[Jettaway]

Hope everyone is keeping busy on the pressure washing side of things, but is there anyone else that isnt?

Im getting the enquires but just not securing the jobs,

At the minute i cant even get £2m2 to weedkill, clean & sand.. its disasterous. People round here just wont part with the cash.  I'd like to think my 'sales technique' is good when going to look at a job but i having a real bad turnaround rate at the minute.

hopefully it'll get better soon 

[chris scott]

Stick with it springs nearly here then it will be a rush to get it all done. Don't lower your prices ...we can all work for nothing and it devalues the service.
Maybe you can give a little extra over the competition  that won't really cost you anything.
Degrease oil spots. Weedkill Small repairs ,clean,  resand ,   residual weedkill,   revisit 6 monthes later to check it' s ok , wash the walls/fence. Clean leaves out the drain.  Wash the windows /paint work down  (you will have to anyway but put it in you quote)
 
 Always give a written quote listing in detail what you are going to do...see above list.

[Blast Away]

Chris do you still want that looking at in OT?

[Jettaway]

Thanks for the input Chris,
I always quote in writing and email it to customer. A part of me is hoping it goes to their spam folder and so they don't check it rather than the price being too high. So I'm gonna call a few customers to follow up on quotes and see if I can get some feedback... Or hopefully prompt them to look in their spam.

Priced up a nice 300m2 driveway up the other day, I could do with it! Diary's looking a bit empty at the minute.

Just out of interest, if you don't mind me asking, on bigger jobs what's the average amount if time from sending a quote to them accepting. Mines normally a day or 2, then I presume I haven't got the job as normally I dont,.

[BDCS]

Look at what other services you can offer next to what you do now. I do everything from fibreglass roofs to drains, pest control and the cleaning. I find the gutters are going when the pressure washing is'nt - most houses have guttering, drains and a drive, one customer three potential services.

[Great Outdoors]

Hope everyone is keeping busy on the pressure washing side of things, but is there anyone else that isnt?

Im getting the enquires but just not securing the jobs,

At the minute i cant even get £2m2 to weedkill, clean & sand.. its disasterous. People round here just wont part with the cash.  I'd like to think my 'sales technique' is good when going to look at a job but i having a real bad turnaround rate at the minute.

hopefully it'll get better soon 

Chris, Hope you dont mind me asking...  how long have you been trading ?

[Jettaway]

2 years

[Great Outdoors]

It does take time to build a data base of customers, schedule them in for yearly cleans if you dont already, keep in contact with them.

As for your quotations always give the customer a courtesy phone call, dont hard sell nice and friendly... initially to check they received quote either by post or email and build conversation from there. Not knowing if they received quote is frankly useless as you need the feedback to implement change if reqd.
Big problem with std 'paving' cleaning epsecially in my area, any 'muppet' can do it - hence lots of competition, what you need to do is set yourself on another level to the comp hence feed back will help you acheive this.

Do you currently offer any other services to run alongside pressure washing ? As Carl has mentioned a few can easily be added using existing machines cutting down the initial outlay ie. suitable wet vaccum used whilst washing can be easily adapted for gutter vacuuming etc

We could not survive without our additonal services.

[APWS]

Thanks for the input Chris,
I always quote in writing and email it to customer. A part of me is hoping it goes to their spam folder and so they don't check it rather than the price being too high. So I'm gonna call a few customers to follow up on quotes and see if I can get some feedback... Or hopefully prompt them to look in their spam.

Priced up a nice 300m2 driveway up the other day, I could do with it! Diary's looking a bit empty at the minute.

Just out of interest, if you don't mind me asking, on bigger jobs what's the average amount if time from sending a quote to them accepting. Mines normally a day or 2, then I presume I haven't got the job as normally I dont,.

why do you make the customer wait for the quote, on domestics i quote there & then, i know my rates and can work out in minutes how much it will cost there is every chance the custy wil book you right away if he is happy, but if he has to wait he may decide to look else where.

[Jettaway]

It does take time to build a data base of customers, schedule them in for yearly cleans if you dont already, keep in contact with them.

As for your quotations always give the customer a courtesy phone call, dont hard sell nice and friendly... initially to check they received quote either by post or email and build conversation from there. Not knowing if they received quote is frankly useless as you need the feedback to implement change if reqd.
Big problem with std 'paving' cleaning epsecially in my area, any 'muppet' can do it - hence lots of competition, what you need to do is set yourself on another level to the comp hence feed back will help you acheive this.


Do you currently offer any other services to run alongside pressure washing ? As Carl has mentioned a few can easily be added using existing machines cutting down the initial outlay ie. suitable wet vaccum used whilst washing can be easily adapted for gutter vacuuming etc

We could not survive without our additonal services.

I think I will go down the courtsey call. As you say build up a conversation and see where it goes. I am quite lucky here as there isnt much competition but people just see the price and don't always take into account the time taken to do a job, the amount in equipment I have, or insurance costs etc.

No I don run any other services, have dabbled with gutters but didn't find it much of a go'er.

APWS,

I very rarely quote on the job, unless its small. I like to put everything in writing so everyone km knows where they stand and exactly what work will be carried out.  Its also good for payment terms if the worse happens and it ends in legal action.

[Total shine cleaning services]

hi chris

we had gutter cleaning leaflets professionally done and we only target households with growth actually visible if we're passing, works well, also look at picking up a cheap water fed pole system,conservatory ladders or carpet cleaner perhaps, followed by a little training, I think fingers in a few pies is better than downtime until your really established, also look at commercial cladding cleaning, graffiti removal alongside some ipaf training.

Graham