Winters can be tough. I'm in the fortunate position where I have a pension from a previous job and a wife who's an accountant and loves to work. Otherwise i'd be totally up the creek without a paddle in winter.
I do mobile valeting as well as pressure washing and have managed to secure a number of regular commercial valets as well as commercial cleans for a local company that sells "Lifestyle Homes", which is a fancy word for caravans, all these have brick drives.
Without these i'd do nothing between November and Feb(which would be no bad thing lol). Not good when its cold as its very easy to create a huge ice rink. But without this work all the little DavyP's would be very disappointed on Christmas morning as there'd be less for pressies.
Spring to Summer is always good as I can compete easily on price and tend to get a lot of repeat business or recommendations.
Personally speaking if I had to do this as my main and regular income I doubt it would work for me, mainly because I lack the drive to make it work and hate delivering leaflets etc. and not to forget the inconsistent climate we now have.
Because pressure washing is so straight forward to do (not necessarily well mind), and a low start up cost business there is a great deal of competition. Many of these will fail, how-ever there is always another willing to give it a go so i guess its pretty much a free for all. The majority of landscapers and gardeners now seem to have introduced pressure washing as an add on so again there is business lost there. And don't forget our light fingered travelling friends.
The best way to stand out is to dress tidly(Company name Polo shirts etc.), have a clean, well maintained and professionally sign written van. Make sure any leaflets are professionally printed and of good quality. And always be consistent with your pricing, as people talk. A professionally designed web site helps also and doesn't cost a fortune.
Also when pricing have a method, i.e charge by size of area to be cleaned, and possibly a sliding scale pricing structure. For example up to 40m2 - £3.50 clean and re-sand, 40-80m2 £3.00 clean and re-sand, 80m2 + £2.50 clean and re-sand.
Always be seen to measure up properly and give a proper quotation to the customer with a description of the service offered, ie Weed killing prior to clean, clean, then return to re-sand. This way they see where there moneys going, they know youre gonna to be out working on their drive on 3 seperate occasions, albeit 10 mins weedkilling and a couple of hours washing and sanding.
There's nothing worse than giving a random guestimate of a price.
Commercial contracts are hard to come by, and again you need to have all the required documentation re Health & Safety risk statements, Public Liability Insurance etc. And be able to provide a professional tender at a competitive price. This requires a degree of luck and more often than not a friend in the right place.
If you're feeling the pinch and go in cheap for one customer, and the following week do a similar size job for twice the price it looks bad, and makes you seem like a cowboy.
I'm not sure if you've only started out or not but I would say if this is your first winter coming up you should seriously think of sourcing an alternative income, maybe some part-time work to supplement the minimal income you'll receive from winter pressure washing.
This is only from my perspective and on the site there are those with established business's whom i'm sure will share a differing opinion of the winter months. How-ever it takes effort and no small amount of luck to get to that stage, both of which I'm sadly lacking lol.
As always I will state this is my experience and is not neccesarily the same for all.
Congradulations if you're still awake having read this far........
