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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 17: - Google Reviews Goldmine: Mastering Online Reputation for Pressure Washing Success
Ever wondered why some service businesses are booked solid while others struggle? It all comes down to reputation management—particularly through online reviews. In this eye-opening conversation, we dive deep into how your Google reviews and online presence can make or break your service business.
The modern marketplace has transformed word-of-mouth marketing. While many business owners claim to thrive on traditional referrals alone, the reality is that today's consumers research every company online before making a decision. As Clay points out, "You can be the best in your market, but if your Google reviews are terrible or non-existent, your phone isn't going to ring." This truth becomes even more crucial in saturated markets where dozens of competitors are vying for attention.
We share our proven strategies for building a robust online reputation, from creating comprehensive Google Business profiles to implementing systems that consistently generate positive reviews. You'll learn exactly how to ask customers for reviews without feeling awkward, how to leverage CRM systems to automate the follow-up process, and why maintaining quality service as you scale is non-negotiable for preserving your hard-earned reputation.
Perhaps most importantly, we discuss how reputation management isn't just about getting jobs today—it's about building a business with transferable value. Many owner-operators mistakenly believe their businesses are worth substantial money, but without systems, reputation, and teams that can operate independently, their companies have limited value to potential buyers. Whether you're just starting out or looking to take your established business to the next level, this conversation provides the blueprint for creating a digital presence that keeps your phone ringing without constant hustling or begging for work.
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What's up, guys? It's Matt Jackson and Clay Smith and we are the Wash Bros. Thanks for tuning in and welcome to episode 17. And for this episode we're going to talk about our importance of reviews and kind of our reputation management. If you guys are new to pressure washing, you probably aren't thinking about this. You're more thinking about how do you get work on the schedule, how do you do those thousand dollar days and book out those huge months and hit like six figures.
Speaker 1:But a more advanced strategy that Clay and I both jumped on really early is the importance of getting really good five starstar reviews on platforms and locking in that reputation, because we've been in business for not too terribly long but we both have a sizable amount of reviews. That really separates us from the rest of us and that helps with decision-making. As far as customers who are kind of like deciding between another company and your company Say, if one company has a lot of reviews and the other company has zero reviews, they've already decided. Most likely they're going with the company with the more reviews. So, uh, that's what we're gonna talk about today and I'll kick this thing off. Do you kill it and you can get us started as always I'd be happy to kick us off.
Speaker 2:We, uh, we've had a great week. I know you've had a great week, matt Strong. End of the month, we had to deal with some weather issues. I don't know about any of you other guys out there. Obviously, we had to face some obstacles. There's always going to be obstacles we face. It's never going to go as planned. No matter if we have the perfect plan, we're still going to face some issues and it's all about just how you find a solution to the problem, right. So appreciate everybody listening, appreciate everybody joining, whether it's Spotify, if you're listening on a Monday morning, sunday night, whenever you may be listening, we appreciate you listening on all platforms Spotify, apple Podcasts, youtube, facebook. We appreciate every one of you guys.
Speaker 2:Now, as Matt said, we're going to talk about reviews and reputation today, so excited. I really, really love talking about this because it has made a big impact in my business and it's been a huge part of success. So I was reading into something actually just a few minutes ago. It says you can be the best in your market, but if your Google reviews are terrible or non-existent, your phone isn't going to ring, and what that means is if your market is saturated like mine and Matt's.
Speaker 2:We have, I think, just on the internet on data, there's like 120 other competitors in our area and that's just roundabout numbers. I'm sure there's a lot more with you guys that do side hustle, part-timers and all that mess. However, if you are really good at your job, that's great, but if you don't have a reputation online, you need to get started on that immediately, because everybody's got a phone in their hand, everybody's on a computer and the first thing they do especially if they're just moving into your area like we have a lot of people moving in our market. We have a lot of people moving in our area.
Speaker 2:A lot of people moving from up north down here to the south, and wherever they're coming from, they're coming from all sorts of parts of the country. We're in like the hottest market. Everybody is moving here. So nine times out of 10, we're not your small, you know. We're just not your small town anymore, where everybody knows everybody and somebody that is just moving here. They're looking for somebody that they can trust. And where do they go? They go straight to the internet. They go to Google is like the top one, and then what else? Matt Yelp and all the other platforms, Facebook, the Facebook groups. So you need to make sure that you are working on your reputation online.
Speaker 1:Exactly. Yeah, I mean people brag about word of mouth only. What do you think word of mouth means? The modern word of mouth is how you look online. So if you're talking about, you lean purely on word of mouth. What do you? Got like seven people that refer you. No, like word of mouth needs to be when you're on top of Google and you have hundreds and hundreds of reviews. You're on Facebook and everybody shouts you out on Facebook groups. You got contractors suggesting you when they're at other houses doing their type of services. Like that's what word of mouth means, and our objective here is to grow the digital word of mouth. And it's free, there's no cost to it. It just takes time and a system, and that's what we're going to break down today. It it just takes time and a system, and that's what we're going to break down today.
Speaker 1:Kind of the importance of it, because I know it seems to be a weird flex where people think that, like they don't spend any money on marketing, they don't spend any time doing all this and business just flows to them. Well, I mean nine times out of 10, they're full of it and they either don't understand it or they're ignorant to the situation. So if you're ignorant ignorant to this this episode is gonna be great, because we're gonna educate you on how people do it the right way and you accumulate reviews. You sit on top of Google and the metrics that we have just from Google and all of our reviews, like we're touching thousands and thousands and thousands of people a month without us spending money. And because we do the right thing, we get the reviews out and that's our reputation. So, like Clay says, you can have the best company in the world, but if nobody knows your reputation, nobody knows how good a quality of service you do. You're irrelevant.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and like you were saying, I think, if you want to have a successful business and you want to do this, and it's what you want to do, how you want to. You want to have a successful business and you want to do this, and it's you know what you want to do how you want to.
Speaker 2:You want to retire from your business. You want to sit back and watch it run. It is a necessity, like you need to make sure you're you are paying the marketing. You need to make sure you're you're doing the things that work for you. You got to find the things that you're comfortable with and what works for best for you and your culture and your customer base, your target.
Speaker 2:Who are you targeting, right? So how can I get in front of those people? And what goes back to what you were saying about the free marketing, the word of mouth type stuff. It's like we talked about before the richest daggum companies in the world advertise. So they're not.
Speaker 2:You know they could probably live off a word of mouth, but they're always trying to be top of mind of everybody else and that is very important. When somebody thinks of pressure washing, are they thinking of your company? Are you in the discussion? How do you stay the top of mind of everybody else and how can I get in front of them? Everybody's got a phone in their hand. So basically, what you need to do is you need to say okay, what am I doing on all of the popular platforms Facebook, twitter, linkedin you're probably going to get more of your business owner commercial type work if you're going that route. But if you're wanting to get in front of homeowners, the home service industry anybody in the home service industry that's listening needs to listen to this you need to make sure that the number one, the impact I don't know Matt may disagree with this, but it's going to be Google. If somebody doesn't know anybody in town and they're looking for a reputable business, somebody that does good work, somebody that does good work, they're going to pick probably your top three, maybe top five in the Google. You know, top five on Google, whatever pops up. How can I get my business popped up in Google? That should be your top priority. That has been the biggest moneymaker for me outside of TV commercials and other things. But Google is your right now customer.
Speaker 2:So going to the review part of that thing you've got to build a great platform on Google. So what that means is you've got to make sure that all of your SEO is in line. If you don't know what SEO is, look it up. Youtube I always say, go to YouTube University. I've learned a lot on YouTube, believe it or not. You can almost get a doctor's degree on there, but go to Google, make you a strong profile, spend some time on it.
Speaker 2:It's not going to take it. You can't build a successful Google profile in 10 minutes. It's just not possible. It's going to take you weeks. You're going to find things that you want to tweet. Put some good pictures, professional pictures, some professional videos and just learn Google. Learn your Google, my Business, google Maps or whatever it is now I know it's changed a little bit and then you want to make sure you get those reviews.
Speaker 2:Those reviews mean a ton, because what happens is Google is actively, always looking for the most active profile. That helps your seo. What seo is is search engine optimization. So when somebody searches your information, searches pressure washer in your area, then they're going to pull the top three to five strongest profiles and that's how you rank on google. So make sure you have a reputation. If you don't have a reputation, start building one. Start immediately, because what happens is if you are just getting started in the industry and somebody is looking for a pressure washer, they're more than likely going to hire somebody like me or matt, versus somebody that does it part-time because you're non-existent. You may or either you are young into your google profile and you have three google reviews versus minor mats four to 500.
Speaker 2:I have three.
Speaker 1:I don't know that doesn't matter right now, but if they're going to pick somebody with three to 500 Google reviews over somebody that has 20 to 100 100% and if you think, oh, I can get business off of word of mouth, I don't need to do all this stuff, you guys don't know what you're talking about. You're competing with us in this space. If you were a customer, would you hire somebody based upon somebody that was recommended to you at a church and then you pull them up online and they had zero presence online? Or would you want to hire somebody that you see online with a lot of presence and has a lot of google reviews? Like we win jobs left and right over people, because I'm on the phone dealing with quotes of these guys and I'm almost not wanting to take the job because they're like well, I got five other people and I'm like, okay, who are the five other people? And half of these people I've never heard of. And then the other half. I'm like, okay, cool. And I'm like, well, we have 500 Google reviews. These people have 20 Google reviews.
Speaker 1:So, like we stay busy, we stay moving, we're adding value. There's value in our business. That's. That's like the, the value and this is the thing I think people mistake. If, as a new cup, like a pressure washing company, you let go, the value is like me showing up and like scrubbing somebody's house. No, the value is like how, how good of a job do you do over like your reputation, and so, if you can kill it on on your google reviews, your reputation online, there's so much more value in that than you thinking like you have the best tool or you're you're the only guy that knows how to pressure wash Cause I got college kids working for me right now and they've been. They do an awesome job and they get tips and they're friendly and they show up and they do everything great. They are not. They don't have 20 years of pressure watching experience. So, like you have to to you have to think in the mind of a customer and that's the number one thing is like the problem we face is we think of like what would we want as the contractor, but in reality it's like what would the customer want in their eyes as they make the decision, and usually that's going to be hire the guy with 500 reviews on google, hire the guy with 300 reviews on google and a lot of online reputation.
Speaker 1:And, like Clay says, our area is very transient now, where most of my customers have out of state area codes and they're relying purely on word of mouth via what they see on Google and that's. And then again to the last point. Like when you have 100, 200 people pressure washing in our area, if you solely rely on word of mouth, you're not going to make it period. Like you can do this on the side if you want to, but if you're not actively, like rolling the ball forward every day and Clay and I, as soon as we started, we're like get on Google, get locked in with this work on your Google, my business. Like you can look at my Google, my business page, and I have like 12,500 pictures associated to it. Like there's a lot of things that I've been doing over time that shows the activity of Google and and all the reviews.
Speaker 1:So Google says this is a highly active profile. We're going to put them at the top. And if you think you can skirt by without doing that or just putting yard signs up, you guys are kidding yourselves. That's just kind of the two cents from a different level, cause like we talk about I was talking to a guy the other day there's levels to the game. If you're completely fine doing ten thousand dollars a month, five thousand dollars a month working on the weekends, no sweat, but if you're truly trying to compete and grow a business that sustains you full-time and a family and employees, this is what's required yeah, like uh, where we're kind of at now and I'm just new into it, but we got a few other people's families now, so it's a big thing.
Speaker 2:The reputation thing is a big thing. If you want to build a fleet, you want to have multiple trucks, you want to do big numbers. These are the important things. Also, asking for reviews can be very awkward. It's all about how you go about it. Do your job? Show up, do you get your processes in place with the CRM? I know we've talked about it before.
Speaker 2:Be very professional. Be a legit like Chick-fil-A of pressure washing. I know everybody used Chick-fil-A as a standard because they're great, they have a process, they get everybody in and out quick, they have great quality. They have great quality, they have great manners. They're professional. Be the Chick-fil-A of pressure washing. That's how I went about everything. Know how to communicate with people, go in, do your job, do your job really well, and then just ask Say hey, if you don't mind, when you have time this evening, would you please leave this five-star Google review? That's how I get more customers. That's exactly how I say it. I keep it short and sweet and not everybody's going to give you a review. I mean, even if you did do a great job, they'll call you back next year. But I have learned that not everybody's going to give you a review.
Speaker 2:So, there are platforms in place out there, there's software in place, there's software in place. There's all kinds of different things you can do to tie your customer base up too, and those guys will follow up with your customers and get reviews. But when we're done with our job, when we click done, it'll automatically send a customer link to do a review, so it's very helpful.
Speaker 1:Yep, showcase your reviews on your website too, because people go through your website and that's another thing. They think, oh, a guy's phone number for pressure washing. People are going to look you up on google, whether you think they are or not. You could say word of mouth through my friend or word of mouth in my neighbor. The first thing they're going to do is try to find you online to get um like social proof off of that. And well, clay and I do, uh, we put our reviews, I guess. Do you have a review page on your website? Yeah, there's a few on there?
Speaker 2:yep, yeah, yeah, do you have a review page on your website? Yeah, there's a few on there.
Speaker 1:Yep, yeah, yeah. So I have a review page on my website. So all my reviews on Google and, I think, like Facebook or whatever, show up on my website. So if you want to scroll through, you can scroll through like seven or 800 reviews of like every single platform and not only does that build social proof, but that tells people oh, this guy has a lot of reviews, I'm going to leave him a review. If you kind of lead with your reviews and they see your reviews on Google, they see you're highly rated and you kind of put that on your website, you're going to condition people, when you send that request to get a review, that they're going to instantly leave you a review.
Speaker 1:And that's how a lot of these guys work, unless they're kind of being shady, because I know a lot of people will try to incentivize you with reviews, which technically breaks the Google like terms and conditions for it. But I know guys who they have a thousand reviews and they say, hey, if you leave us a review, we'll give you like a $25 gift card to like a restaurant. Don't, don't do shady stuff like that, because the word of mouth of that gets out to. There's a couple of guys I follow. They have out to. There's a couple guys I follow. They have a lot of reviews in this space quickly, and then you start looking through some of their reviews and they're like the guy gave me like a 20 gift card if I leave him this review and we want to go about it the right way. So and then fake reviews too. You don't want fake reviews. That will get you shadow banned and suspended off of google extremely fast. So make sure you're doing it correctly.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Don't be making fake Google emails and stuff like that, trying to get more reviews and trying to get it up. Make sure you do it the right way. If you're just new to this, you're listening to our podcast, you have a good customer base. I would just reach out, share them a link. I don't even know if I'd share them a link. I would just reach out and say, hey, trying to get my Google profile going, please go and write me a review.
Speaker 2:Trying to build my reputation online and just be transparent with with your customers. They they understand that you're out here trying to make it, trying to feed your family, trying to make some money, trying to make something out of it. So that's the biggest thing in business that I have learned being transparent, being honest. If you break something, if you uh, I mean even something stupid, if you kick something over whatever just be transparent with the customers, be like look, just tell them up front. They're they're always appreciative and they'll more than likely hire you back just because you told them what had happened and it was a mistake. It's like I tell everybody nobody's perfect.
Speaker 1:I know I threw away a flower pot in somebody's house and they use clay now. Hey at least it went to the right guy, I know.
Speaker 2:At least it went to one of us and, hey, at least it went to the right guy. I know I was like I don't want this. At least it went to one of us and people will literally get sour over that.
Speaker 1:And they will remember it five years later. This was like in 2021, and you're still washing the house now and she probably still talks about it.
Speaker 2:We don't talk about it anymore.
Speaker 2:But yeah, me and Matt juggle a lot of the same customers. It's just part of business, right, it's nothing personal, and we just laugh about it and move on forward. Like, okay, I dropped the ball, we learn from each other. We say, okay, well, this is where I did wrong, kind of like the best of the upstate boating we had this year. I dropped the ball on it because I was so busy. Matt's like oh, that's already done, he got an email and I didn't, so I'm just like there was a second voting round so I missed out on that. But hopefully Matt wins it this year. I won it last year, so it'd be cool for the Wash Bros. Yeah, we would be stoked about that. I'll be voting for Matt and best upstate. If any of the upstate guys are listening, go vote for Matt or sorry, it's already done yeah, see, I still think there's a voting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, so yeah yeah, it was, it was already done, so it's all good, hopefully, matt.
Speaker 2:Matt won and we can celebrate that for the Watch Bros. But that's another good thing with marketing Building your reputation. You can use that as marketing. A lot of people are like, oh, it's all, who pays the most money that doesn't have a thing to do with it. Even if you were paying money, you are investing into your business. A consumer doesn't know that it has anything to do with money or anything like that. I mean, even before I got into business, before I started my business, I knew that. You know, hey, that's probably a good company. People voted for them. You know that just builds depth in your reputation as a business.
Speaker 1:It's called, yeah, I mean it's boiled back to the reputation. And when people are like called, yeah, I mean it's boiled back to the reputation. And when people are like, oh, it's just like you buy or you're popular or you bought friends or you like harass people, I'm like what do you think business is? If I have a lot of friends and I convince them to use me for business, that's a business. So like people get hung up, they get salty, sour, like I don't know if they're like losers in their past life, but a lot of times like that scarcity comes off and people don't like that and you're probably not very busy in business if that's your personality and your attitude. Like business is like a self-discovery lesson and you kind of level yourself up as like we've leveled up throughout the years as the wash bros, and then like Clay's leveling up a lot right now with expanding out with another skid, another truck and like really putting his fleet together, like there's a lot of personal development that goes into that and like if you would have taken Clay like from the beginning of this Wash Bros, or even me from the beginning of this Wash Bros, and sat us down, we were different people back then than we are today. And like it just takes constantly leveling up and having the not only like the discipline, but just being okay with like clay says like you drop the ball Occasionally. You got four jobs a day. It's hot outside, your hose knocks over a flower pot, oh bummer. Like do the do what's right, don't just like toss it away and pretend like it didn't. Nothing happened. And then they're like well, wait, I wouldn't, I don't care about the flower pot. It's the fact that you damaged something on my property and you didn't necessarily let me know about it. So it's like owning up to your mistakes, being transparent and honest with people.
Speaker 1:And when we do the reviews, our systems house call pro, the crm we talk about all the time. We get follow-ups, um, that go to customers like jobs completed, thank you for, uh, using math, the driveway guy like we would love you to like leave us a review. And oftentimes people can say, hey, I'd love to leave your review, but I noticed this and this. Can you fix it? And that also like allows you to be humble, to go back and make something right. And like save a customer that could have just said I'm never going to use this guy again. So it's almost like keeping the conversation going with a customer.
Speaker 1:You're not just taking their money and leaving and that's how you get raving clients, customers and word of mouth and that reputation. It's like the job doesn't stop as soon as the job. Like the job doesn't stop when the labor's done, like it's. It's your job to take that customer and turn them into a raving fan who's going to like share your name out there word of mouth, and they're also going to call you every so, every year, every two years, and like that's the ultimate objective of business.
Speaker 1:Too many people stop way too short. They they clean the house, they're like bye, never gonna see him again. And then they lost that customer and like clay was saying we do email campaigns to all of our customers and he's we're adjusting our campaigns to send follow-ups and then, like you will get repeat customers by simply asking to wash their house again and it's, it is. It seems almost too easy. You're like I'm spending all this money trying to market with google, but if I just send out these automated emails, people are going to respond and then I'm just going to put them back on the schedule and those are the easiest jobs to clean up because they're already clean from last time.
Speaker 2:Well, not only that, I'm always making sure that anytime I come in contact with a customer whether it's a phone call, phone conversation with a phone call, a lead, or a conversation with a neighbor in person I'm always getting the information that they'll give it to me, because those customers, that information costs money. Anytime that Google calls you, facebook ads, whatever you're on average anywhere from $40 to $60 is kind of the average that I've came up with and basically what you do is you grab all the information. You grab whether you're going to hire them right now or not. Then you set up the email automations, you send campaigns, you send postcards, you send text messages and you just kind of drum up more business and it saves you so much more money. It drums up so much more business without having to spend too much.
Speaker 1:Exactly. And like when you have multiple trucks, as like Clay and I have, it isn't like, oh, I'm greedy, I'm trying to make more money. You start to scale and then you say, whoa, I got a guy showing up every single day for 40 hours a week. I need to have him busy and then so. So you have to think differently than when it's an owner operator out there and you're like man, if I, if I work a little harder, I can work an extra hour every night and make another like 5,000 bucks. It's like no, you're like literally putting food on somebody else's table. Now it's a different level and that's the exciting thing.
Speaker 1:And then it's really important to maintain that reputation while you have other guys doing the labor for you. It's like, hey, you want to open that conversation and communication with your customers. So if you have a new guy out there and they're maybe not as attention to detail as you are, or they don't know the systems as much as you'd like them to, they don't walk through, do walk arounds with the customer. Like you need to correct those before they become big issues. And like occasionally you'll have a bad hire. But if you communicate with your customers usually, like you can maintain a good reputation and people like to support you as you support others. That's, that's something cool too. Like you'll get better tips.
Speaker 1:Um, they're like oh, you got a team. Like, I show up at somebody's house, having done that house like years and years ago. But they follow me on social media. They know that I have a team of guys. Now they're like you still got the team. I'm like, yeah, I just showed up cause I wanted to see my old customers. But, like, people will value you if you have multiple guys working for you and you and they like to see you growing a business. So, like that reputation is is paramount to everything because, like we are like in our local market, you see, guys, they scale too quickly, they grow too fast, they get too hands off and reputation starts to come out. People start to call hey, I use this guy one year and like he messed something up. Hey, I use this guy, he. And then that starts to become a trend and you never want that to be the case for you.
Speaker 2:So well, there's a, there's a local company here now that I've gotten a lot of customers from and, uh, not gotten directly from them, but I've been out to do a job and they say, okay, these guys normally do it, but their quality is going downhill. So don't be that guy, don't let that happen, because it's going to be eventually, you're going to be non-existent Eventually. It keeps happening.
Speaker 1:Exactly, business is a long haul. People look at it as how can I hit $100,000? How can I hit $500,000? How can I hit a million? Okay, but like you hit a million dollars in revenue, like you should be making good money. Your job is to maintain that, manage that and keep it going and then live a quality life off of that. Like, don't be so fixated on chasing these numbers. And then there's no end in sight. And that's where you the beauty of business.
Speaker 1:And it's funny because people always try to dick measure online where you say, oh, I have two trucks, I'm doing volume. They're like, oh, volume's not that good. I'm like everybody has a different way of doing business and like that's the beauty of business. Not everybody can do business, though. A lot of people can't do volume because they can't manage employees and they can't build a team and build a true business. They're stuck in that owner operator hustle and then you see them hustle for five years and then they're doing something else and then they're doing something else or they're doing another service else where they're doing another service, like what Clay and I do.
Speaker 1:That makes us successful is we specialize in the pressure washing and, like Clay says, the customers who are in these nice houses and these guys invest a ton of money in bringing in these marketing leads, a ton of money in their equipment. They may not do the best job because they're a little far removed from their business. That customer, instead of calling them back, is going to call Clay or I because they say hey look, these guys are a little bit more focused and specialized in pressure washing and they're not all over the place trying to do everything else, and that's that's a common thing that we hear a lot. So like maintain that quality of when you first started and it's not. It's like we're not trying to tell you. Once you scale a business, you're like in the office doing nothing all day long and it's chill, it's like it's a different type of work, but it's still work and it's important that you keep that reputation and keep that pulse and intentional touch still on your business.
Speaker 2:Well, I think the biggest thing is if you want to be a pressure washer, be a pressure washer. If you want to be a painter, be a painter. You want to be a plumber, be a painter. You want to be a plumber, be a plumber and it whatever else. You need to find that one good thing that you want to do in the home service industry and you need to do it.
Speaker 2:Don't try to offer a million other different things, because I feel like we get sidetracked, we get out of the job. We start saying, well, I can do, I can fix your doorknob that's broken, or I can fix your ceiling fan, or I could sell you, uh, permanent lights that go up on your yard, oh, oh, I can spread mulch for you too. And then the customer just gets a bad taste in your mouth, cause, like they're like who did we hire? This guy does everything? Did we hire a handyman? And then I feel like that doesn't give you as good as value If, as if you were just to say, okay, I'm a pressure washer, that I'm a professional pressure washer, that's what I specialize in. So find that one good service, stick to that service and master that service.
Speaker 1:And be known in your area for what you do.
Speaker 2:That's the number one thing.
Speaker 1:Yes sir, you don't want to be the guy who's oh, he had a great pressure washing business and then he decided to do X, y and Z and now he's really average on a lot of things. Like that is not what we want. There's plenty of business to be had cleaning homes or cleaning offices of businesses and the focus you just keep your head down and I'm kind of at that phase where, like stuff is like it just keeps showing up because you're like oh, the, the reputation, the repeat customers, like you're starting to see the fruits of your labor after doing this for four or five years of like really solid, dedicated focus, where you're like I can, I can expect these months to be very in line with where they were before, like you can predict things, and that's when business starts to get fun. And then you're like I can have another 150 or 200 Google reviews this year. I can, I can be within like a few thousand dollars of revenue that I'm going to anticipate, and then you can plan stuff out. And then that's when, like, being the business owner is fun Because, like Clay said too, like you want to be a pressure washer, that's fine, but if you just want to be a pressure washer and you don't want to be a business owner.
Speaker 1:It's a completely different energy. A lot of guys are great at pressure washing but business owning they're not. And the objective of the Wash Bros podcast is to kind of educate people who are great at pressure washing, who want to be great at business owning, the things that they need to think about and the things that they need to do to be great at business owning. And like you see guys, they just they hit levels and, okay, cool, like you're doing it yourself. You want to hit $180,000 like pressure washing, but like like are you going to be doing that for 10 years, 20 years, 30 years?
Speaker 1:And then you go to try to sell your company, which we see a lot, and then they're thinking they can get x amount of money for their company but in reality their company's worth nothing. And like nobody's trying to be mean here, but it's like, unless you have like a well-oiled machine that whoever's buying your company can give you money for it and then get a return on it, your company's worthless. And usually that's because the guy is doing all the work. So if you're in that owner operator trap and you think, oh, I'm just going to retire and my kids are going to get this big payout. That's not the case whatsoever. Like, get ahead of it. Either figure out how to have a team run your business for you or just kind of of figure out a different route. Because if you're thinking I'm just going to be the owner operator at 60 years old, I'm going to sell it, I'm going to get a hundred thousand dollar plus payout, you're going to be in for a like a rude, rude awakening in a bad time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. I mean, $100,000 is nothing. I wouldn't even consider selling my business for $100,000. So if anybody were, to offer that.
Speaker 2:I would just laugh at them. But it would take a lot of money to buy my business, especially with all the hard work that I put in, and If you don't have everything in place, you're not providing any value. You don't have the Google reviews. I know I had a discussion with a guy this week about buying his business, but he provided no value. He had no Google reviews. He claimed he was the top of Google. He wasn't on the top of Google and he's been in business for 20 years and said he only had 500 customers.
Speaker 2:So it's like, okay, we have which is crazy because you know me and you have talked, matt we got I don't know 3 000 customers I think you got a little more time in the game than me, so you have around 4 000 and it's just like, wow. Well, if he thinks he can get x amount of money for his, then I ought to be able to get a hundred times that, because I have, you know, so many more customers than he does in my database and the track record, uh, the data that I know that I'm going to make X amount this year. I can kind of project that I can say, okay, like Matt was saying about the Google reviews. I can get a X amount of Google reviews this year If I do this many jobs. The formulas are there. They're in place for you. Yes, use this year if I do this many jobs the formulas are there, they're in place for you.
Speaker 1:Yes, you either choose to follow them or you choose to put your head in the sand, whether it's from ignorance, or you're just stupid and like there's no flex in not learning with the times and using the technology that we have today. Because, like you see, with ai, if you're not adapting to things, if you see, if you're not adapting to being online, if you're not adapting to things, if you see, if you're not adapting to being online, if you're not adapting to technologies and learning how to market yourself, you're going to be replaced and, like the, the world is not fair. And that's the beauty of business. We can go in, we can hit it as hard as we want and we get exactly what we deserve. So if we're going into this thing with like the know-it-all attitude, saying I just business just rolls into me, and then I try to pull you up online and you don't even have a Google presence, like stop kidding yourself you either look in the mirror and say, okay, I don't know what I'm doing. I wanna learn, I wanna listen to the Wash Bros, I wanna make myself a better version of myself.
Speaker 1:Today, you do that. You show up and five years down the road, you have a really rocking business. There's no timeline set. It no timeline set. It's all about just having a goal in mind, having clarity and following the basic frameworks that we do, and we've literally talked about it for the last two or three years as we've been doing this show and the fruits are in our labors. Clay's grown, he's scaled. I've grown, I've scaled. It's pretty simple formula here. Now we're kind of in the maintenance mode, where we can kind of go wherever we want to with it, but you pulled a lot of profit out of your business. You can go on cruises, vacations, and then you can be a dad and that's ultimately what Clay and I both enjoy more than anything.
Speaker 2:And then then again, it's not just us talking because we're biased, because we have a podcast and we want everybody to listen. But the thing is we have so many such stories. We get the messages daily. They're in our inbox. People are asking us for help, guidance, et cetera, et cetera. I could go on and on and on and on and on about all the success stories we get in our messages every day About how much they appreciate our podcast. It's not that we're being biased. We have literally put these processes in place. Me and Matt have the same business model and it's what works for us.
Speaker 1:And we make a really good living doing it and we just want to help other people. No doubt, no doubt, and it's it's just like like, like we say it's no. Another great quote I heard. It was like being rich and being poor is like the same level of effort. It's all down to your habits.
Speaker 1:So you show, you wake up in the morning, you kind of have a victim mindset, you just kind of procrastinate through the day, like we all have the same amount of time, whether you want to do it moping through or whether you want to wake up, you have a game plan and you start attacking it because that's going to become second nature and a habit and clay. And I wouldn't even think about what we do like. In the beginning it's like all hoorah, like this is exciting, this is fun. But now it's at the stage where you're just like I just show up, do the job, go home, and then before you know, you're like whoa, look what I've been able to build just because of the right habits I've been doing for the last few years and there are some tweaking.
Speaker 2:There are some tweaking that goes on with our marketing and stuff like that. We kind of have to maintenance it and stuff like that. But for for the most part, our leads are pretty much autopilot. They just stream in Like we have worked so hard over the last four or five years that we don't really have to beg for work. We don't have to go out and knock on doors and beg for work. We don't have to go put door hangers on doors and beg for work. We don't have to sell our work. We've done such a great job building a reputation online, building the Google reviews, that we don't have to beg for work and that is one of the goals that that should be in your business.
Speaker 1:Exactly we look at, like Clay was saying, you want to be the best at what you do. You don't see Amazon beating down the door, trying to go door to door to sell their services. You don't see these big mega companies. They're marketing themselves, they're putting themselves out there, but they're not hard selling. Like you need to get to the place where you don't have to hard sell people.
Speaker 1:Like, when people ask me questions, they're like how am I different than everybody else? I just ask them questions. I was like well, first of all, what are you even looking for? It's like you ask these open, broad questions and a lot of times they just want peace of mind that you're going to do a good job and, um, they can go on with their day and have a clean house and it's going to be a seamless, easy process. And like you go in and you hard sell somebody, you're door knocking, like you're kind of starting starting to frame on a hustle bad way that I don't necessarily like a high value customer, high value company is not going to necessarily do, because I mean, you think about it.
Speaker 1:It you want to put that reputation out there of like hey, we're a leader in the area, like we do volume, like we are. We always have people doing business with us. You can look at our Google reviews. We get two reviews every every couple of days. Like you're not the only person we're dealing with today. Now, if you're just door knocking, they don't know anything about you, you're just kind of abruptly interrupting. You're interrupting their day Like they don't know who you are. Like may not be the best form of marketing. Now, if you want to sell a $99 driveway, I'm sure somebody would do that, but the objective we have is to grow our brands and businesses and our reputations, as we have. And then, like Clay says, we we pretty much just have a funnel of leads coming in, and then it's up to us to decide what we want to do with those Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And, matt, I think we're coming up on our 40-minute mark for this episode. I think we've covered a lot about this reputation, a lot about the Google reviews, what they mean to us, and you can tell that we're very passionate about it. It means a lot. Especially, it's like the root of your business. That's where people go, that's where they look, that's where I send people. Like if I meet them on the street, I'm like look, we got through 300 google reviews, check us out. You may not hear from them the same day, you might not hear from them tomorrow, but they'll remember that they had that conversation with you and they'll look you up online and they'll book you I get asked this a lot if I'm out and they're like oh you, do you do pressure washing, do you have a card?
Speaker 1:I said why don't you Google it? And then they Google you. And then they because like, if I have a card and it's no different than everybody else's card, it's just going to get lost in somebody's wallet. But if they Google you and they see 500 something reviews or they just Google pressure washing near me and you're in the top, there's far more credibility than them just calling somebody off of a card.
Speaker 2:I come from the car business. I know you did a little car business too, but I hated giving out cards because I knew that it was going up in a floorboard or a trash can somewhere or whatnot. If you're asking me for a card, I did not do my job properly. What did I do wrong in the process of trying to earn your business?
Speaker 1:It's like send me a quote.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I mean we give a card out to the customer when we greet them at their door to show up and do their job, just so they have a card laying around somewhere if they want to put it on their fridge.
Speaker 1:That's a different story than like meeting somebody and saying here's my card, like like clay said in the car business that's like okay, cool, can you give me your card? That's a nice way of saying I'm not interested, I want to go home they're looking for a way out, that's a, that's a kind way of saying I'm not interested in talking to you right now.
Speaker 2:Exactly A hundred percent. So, um, I, I didn't, I didn't even do cards in the car business for that reason, because it's just like okay, ma'am sir, I obviously didn't do my job today. What can I assist you know what? Do you not like me? Do you not like you know what I mean? So yeah, that's just another sales thing we can talk about another day.
Speaker 1:but you gotta be like. You gotta be like Andy Elliot and take your shirt off if you don't have ass.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, right, yeah. But yeah, it's been a great episode, matt, and I enjoyed this episode a lot. Guys, if you would go to YouTube, go follow us. Apple Podcasts, spotify, all the platforms, all the podcast platforms You'll find us. I promise you We've had great success stories from all this.
Speaker 2:Matt's working on some merch. I think we're doing a little update into our website. If you need anything, be sure to reach out to us. If you've gained any knowledge from our podcast, let us know. Comment below. Shoot us a message on our the Wash Bros podcast messenger. You can shoot us in there. I always love reading those. We're going to use those also for our platforms to share success stories. Also, go to the Wash Bros group. Follow the private group, the Wash Bros group. We share some stuff that we're doing during the week in there. It's called the Wash Bros or Wash Bros something, something like that. You'll find it. And then, um, my personal page, clay smith on facebook. Uh, the pressure wash guru on tiktok. Go, follow me. I got some viral videos on there. And then you got matthew jackson on facebook. Matt the driveway guy is his business page. He's got brand up, uh. And then follow my business page, c3 wash bros what you got for matt that's about it.
Speaker 1:Uh, we're working on trying to post a little bit more in the Watch Bros group. I'm trying to really grow this. As I got my college kids coming back, I have a little bit more time I'm not so much in the field with this so we can get back to hitting it hard. Kind of like I was doing a little bit in the winter before the spring took off and we all got crazy. But, like Clay says, yeah, give us a follow on everything. We're working on trying to help out in any way we can and provide a lot of value to everybody, because I know it's a fun thing to listen to.
Speaker 1:If you listen to the episode, I know we had one guy he reached out to us. He's like, hey, I've been listening, I finally hit my first $1,000 day, so like that's huge. I mean that's awesome. Like we talk about things because we're talking from a different level. If you're just starting out, or if you're wanting to make the jump from part-time to full-time or you're full-time, you're kind of struggling. Like you can get value from this podcast and like you can just go through and listen to all the like 40 other episodes we've had in the past. If you have any questions, make sure to message us. Like Clay said, and I mean, if that's it, uh, we'll drop the outro and then we'll we'll see you guys next week.
Speaker 2:Peace guys, next week see ya.
