industry. That include my sister BBS, PWNA,CETA, Blasmaster & Cleanertimes Mag.


Bottom line is competition has made This BBS better and has improved others.


I hope this explains my view and I hope you understand where I’m coming from and where this BBS is heading.

Members make the BBS not the software or the owner.
 
Hey Ron,
This is a little off the topic but have you noticed that like what Dans Flynns bb has done as far as starting with just contractors and then eventually heading towards the advertisers(Where the money is) to incorporate into his bb alot of bb's and especially Magazines always gravitate towards this.

For example I was just reading the publishers section in the new CLeaner Times Mag. and she gives a brief story about how this Magazine was started by her Brother David Hunt who also started www.Spraymart.com.

What struck me in her story was this in a nut shell:The Magazine was started in 1989. In the begiining it was all contractors which is what this magazine represented a place to go to get info. Then in 1993 it extended itself to Advertisers/Distributers and it took off from there. Thats the Jist of the story. I found that interesting. It seems to be the goal of most in this Industry and others is to go where the money is. I'm sure Blastmaster Mag. will eventually head towards this direction.

I'm not knocking Cleaner Times or Dans bb I think there both great. the point I'm trying to make is the direction always seems to head towards where the Money is. It only makes sense.

Hopefully your site can be different like it already is but it will be interesting to see the direction we go to in the future.....
 
John, this site will never charge or ask its members for money, ever, its will never happen. this site will never back or endorse anyone or any business. its will never have any ties to any distributors in anywany. and if we ever charge for advertising space the format of the BBS will remain the same with the same rules. contrcator forum are forbided to advertise and dist sections have at it.

I dont see this BBS making any changes in the future. I make all the money i can spend pressure washing. thats what i do and thats all i probably will ever do. this BBS cost so little to run that i could bus tables at dennys and still keep it running.


Anyway, John glad to have you here to ask those question.
 
Paul, Glenn and I have been working on our new board for some time now. We started it to offer a place where our customers could freely mention our products and services that we offer without stepping on the toe's of others that operate other boards. We both run our own companies and strive for educating people on things that will help them build their business and in turn make their job more efficent and create more income for them. We respect the opinion of others and in turn hope others will do the same for us. This board is solely sponsored by Ace Cleaning and ROWLETT PRESSURE CLEANING SERVICE and no others. We will however have a banner for Blastmaster Magazine free of charge to them in appreciation of Dr. Pete (Pete Case). Dr. Pete will be contributing articles of interest for everyone that visits this board. You can ask anyone that has done business with either Glenn or myself and they will tell you we always make time for others. I have run my business this way since day 1. I can't answer for the other boards but I hope you will understand why we started this one. I encourage you to use all of the boards, I do and will continue to so myself. The name of our board is www.thecleanernetwork.com I hope this will help with your question.
 
Yea, and the original situation discussed is worse today then it was then..............
 
BB’s are becoming so affordable that (I think) they will soon be just another link on most websites. While setting-up a new board recently, I did a few tutorials to learn a little about File Servers, PHP, and MySQL. In the process, I found a site that offers a free software bundle that installs Apache Server, PHP, and MySQL on your machine with the click of a few buttons. After the install was done, with a little more research and the click of a few more buttons, I found a site (within the documentation of the stuff I just installed) that offers the download of a bulletin board (including all the software) and installation instructions that allows you to setup your own bulletin board, which can also be run from your computer in conjunction with the Apache Server, PHP, and MySQL. All for FREE.
 
I agree, way too many bbs. I only go to 3. Here, The Cleaner Network and Deck Guide. I feel I have found the most educated contractors that will gladly give very good advice and help anyway they can. I honestly just started with deck guide and was very happy with the results as I am here and the cleanernetwork.
 
Paul,

BBS have always been cheap, maybe that’s my fault for announcing this. My first two I demoed were free ones and worked pretty well. I chose V because its cheap and very easy to run.

I think people have had a misperception of the expense behind a BBS. they do not cost that much and they are easy to maintain.

Actually making one work takes time.
 
Just like anything else. When you find a great deal you stick with it. You might try other places, but you always come back to what you know . P.W.I. is home for me!
 
I still pretty much stay with the bb's that I like the best. Occasionally I'll check out the other's but these 3 that I'm about to name, for me I consider them to be the best.

They are:
1-PWI - because it continues to be as good as a bb can be

2-Powerwashnetwork- Ditto the above

3-PWNA - Because it represents the Organization that I believe in and continue to belong to. Even though this bb doesn't rate as high yet as the above two, it directly represents an organization where the others don't.

As for the best bb's that are more or less owned by companies that promote there products these bb's are tops and in no specific order:Delco's,Cleaner Times, and Deckcare.

Of Course all the above is my Opinion only and what I feel are the best for me.
 
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