Transcript for:
Pressure Washing Business Insights - Part Two

- This is part two, make sure you check out part one. The link is gonna be in the description below or hit the thumbnail right here and enjoy watching. (upbeat music) - I can make $1000 a day plus all day, all week. - Is there any particular process that you go about for pricing and estimating? - This is for cleaning sidewalks. These are lifesavers. These little guys make me a lot of money. You don't wanna go to a Home Depot or Lowe's. You don't wanna get a homeowner style pressure washer, they're gonna blow up. - Are you willing to offer any discounts for your service to our viewers, and if so, what would it be? What would they need to do? (upbeat music) - Ryan, do you offer like a pressure washing package? We wanna better understand your packages and your services and how you came up with that and why? - Okay, so yes, I do. Some of the packages I offer, like for instance if somebody gets a roof clean, they'll often ask me to clean their gutters out which doesn't really make sense because I'm gonna get stuff in their gutters anyway so I clean them out automatically. But if they want the outside of the gutters clean like throw in a free moss treatment 'cause I'm gonna charge them for cleaning the outsides of the gutter. And that's actually a really big seller. - It's an upsell there? - Yes, total upsell. So the roof is clean. That's when you wanna treat it and you don't wanna keep it treated so then you don't have to call me back out which is another service I offer. I come out a few times a year and just treat your roof as opposed to coming out and cleaning the roof. - Is that a monthly contract that they subscribed to or something you agree to and then it's just there for the next year or... - I'm working on an app or something that I could use to... So I come out biannually or annually and treat a roof. Another service that I offer or that I upsell, and this is magic. This works a lot. This is great. So this time of year we're doing a lot of gutter cleaning jobs that I offer gutter guard installation. And with my construction background, it's something that's no problem for me. That's the moneymaker right there. (upbeat music) - Is there any Any particular process that you go about for pricing and estimating? Anything you wanna share with us on that? Kinda what you've learned and what's efficient, what's better? - What I use is Joist. - Joist, okay. - Seems to be, it's just really clean and smooth. I like the way it looks. It looks very professional. It allows me to send pictures... - Any aspect of that process of estimating invoicing that is worth mentioning? - If possible you definitely want to show... you've wanna go to the site and look and have a list. Have a checklist of stuff that you're looking for. Like how many downspouts are there? How dirty is the place? How high is the place? - Anything else comes to mind? Pricing, estimating, making sure that you actually (indistinct) profitable or not - Right? - Losing anything. - If you go online and if you search pressure washing or roof cleaning, things of that nature you'll find eventually I don't know exactly where it is but you'll find in your zip code, what the average price is. And that's all I did. I didn't know how to price anything except for, you know kinda eyeballing and say, "Hey, this is gonna take me this long "and this is what I want for it." But there's numbers that you can find and you could set your business up that way. (upbeat music) - Ryan, so we are curious about your challenges when you got started. I mean, what were some of the biggest challenges maybe were or still are in running this business since you got into the industry? - Biggest challenge would be not having the right equipment. The guy who taught me how to pressure wash was basically a one trick pony. He'd turn the pressure washer up and go to town. And that's what I learnt. You don't have any of the clientele, you don't have any repeat business, nobody knows who you are. So that's always gonna not be so great. - Right. - But I would say the biggest mishap, well, I didn't have the experience so a lot of things would happen, your equipment breaks. If you notice I have two or three of everything because everything's trying to blow up. You know what I mean? Everything is under pressure. - Pressure's law. (laughs) - Yeah. (laughs) Well, trust me, whatever can go what wrong will, but you learn like for instance, these nets here, you know this, I didn't have these at the beginning. Who would have known when you're cleaning a roof, you get the moss down on that, the water goes through it, you can pick it up and roll it up if you're tired-- - And you're done. - and you're done. That's what it's all about as, you know, speeding things up, to do two or three jobs a day and that's what you're looking to do. (upbeat music) - Let's just go to your truck Ryan. - All right. - We got more equipment there. - Yeah. - I think what's important for us just to understand is really what are some important pieces of equipment that you absolutely have to have in your arsenal? - Okay. - Just tell us about... Gosh, you got plenty of ladders. - Right? - A couple other pieces here. - Right. - Take us through what you got. - Yeah, so I put these ladders in here in order of how I use them. But a ladder is definitely gonna be important. Again, it says pressure washing on the back but nine times out of 10 someone's calling me to clean a roof. It's just the nature of Washington, there's so much moss. A lot of other pressure washing companies don't clean moss off roofs. I've asked and they don't. They have no insight for me. So-- - Okay - we're just out here whinging it. This is for cleaning sidewalks and-- - What's it like that run? - parking lots. This guy was $500. - Wow, okay (murmurs) - But again, I found it on Amazon for 360. So you might wanna shop around. - Shop local though, we encourage that. - Right. - Local businesses, especially through what they've gone through last year. - Oh yeah. - And you know, little things like this. These are arms for the ladder. This will protect the ladder from me setting it on your gutters, which-- - I see, goes on the roof? - I've seen people do. Yes. - Okay. - It's sets on the roof. So you're not doing property damage 'cause you will scratch the gutters. (upbeat music) - Now, you guys, let's play with Ryan. Ryan, first question. If I give you a million bucks today and told you you need to spend it in the next 24 hours how would you do it? - I would buy a plane ticket to somewhere South of the Equator and buy a house. Get out of the United States, keep my head down. (laughs) - Hey, you never know what's coming you guys. (laughs) - We will have been through a lot. All right, second one. If you could be a CEO of any company out there which one would it be and why? - I would be the CEO of Starbucks. Why? So I could trade a line for people that want coffee like regular drip coffee and for people that want all that other stuff. - Let's see, second question, third. What's the one thing you cannot start your day without? It doesn't include coffee though. - Doesn't include coffee, that would be working out. - Tell us about a moment in your life when you kinda can say, you know, I've made it. Anything come to mind? - Yes, so when I first started doing this people would say, "Oh well, you're the expert." And I really didn't feel like I could fill those shoes. But now I feel that when people say, "Well, yeah, you're the expert." I think, yeah, I am the expert. All right, last question. What's the one news that you would absolutely love to wake up to tomorrow? - How about just the end of COVID? - Okay? - That's a pretty obvious one. - I was gonna say the moment that they tell us I can dine in for like (murmurs) that's a good-- - There you go, right, yeah. Let's open some stuff up. (upbeat music) These are lifesavers. These little guys make me a lot of money. This sets on top of a roof, the apex and then I can hook a ladder to the guys at the bottom. - Nice. - So if it's really steep and a little too uncomfortable for me to stand on I'll take this top ladder here and take it apart. So, I have 10 feet set that on there and then I have a platform to walk up and down on, which makes it a lot easier as opposed to you're on a roof like, or you're hanging like this and your feet are literally coming out from under you 'cause the roof is that steep. - Right. - And then you got some small pieces of equipment here. I guess you don't need much, that's for you. - Oh yeah. - That's the thing about this business. - You could start a pressure washing business with a pressure washing wand, a hose and a pressure washer. And you could technically clean a driveway with this guy. - Right. - I wouldn't want to, I definitely wouldn't recommend it. - It takes a little longer? - It takes a lot longer. (laughs) (upbeat music) - Ryan, what's one thing you wish, wish, wish you would have known that you know now before you started the business? - Oh, that's-- - One or two things. - One or two-- - Those are always interesting. - Well, oh, okay. One thing that I wasted a lot of money on was different advertising agencies. I wouldn't necessarily say they're out to rip you off but sometimes they really underperform. So, I think that's something that you're just gonna have to go through anyway in your area. I was just hemorrhaging money as far as-- - Right. - I just didn't know what I was doing. And I was just ripping and running, didn't really have time to stop and look until I finally stopped and looked and then you're like, Oh, okay, lemme get rid of some of these. - So that's the heart of the questions. Now that you know that, how would you do it differently for those watching right now? We don't want our viewers to waste money at the start. We want them to be efficient, lead, et cetera. - Well, it would be very wise to find a mentor or someone who has experience with advertising. It doesn't matter what kind of business, just as long as they have some sort of advertising expenses or experience, I really wish I had, you know, knew someone like that, but that would be my advice. Ask a lot of questions. If you're gonna hire an ad agency or someone to run your website or someone to make you a website because you can definitely throw away a lot of money. (upbeat music) - Now that you've said, one of the challenges was having the right equipment, what would be your tip and advice to our viewers in terms of what would you do differently? Who would you go to when you're starting out to maybe know-- - Oh, yeah. - what you're going to get? Walk us through that a little bit. - Okay, well, these people who I go to to get all of my equipment and all of my cleaning supplies and they know everything I trust them completely a hundred percent is Ben's Cleaner Sales on 4th Avenue downtown. So this is where I bought my pressure washer, all these hoses. You don't wanna go to Home Depot or Lowe's you don't wanna get a homeowner style pressure washer, they're gonna blow up. They're just not made for commercial work. So it's definitely more pricey but it's well worth it. You know, I've had this for two years, I haven't had any issues with it. It starts up first pool. You know, whereas when I first started, I got a Home Depot pressure washer and things break down a lot faster, definitely. - So what you're saying is the experts that you can go to when you're starting out a pressure washing business is essentially find a store that specializes in that? - Yes, fine. - I'm, go on. - There's a couple of pressure washing specific places our stores here in the Greater Seattle area, but not many, you would definitely wanna find something like that to go to. So it's well worth it. It's a little more pricey, but the quality is there. It's worth it. - You're gonna-- - And you get what you pay for that's for sure. - I wanna talk to you guys for just a second. With what you're hearing Ryan say, comment below. We'd love to hear from you. What were your mistakes or where did you go to to get the advice, tips to get the right equipment? Make sure you get started the right way without chaos. (upbeat music) - Yeah, trust me this job looks easy, but I don't think you guys see there's two windows up here at the top. And so I gotta get up on the roof at some point. - Wow, on the other-- - On the other side. Yeah. So I noticed that on the way out, I was like, Oh, 500 bucks. I'm like, oh, okay, whatever. (laughs) - So, speaking of $500, is that what this job is at this point? - Yeah, this is-- - Okay. - This is a... I went easy on the guy. So I charged them $500 and I spent $5 posting the ad on Craigslist - Yeah. - that's where I got this lead from. And basically it'll cost me $5 and maybe a tank of gas. We're talking $10. And so the profit is gonna be 490 on this one. - Okay, that's pretty gone good. - It's not bad. - And not counting your car expenses and fuel and all that-- - Right. - and then cut away a little bit-- - Yeah, a little bit more. I average about $500 a day doing pressure washing. - Okay. - In the summertime, I can make $1000 a day plus all day, all week and I worked for weeks and months on and I just keep going. - What jobs would you be just absolutely thrilled to take every day, forget everything else because they're either most profitable, easiest, less work, but then pay is higher. Is there anything favorite? - Yes. That would be parking garages. - Okay. - Which are huge profit margins. They're a little tricky because you can't get the water down into the city drain. - Well, you're right. - They're super easy, you're you're not on the roof, you got your surface cleaner out and you know, you're going to town, you can put your headphones in and... But they're few and far between right now. (upbeat music) - All right, to wrap things up this has been amazing Ryan. Thank you so much. Last question, are you willing to offer any discounts for your service to our viewers and if so, what would it be? What do they need to do? - All right, yes, definitely. I'm offering a 20% discount as of right now. If you guys contact me at Emerald City Power Washing and mention UpFlip20. - Awesome. I think that's an amazing discount. - Right. - Take advantage of it. - Oh, yeah. - Go ahead and call them mention UpFlip20. Thank you for watching. - Thank you, thank you, thank you guys. - Well, there you have it, a wrap for part two. I hope you guys really enjoyed watching the video. As you can tell, this business isn't for everyone but it's very unique and high margins, low costs of entry. Hope you guys learned and took away a lot. Make sure you like this video, subscribe to our channel and check out our other revenue generating videos from UpFlip. Thank you for watching.