Podcast Introduction
Welcome to the Home Exterior Cleaning Success Formulas Podcast. This show is for pressure washing, window cleaning, paver sealing, roof cleaning, and pretty much any home exterior service business owner who wants to grow smarter and scale faster. I’m David Kunstek with Clean Marketing, where we help home service companies generate more leads, book more jobs, and build predictable growth systems using Facebook ads, Google ads, high converting websites, and search engine optimization. In each episode, we break down what’s actually working in marketing, sales, and operations so you can build a stronger and more profitable business. Let’s get into it. What’s up, everybody? Dave Kunstek here. I’m here today with Chisum Proctor of Integrity Services. Now, just to be transparent, in the past, Chisum was one of our clients who was a window cleaning client a couple years ago, but we’ve kind of kept in contact. He’s located in southwest Florida. And what he is doing now is he’s doing outdoor lighting and holiday lighting when the season is in, man. So what’s up, Chisum? How you doing? I’m doing good. Thank you. Cool, man. Cool.
Snapshot of the Business
So just to get things started off, what I want you to do is if you can give us a quick snapshot of your business, where you’re at, what’s going on. Absolutely. So something I do want to talk about that me and you talked about briefly before this started was… I do have ADHD. I have suffered with depression. Um, I know not everybody in all industries deals with the same thing, but it’s kind of nice knowing what somebody has while they’re going through all this. That way, if you can relate, awesome. If you can’t, don’t worry about it. Um, but you know, I, as someone with ADHD, I know I have to be more sensitive with food, sugar, caffeine, drinks, everything. Um, So with that, currently I’m in transition.
I, like David said, I started out window cleaning in 2012 and I concentrated on window cleaning and exterior cleaning and Christmas lights about four years ago. uh my wife and i moved from boise idaho to southwest florida and during that time uh we’ve actually been we looked at we i got into paper sealing uh window cleaning has always been my bread and butter just because it’s super simple to do once you know how to do that it is you can always fall back on it it’s very simple um but then i also got i also opened my horizons up to like outdoor lighting landscape lighting permanent holiday lighting And I just, I don’t know, I’m enjoying getting involved in bigger projects, bigger tickets as well.
First Big Lighting Job
But to me, lighting is just such a cooler thing to me personally. Some people always stay in window cleaning and that’s awesome. But yeah, so I was introduced to landscape lighting about two years ago. Kind of funny, actually. On my truck, I was at my first ever Naples Christmas light job. And to be honest, I started window cleaning ads with you guys and then transitioned those ads to Naples. for holiday lighting so my largest and first christmas light job from southwest florida actually came from your guys’s ad that’s cool i appreciate that i didn’t know that and uh the job was they did halloween and christmas lights and it was a total of twenty five thousand dollars every time i hear that i feel like i’m in the wrong business oh no well see here’s here’s the thing Southwest, I would say South Florida dominantly, but Southwest Florida in particular might have the highest prices. Like we might have the biggest tickets in the U S like overall the area. Oh yeah. Yep. And the reason why I believe that’s possible is because we, people make up for the lack of the holiday by putting out lights and And so they have no problem going crazy. Like wreaths, bows, garland. Everybody wants a hallmark house here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Except you don’t get the snow down there. Exactly. Well, that’s what I’m saying. They make up for everything. The cold weather, the snow. So they go crazy. Warm white lights is very popular here. We wrap tons of palm trees.
Getting Into Permanent Lighting
But basically… I was taking down that big house and I had permanent lighting on the side of my truck. And she goes, oh, you do permanent lighting, like the lighting in the ground? I was like, sure. So I was reaching out to people like, hey, I’d love to get into this. Somebody asked for a quote. And that was the first thing. And ever since then, it’s not… It’s not as quite as cut and dry as window cleaning by any means. Some people just stick fixtures in the ground and walk away. Some people make an art out of it with the lighting and the shadows. Window cleaning is pretty cut and dry. You may use different tools, but you’re cleaning a window. You might do post-construction, but most people, window cleaning is window cleaning. So I’ve been learning outdoor lighting for like the last two years. And, you know, I’ve done a few, my first big thing, Thankfully, my first big outdoor lighting project was with one of my Christmas clients, and it was $14,000. So I’m learning that there is more money and just more enjoyability with lighting for me. Yeah.
Team Setup
We were at your business there. Now, obviously, you know, I mean, as I learned a little earlier, you know, you’re like a mobile entrepreneur, which is awesome. That’s like something I always wanted to do is better travel, run my businesses and so forth. So how is your team set up as far as getting this work completed? So I had a full-time guy and a part-time guy for Christmas lights for this third season. And we did 150,000. So basically I am stable in Southwest Florida. And we separated with those two. So right now we’re getting ready to scale for this next holiday lighting season. This season is a little different for us. We’re actually going to be heading out of town to go to Washington State for a few months. I’m going to do some solo work there and then bounce back for the Christmas light season. So this will be our first year really bringing on a solid crew, and hopefully we can continue that into outdoor lighting next year with that same crew and just keep growing.
Long-Term Direction
That’s awesome. Awesome. So now, again, you went over a couple specific services here. Now, like, is landscape lighting going to be your main focus, or is it just going to gear up and earn your revenue on three, four months of holiday lighting? Like, where are you at? I think, well, and I really think that depends. I mean, some people start with, one of my outdoor lighting mentors started with Christmas. His name is, we call him Captain Matt. Captain Matt. Yeah, I do apologize. I forgot how he got the nickname, but his name is Captain Matt. We’re a part of the Illuminati Lounge on Facebook. It’s a Facebook group. Okay, and he runs the program or? Well, him and Shane Duffy run the program, but their mentor is the ultimate guy. He’s just not a social media guy as much.
Marketing and Mentorship
But yeah, he’s basically been my mentor since I started with another guy, Ryan Lee, which you may be familiar with. I’m familiar with who it is. So Ryan Lee has a coaching program. I was part of that for a moment. Just… Again, I fall back. My ADHD kind of… I work with some things well, and I don’t work with other things well, and it’s nobody’s fault. I just have to understand at some point I have to cut ties with the program because I can’t benefit from something for whatever reason.
Communication as a Strength
Wow. I thought about this one, and it’s funny because it kind of comes back to the ADHD gives me a superpower. The downside about ADHD for me personally is procrastination and almost never being on time to anything because my time management skills are out the window. But customer service and constant communication due to anxiety are like way up here. So to me, that’s become my I’ve learned to take advantage of that. Like I have actual text in my phone that I just hit two letters and a text pops out.
Communication System and Text Automation
So if I’m running late for whatever reason, technically, the reasons I run late, I’ve learned that they don’t need to know about everything. I just say, hey, I’m at an appointment right now. I apologize. It’s running longer than I planned. I’ll text you as soon as I’m on my way. So as soon as I’m on my way, I have an on my way text. When I arrive, I have an arrival text. That way, if they’re home, they can come out and meet me. If they don’t want to, I just get to work. And then I have a things are completed text. And I do those for many things. I do those for communication. I do them so that they can respond to me at any given time. And I do it for security purposes. That way, if anything, I’ve had people actually robbed. And they looked back and said, oh, well, the window cleaner left at this time. And then they realized, you know, there was a footprint there after I left. So I cleaned it and they were like, oh, when did the window cleaner guy leave? Oh, so that footprint was from that guy. Cool. So they could, you know, and that was the first time it happened. They caught the guy because I had left a message and they knew I was gone and that was somebody else’s footprint. So that was really neat. But to me, it’s just like, Communication. And in Florida, there’s so many businesses. People are always telling me, man, you get back to us, you communicate with us. Nobody ever does that. You know what? That makes such a difference. A friend of mine, he’s a Marine veteran and his daughter’s coming up through the ranks and she wants to join the Air Force and he just posted the other day. Does anybody know of an Air Force recruiter That will call us back. We’ve tried three. Oh, wow. And no one is calling us back. Wow. And, of course, then he made a joke, you know, Air Force versus Marines kind of a flyaway joke. But it’s true, man. That’s crazy. If somebody will get back in touch with you and, you know, I believe in, how do you say, speed the lead. Oh, gotcha, yeah. Lead comes in, man. And if you’re not on top of it, you’re calling the next day. And you’re telling us the leads are bad. I’m like, they’re not bad. They’re not bad. It’s speed to lead. And either you need to do it yourself or pay for automation. Yep. Something. Yep.
On-Site Estimates and Conversions
So communication is amazing for people. And then my other superpower is communication. Like, I got it from the book from Ritz Carlton. Yeah, Ritz Carlton. Let’s see. There’s a book that they put out. But basically it’s about their customer service. And I have learned that I need to be crazier than everyone else. So for Christmas lights, a lot of people say we’ll be out there within 24 to 48 hours. As soon as I get someone’s like, oh, my light’s out. I’m like, okay, I’ll be there on the way home. I’ve stopped at people’s house at 3 a.m. just to fix something. I have a client in, uh, more region, North Carolina does paper ceiling. Yep. And he uses the VA sort of like you do. Yep. And he had, they, they, him and his wife that do all the quoting have, um, you know, the find me feature on her phones on the Apple. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And what they did is they gave access to their VA, wherever their VA is at. And he takes all the incoming calls. Right. And since all they do is quoting, whenever a new quote comes in, he looks to see where they’re at and he’s taught, he’ll talk to the people and be like, Hey, you know, Bob is only about six miles away from me. Um, he’s, and I, I look, it looks like he’s finishing up his quote. If he, it’s okay. If he comes over in the next few minutes, you know, the next half hour, whatever it is, like he seems that I don’t know, somehow they keep their VA in process of where they’re at and what they’re doing. They have some kind of communication channel, but, uh, literally they take the call and they always say they’re a few miles away. And they get, they get like in person fast and it’s conversion rate is insane. That’s awesome. No stuff like that. That if, if, if not, everyone’s doing it, it’s the best thing to do. Yeah. Well, think about that, man. They’ll be there. They’ll be there shortly. Right. When they’re interested, you know? Oh yeah. No, like that’s why they, that’s why I love onsite estimates over phone call estimates. Yeah. Yeah, that’s a hard thing to get through to people, man. When we’re in peak season, man, we’re doing ads for anywhere between 100 and 150 people at a time. It’s kind of nuts around here. But I hear every story and everything that doesn’t work, everything that does work. I see what works in one market, doesn’t in another. It’s pretty crazy. Outside estimates? Yeah. um everything some people people do them um on site some people do them by using satellite some people by phone some people only use messenger or text and by far again it’s the most time consuming but in person by far is the highest converting well the thing i would To me, the thing I would argue, and it’s not even an argument in my mind, just personal experience, on-site estimate does things that no other estimate can. First, if you have any type of attractive magnet or some type of truck wrap or vehicle wrap, People get to see it from the time you leave, go there and come back. That’s a really good point. So that’s advertising. So if you ever, cause I don’t have a wrap on my truck right now and shame on me, but if you’ve ever thought about it, I would absolutely no brainer do an onsite estimate every single time. Qualify them if you have a qualifying statement to make sure you’re going out there.
Three Package Pricing Strategy
And I learned the other things from Brandon Vaughn when he did his soft washing company in Oregon. Um, When you get out there, you’re doing the estimate. He had three packages to my knowledge. The first package, the lowest package, was what they called for. The second package is as you walk the house, it’s everything that you think they need from a professional recommendation. The third package is the ultimate package. It’s everything you offer. And everybody knows that statistically people go for the middle package. Yeah, we do the same thing. I call it the good, better, best. We do bronze, silver, gold. And when it comes to SEO, when it comes to not so much websites, but when it comes to SEO or Google ads or Facebook ads, bronze, silver, gold. And I’m going to say we’re probably 60% silver on everything. And it’s not for that reason. But the thing is, like, with us, if you get a basic ad package, it’s just basic ads, you know? It’s not that they don’t work, but for what’s able to be spent, that’s all we can really produce for them. Again, it’s just the name of the package. Whereas when you get into, like with you, what you think they need, that’s what we have built into our middle package, which is, again, the social media management, the reputation management, getting more reviews, the branding aspects, everything but lead follow-up. We’ll do the actual lead follow-up in… what we call the gold package. And even then, it’s not like we’re calling them. It is going to be automated. It’s going to be very automated with AI. It works really well. But it’s one of those things where if you can’t do it, you don’t have the time to do it, and you need that speed to lead, this is how you do it. You know? Absolutely. But, yeah, in-person estimates for sure.
Scaling Challenges
Now, sometimes I have the conversation, again, when we’re working with, you know, an exterior cleaning company that maybe has a, you know, they’re, they’re bigger, you know, 500,000 to a million or more, a couple of crews. That’s where the in-person estimates sometimes become a problem because now they’re talking about time efficiency, needing a full-time person to go out and do it. And the other problem is, is when companies are bigger like that, they can’t do a whole lot of upsells on site because, because they have another job to go to and they’re gonna start getting their time schedule behind on their cruise. I mean, I know that Brandon Vaughn’s company was very large. He had a team of estimators. Obviously, I can’t speak to personal experience on this particular issue, but from the people that I know that I’m pretty… I’m not sure exactly his buddy Joshua Latimer in Michigan did it, but I just… From learning from Brandon Vaughn at one point, I knew that he had estimators go out, and then they would go to the five houses around him, knock on the doors, and do the exact same thing, and put out yard signs. So… you basically come down to a decision to make. That’s kind of what it is to me. It’s either you, the system, you’re okay with it and you know that it works or you don’t. And either one works, but on-site estimates, they just, there’s more value in it to me. I agree. I agree.
Experience With Clients and Market Patterns
You know, and again, just with the amount of clients we’ve dealt with, I mean, God, we’ve been in this, we’ve been doing exterior cleaning ads for, and websites since 2020. So like we, we literally started digging in deep and then COVID hit, but once, once that kind of dug in, uh, it was easy for us to double down because the guys who worked outside were still working. It just, you know, and then once, uh, know all these uh i remember what they were called once the money started coming from the government and those nice checks oh stimulus checks yeah once the stimulus checks everything just worked really good you know uh because people were trapped at home oh yeah they had some money coming in and it was just it was it was it was a good time man those the numbers we’ve seen from our clients have been hard to match from 20 you know 2021 2022. Just because, you know, it was like the perfect storm for exterior cleaners as well, you know?
So we’re going to backtrack here just a little bit. So what’s the story of starting your business?
Early Work and Family Influence
Interesting. So I’d say my first job, was a busboy at Chili’s. Wow. Basically, well, my mom was a server at a restaurant in Idaho, Chili’s. So she basically got me the job. Once I got into that industry, I kind of bounced around from restaurant to restaurant for a while in my late teens and early 20s. My mom and dad were apart at that point, but my dad, when I was younger, was an entrepreneur. What did he do? He was in cleaning products. Some people may remember it. It was in Target for a minute. It was called Turbo Wash. It hooked up to your hose and cleaned your car. It was in the 80s, though. Then he tried to work on something else. He sold baseball cards. He sold Pogs and Slammers for a little bit. So he was an entrepreneur.
So basically, I tell my parents I got the entrepreneur from dad and the customer service from my mom because she was really good with people. But I remember… growing up and I would always find like things that attracted me were like multi-level marketing stuff, get rich. I can tell you another story about that once we get a little further in here.
David’s Marketing Background
Gotcha. Honestly, God, like clean marketing is a DBA for me. Like this office I’m talking to you out of here. I’ve actually been in this building since 2003. Okay. Like my, my agency is more than 20 years old. Right. You know, like my, the kind of experience that we have here that I have here. And in my pizza, a lot of people that again are next door here, obviously not this time of night is, uh, it’s kind of rare today, but, um, it started through a multi-level marketing company. Okay. Um, there’s this, there was a company called market America. And, um, even before I started with them, I was already doing websites. Like I knew how to do it. I’m a programmer by trade. And you know, when I, I went to college in 95, that’s when the internet was, I never, it was really new yet. You know, um, it was still dial up access when I was going to college and, um, I learned to do websites and I was doing them for local companies.
And then I got introduced to this multi-level market company, market America, and they had a web center program was, it was kind of like the modern day Wix, but they had sales systems. Here’s how you sell them. Here’s how you present them. And then their people would design them. They would host them. I would have to sell them for a commission. except what happened was I, after I sold about two dozen of them, I saw what they were making and I saw what I was making. But what happened though, is I, they taught me how to sell. And, you know, and not long after that is when I, uh, started stealing the customer. I sold back for myself, you know, and this is, this was back before CMS is before WordPress, before all of that stuff. It was, uh, you know, we were, hard code and websites and HTML back then. And, um, yeah, that multi-level marketing is what got me off the ground too. They taught me how to sell. They taught me how that, that that’s the part I was missing.
MLM Experiences and Lessons
Interesting. Yeah, for me, multi-level marketing is, it did not fit my personality because I didn’t, as an ADHD person, which I didn’t know I was ADHD back then, but I didn’t like to pressure people. I didn’t like to try to convince people for the meeting or sit down for the presentation. I hated that part. Yep, I hated asking people. Yeah, and that’s one thing I enjoy about where I’m at today. Like people call me, I go out and present to them because they called me, not because I’m forcing them to sit down with me. but, um, I remember that go after your friends and family. Oh yeah. Not long after that, your friends and family wouldn’t answer the phone anymore. Yeah. Oh, it’s another one of those things. I want nothing to do with it, but no, this one’s different. I promise.
Getting Into Window Cleaning
Um, so did that for a while. Um, and then uh started dating my wife and things just kind of changed. Cause then we got married and you know, when you’re, when you’re um when you’re single, you have a lot more flexibility. Five kids, buddy. Trust me. You don’t, you don’t got to explain that one to me. And when, when you’re, when you’re married without kids, like we are like, um, you know, you got something like, I don’t care. Like I’ve been homeless. I’ve slept on somebody’s balcony before. Like it didn’t bother me. Um, Obviously, I don’t want to put my wife in that same situation. So I’m like, okay, what the heck do I need to do to stay above that point at all times so yeah I had to get you know supplements to take care of my emotional health I’ve been learning about that for years and then basically I was looking on my phone and Craigslist I believe and and saw hiring window cleaners. And my first thought was, oh, people make money doing this? Oh, okay.
Because I mean, I cleaned windows at a gym for hours on staff, but I never knew that people actually made money doing it. When I was young, that used to be like an insult. Like, people, when I was trying to decide whether to go to college, people and, like, teachers were saying, hey, you need to go to college or either you’re going to be working in a factory or you’re going to be cleaning windows the rest of your life. Literally, that’s what they would say to us. If only they had done a little research about how much a window cleaner can make. Now, again, now we’re talking early 90s here, and I was a kid. I know. you know, but looking back on it, it was, I should took it as a fricking challenge. I should have done at that point. Yeah. Early nineties still could have outdone their income.
Fired and Starting Own Business
Um, so basically I went and applied, got the job. Um, and then basically what happened was my attention to detail, I was slow, but my attention to detail was top notch. Um, The people that I like, the residential owners would be like, like, you’re the best guy we’ve had come through here. Like, you’re just your attention to detail is awesome. Can we just is there a way for us to contact you and we just get you from now on? So I went out and made my own business cards and I would hand them to their clients when I was at the job and came to work one day. And the owner of the company slides across one of my business cards and says, yeah, this isn’t how we do business here. So they fired me. I went and made flyers and started handing them out that weekend for window cleaning. And right before I left Florida, I had become one of the highest rated window cleaning businesses in my area. I had, I was charging the highest prices for sure. But yeah, that’s basically, I mean, that’s how I got into it.
Motivation and Long-Term Drive
I just, I mean, And it’s funny because my wife is like, you know, what about, you know, she’s not part of the business in like an employee way or anything. So she’s like, oh, you know, I don’t even know what I really do. I’m like, well, without you, I’m not driven. Like there’s nothing that really drives me to push to the next level. You still have that drive from your wife? Well, I mean, like I said, in the past two years, like I tell her, I was like, in the past two years, I’m like, all I’m looking for is like, how can I make more money in a bigger thing doing less? Like window cleaning is fun. I love window cleaning. It’s just a $300 ticket doesn’t do anything to me anymore. Like I like the actual job, but I can spend two days on landscape lighting and make 2,500 every day. So for me, it’s like, You know, she has plans for us, like a place to be and all that. And so she’s kind of – she provides the goals, the dream. And I’m like, okay, well, I’m going to find something that I enjoy that I can just – that creates bigger tickets and gives people a lot of happiness.
Now, like outdoor lighting is definitely one of those things that has – people have paid – six figures for lighting jobs. Oh yeah. Yeah. So, so this, I mean, sadly to say I love window cleaning, but I think my highest window cleaning job is like, you know, 2,500 bucks. So it’s just never going to match. Oh no, no, no. And I don’t talk down to anybody doing that. It’s just like, To me, it’s calling me high. Like something’s calling me to a different profession with just bigger numbers. And I just, I love, I think lighting to me is an experience. Somebody like in my head, the way it works, I’m like, window cleaning is awesome. And it’s a repetitive structure, which is very helpful. Lighting, you can break down things into phases. Like, hey, let’s start with phase one. We could do phase two next year. So there’s kind of a repetition there. but window cleaning is definitely a lot more repetitive over the years. I can definitely see that.
Mid-Episode Break and Marketing Plug
So from there, man, here’s where we kind of get into the meat, the stuff that can help people. No, not that this didn’t, you know what I mean? Laying the groundwork. So we’re here at about halftime. We’re going to take a quick break. So you know how we help business owners just like you. Here at Clean Marketing, we specialize in helping home exterior cleaning companies. That is our core focus. So pressure washing, window cleaning, roof washing, paver sealing, and more. We build marketing systems that actually produce consistent leads and book jobs. We do that through Facebook ads, Google ads, search engine optimization, and high converting websites, which are all tied together with proper tracking and follow-up. So you’re not just getting leads, you’re getting customers. If you’re tired of guessing with your marketing and want a predictable growth engine for your business, head over to cleanmarketing.net and book a strategy call with me first. That’s cleanmarketing.net. Now let’s get back into the episode.
Marketing Methods and Lead Generation
Like how do you market your business and how do you get new clients? What do you do? Okay. So let’s just be honest. Prior to doing Facebook ads, starting with you guys, um, I just worked every client for Google review and built up my Google profile because when people looked up Google, I was the highest rated and had the most reviews. So I once busy time hit, I could just book up like crazy. I wish I would have taken advantage of multiple marketing strategies. I probably would have been way better, but that’s what I leaned on was Google reviews like crazy. Um, some yard times, but not a lot. Um, But these days, once, you know, and it took a lot for me to reach out to you guys because I’m like, man, I don’t remember what it was like 500 or 750 at the time. I even asked to split the cost in half because we had just gotten to Washington State, Washington State, and we had like no money.
And I was like, well, a lot of stories like that, man. We do know because people, they just want to get started and they don’t know how to do it, but they want to make money. You know, once I got started, it was slow. That’s the one thing you learn about Facebook ads. Like there’s an algorithm and it doesn’t just shoot right out the front door that day one. It has to build, go through some different clients. But the one thing I did do was, you know, talking to people and just saying, you know, Well, without getting off track. So Facebook ads with you guys. And then I had a magnet on my truck. So when I went to someone’s house, if a neighbor was watching, they would come over and say, oh, hey, how much can you give us a quote when you’re done? So that worked really well as well. So Facebook ads, magnets. When I went to Florida, Facebook ads and yard signs.
I still have yard signs that I didn’t use last season. But Facebook ads for the past three years have been literally my primary use for Christmas lights, window cleaning, and then we did paver ceiling in Charlotte. And I’ve only used, I would say, two companies, and that was you guys and Estate Hub. Estate Hub. Yeah, I’m familiar. I don’t know them. Are they a bigger company or are they smaller? I don’t know much about them. They’re… Salem, North Carolina, they’re pretty small. It’s just, yeah, kids that are younger than me. But no, their customer service is amazing, just like you guys. Super patient with me. They just bent over backwards to help me. They introduced me to Paver’s Healing. I didn’t even know it existed. It’s a really… Good service.
Paver Sealing Market Differences
I mean, it varies in price. Like down in Florida, guys are complaining they’re getting $1.25 or that’s, you know, if you get more than that, it has to be a strip and seal to go more. Well, Florida ranges anywhere. And the only reason it ranges is because people probably saturate or only do like one layer of sealant, but it ranges anywhere between like 50, 60 cents up to a buck 50. Good. And I don’t think you can charge less than a dollar and that is minimum. Well, and not everybody stands here either. We have clients in Long Island, New York. Those guys are getting $350 a square. Oh, yeah. No. Charlotte, $250 to $400. Easy. Yep. Easy. And Florida’s just… Florida is a, well, the other thing with Florida is pavers are everywhere. It’s not like a Richie Rich thing only. South Florida, everyone has paver driveways, paver patios, paver along the side of the house. Everything’s paver, travertine, whatever. Charlotte. Most people have a paver backyard patio, but the Richie Rich have paver driveways. I mean, in Charlotte, I would charge three to four square foot for a travel team. And that’s one layer of ceiling, not two. Barely any sanding, if any. And, you know, I would get like $9,000 projects in Charlotte. And so that would be awesome down here, like $2,000 or $3,000 projects. But, I mean, I know guys down here that have gotten more. Yeah, you get the volume in Florida, too. Oh, yeah. Big time. Big time.
Weather Challenges With Paver Sealing
Well, and the tougher thing about Florida is, well, so the other thing I have a hard time with the paper ceiling situation, and I got out of it because weather had so much to do with it. So like if there wasn’t rain in the forecast, you felt like you were good to go. But then instead of raining, it’s like. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So and I had that happen a couple of times on me and it was just like, I mean, you pay money for the sealant and then you have to go back and see how it is and maybe do it again or maybe put another layer on it. It just with my ADHD, I like things that are fairly black and white with their process. And to me, paver sealing just didn’t work that way.
Main Marketing Channels
Yeah, yeah. So backing up a little bit, the main things you did. So marketing leads. Facebook ads and yard signs, I would say. And your in-person magnets on your cars when people see you. Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Magnets or truck wrap, some type of vehicle wrap. I mean, I would – vehicle wrap, to me, as soon as I have the money, I don’t know why I struggle with it so much, but to me it’s a no-brainer because – To me, inside the customer’s head, all they see is perceived value. They’re like, oh, dang, they spent some money on that. They’re all in on this. They must be taking this seriously.
And that’s the other thing people don’t think. Whenever you do something that makes your company look big, the customer thinks, oh, you take this seriously. Dude, I run so many ads. And then everybody thinks we’re just ginormous company. Every time I talk, even when I talk to other people in the industry and I know kind of where they’re at financially and I said, we’re not as big as you. And I was like, you have no idea. Like, I just, I’m just good at running ads and make it, you know, and not, not deceiving, but again, it’s me, you know, I have three full-time people next door, you know, the next room over here for me in house. And, you know, we have a three room, three remote team members, you know, that they work the same hours that, you know, we, it’s almost like they’re here, but they’re not, you know, but, um, yeah, I mean, so we’re looking at seven people here. Some people think we have 30, 40, you know, it’s, uh, it’s interesting when people, you know, tell us how big they think we are.
Estimating Process
Oh, no, I mean, proceed. I mean, Your mind tells you a lot of things that aren’t always true. Yeah. So, all right, you’re getting these leads from your marketing. What’s your estimating process? The lead comes in, what do you do? This was interesting to think about. Just so everybody knows, I got the structure beforehand just to kind of think over some things. And this was an interesting one to think about because it’s actually a little different per service.
So I would say for like a window cleaning estimate, I am less likely to go out for an onsite estimate because the ticket sale, the ticket price is going to be a little lower. Well, quite a bit lower than like, let’s say Christmas lights, outdoor lighting, or even paver ceiling. So let’s just put this way, window cleaning versus paver ceiling, paver ceiling. I have like a setup in my messenger, Facebook messenger thing.
Step one is I, Please send us your information. Where are they at? Step two. Awesome. Does Tuesday or Thursday work best for you? Oh, Tuesday. Awesome. Does morning or afternoon work best for you for an on-site estimate? Afternoon. Awesome. Does three or five work best for you for the afternoon? Five o’clock. Awesome. Well, we’re going to set you an on-site estimate for five o’clock in the afternoon. I put it in Jobber and that’s taken care of.
The paver ceiling is all on-site estimates because there is more of a presentation, looking at the sand, looking at the ceiling. There’s a lot more visual to go to it. And, you know, I spray water on it, see how thirsty the pavers are. So there’s a lot more dynamic to that. Window cleaning. If you’re really just pushing window cleaning, I would still – like if you keep your area close, I would – recommend all on-site estimates based on the stuff we’ve talked about. Like you’re just going to get more value for that.
Phone Estimates for Window Cleaning
But if you want to keep it over the phone, I would just say, we definitely need your information. Look up the house, get a square foot, anything under 3,000 square feet. I ask if they have French windows, storm windows, or if they live by the water. If they don’t have any of those going on and they’re under 3,000 square feet, I’m pretty safe to give them a rough quote via square feet. I say, well, based on your home and the information you’ve given me, I’ll quote between 12 cents a square foot and 14 cents a square foot in a text message and say, your price will be between this and this. And I say, but I will confirm your price before I begin the project upon my arrival. And my goal is that I’m being friendly, but I’m also making things very clear.
See, I like that now because, again, it’s not solid. It’s not like a contract. Nope. But it’s, you know, based on what I can get from you. Yeah. Between it’s going to be between this and this. Yep. We’ll confirm a deed fails in person. Do you want me to come out? Is this a project if it falls in between here that you’re interested in? Yep. I actually do like that approach. Well, for me, it gives me wiggle room. And if I’m dealing, like, I’ve almost never had anybody, they’re like, yeah, that’s, I totally, yeah, I totally love that. Especially if they’ve been referred to me, then it’s an easy one. Oh, referrals are slam dunks. Yeah. Like it’s almost, you know, it’s hard to screw up a referral. If you did, you just, you were getting greedy, but cause you thought it was a sure thing. That’s true. That’s true.
Window Cleaning Upsells and Add-Ons
Um, so yeah, with those, that’s, that’s my window cleaning approach. And for like, I have a price range for exterior. I have a price range for inside, outside, um, When I get there, when I was working with you guys in Washington State, two big things that I always upsold was screen repair and gutter brightening. I remember that. Nobody else does. Nobody else would work with the screen repair because they just don’t want to be down and dealing with it. Oh, man, I just charged $20 a screen. And so if they came out, I would just – and these are little things that it would be fun to coach people, and it’s crazy. But I would just grab all their screens. I would look at them all. I’d say, hey, I want you guys to come out and look at your screens. These five have holes in them. It would be this much for these, but I’ll be honest. Once I redo these screens, your old screens are going to look really bad. And I’m not like trying to push you guys, but these are going to look black and nice. And these are going to look musty and dirty even after being cleaned. And they’re like, oh, well, how much is it for them all? And I’d basically do with a price minus one screen for all of them. They’d be like, let’s just do them all. So I did screens a lot and I did gutter brightening a lot. So it was an easy add-on for a lot of the houses. That’s cool. Cool.
Estimating Tools and Software
So as far as the tech behind your estimating, how would you do, how do you do your estimates? Um, so I had, uh, I would use, I think at that time I was using Mark Tate. Um, I, I like Mark Tate for simplicity for window cleaning, especially. Um, I always do three packages no matter what, because even if they were asking somebody else for, uh, an estimate that most people are only going to give one price for exactly what the client asked for. Um, and I’ve learned always give what they asked for, but always offer them everything. because you never know what they want, and they don’t know what you offer. I feel like if you’re doing concrete and you’re doing flat work or any kind of concrete, and you don’t drop a line item on there for concrete ceiling, you’re leaving money on the table. Well, big time, because even with paver ceiling, I’d go to the job, I’d see their back patio was paver, but their front yard was concrete, like their driveway was concrete. And I would say, hey, I can do your paver ceiling for this much and your driveway for this much on the same day. Oh, okay. oh okay cool i wasn’t even thinking about that um yeah but uh my packages are basically uh for window cleaning it’s pretty simple i keep it simple uh basic exterior window cleaning and the nice thing is i’ve learned how to quote this without being there if necessary so exterior window cleaning i put a price And then in the description box underneath all packages, it says add standard screen cleaning $5 each. And so standard means a window, not a sliding glass door screen. So I like – words count, man. It’s crazy. The other one is add standard window tracks $5 each. And that goes in every box. That way I’m not accountable to those. So if they want those and I get there, I can be like, oh, did you guys want your screen and tracks cleaned too? They already know how much they cost. So I don’t have to go around and count those. Yep, yep.
CRM Platforms Discussion
So you were using Marquette. What are you using now? Well, because I do lighting, I do Jobber. Jobber. I like jobber. I do. Well, it, to me, it’s a very, everything is very simple and smooth. uh deposit has better followup systems. Yes. Just for me being inside of it. um sometimes like uh with some of our ad clients, you know, they, they let us in their job or they let us in Marquette to help them with the automations or to, you know, facilitate, you know, uh sending their leads there. I mean, uh one you know one big thing again a lot of people don’t do this um and again it’s a minor service for us you know it’s kind of foot in the door but um I will tell you the missed call text back if you if you don’t have that in place that’s a big deal Oh yeah. That’s no, that’s anything, anything that you can let the client know they’ve been taken care of on any level is amazing. Yeah.
Landscape Lighting and Window Cleaning Combination
All right. So, um, that aside, we got in this a little bit. So you’ve got landscape lighting now as a primary. I mean, window cleaning, again, I’m sure if the right one came along, you can still do it. Well, honestly, I believe I’m still going to build a team of window cleaners because when it comes to customer service, I think one of the things I’m still going to do is after a landscape lighting job is completed, I may even give them a complimentary exterior window cleaning because we’re going to do some dirt. and when’s going to happen and one thing i’ve learned even way back when i started was leave the property better than when you came to it and i like that and ultimately any like oh well that’s a waste of money oh you should you’ll hear people that will say oh you charge for everything i’m like you can it’s your business over there my business is right here stay out I mean, I’m 44. I’ll be 45 this year. I just learned that everyone has an opinion about their business and everyone else’s. And you got to learn to like be cool, man. That’s awesome.
But for me personally, especially if someone’s wanting to like blow up and they’re not known yet, dude, throw some nuggets out to those clients. Hey, we’re off, you know, we’re going to, we’re going to clean your windows. We’re going to check for some screens, make sure everything looks good. You don’t have to tell them about this at all until the very end. But yeah, if you come across two screens that have holes in them, put them out. And say, oh, this is a $40 value or $50 value. We went ahead and just did it complimentary just because we wanted to make you guys look good. We didn’t ask for your permission, but you’re also not being charged for it. And then they’re like, oh, if you do things like that on every job, it’s killer. Yep. No, people appreciate all those little stuff, especially when you’re not nickel and diming them. And it’s the whole under promise, over deliver. Absolutely.
Pricing Philosophy and Service Value
Well, and yeah, you don’t have to charge for everything. I mean, the thing is, if you’re charging good up front already, then little things like that aren’t going to hurt you anyway. correct so and you can break these up and again we’re going to go through how you price your window service how you price your landscape lighting and how do you do your pricing for your holiday lighting okay start with your windows windows uh the basic i would say is 12 to 14 cents a square foot in and out and that is that’s how you price windows yep It’s interesting. I’ve never heard that before. Most people are like by pain. I used to. I used to do it by pain. But I learned that after a long time, because when you do it by pain, like window cleaning resource, Chris and Alex Lamborghini is one of the biggest window cleaning supply people. When you see their map of breaking all the window panes down, it gets crazy. Like, that’s why whenever you go into the square footage area, you have to have kind of a perimeter. Like, under 3,000 square feet. That way they’re probably not a custom build for the most part. No French windows because those will get priced individually. No storm windows because some people don’t even like doing storm windows. And if you’re by the body of water and whatever, like, if your backside of the house is facing, like, a lake, that backside is probably all glass. Yeah. or a lot of glass and that’s when you go out you do an on-site estimate and you may have to start you probably do more of a per pane count and what was your it was per square inch or per foot square foot so two so like a 2 000 square foot home for me outside only would be probably 200 and then and then i would charge and then i would charge additional for screens And does that price include inside and out or just that? Nope, that’s just outside. Inside, outside would be like $250, $300. All right. um but i also offer 30 day rain guarantee which almost nobody does yeah
Landscape Lighting Pricing
So how about landscape lighting? I’m sure there’s so many different factors, but the one thing I like about the people I follow and I find that, and I find people to follow that keep it simple. Who you follow. Well, Captain Matt. Captain Matt. Captain Matt, Shane Duffy, and then Nate, which is their mentor. When we launch this, if you post it on social media, you should tag them in it because we’ve been talking about them a lot here. Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, whoever is interested in entering the light game a little bit, even if you do a couple projects a year, it’s always good to have – these people will talk to you and help you through projects. They help – They helped one kid do a project and he landed a $52,000 project for his first project. I believe it happened. I mean, if, if you know, No, but for lighting, I keep it really simple. I, I don’t like a lot of people. Cause there’s so many fixtures in the lighting game. I just use the basic fixture, like entry-level fixture, unless the client for some reason is like, oh, what kind of fixtures do you use? If they want something that’s visually appealing, then we’ll get that out. But I’m like, hey, I do $300 per uplight. um and then i do $400 for pathway lights. And those are the lights that are on the long stem and they have, and they have like a top hat. um anything beyond that is more like, it depends if they want to add something. um those are the basic, those are the, those are the fixtures that are used the most often. um i use uh right now with my smaller projects uh i do a $500 for 150 watt uh Transformer. And so, and that basically, unless there’s like laborious cutting through concrete or going under a sidewalk, pretty much you’re digging up grass or dirt and burying lines. And your typical fixture plus light is going to be around $45 to $55. Plus the cable and all the things that, you know, you cut the cables, tie them together and put them in a waterproof holder. But yeah, $300 and $400.
Additional Landscape Lighting Factors
All right. Any other factors that you might like to consider? I mean, that’s the thing. Landscape lighting and window cleaning is night and day. Everybody in the window cleaning industry cleans windows, frames, tracks, screens. I mean, there’s different tools you can use to get things cleaner. Bronze wool, steel wool, whatever. Lighting… Like, there’s down lighting. There’s a million different fixtures. I mean, that’s the basics. I mean, there’s a lot of people that run their business like that for years and years and years. You can add lights that accentuate peaks on second-story homes. And that gets more expensive just because you’re adding in the labor, the danger implement, getting on the ladder. Oh, yeah. I hate ladders, man. Oh, they don’t. I love… Oh, yeah. I started using Lyft for the first time in Florida to wrap palm trees for Christmas. No, man. My wife, she used to let me talk about icicle lights, and I said, sure, I’ll hold the ladder. Oh, icicle lights. No, thank you. That’s funny.
Holiday Lighting Pricing
And I guess we could just… Unless there’s anything further you want me to talk about, I can move on to holiday. This one, again, this is kind of the… The most popular thing right now is how you pricing your holiday lighting. Holiday lighting. So to me, holiday lighting, once you get comfortable with things, there’s a slight sliding scale, but not too much. A lot of people have a minimum of like three to 500. I think I had a minimum of three to 500. That would make sense if you’re going to take stuff with you, go there, do it. Well, and that’s the thing to me. There’s two models out there. Sell the client their lights, let them store them, and then you go back in the season at the next season and have them leave them out and you put them up again. That’s what most people don’t want to do. That’s what I see. I don’t like that. Well, I like keeping my lights because, first of all, if anything does happen to the lights, I want to know 100% sure it was my fault. Secondly, I use the lights during the year for other things.
All right. You know, if somebody’s like, oh, can you light up our house for – I’ve had people ask me to light up their house for their parents’ birthday, so I’ll use some lights. As long as the client is getting lights and I’m out there to maintain them during the holiday light season, that’s all that matters. So for Christmas lights – I try to keep it as easy as possible. I tell them our program is this. We come out there, we do a design for you. You give us some input on anything that you want for sure. And then we tell you everything that we would suggest to keep it clean, but keep it very festive. Most of my clients go with everything, which is crazy. But some of them, you know, they’re like, oh, that’s a lot more than we were thinking. How about we do like half of that? Yeah, no worries. So, yeah, we tell them they can do a three-year plan, and that includes pre-installation, which means we don’t charge them a ton up front. We just break it all down to the same price every year. Or they can do it one year, and that’s a higher price. um the pricing for holiday lighting i would say is currently we’re at between eight and ten dollars a foot for the roof line and we are between 40 and 80 dollars per mini uh for wrapping anywhere from ground stuff lands like bushes to palm trees and even going into the fronds on the palm trees which i don’t like doing because they’re a pain in the butt um And then there’s a lot of other stuff that you can do that we’ve gotten into. We’ve gotten into spritzers, which is like basically stuff that you kind of set up on your own. You put those in trees and fronds. We do those at 150 a pop. And then I think the other thing that we do the most is groundbursts, basically things that you stick in the ground, and they have like a tree of lights. We charge, I believe, $125 for – no, $75 just because they’re not up in the air. So I think those are the four most popular things that we do besides Reese and Garland.
Favorite Jobs and Creative Projects
Cool, cool. So on from there, like out of everything you’ve been doing, like what would you consider to be your favorite job you ever did? Yeah. Well, our first job that we landed down here was my favorite job until last year. All right. Well, just because it made such a big difference. They did Halloween. So all the large royal palms were in purple. And all the small stuff on the ground was in orange. So it was really cool. All the people in the neighborhood drove around and watched it every year. And then we took all that down and put everything in warm white. So it was just really nice looking. It was really cool. But over time they would call us for maintenance calls and what would happen is they would they would plug their stuff into our stuff and it would short it out over and over again and they just didn’t listen to us and they we’d say you can’t do that we can’t you can’t do that but they just kept doing it so it turned out to be kind of miserable um i would say after that um We, we, there’s a place here called Marco Island and we have a client out there and she just basically kept adding more and more to her job over the years. And she’s, I think right up at around seven grand. And it’s a small house, but we just, we light up everything that we can without being cluttery. And now she’s kind of, her house has become like part of the tour. Every Christmas, it’s on the brochure for the community. People come and drive over and see it. Another one of our clients, we do 25 spritzers in his oak trees. He gets best in neighborhood every year now. You still do it every year? We do. It was the first time I used the spritzers. I guess you got to charge him a little more every year. I know, right? A little more out. Absolutely. But yeah, it’s kind of interesting because being in Florida, like from like just talking about jobs, it’s interesting because being in Idaho for several years doing the same service, it was fun. But here it’s like, I feel like every year I’m being introduced to something different, new, more like Florida and this atmosphere has allowed me to be way more creative. Yeah. just palm trees are so much different to wrap than a bush
Climate and Regional Differences
well I get it man here in Pennsylvania I see the palm trees in the background of our clients I just feel like I’m missing out I shouldn’t say that because you know I come down to Miami a couple times a year for marketing conferences like I was just there two weeks ago I’m going to come back again this year towards the end of July early August I don’t know if they set a date for it yet but man it is hot as hell When I come down that time of year. It’s, yeah, what lake? What lake? Oh, my gosh. Can’t even think about it right now. But, yeah, it’s moisture. Humidity. Humidity, thank you. There you go. Yeah, no, just a very, like, yeah, I’m here and, like, I wear a hoodie a lot just because there’s a breeze always going through. But you’re also just, you can take off your hoodie and underneath your shirt is still damp. Oh, I know. My favorite climate I’ve ever been in was San Diego. It was just always nice. I’ve heard about that. Every time I hear about San Diego, it’s like the perfect weather year-round. They say it’s like 70s, basically. Yeah, it never changes. I said, some people are like, man, I wish it was 70 year round in Florida. I’d be like, no, you don’t. Cause then this would be the most packed state. It’s already very packed. Everybody would be moving to Florida if it had the weather like San Diego.
Operational Efficiency
What do you do operationally on an operational standpoint to make your business more efficient? Man, that’s the toughest one for me. And I think it’d go back to like, because I’m, I, For a long time, I have struggled with being operationally efficient. simply because anybody with, I would say, true ADHD, it’s really hard to sit down and organize your business on your own. I always have the – I’m working with a coach, and that’s one of the main things is building systems. Obviously, you’re not really going to scale much without systems. That’s just bottom line to me. You can scale. It’s just not going to be very fun for your employees if you don’t have anything scaling or organizational. Yeah. My customer service and my communication has definitely kept me from going under with my lack of organization and systems. But yeah, that’s one thing I have hired a coach for is to help in that area. So that’s, I would say.
CRM and Systems
Your coach is what helps make you more operationally. Sound, especially in the future. I mean, In all honesty, I mean, you know, there’s basic elements. I will say this. There’s a lot of people that text message their quotes to their clients. I see it all the time. I’d say CRM is the easiest dang thing you can get to make yourself even somewhat reputable looking. It’s crazy that more people don’t know about CRMs. Most popular ones, again, Jobber, Marquette. I’d say Jobber, Marquette, Housecall Pro. Even the customer factor is still going. It’s not nearly as popular anymore. I’m not familiar with that one, though, myself. Yeah, it was, I mean, it’s not promoted at all, barely at all. I think, well, because they captured a market back in the early days when none of these other ones were really around. um and they and they don’t change their price you get everything for the same price uh it’s like 45 jobs the more you want oh man jobber i mean sadly jobber is not cheap um and they place one of the basic functions on the top tier package which is text messaging feature i just I’m not a fan of that part. I’m not a fan. But from a business standpoint on their side, I see why they do it. No, see, I’m the opposite. I’m like, why would you make the most basic feature of our time part of the… To me, putting a feature in the top thing is like, man, that’s a really cool feature. I don’t need that, but man, it would be helpful. And to me, text messaging is like, that’s like making, taking phone calls, charging people to take phone calls on their CRM or I don’t know, something just basic to me. Like it, it doesn’t make sense to me. It’s their business. Obviously it’s not hurting them, but it’s just one of the things that’s always bothered me. Marquette, it’s part of their functionality. Yeah. Like you, you can’t respond to like the customer can’t respond to it in Marquette, but you, but Marquette sends text messages out. So it’s part of their basic way. Right. Jobber doesn’t even do that. Jobbers clients. I’ve seen the text messages. Oh, maybe I just don’t know. Sadly, Housecall Pro has probably one of the better interfaces I’ve ever seen. But sadly, getting a hold of customer service or things moving along with customer service are part of their kind of downfall from my experience. No, from Housecall Pro. Housecall Pro, I’m sorry. Yeah, they’re another popular one. To me, I personally like Jobber and Marcate for my top two.
Systems, Automation, and Lead Follow-Up
Cool, cool. But that right away starts getting you organized, obviously. If you want basic functionality, you can put your services together, organize, organize your client list. Then you can turn it into a text campaign down the road very easily if you want. Text campaigns make such a difference, man. Even when your leads are coming in. If we ever have a client, again, one of the lower packages where we’re not helping them out in that respect, no one answers their phone. These are not good. First, again, we talk about it on onboarding because this is so important. We say, before you call them, text them from the number you’re going to call them from. And be like, hey, this is Bob from Seattle. You filled out our form on Facebook about getting your windows cleaned. I’m going to call you in about two minutes from this number. There you go. And literally the answer rates go up 75 to 100%. Oh, absolutely. I don’t answer the phone for anybody. Nope, not anymore. Not my cell phone. Now, here at the office, I will. Yeah, I hear you. But on my cell phone, if I don’t recognize the number, I’m like, nah, I’ll wait to hear. And then I’ll text them back.
Oversaturated Marketing Environment
Well, in the last 10, 20, 30 years, we’re in an oversaturated marketing environment. And so all the cell phone companies sell their information, whether they tell you they do or not. And so people get your phone and, and if you’re a business and you put down your phone number anywhere, those people sell it. So, yeah, I mean, I know just like Facebook says, they don’t listen to your, what you’re talking about. Oh, they do all the nights of the day he dies, but I don’t know how many times I’ve had a conversation with people about something. And then, and then he started seeing ads for what we were talking about. Oh no, he’s, yeah and i i mean he’s he’s full of poopoo we all know that it’s okay like he’s got either that or he really is told that nah i don’t believe that for one second no he he knows exactly what he’s doing it’s it’s a legal thing i’m guessing like it’s like deny deny deny you know there are a lot of legal people tell people to do that it is what it is
Second Mid-Episode Break and Marketing Plug
So we’re here at about halftime. We’re going to take a quick break so you know how we help business owners just like you. Here at Clean Marketing, we specialize in helping home exterior cleaning companies. That is our core focus. So pressure washing, window cleaning, roof washing, paver sealing, and more. We build marketing systems that actually produce consistent leads and book jobs. We do that through Facebook ads, Google ads, search engine optimization, and high converting websites, which are all tied together with proper tracking and follow up. So you’re not just getting leads, you’re getting customers. If you’re tired of guessing with your marketing and want a predictable growth engine for your business, head over to cleanmarketing.net and book a strategy call with me first. That’s cleanmarketing.net. Now let’s get back into the episode.
What Hasn’t Worked Well
All right. So from there. In your eyes, we’re going to do both sides here. What’s worked well in your business? And then we’re going to follow. Or actually, let’s start with what hasn’t worked well, maybe how you fixed it, and then what has worked well. So what hasn’t worked well out of the gate? I thought about this. That’s crazy. I, again, going back to ADHD. Can’t do door-to-door marketing, even though it might be the most – I can’t either, man. It might have the highest ROI in all of marketing, according to many people, just because it’s the easiest. It’s free. You’re going out there day one and doing it all day. You’re going to bound to get someone within a couple days, and that will just trigger something. But I can’t do it. Nope. When I was in college – I applied for a job with the Rainbow Vacuum Company. Have you ever heard of them? And then they gave me this eight-page script, and they said, learn this. And I was like, what am I taking home? No, you’re going to go knocking on doors. And I tried. It took me two days, and I was like, sorry, guys. I don’t mean to waste your time, but I can’t do this.
Well, and the thing is, Like I said, if you’re not ADHD, you’ll never understand some of our downfalls and how they are. They point us in better directions for us, but ADHD is interest-based nervous system. So if we, and we hate, and we hate even anticipating a failure. Like if we know it’s coming or even 50-50 chance, it sucks. I know. I avoid conflict for that reason. Yeah. I go to an estimate and I love it. Because I know they might not do it, but I’m invited there. So it’s already a win in my book. Now I’m just going for the second win of actually closing the job.
What Didn’t Work and Learning Through Delegation
Let’s see. Not work for me. When I was looking at that question, that was a really tough one. Because… A lot of things I don’t even try because I have a lot of procrastination with ADHD. I say the things that work best for me are things that I can hire out, like marketing or things that I can do with text messaging. I don’t like getting on the phone with people and doing cold calling. Can’t do that.
One of the things people say to me generally when I ask that question, I just asked you, is I hear trying to do everything myself. My apologies. Well, here’s the thing. I guess that’s a really good place to start off with, though. If you want to own a job, try to do everything yourself. If you’re trying to build a company, that’s the wrong thinking right away anyways. And that’s something I had to think about. Somebody’s like, it’s about who, not how. And that’s a book. And that’s one of the things that my mentor pushed me to get a VA. He’s like, okay, so you’re not going to do these things, right? I said, either I’m not or it’s going to take me a long time. He goes, okay, then how do we get this done? He goes, well, I need someone that I can call to tell me to get it done. I said, he goes, so you need a VA that you can call, give them instructions, and you forget about it. I go, yeah. He goes, okay, you need a VA. That’s just how it goes.
Like there’s some things that you just, you have to accept you’re not going to do, you can’t do, or it’s better that someone else does in order to get it accomplished. And that’s called building, but that’s called building a business. I try to do everything and I don’t anymore. I should say I used to, that did not work. And I kept trying and trying and, you know, and then you also have that transition period. Again, we’ve had this here too. Where, again, I’m doing our sales and marketing. I’m the first point of contact for most people here. Because I’m talking to them about it. You know, figuring out what package works out. But at some point, they’re like, where’s Dave? And it’s like, that’s not Dave’s job. And sometimes, like, when I hired, you know, an operations manager like we have now. And an ad manager like we have now. It was a hard transition to say, you don’t get to talk to me anymore. It’s not because I don’t like you. It’s, we can’t grow our business anymore. if I’m the only one that is talking to reporting to you, um, it was just something that was what we had to do.
Oh yeah. No, that, I mean, And I think, uh, Obviously, wisdom says the faster that you scale, the quicker you don’t have to stick around that position and get used to it and get stubborn and can’t change. Because obviously, we all know that the more comfortable you get for a longer period of time, the harder it is to get uncomfortable.
Oh, yeah. So, I mean, if you’re sticking in a spot where you’re trying to do everything yourself and it keeps going that way, the harder it gets to even look at delegating. And I’ve heard many people, oh, I just can’t. I just don’t trust people. I’m like, you’ve been doing this for a while the same way, haven’t you? It’s not that you can trust people. You’re just really comfortable. And when you get uncomfortable, issues obviously happen, and you have to find ways of dealing with the issues besides just cutting it off.
Oh yeah. A hundred percent, man. A hundred percent. Cause like, and again, sometimes with clients, again, people struggle, things happen, but I will tell you from personal experience is the first thing that people in your business look to cut. They think it has an expense is marketing and it’s, You know, it is. They try to cut it off and think this is going to fix things. But now, then what happens is now the lead flow goes down too. On top of all the other problems. And again, it is not a pitch for, hey, I’m important to your business. But marketing is important. And it literally… Someone who’s been in business for any length of time will tell you that’s the last thing you cut.
Marketing, Expenses, and Business Reality
Well, that’s what makes your money. Find something that you don’t need. You need money, which comes from jobs and leads. I agree. So don’t buy that expensive piece of equipment yet. Or what can you do that you don’t need right now? but you need the money. It’s about cutting expenses. Or they look at the marketing as cutting a labor cost, which, you know, it makes sense when business starts to drop a little bit, but not when it’s what’s driving you. I mean, again, I sometimes try that argument, you know, when I talk to people about it or if things are going down, you know, Obviously, I’ve been in this business for 23 years. Obviously, we have some clients I’ve had for 20 years and, you know, we have clients at times that, you know, exit as fast as they came in. you know um and not because we did anything wrong it’s just uh i really do a really good job now for us of weaving qualifying those people out because if i feel like for a second if somebody is gambling on us to save their business that’s not good for us it’s not good for them like they gotta what i recommend is they gotta go back to basics you gotta you know we’re knocking the networking the talking to people, you know, um, you gotta, you gotta go back to building traditionally, you know, you know, before the internet.
Yep. It’s true, man. Like, uh, I mean, there was a point in time where I would work with anybody. Oh, of course. Of course, absolutely. It’s not that I don’t want to help people, but it’s a lot easier for me to recognize now someone that even if I drop, you know, 10 leads a day on them, it’s not going to help them. They don’t have a system. They don’t have a CRM. They don’t know how to sell. Or they just don’t have the basics in place. And they treat the leads and they come in like ordering a Big Mac at McDonald’s. You know, you’re a big Mac, you know, you’re getting, you get the big Mac, but people call and say, Hey, I’m looking at getting some power washing done. And then they’re like, okay, it’s 30% off. If you get three services, like, well, yeah, I called you for power washing. What were the three services? You know?
Yeah. I hear you. And, and I guess that’s, I’m really glad that I nailed that part of my systems. That’s kind of I mean, that’s the part I I was like, man, how do I how do I make this quick? And I don’t want to get on the phone. And so, yeah, I had to really. When the lead came in, I had to figure out how to make it super quick with text messaging. Yeah. And for me, that’s where the network marketing company came in because I couldn’t I just couldn’t figure it out. How do I get in touch with people? How do I present the product to them? How do how do I ask them for the money? That was hard. That was, again, 30 years ago now at this point, 25, 30, but that was the hardest part.
Sales, Closing, and Asking for Money
I think the hardest in that situation for a lot of people, I think the hardest part for people now is asking for money and shutting the hell up yep it’s like hey so we have uh you know if it’s window cleaning we have what you asked for or hey we have your exterior plan we have your interior exterior plan and we have this everything plan or a plan with house washing um we take cash or check uh which one fits you better which one would you like to move forward with and then and yeah it’s gonna be uncomfortable but you gotta learn to ease and then i was never here You just have to learn to be quiet. And if they say – if they ask something, let them ask something. Like, so with this middle package, can we add this to it or whatever? It’s like, sure. So did you want to pay cash or check or card for that? Cash or – questions or buying signs, buddy. That doesn’t mean you’re on your own. Oh, no, no. Absolutely. You’re there.
And I would say – Even going further, and I’ve started doing this, assumptive wording. Like, which one did you want our next day? We can schedule your appointment for Friday. Which one of these packages did you want to schedule for Friday? And that way, everything you’re doing is not forcing them, but it’s definitely letting them know, we already know you need this. Let’s just move forward. Cool.
Biggest Wins and Losses
All right. So we’re getting down here near the end. We’ve got two more to go here. So for you, if you could highlight your biggest win and your biggest loss in business. Biggest win was leaving everything in Idaho and coming to Florida and, and, having nothing ready because nothing, we had nothing. uh, we had you guys doing some, uh, ads here for us for Christmas lights. I remember when, I mean, again, I wasn’t running your ads, but I remember when he said, uh, he’s just picking up moving to Florida. We don’t have to do. Let’s go back. We actually came here one, one year earlier and we did not know about Facebook ads at all. Our first year, we actually moved to Sarasota with my mom. We’re now lower. I had one Christmas light job that year. I had one window cleaning job that year. And I was basically just barely making it, paying no rent, living with my mom. Me and my wife were living with my mom and her husband.
So that was the biggest win because we took a huge leap. I mean, massive. We left our business behind, sold it for a little bit of money, and honestly thought we were going to just make it right away. And it took us a whole year until we even came. Let’s see. Yeah, it’s a right around the year until we even came and started with you guys. And then, you know, we had a light finally, like money started coming in and learning about Facebook’s changed everything. But yeah, that was that man. Once you figure it out, it just works.
Facebook Ads, Risk, and Taking Action
Well, the thing is, a lot of people are just… Sadly, I hear two things. Just learn Facebook ads. It’s so easy. I’m like, it’s not easy to everyone. Get over yourself. Every time I see that, I’m like, not my customer. Okay, so with your same ideology, everyone should be a mechanic because the mechanic, it’s easy. Dude, whenever someone says to me, you just run ads, and I’m like, you just have a really big water gun. That’s it. It’s… oh so frustrating but whatever i just tell people i’m like if you want to make money and you’re in a good size area and you need to do it now facebook ads is probably going to be your quickest way to do it yeah i said well it’s visual it’s fast it’s probably the fastest form of marketing that’s quick like you can go and buy yard signs and put them out but a lot of but like there’s throwing yard signs somewhere and then there’s being strategic about it but letting you guys have Facebook ads and doing the agency that I don’t know about like I don’t know how to do it and run it that’s like buying yard signs and being strategic about it like I don’t know yeah
um biggest and then you said biggest loss yeah if there is one that you could talk about hmm That is interesting. Again, it’s more of maybe it’s a struggle someone else is having right now that when they hear it, they’re going to know it’s not the end. Well, I’ve learned that there is no end in anything. Like my mentor keeps telling me, he goes, the majority of home services close within three years. So he goes, if you’re past three-year mark, which I am considerably past three-year mark, You’re fine. Even if you’re barely making it, you always find a way to pick up the pickup and go on. Like I said, I’ve been in the marketing business for 20, 23, 24 years here now. Like I’ve seen them come and go. So, and my wife has been with me for every step of the way. And that’s the, she, she, you know, it’s not like she met me halfway through the journey. She’s been with me since the beginning. So, and, and she’s seen the downs and the ups. Yeah.
um and i would i guess i would say um when we did first get here the toughest thing was getting out of my mom’s house cause we thought things were just going to blow up and they didn’t blow up right away so we ended up having um they helped us get a place her and her husband and they helped me get a pressure wash trailer um that we still are paying off and you know getting money back to them but i would say and that’s not a bad thing let’s make that clear like some of the biggest growing moments in anybody’s life is going to be when things don’t work out because you have to figure out how to make them work And that’s when I learned the most, sadly. I don’t like that learning curve, but that’s when I learned the most.
There was a period, again, I had my 10-year anniversary with my wife. I went through a divorce. It was bitter previously. And there was a long period of time. where everybody in my business was getting paid with me because there was no money left. I’ve heard those stories. I didn’t have to go through that, but I’ve heard those stories. It was good. You know, I had my head in the game enough to keep things afloat. But it just took some time until I got the drive back because, you know, again, a divorce, man, I mean, it happens. But, dude, even if you want it, once it happens and there’s kids involved, it’s like mourning a death. And it’s not even a warning, but that’s the only thing I can equate it to. You know, it changes everything in your life. I haven’t been there, so I can’t speak on that, but I will take your words. I wouldn’t recommend it. Don’t plan on it at all from my end.
The only other thing that comes up for me for a big loss or a learning lesson is living in Florida, we have hurricanes. And when we… Yeah, the year that we were working with you and we switched to Christmas lights here was Hurricane Ian for us. I remember because I didn’t even get to come to my marketing conference during that period. You know, like Dorau and the areas we go to were completely flooded. We were in Cape Coral at that time and We were evacuated and we went back to my mom’s house for a little bit. And we were calling people that were considering moving forward with us for Christmas lights before. And it’s like one of those super touchy subjects. It’s like Christmas lights in no way is worth more than, you know, worth spending money on when you got that tragedy going on. But not everyone did. So I had to figure out a way to start the conversation again after Hurricane Ian via text. Like, man, I don’t want to sound like a jackass, but I’m like, do you want to still need Christmas lights? so basically what I said was I always had to just write a like I was like hey we are having other clients reach out to us and they’re moving forward with Christmas lights so we don’t want to be disrespectful in this time but we don’t know who got you know who what position you’re in so if you’re not in position to move forward with us we totally respect that but if you are we also want to give you that position to let us know And so, yeah, some people say our business got wiped out. So we’re working with that. Like our whole building got knocked over, so we can’t do it. And I’d be devastated, but okay, that really sucks. I’m sorry. Let us know if we can do anything. But other people were like, yep, we’re good to go. Like nothing happened to us. Let’s go.
Fear of Scaling and Responsibility
So, I mean, it’s just, it’s kind of like a tornado, like it hits some people and it didn’t do anything to other people. No, but we had, and we don’t get that kind of stuff here, man. I mean, we just don’t like the only thing we get here is the occasional blizzard. It’s not often, but that’s it.
But I would say, I’d say the number one lesson I learned and me and my wife talked about this today, as I was talking to her about some of these questions was it’s so crazy that If a guy called me and said, hey, I have a $50 million mansion in Miami and I have a $50 million mansion in Naples. I want you to come out and quote them both for outdoor lighting and permanent holiday lighting. I’d be stoked to go out there. We’d talk and do something. But scaling a company terrifies me because I’m dealing with people other than myself. And it’s like I don’t want to let them down.
And so to me, like, if I were to tell… Getting started and making moves, don’t be fearful. Like, that’s the biggest thing I think in my life because I love taking on… I love taking on big projects, especially when I see all in the chats, people are always like, is that like, do you have the equipment for that project? Or do you have any experience with that project? Well, you should find someone you can work with.
The Lift and Palm Tree Story
I took on a 25, I took on two huge lighting projects for my first projects here, never had used a lift in my entire life. And I’m not gonna lie, I sat in their backyard where they couldn’t see me and I cried for a while. I don’t know what happened to you. No, I was just like, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. I’m like, how the hell am I going to get up that 40-foot palm tree? I don’t have a ladder for that. That’s insane.
And I tried some treezy wrap things. It went as high as I could go, 20 feet. The client texted me as they were leaving. They’re like, you’re going to go higher than that, right? And I’m like, oh, yeah, I’m just trying some stuff out here real quick and see what works. And in my head, I’m like, finally called a colleague that I had met in town. I was like, dude, I need a lift. Where do I get a lift? He’s like, oh, here. I went and got a lift and things, you know, worked out eventually.
But I’m like, man, if I would have… I had to learn that on my own. It was crazy. Wow.
Parting Advice for New Business Owners
So… On from there, man. We’ve been talking for 90 minutes here. Lots of nuggets in here. So any kind of parting advice for new perspective, like prospective business owners, people are thinking about getting started. Like what lessons would you tell them to hit out of the gate to avoid some of the stuff that you’ve had to go through in your years of business?
I would find a coach that you’re compatible with if you are really serious about building a company. And who is your coach again? My current coach is Andy Wild. I feel really bad. I don’t know. I mean, you can just search Andy Wild on Facebook and find him. I think it’s wildcoaching.com. Okay. Go wild coaching.com actually go wild, go wild coaching.
But the biggest thing is if it just, if it’s not clicking to you and you just like, you know, I’ve had, I’ve, I’ve read me and my wife have both read texts and forums where a guy will say, my wife doesn’t think there’s any money in Christmas lights. And we both look at each other and we’re like, we laugh because, well, obviously people put up Christmas lights. So that’s like a no brainer. What she’s afraid of is that you’re not going to make it.
Alex Hormozi and Learning from Others
I mean, so, I mean, I think a lot like if you’re familiar with Alex Ramosi. Yep. I love what he does. I have his book sitting right here. I have his book sitting right here. I believe you. I live by this guy, but I probably look at this book once a week.
Oh, no. It’s just so good. He’s one of my favorite authors to listen to on Audible because he’s so down to earth. But one of the things that one of the things that I like about him is he literally built a business out of going around and helping people in his industry get started in the gym industry.
Yeah. And that’s honestly like there’s so many little things like even calling someone like yourself just to start working and making money. And that makes you feel a whole lot better than anything. Yeah. Once you got money coming in, it gets, it’s, it changes. Like if you got no money and then you have money, your brain chemistry just radically changes.
So, you know, always do something when you’re in it, when you’re in a stuck position, always do something that’s going to make you money. Wow. Except for dealing drugs. Well, in the context of what we’re talking about, sorry, like if you’re in a stuck position as a home service provider, you know, and you’re just like, what do I do next? As hard as it, you know, as easy as it may sound, you know, 500, 750 bucks is not a whole lot of money to give to someone that’s going to give you money in return.
Final Thoughts and Outro
As long as you are ready just to talk to people or text them and book them for an estimate or something. But, I mean, I’m always available. I’ve gone over and over and over all the stuff of getting started. I mean, I’ve done it in four different states with four different services. I have no problem… sitting down and talking with someone, but I’ll tell you what, there’s a lot of people out there willing to hand you advice. Just listen.
We will have a nice guide to effort is talker. We talk about everything here, but one of the things we do is I’ll take this transcript and I’m going to dump it in AI and you’re going to have like a six page guide. Here’s how, here’s how I do it.
Oh no. I mean, at the end of the day, one of my desires, I would, I wouldn’t even say goals, but it will be something I do. Um, Like I said, I love the transcript, the structure of the podcast that you sent me because it’s like, man, this is a lot of simple stuff that people just – if they put – if somebody – if I laid all this stuff out on paper or even in video modules and people signed up for it, this alone would help people kind of just get out of the basic –
30, and we have, like, 30 of these stories and all this knowledge, it’s going to be, like, a looked-at resource. Yep.
There’s a lot of people out there that want to make money, you know, and they get fired from somewhere, and it’s… I’m just really thankful that I didn’t keep running after a tradition agent, like, and making 15, 20 bucks an hour. Like, my mind is so open to, like, bigger things and, like, ooh, that… But I have learned that I have a limit.
Like somebody introduced me to the gutter industry, like installing gutters. Like, man, you can make tons of money here. And for some reason I was just like, that just does not interest me. Like there’s a lot of money there, but I’m like – Yeah, it just doesn’t interest me.
Wrap-Up and Closing
But cool, man. That’s all I really got. I know we talked a little bit in the early days, but it was good to catch up here, man. An hour and 40 minutes here figuring out where you’re at with your business. It seems like you’re positive. Things are moving in a positive direction. You got over a lot of challenges, it sounds like, over this amount of time.
I think one of the coolest compliments I got when I left Idaho was from a friend of mine who had a million dollar window cleaning business. Yeah. And he literally is like, man, just to walk away from everything and going and starting something completely new. He’s like, you got some balls.
Well, business takes it, dude. It just does. I mean, there’s a number of days where I’ll be here in the office and, man, there’ll be a fire, fire, fire, fire. Or, you know, Facebook updates something and totally Fs everything we’re doing for everybody. It’s like when there’s a snafu on Facebook or a database disconnect or they change an API for one of our tools. We don’t have to fix it for ourselves. We’ve got to fix it for ourselves. Everybody. It’s… You know, and.
Wow. I didn’t think about that. Wow. Yeah. Trust me.
Final Goodbye
But cool, man. All right. So thanks for coming on. Really appreciate putting this kind of time in. Again, I was only expecting, you know, 45 minutes to an hour here. We’re closing in on two hours here. So, but thanks, man. You know, and again, if anybody needs help with any of the things that I’ve talked about, by all means, reach out to me. And Chisum, he’s an open book. You know, if there’s anything, I mean, I see you giving advice in the forums all the time. you know, uh, and I’m sure you wouldn’t care if somebody hit you up about something we talked to you, talked about here, you know, cool.
All right, man. Thanks. Thank you, David. Yep. Bye. Bye.
So that wraps up this episode of Home Exterior Cleaning Success Formulas. If you got value from today’s conversation, make sure you subscribe and leave a review so more business owners can find the show. And if you’re ready to grow your home service business with real marketing systems, including ads, SEO, and a website that actually converts into customers, visit cleanmarketing.net and schedule a strategy call with my team. Thanks for listening, and we’ll see you on the next episode.
