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The Wash Bros Podcast
Join The Wash Bros, Matt Jackson and Clay Smith, as they talk friendship, business, and how working together as owner/operators of competing businesses has helped them achieve even greater success.
The Wash Bros Podcast
Season 2: Episode 8: Mastering the Spring Season: Avoid These Business Killers
Spring has arrived, and with it comes the busiest season for pressure washing businesses. Yet some companies thrive while others struggle—even with increased demand. What separates the winners from those left behind? In this candid conversation, Matt and Clay break down the critical factors that determine success during the pressure washing "game time."
Many contractors sabotage their spring season by focusing on the wrong priorities. Rather than concentrating on highly profitable services, they dilute their efforts with time-consuming, lower-margin offerings like gutter cleaning. The math is simple: would you rather spend three hours on one gutter cleaning job or complete three house washes in that same timeframe? Smart operators maximize their hourly revenue by staying focused on core services when demand peaks.
Another common mistake is discounting during high season. This practice not only diminishes profits but attracts price-sensitive customers who will forever expect deals. Instead of competing on price, successful companies establish value through consistent marketing, professional systems, and exceptional service. They understand that today's results reflect yesterday's marketing efforts—which is why they maintain visibility year-round rather than turning advertising on and off seasonally.
Technology adoption creates another significant advantage. Using CRM systems with automated follow-up sequences recovers thousands in otherwise lost revenue from prospects who simply forgot about their quotes. The most successful operations combine modern equipment, systematized processes, and customer-focused marketing to maximize daily output while delivering excellent results at fair prices.
Ready to elevate your pressure washing business this season? Join the Wash Bros Facebook group for direct support, ask questions about implementing these strategies, and subscribe to hear more tactical advice from two operators who've scaled their companies from startup to six-figure monthly revenue.
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What's up, guys? It's Matt Jackson and Clay Smith, and we are the Wash Bros. Welcome to the eighth episode today, and for this one, we're going to be talking about kind of what to focus on. This is springtime, so we want to tell you how we focus and like what we avoid and what we're trying to focus on, and this is like game time for pressure washing, so we see a lot of guys kind of bullshitting around this time of year, focusing on the wrong things, and what separates us from a lot of other people is we're really laser focused on what we're doing, so I'll, like I'll, let clay kick this thing off, uh and uh, you, you can lead into this one.
Speaker 2:So Okay, great, yeah. First and foremost, I want to thank everybody, as always, for listening, downloading all of our content, checking us out, following us, listening to all of our other downloads, all of our other episodes and kind of just seeing seeing our journey here, cause that's kind of what we've documented. I appreciate everybody for listening, in tuning, in, asking questions, giving us a comment. Make sure you comment if there's something that you have as far as an idea or something you'd like for us to cover, because, more than likely, we've already been through it and I think this is a great episode we easily get distracted on other things. I mean everything else going on in the world and then, obviously, getting caught up in all the other people, the gurus online on what we need to be doing. If you get caught up in the wrong thing, you'd be wasting a lot of time, and we all know that time is money. You'd be wasting a lot of time, and we all know that time is money. So, focusing on the wrong things in peak season, I think it's a great topic. I think it's very important because, like I say, time is money and you can easily get distracted. So I have seen a lot of people here recently. It's almost like I don't know how to explain it we're we are in peak season. Now you can almost you can have a heartbeat and find work.
Speaker 2:However, I see a lot of guys are offering discounts, which there's no reason we should be offering discounts right now. Um, maybe that's just their type of marketing, but there's no reason we should be offering discounts. See, a lot of guys that are pressure washing companies that are focusing on cleaning gutters. Um, which is, I mean, I get where exterior cleaning companies, but instead of trying to knock out gutter cleaning that's going to take. You know, I don't, I don't. Depending on the difficulty of the house, you can spend two or three hours cleaning gutters. I'd rather spend two or three hours cleaning two or three houses. So time is money. How are we managing our time to make sure we're making the most money?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's, that's great and it's funny. I'm in my basement and of course I see a little mouse running around my floor, so I, if I if I screech, it's because they're biting my toes, um.
Speaker 1:But I was like, oh shit, what's that shadow? And it's a little baby mouse. Um, yeah, that's a great point because, like, we'll talk about this a lot too. You see guys online and they're posting about hey, we're doing gutter cleanings or we're doing like these. We're posting about services that aren't like really highly profitable or relevant to the spring season.
Speaker 1:This is the time of year when, like the high profitability, the good customers come out. So we need to be focusing on posting about that, talking about showcasing like, hey, we're cleaning these projects that we want people to hire us for. We don't want to say we're cleaning out gutters, we're doing stuff that people do in the cold seasons just to fill work and fill labor. And, too, like you said, with discounts. You don't really want to be pushing that whole discount thing, because then you're going to be attracting those cost-focused type customers who are like this guy's offering a discount, what can you do? It's like no, we don't do that. It's like we're cleaning your house and we're cleaning everybody else's house. This is the busy season. It's like discounts are fine if you need work, but this is the time of year where you don't need to be pushing that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 100%. I mean, if you're offering discounts, you're going to be attracting the cheaper customers. You attract the cheaper customers You're going to. Obviously, when you do work for a customer, there's a great possibility they're going to call you back and they're going to always expect cheap. And our and and our goal as business owner is is how can we catch that customer? It's almost like fishing how can I get ahold of that customer and how can I keep that customer and how can I keep farming that customer? So, once you keep farming that customer, if that's your goal, then, like I say, they're always going to expect cheap and they're always going to expect a discount. Well, what kind of promotions are you running this month? It's almost like me calling Papa John's and saying, okay, what are your deals on your pizza? Because they're always offering deals. So every time I call Papa John's I'm like, okay, what, what deals are you running on your pizza today?
Speaker 2:Exactly, that's the kind of customer that you're going to get, if that's the way you market.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you don't want to be the cheap guy. And a lot of times social media this is such a saturated industry and market. Now I'll see guys posting in these groups hey, can somebody pressure wash my house? And there's 500 comments of pressure washing companies saying I can do it, I can do it, I can do it, I can do it, I can do it today, I can do it tomorrow, Like begging for work, and in my opinion, that is really lowering your value in the busy season.
Speaker 1:And I'm all about like hey, getting yourself out there, being seen on social media, but I think the ship has sailed there. And if guys are over here begging for work or coming off as begging for work, you're positioning yourself to be desperate and giving discounts and I think that lowers the value of your company. And because because let's be honest, if somebody is going to go through for a housewash that should be a $300 housewash and call five different companies, that's not a customer you want to deal with. You want to deal with somebody who goes to Google or who's like hey, I like this guy, I'm going to call this guy, I'm not going to ask a million questions, but if somebody off the bat is asking for the cheapest price person on a forum and all these people are responding and they're reaching out to these people. That person is going to be a pain in the ass to deal with and they're going to choose you because you're cheaper than the other guy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I had a guy reach out yesterday I think I shared this with you, Matt, and he I gave him my minimum charge price because it was a small job. And then the guy was like, well, can you meet me at 270? I'm like, um no, I know it was just, our minimum charge is $300 or whatever. So, um, I know it was just $30, but if you start doing that to customers then they basically are not seeing value in your cut. It's almost like a disrespect thing for me. Even if it's $25, I don't care, I'm not giving you a discount because I see work in my company.
Speaker 1:And another thing is reframe that. This is what I'll do. People are like, hey, if I can get my neighbors in, do I get a discount? I said, yeah, you'll get a discount, but you're bringing in work. So therefore you're raising value in what they're negotiating on and instead of me doing a $300 job if I can do, hey, if you want that $270, bring your next door neighbor in and then for me I get to be in one location and make $540 versus 300 bucks. And that's where it's okay to negotiate, but I'm not just going to take money off the table because you're asking me to take money off the table.
Speaker 2:Yeah, those are not the people I want to work for. If they're already asking for a discount up front, that just means like more than likely they're going to be a headache to begin with.
Speaker 1:Yep, up front, that just means like more than likely they're going to be a headache to begin with.
Speaker 1:Yep, you're probably not going to get the google review, you're not going to get the recommendation and they might not call you a bin because they're going to call yeah there and there's people I don't know and I find in my experience in these groups they love like trying to find and use a new contractor every day, like, oh, I want to find the new guy and use it. It was like when I was at the car lot there would be customers who want to find the newest sales rep because they know they can dick them around and get a deal.
Speaker 1:And that's almost that's almost the same thing when I would like what I see in these groups. These people are like oh, I just, I want to hire the new guy. I'm like you're hiring the new guy Cause you think you can get the best, best money for all of the effort that he's going to have to put into your house.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they want to support a new business. So definitely, if you're newer, getting into this stuff, just watch out for people like that. There are plenty of red flags. Also, there are a lot of people, a lot of the new guys. If you're a new guy, let me just go ahead and say this while I'm thinking about it If you're a new guy, make sure you're not clicking on other pressure washing businesses ads and calling them and asking them and trying to pretend to be a customer and asking what they're charging.
Speaker 2:If you need a guideline on what to charge as far as pricing goes, please message me or Matt and let us kind of help you there. I know there's a lot of people that are listening, a lot of new guys. If you are in that position, do not click on anybody's ads. So basically, what you see at the top are ads like on Google when you search for pressure washing companies, and anytime you click on that, it's costing another company anywhere from $50 to $120, depending on what kind of words you say and what kind of words in the conversation that Google picks up could be costing you money or it could be costing the people you're calling money. So maybe it's something that me and Matt could come out with to kind of give everybody a guideline. I know we're working on a few things behind the scenes to try to help people, give people guidelines, but if you can, please just reach out. We're here to help help.
Speaker 1:That's why we started this podcast correct and you can and and we talk about this too it's like you want to secret shop somebody. A lot of times try to create like a positive relationship first with the person. Or you say, instead of going to your my business page for pressure washing, why don't you try to go through the wash bros group where we can talk to you? Hey, this is like I'm not. I can turn my brain off from saying, is this a potential customer? To. Hey, this is somebody that wants to help pressure washing. And it's a completely different energy, like you're not wasting like business time. You're saying, oh cool, this guy is a supporter of the show and we want to help you out. It's a completely different energy than like being kind of weird and shady behind the scenes saying, hey, how much is it to pressure wash this house? And then we spend time and energy thinking, okay, this is a quote, I have to turn to get a customer's job, only to realize that, okay, thanks, no problem, you were just secret shopping us.
Speaker 2:Nine times out of 10, I could sniff you out and I'm going to call you out every time just because you you. I know that you're costing me money and I know you're not a customer, but please shoot us a message. On the wash bros podcast page. Also join the wash bros uh facebook group on facebook. It's called the wash bros um and it has our logo. Join that um. There's an open discussion where me and matt can help you out there. You have any questions. There are some other uh pressure washers in there as well. Matt can help you out there If you have any questions. There are some other uh pressure washers in there as well that can help you. That's the wash bros group. On.
Speaker 1:Facebook, exactly. And two, by having it small and us kind of moderate it, uh, we can avoid the nonsense that you see in these big Facebook groups, where it just becomes a bunch of a bunch of people who have no idea what they're talking about, giving you opinions about stuff that they watch one YouTube video, or they've been doing it 100 times this way, with a red tip, and they think they're an expert at pressure washing. So the value of our pages are that we're in control, so we're curating the content.
Speaker 2:And just to give everybody a volume of work we're doing me and Matt are doing anywhere from 60 to 70 jobs a month right now and then come May we'll probably be doing upwards to 100 to 120 jobs a month. So that's the kind of volume we're doing. If you're trying to get to that level, join. We'll give you all the tips that we got, and my favorite saying is we can lead a horse to water, but we can't make it drinking.
Speaker 1:So we can tell you all the things we're doing yeah, and and especially, it's funny because people try to hold on to like knowledge and information like it's some uh, like sacred thing. It's all shared and it's all shared like we. We pretty much do the same things each other. We just put our own spin on it and that's how most companies operate. So don't be, don't, don't be like, well, this is, this is my trade secret. I ain't sharing nothing.
Speaker 1:That's not what's important, especially with AI nowadays. Like we have all the knowledge in the world, we don't have to do anything, but it's the application of that knowledge is what's separating you from us. So, if you guys are on the fence or you're overanalyzing yourself, like it's not hard, we're telling you exactly what we do every single week. For last two years, we've been doing this podcast and it's not a complicated business, but the application of the knowledge and us doing it, and not over analyzing ourselves and questioning and being like, oh, there's a better way. It's like, just do it because in the c word consistency that's huge.
Speaker 2:Consistency is huge and we say it, I say it every, every episode, at the consistency.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're consistent at saying consistency, it's perfect but people are people this year are going to be complaining about being slow because there's so many people in the market. There's so many people that got into this when the economy was really hot and anybody could pressure wash, and now people are running into money issues because the economy is not the greatest. And this is what's going to separate the guys who are going to last from the guys that are going to have to get jobs again. And that's why we stress hey, consistency, what are we doing? We're not starting our ads in May, expecting to be busy and have a good year. We've started them when we started our businesses and we hadn't turned them off.
Speaker 1:Clay's super consistent at keeping his ads running and he's going to have a smoke show of a year because he's running ads and nobody else has been running ads. So, like when everybody was distracted doing their Christmas lights or everybody's distracted doing this over here, we've been super consistent on running and pushing our messaging out. So this is the time where we're seeing the results. So, if you're like, oh, how are you guys getting so much work, it's like we're farming our customers. We running ads, we're getting in front of people, we're positioning ourselves the right way. We're not over here talking about cleaning out gutters. We're not over here talking about doing nonsense stuff. We're like fleet washing we're. We're focusing on what's really moving the needle in our bread and butter business yeah, going back to the last episode too, the myth um, the myth episode.
Speaker 2:I was just kind of thinking just now when you were saying that, focusing on the wrong services and stuff like that. Um, you know, a lot of people are focusing on the Christmas lights and I think that's a great revenue driver, but we work hard enough during the year. Um, you know the 10 months out of the year that that we watched? That I don't think you. You don't necessarily have to do Christmas lights. If you work hard enough and you focus on that one thing, that one service, and get really good at it, and then figure out how to get more customers and so on and so forth about how to move the needle, then you don't have to worry about Christmas lights. Um, cause we do so well. I mean we I don't know Matt, I mean we separate ourselves so well in the market.
Speaker 1:I don't know, matt, I mean we separate ourselves so well in the market, in my experience even talking with other entrepreneurs that are trying to do 10 different things if you could just find that one good thing and you could get really good at it and you could set yourself apart from everybody else, you will go so far. Yeah, exactly. And again, it's one thing if you have okay, I want to focus on Christmas lights, but I'm still running a team driving forward with pressure washing. I think the problem becomes when you have to stop one thing and then you start something else. If you're like, hey, we're running two trucks year round with pressure washing and then we're running Christmas lights in the Christmas light season but we're not putting our taking our feet off the gas with pushing our pressure washing, that's no problem. But the problem is like, if you're an owner operator type and you got to do everything yourself and from like the end of August on, you've really shifted your business from like pressure washing to I'm putting up Christmas lights and, yeah, it's great, you get all your money in, and then in January you're taking them down, and then you're sitting here in the springtime like why don't I have any pressure washing work? I was like, yeah, from August that ramp up into Christmas light season and then you're coming out of that and then you haven't really done much moving the ball forward with pressure washing and even if you think, oh, I have repeat customers here, all those customers are going to be taken by guys who have been pushing and marketing towards those customers.
Speaker 1:And I've got friends and I see customers who they're like yeah, this guy was pressure washing but now he's doing everything else and like I kind of want somebody who solely focuses on pressure washing. It's almost like devalues their company. If they're like it's like oh, this is the season for this, this is the season for this. Then, if they're like it's like oh, this is the season for this, this is the season for this, then you become a handyman essentially, and you're not like the expert in the field and that's what clay and I shoot to be. They're like, hey, we want to be the leaders and like we focus full-time year-round. This is, this is our gig, and I think that's you. You find out like the the harvest season is this time of year. So if you're looking around and you're slow and you're wondering why you're slow, it's because you haven't been pushing in the slow season like we have been pushing yeah.
Speaker 2:So a lot of guys, when they were not getting the phone calls, they just go do whatever, enjoy their time off. Or just consider it time off like, okay, it's slow, I'm not going to do anything. And then they still want in two months later that it's slow. I'm not going to do anything and then they still want in two months later that it's slow. And the reason that it's slow is because you're not doing your part in marketing. Uh putting, no matter what's going on, no matter how much work I got, I'm still pushing energy into my business. No matter how slow it is, I'm still trying to find ways, even if it's something that's not going to work out until six months from now. I'm always pushing, always trying to make relationships, always seeing if I can better that ad, if I can reword whatever on my website to help my SEO, to find better work insurance I don't know anything Always working in the business. Just because the phone's not ringing doesn't mean I've stopped working.
Speaker 1:Exactly Because and I think too people people have it backwards, like it's almost like going to the gym or exercising. If you go to the gym for two weeks, you're not, you're not going to notice any change, but you've been going there for a year or two years consistently. Somebody's going to look at you and say like man, you've been working out Really and you're like I've been doing it for two years, but they're not going to notice that if you just started going for two weeks or three weeks. So how is it any different when we're starting to market our pressure washing business? We're running ads, we're doing Facebook stuff, we're putting the 1% of effort that we do to market our business in the busy season, to try to grow our business for pressure washing, and I'm like this is a year-round gig. You can't, you can't focus on just saying I'm gonna turn it on and turn it off, turn it on and turn it off.
Speaker 1:Clay's really good at keeping it consistent and keeping, like, his ads wide open. Whether he's losing money on them or earning money on them, there's still a return long term. There's like a a net positive return for just keeping them open and spending money on ads and being seen. Because I remember in the winter I'd look pressure washing anything and Clay would be at the top, meaning he's spending money and nobody else is spending money. So like you get rewarded by the actions that you take, and those actions are not fun when it's slow, but this time of year you're like I'm slammed, I'm busy, and then you're going to be busy until wintertime and that's because you just keep the pedal down and you're not on and off, on and off, on and off.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's very hard to just log out and log in without having a what I call like a big business, so like if you don't have your business running for you, which I think that's everybody's goal. I know that's mine and your goal is to eventually have all the moving parts running without you having to do anything or touch anything or whatnot, and just draw a check later on. But it's kind of hard to just turn everything on and off, and I think that that's what we work hard for, is we work hard to at least get to that point, and I don't think that you can let off the pedal until you're there um, which I don't think you'll never fully be there but you know, if you can walk away and go on a two-week vacation, your business run itself and you hardly get any phone calls and you don't have to worry about it I think that's when you've officially been able to turn your business off or um clock out or whatnot.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and by that we don't mean we're not running ads, we mean we have somebody in place as an employee who's doing it for us. So there's no such thing as, oh, once you get word of mouth, you're good. Once you get business established, you're good. If you've done this much money last year, you don't have to market the next year, I'm like. If you don't have to market the next year, I'm like if I turned off my ads, I'd probably do like 70% of what I did last year.
Speaker 1:And that's the reality of the business.
Speaker 2:It's like we've talked about before the richest companies in the world advertise Walmart, they advertise Coke, they advertise Pepsi, they advertise your, your, big your. I mean any of your biggest richest companies in the world. I mean Apple. They even advertise Um. So think about it that way Everybody advertises. Just because I don't know that philosophy is really, I've I've never understood it Like the people I'm. I understand that there's some like trades, um, like special things, things that don't need to know advertisement, but in a saturated industry, you need to figure something out because somebody like me or Matt that's really good at marketing, they're pretty much going to sweep up most of the market just because we're always in front of people's faces, and I think that's the main goal.
Speaker 1:Yep, and there's a house I do every year and the guy's like hey, you send me an email and I pressure wash it up up in like heartwell, he's not. He's not, he doesn't live there, he lives in nashville. And he's like for the love of god, I can't figure out. Like my landscape guy, do you know any recommendations? I can't find his contact information and I send him a every year follow-up that says, hey, like we cleaned your house today of last year, you want to get us on the schedule again. So he's like absolutely, this is perfect. And then he's like I can't remember the guy who cuts my grass, do you have a guy?
Speaker 1:So I was able to get this guy's business because he's a rich guy, a busy guy. And if he looks at his inbox and he says, oh, cool, the pressure washer guy, hey, you want to want us to clean your house again, he's like yeah, sure, like no thought process, thousand bucks right there, just follow up and his land, get his landscaping guy. Same type of service, same need, same time of year. He, uh, he didn't know because the guy didn't have a followup with him. So he's like I don't know the guy, do you know somebody else? So that's a lost job for somebody else because he didn't have a system in place to remind that guy hey, pressure wash your house or landscape, get your landscaping done, and. And that guy could have been doing it for five years, but the guy just simply misplaced it. If I refer him to somebody who uses the system like we do and has follow-ups and he's like cool, easy. Therefore, you lost that customer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and having a CRM takes you and separates you so much farther than everybody else. Even if you don't have the automated stuff, just the communication part of it, it separates you from probably 90% of the rest of the market. I mean, there's not many guys in our industry that I know that use a CRM, a database that keeps up with all that, basically invoices, the customer sends them a receipt, works as a merchant and definitely worth the money. It's just one of those things you have to invest in as a company if you want to set yourself apart and be professional, and it helps you. You don't lose the customer's information either, and I think when I first started I was working out of a notepad and a book and it's just so hard to find people's information working that way and I don't know how anybody does it because I'm so OCD. So the CRM helps so much.
Speaker 1:One thing, too, that I started up with Housecall Pro and you might as well is like called a pipeline feature and it's like 75 extra a pipeline feature and it's like 75 extra dollars a month and I'm like man, do I really want another reoccurring charge? But every estimate I create goes through like their pipeline feature and it automates follow up. Emails, follow up text blast, whether it be on the job side, if the job's like approved but it hasn't been scheduled yet, we can automate follow ups like that. Or like getting invoices paid the invoice hasn't been paid. It'll create follow up sequences and it's probably gained me like three or $4,000 just following up.
Speaker 1:Because, like you were saying the other day, clay, you just reached out to people of quotes that you sent early in the month or last month and they're like cool, yeah, put me on the books, I forgot about it, I'm ready. And and the automation of the CRM house call pro that we use, it's like the same feature. I've had people that are like I'm not ready yet, waiting on pollen, but we're going to go with you. Cool, thanks for letting me know. And like if I never had a follow-up or if I never personally reached out, I would just say oh, that person just didn't use me.
Speaker 2:Or that person may have forgotten.
Speaker 1:They're like who was that pressure washing guy? And then they go to Google again, fill out a new lead, and then they talk to somebody else and that person says it's the right time for the customers, the right time for the uh, the business owner, and they take that business. It's like what are, how much money are we leaving on the table because we're not choosing to modernize our systems and use automations or CRMs or stuff like that?
Speaker 2:And here, come May, you're not going to have time to even do that. So now that you have the automation in place, it's still like like what it's called? It's called a pipeline. It keeps that pipeline going and you're not even having to touch it, it's automated. And I think that's what really opened my eyes the other day.
Speaker 2:Going, I mean, I was just I had got off work a little early, I was just trying to find a way to be productive and that's what I'm always do keep my foot on the gas, no matter if I get home early or not. A lot of people are just going off and doing whatever they want to do the rest of the day. But I'm working to at least five or six, at least five or six every day, just trying to keep my pedal, the floor, trying to keep things moving because it pays off in the long run. And I was like well, I'll just shoot these people. Look at my estimate, see, I had, like I had a ton of estimates still out. I'm just like what the crap? So I sent a bunch of and I think out of 20 something open estimates. I've booked six jobs within like an hour.
Speaker 2:So it just people get so busy. They'll fill out your form online. They'll call you, whatever they're cause it's just on their to-do list to get quotes or whatever, and you may be the only one that reaches out, and that's how you get the job. You know, if you give them a fair price, you're the only one that's communicating, you're the only one that's following up. They're like okay, well, he's been precise with communicating. He's going to be precise with his business. He's going to be precise with his business. He's going to be precise with his work. He's going to be precise with cleaning my house, and we're going to give this guy a shot, especially if it's a first-timer.
Speaker 1:No doubt, and if you guys aren't from the sales world or familiar with sales, a lot of times it takes up to like 12 touches just to close a deal and it depends on pricing and other factors like that. A lot of times, if it's like a lower ticket pressure washing job, it's like a one call close. But there's a lot of things that go into this that you don't know of the person. They could be waiting for the next paycheck, they could just be waiting on pollen, they could be moving into a house a certain time. So don't just send them a quote. Make sure you're understanding, like, why they need the quote. Like dig deeper and then act as a salesperson. Because, like we always say to like, we're a pressure washing company but we're really a sales and marketing company and the product that we're selling and marketing is pressure washing. So we got to keep it like, flip it on our head and say, okay, in every interaction with a customer, how am I positioning myself as a sales and marketing company? And if we're saying, oh, I got 10 gallons a minute in my pressure washer on my mini moto and this is how fast I can clean, nobody cares. That's just circle jerk of us technicians. But if you're saying I'm a sales and marketing person and I'm filling out a pipeline and I'm running my business like a true professional, you're never going to be shy at work.
Speaker 1:And a lot of guys online are complaining right now because work is slow for them and they're like oh, this year is slow, the phone calls aren't there. I'm like, well, if the phone calls aren't coming in, what are you doing to drive the phone calls to come into you? Like, what are you doing? Outbounding to bring work to you? We're getting to the point where this industry is so saturated. If you're not actively marketing yourself and pushing yourself every day, you're going to be irrelevant and people are going to get a rude awakening because, like, if this, if the pie of of work is shrinking, we're going to have to figure out how to be creative and how to outdo each other in order to get ahead. And that's where clay and I, we both see eye to eye that way and a lot of guys, um, don't really see it. So it's like almost like we see past the matrix and it looks like it's easy for us because, like, we're actively doing certain things that other people aren't.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's just a matter of how hard you want to hustle, really. And I have a 10 year goal and I'm trying to reach a 10 year goal and I'm not letting up until I reach that 10 year goal. So no offense to anybody.
Speaker 2:I'm worried about me, I'm worried about myself and I'm worried about my family and I'm worried about my business and I don't care what it takes, I'm going to get there. And you got to have that positive, you got to have that. You got to have that mindset. You can't be worrying about the things that's going on, what other companies are doing, what the discounts they're offering or how cheap they are Don't be matching other companies' prices. I know that a lot of people do that and it goes back to what we were talking about of getting those cheaper customers. And one of the biggest mistakes I made was worrying about competition. When I first got started, my first year, I was always worrying about what competition was doing and I think that I wasted so much energy and I feel like I could be so much further if I wasn't worried about that.
Speaker 2:And and there's there's a difference between being personal and there you know business is business, friends is friends, like I know that we all socialize together and a lot of us do. A lot of people can't set their ego aside and say, okay, what can, what can this guy do to help me, because maybe one day Matt may have a job and say, hey, I can't get to this. Would you like to? Would you like to take care of it for me? Um, so, if, if we can all work together, it's just so much easier. Put the ego aside, uh, like I say, business is business, friends is friends. Matt takes customers from me, I take customers from him, and we both look at each other and say, damn good job. And you know, it's just business.
Speaker 1:There's plenty of customers, especially in this time of year where we get so busy that I have great customers that use me like every year, and some of these off years I can't fit them in in enough time and I say call Clay if like, and then you will do it one year and then I will come back the following year and I'm like, hey, it looks great and it's just like we took care of that customer need, whether it was me or him, like we both have that same value and that like I know that the customer is going to be in good hands when he's with Clay.
Speaker 1:And it's important that you find somebody who's that way too. So you're not just like, oh, this guy will do it, this guy will do it. I don't do a lot of recommendations or referrals because I don't want my name tied up to somebody who I don't know the caliber of work they're going to do. So you almost have value adding your company by having a good base of friends, contractors that deliver that same value and quality of work to customers. And I mean we've thrown whether or not we do it on purpose, or customers just will get a quote from either of us and then decide one or the other, like we're constantly like doing each other's work or getting work done to us, or a big project comes and instead of me having to buy another truck and be like, hey, you want to go 50-50 on this deal and usually that works out better in the long run, yeah, I mean we've done big projects together.
Speaker 2:It's worked out fine and we've moved on. And I think sometimes honestly think some people get a little confused, um, between both of our businesses get us a little confused.
Speaker 1:I've had, I've had guys who were like, yes, you helped me out before and I'm like you definitely did not. He's like you got the blue trucks. I was like, yeah, I got the blue trucks.
Speaker 2:It's like I know who that is yeah, hey, it is what it is right. Like I say, personal is personal. You know, friends is friends, business and business. You got to learn how to set that aside. I mean, I learned that a long time ago in the car business cut throat, you know, it is what it is. I think if you made that extra call and got that customer in. Hey, great job. I got to work a little harder next time.
Speaker 1:I think, too, people's insecurities shine through. So if you're butthurt about a competitor, if you're butthurt about somebody, you know deep down that you're not deserving of that business. And instead of like looking yourself in the mirror and saying, oh man, I didn't work as hard as he did, I didn't deliver the best I could, I didn't show up business, as opposed to say you know what? He did? A good job, like respect, and that's the difference between somebody who's a winner and somebody who's a loser. So, like we both strive to be winners here, we don't need to bitch and moan and look around and say, oh boo-hoo, we're going to be a victim.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because like that's very toxic energy. There's a reason. That customer called you over me. Vice versa Correct person, correct either. I had time to reach out, you made time to reach out, I didn't. There was something that the customer like that you did, that called, that called you over me, and you know, hey, and that's, that's the way we have to look at things. Hey, what can I do better next time to get that customer like what did I do? Where did I go wrong?
Speaker 1:use it as a learning experience so many times, dude, they might say, hey, I used this guy year, I used this guy the next year and it's no harm nor foul on anybody. It's just are we playing a long game or are we playing a short game? If you're too focused in the short game, you're going to be miserable and you don't have any big direction, you don't have vision and, like Clay is saying, he did a great job of going from that kind of like I got a chip on my shoulder hustler, I got to prove myself to the world to like I'm a business guy who's proven himself and I'm grounded now and I think it's definitely helped your business by the value you're putting out versus like oh, let me show these people which is like a huge growth milestone and most people don't make that jump. They just stay in that Like oh, I've been doing this for 20 years. I was like you've been. You've been an asshole doing the same one year for 20 years in a row. That's why you're stuck.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you always gotta be searching, you always gotta be finding ways to be better, because everything changes every day the way we advertise, the things that people look at, the platforms people are finding on different platforms.
Speaker 2:There's just so many things that change day to day and you've got to stay on top of those things or you're going to get left behind.
Speaker 2:And I think I've seen that trend with a lot of the older guys that were one time were really really good in this business and they were like the top dogs and they've been doing it 20 to 25 years, 30 years, however long they've been doing it, and then they just fell behind in time and said, well, I've been doing this so long, I'm the biggest, baddest, whatever, and have all these customers. But then somebody like me or you come through and, hey, we start marketing these people, start, we start getting in front of these people faces and then we start digging into those, those guys that's been doing it 20 or 30 years, because we've learned how to market, we've caught up with the times that they were not catching up with or staying on top of, and that's usually. That's usually just how it goes. You just got to stay on top of the trends and the things that are going on every day, every week, every month. Things are changing every day.
Speaker 1:Exactly, if you're not evolving, you're dying. And honestly, in this business like it's almost a race to the bottom, you don't want to be the cheapest person in the world, but you also don't want to be 800 to a thousand dollars on a housewash. Like you're not going to be very busy whatsoever when Clay and I can come in at 500 bucks. Take your business, be done in an hour and 15 minutes, get a Google review and then get a referral off of that. Like the business model is shifting and if you're not keeping up with that new business model, you're not going to make this business anymore.
Speaker 2:And that's not being the 99 guy that's saying I'm running an efficient business with modern equipment and I'm I'm busting my ass and I'm getting it done on both ends yeah, I mean you know you're doing an 800 to a thousand dollars one job when I can come in and do that same job for, like you say, an hour and a half, for half the price, and then go and do three or four more of those afterwards.
Speaker 1:And then you wonder why you guys are slow. And that's it's just what happens with everything. Look at, like Walmart. Walmart comes to a town. It's like, hey, we have a better business model than you do. We can knock out. We can knock out more work at a better price point and we're going to get a lot of market share. And that's what's happened, and we're delivering a high caliber work. Because it's funny, I think you were telling me you had a customer reach out to you. He's like why are you so much cheaper than everybody else? You're like uh, because I'm gonna knock it out in an hour.
Speaker 2:It's like, and I'm going to do a better job than these people.
Speaker 1:And that's like the. That's the model of, of this business nowadays. You gotta, you gotta keep pushing. You like our average tickets like in the mid five hundreds. We're not overly expensive, we're not overly cheap. We run a really tight ship and we're like in and out, in and out, in and out, great job in and out, in and out, in and out, great job In and out, in and out. And like you got the right equipment, you can do it. And it's not like we're making 150 to $200 an hour consistently. It's not like we're over here trying to kill the market, like we're being really competitive and delivering more value than what we're charging people. And that's why both of our businesses are thriving, because that's economics 101.
Speaker 1:And that's the shift I see people not able to make. They don't have modern technology like we do, they don't have modern marketing, they don't have wrap trucks, they don't have professional equipment and they're just kind of humping through it. What worked 10 years ago is not going to work today. It's definitely not going to work tomorrow. So it's like you got to gotta evolve and guys online are putting out these crazy machines and if, if, if you're competing with, if you're not evolving and you're on like five gallon a minute machine or whatever. This or that that's, that's cool. But like, just understand your place in the market and if you want to grow you have to kind of evolve with the times yeah, five gallon minute machine.
Speaker 2:There's nothing wrong with that. I think starting out that's a great starting point because you're only doing so much and you're learning, um, but you know you get an eight gallon minute.
Speaker 1:When you're doing three or four jobs a day, you definitely need eight gallon a minute yeah, we have employees run an average of like four jobs a day, three, four jobs a day, three, four jobs a day, not like Clay busting it out solo, but like we're able to do consistent work.
Speaker 1:$1,200 to $1,500 a day like bare minimum, and that's not gouging people and that's getting work consistently and that's the business model that I have. That seems to be working, because we're not shy at work and we're not really turning people away and people try to say, oh, these newbies are killing the market or these people are killing the market. I'm like there's been so many times where we'll knock out a job in much better quality work, short amount of time and a better price point for the customer and that's how you're going to win. We're not charging people by the square foot. We understand our numbers and we're going about it. How can we make our numbers work and grow our business? So that's kind of we're not over here secret shopping people saying, oh, you're, you're, you're charging 17 cents a square. That's that's how you make money. It's like, no, that's that's not how you make money.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you got to know what your time is worth. It's all a numbers game and that's what it goes back to, what I was wanting to mention earlier with the services like you're offering all these services. Well, how do you know what your goals are? How do you know what you're going to hit? What do you? How do you know what you're averaging You're?
Speaker 2:doing gutter cleaning one day you're doing window washing, another day You're doing what's the other services people do, whatever you know, if you're doing painting I see a lot of pressure washers do staining and painting how do you set a goal that way? Um, and it's, and it's very hard to you know. I think when you grow your business and you get to a certain point, you can utilize different trucks for that. If you have three or four trucks, say, okay, I got a painting department, I got a stain in department, I got a gutter cleaning department and I got a pressure washing department. But it's hard to do all those things at once and set goals and be be efficient.
Speaker 1:Exactly. You come off a scatterbrained, and then you fail at all ends because there's only so much you can do as one 100%.
Speaker 2:Yes, sir. But we're at the 40 minute Mark where sir, that's about where we try to keep them Huh.
Speaker 1:Yep 30, 40 minutes. Is there anything you'd like to talk about? I guess, to wrap this one up.
Speaker 2:No, man, I just like I start out with and end with I appreciate everybody listening. We're going to go far with these things, no telling, we're going to keep pushing these episodes out, talking about what we're dealing with, talking about the success, what we can help you with. Come out with some cool things, release some merchandise. Eventually, um, maybe try to do some conferences and stuff like that. So, um, we're going to keep this thing growing with your support and, uh, make sure you subscribe on YouTube. Um, join our Facebook group, like our Facebook, the Wash Bros podcast page. Obviously, we're on Spotify and Apple podcasts. I appreciate everybody listening and supporting us. Follow us on Facebook, too. Our personal page is Matthew Jackson. If you want to follow Matt on Facebook, you can follow me. Clay Smith.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, and the cool thing about this show is you can go back to our first episode and whatever point in business you're at, we have episodes about that. And, clay, when we first started I I think you were just like I don't even know where you're in the thirty thousand dollar months, yet when you were we're first starting those I was doing fifteen, twenty thousand dollar months.
Speaker 1:So yeah, you can listen to him talking about where you guys probably are now, and then you can see where he's at like fifty thousand dollar months now. So it's not like, oh, we're talking about, we're talking game, where we're so far away like you can literally go back to where clay was probably in your shoes and listen to all those podcasts and learn his journey from how he's like walking you through, as well as like him talking about, oh, I'm running all these ads, I'm doing this, I'm doing that, and then two years down the road, you're like whoa, this guy's got like a legitimate business and he did so because of everything we've been kind of documenting in this podcast. That's what I think is cool and it's like hey, you, you, we are talking high level about like commercial jobs here or there, but if you guys are sitting in that $10,000 a month, check out our earlier episodes Like we've got a day worth of content and the first couple of episodes.
Speaker 2:we talk about what we did, how we got started in this and where we came from. So pretty cool stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so if you like what you hear here, make sure just to check out our older episodes and you learn a lot of lessons. But if that's it, we'll wrap this thing up and we'll see you guys on the next one.
Speaker 2:Peace out, guys. See ya, peace out, bye.
