Pressure Washing Marketing Podcast – Episode 08 – Inside the Numbers: What Top Exterior Cleaning Businesses Are Doing Right

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, everyone? Dave Kunstek here, and I am here with Conor Zimmerman. He is our operations manager here at Clean Marketing. And if you’ve ever worked with this, I’m sure you’ve dealt with him at some point.

And what we’re doing here today is actually going to restart our podcast, which is the Home Exteriors. cleaning success formulas podcast and the way we’re going to be starting it off here today is we’re going to be talking about some of our top clients at the moment what’s working and again nothing held back like what’s working that we’re doing for our clients it kind of results that they’re getting and once you see this airing or you hear it you can follow up with some questions i’ll be more than happy to uh go over that stuff with you.

So connor like real quick as the operations manager like how are things shaping up for you here in your office? Like just so everybody knows, like what kind of duties are you performing?

Yeah. I mean, my day to day changes every day. You know, I like to keep it as structured as possible, but you know, it really just depends on what’s going on when I come in that morning. But basically I, you know, I come in, one thing that I like to do is just look at everybody’s account. Just make sure that You know, nobody’s disabled, anything like that. Just take a look at every client’s numbers and, you know, at least do that as the first step of the day.

Just look at all the numbers, track everything I need to track and then kind of note down, hey, these clients need changes. These are doing very well right now. You know, let’s let’s leave it for right now and note down like ones I have made changes for and just, you know, see like how those changes are performing. So that’s like the first thing that I do.

Then from there, I clear out all the messages. Which are basically the fires. Yeah, not necessarily fires, but just look at the messages. If there’s people that I need to consult with David and the team, you know, I’ll just wait to respond until we consult. But the people I can answer right away, I will go in and answer them.

And then from there, really my day starts. If there’s programs to build, I build the programs. If there’s onboardings that need to be done, I do the onboardings. And then what I talked about, if there’s people that need changes, whether that’s A real simple change, something in their automation, whether it’s, you know, building new ads, new creatives. That’s kind of what I get into next.

And then from there, you know, I also check like our website clients, like how many leads are they getting through SEO? I’m brainstorming for David, like how can we improve? What can we add on that kind of thing?

And then from there, it does get crazy. Like every day we’re going to have people reaching out in some way. There’s people that, you know, you’re not expecting to have to do things for them, but they’re, you know, they’re reaching out. So I have to kind of build that into my day as well.

Seasonality & What Top Clients Have in Common

And it’s not necessarily a bad thing that he’s talking about. It’s just things come up with clients, you know, generally at any given moment, we have somewhere between say 70 and 120 clients that are going on. And, you know, this time of the year where the Northeast is getting frozen, you know, there was school delays this morning. This is the time that we’re going to have less clients because things are dropping off. You know, some people are in Christmas light season, they do gutter cleaning and that sort of stuff. But, you know, we do have this two month period where we work hard on the business while we’re still serving the parts of the country that are warm.

So moving on, like, what do you think our most successful home exterior cleaning clients have in common when you look at them?

Well, the first thing that I think they kind of all do really well is they’re almost comfortable doing this. They’re comfortable talking in front of the camera. They have personality. They’re not a statue in front of the camera. They’re comfortable getting out and recording themselves. And they have a little bit of pitch in their voice. We’ve had people kind of record our videos and and that we send them and they’re super monotone. Like you got to have some sort of pitch, add a little bit of emotion, that kind of thing. So, you know, they’re really good at that. They’re going to be impersonable with their clients, with their customers and, you know, when they’re quoting.

And then that would be the other thing too, is they have a quoting process. Like they have their sales process dialed in. And if they don’t have it dialed in when they start, they find a way to get it there. That’s a huge thing. I think with Facebook ads specifically, it’s, if you don’t have a good process in place as far as how you’re going to reach out to the leads, how you’re going to quote them, how you’re going to follow up with them, you’re going to struggle. They’re in a way cold outreach. They’re not searching for the service. So you got to be really on the attack when it comes to them and have a follow-up system and that kind of thing.

And so Our best performing clients, they all definitely have very good follow-up in place and a good procedure. And then their pages, like their Facebook pages are up to date. They have reviews. They worry about getting reviews. They focus on it and they post good content. So like one thing that is super important is those videos that we’ll send people like scripts. You can do those every single day. And if you do those at every job site, It takes 20 seconds, and then that’s something you can post that day. And then when you finish that job, post the finished product. And it’s super simple, but people can put a face to a name then.

Yeah, and it’s just so super simple. And people recognize the streets that they’re on. They recognize the landmarks, and they see that the contractor is local and other people are using them.

You know, I know a lot of people are scared of the camera. I mean, there was a time where I hated the camera. I mean, you see me on it a lot now, but I’ll tell you, five years ago, I was terrified because I was worried about what people are going to think about me. But what I found is people don’t care. You know, they just don’t. But what they appreciate is the authenticity. And like for local contractors and like, again, like Connor was saying, like our best clients, they do that kind of stuff. And we try to help our clients through that, whether it’s through sending scripts or coaching. You know, we’ve even gone as far as, you know, doing something like this, like it’s like podcast style, where again, I haven’t done with a ton of people, but I can get on like a zoom kind of call where it records a feed separately. And you know, I can talk to you about the job that you’re on. And we can create clips from that, you know, that’s eventually like, coming here in this next year, part of our onboarding process is going to be a podcast appearance on anybody that’s on one of our middle tier packages or above. So if you sign up for something like that or you’re on it, you’re going to be a podcast guest and we’re going to talk about your business. We’re going to talk about what makes you successful. We’re going to talk about your processes. But we’re going to use that stuff for your actual marketing to help educate your customers. And if it’s not on the front end, it’s going to be on the messaging that we send your clients when they become a lead.

Client Results: St. Cloud Pressure Washing

So moving on from there, I asked Connor to bring in some results from clients. Who is the, I won’t say who, but what is the first client and where are they located you want to talk about?

Yeah, so the first client is St. Cloud Pressure Washing Pros in St. Cloud, Florida. So sort of near Orlando, I’m pretty sure. We’re in Pennsylvania, but being in this job, I feel like I know most of Florida pretty well. So they’re doing paver sealing. And thus far, they’ve been running for about two months, I think, just off the top of my head. But thus far, $15 cost per message on his paver campaign. and a $30 cost per lead.

So for every two messages he’s getting, one person is coming in, giving their phone number, address, email, becoming a lead. So he has like 64 total leads in less than two months fully. So it’s going really, really well. And what’s he spending per day? $45 a day. So just on pavers, I want to get into that. I’m glad that you asked that. Certain services, especially something like paver ceiling, you have to have the budget for it. You know, like throwing $15 a day at something like that. it’s not going to get you anywhere. You know, you’re not spending enough to get in front of the right people.

Um, because that’s the biggest thing that I stress to our clients too. And you know, our Facebook programs aren’t necessarily like, there’s not necessarily a commitment, but I do tell our clients like, um, Trust me. Just please, if you can, give it three months. That first month, you’re going to feel like, man, I’m getting a lot of spam. It seems like people are just clicking and not answering. And that’s just simply Facebook’s learning. The algorithm is learning, hey, who do I need to show this ad to? That’s the hardest thing to get across to people is a lot of times money in and money out at the moment is always important. But sometimes like with this stuff, we’re going to be very cognizant of the return on your investment and making sure that this is not a negative detractor to your business.

But like Connor was saying, it does take time for this stuff to tune in and for it to get the campaigns going. I mean, it really is learning, but once it starts learning, And there’s things we do on the back end, like marking leads as, you know, there’s a spot where you can mark it as a bad lead or you can mark it as a, you know, the contact as a lead. So there’s like three different levels. And the next level is converted. So if our clients are telling us which ones are converting and we’re marking them in the back end, in the lead center, I mean, if you don’t know where that’s at, take a look today. But when you’re marking that stuff off, that is teaching the Facebook algorithm of who you want to get in front of. And then when we’re physically telling Facebook which clients or which customers of our clients are sold and which ones were legitimate quotes that were done and which ones were garbage. It learns how to filter those people out. And like I say, it just is a little bit of a process that takes time.

And, you know, and aside from that, you know, it seems like static images have come back. I mean, there was a period, you know, I see people in the groups that are saying like, hey, before and afters don’t work. And, you know, there is there was a little truth that for a while, but it feels like they’ve kind of come back because there’s a lot more people doing video now. And what that means is now there’s more inventory on Facebook for images, which means we get more views cheaper. So it just seemed to work better. And honestly, I hate to say this, but the uglier the better sometimes. I mean, you get some nice ones, but it doesn’t have to be this highly edited picture that’s going to get results. You just need a little bit of a mix in there with what you’re doing.

Creative Strategy & Lifetime Value

So typically… you know, just correct me if I’m wrong. I know we usually like to do a before and after we do demos, we do personal style ads and, you know, and branding ads. And again, we mix some other stuff in there. Was there anything I missed there?

No, that’s the main kind of concepts that we use. I would input that with before and after, like still images, it doesn’t need to be highly edited, but it’s got to be a good picture too, though.

Yeah, you got to make sure when you take the picture, you know, sometimes people see it and it’s a different time of the day and people will say, hey, that’s fake. But really, it’s just the sun and the shadow. Yeah. So, I mean, and that might mean coming back the next day and taking the after picture at the same point when you took the before. When you get a good set of pictures like that, they do demonstrate really well.

So anything else on pavers?

Yeah, I would say with pavers, it’s just, you know, there is a little bit of patience. You got to have a little patience, but just understanding too, especially in Florida. I mean, it’s a really competitive service. So you get the leads, get on top of them as quick as you can and, you know, be prepared to be in a quote battle and, you know, don’t be shy about, you know, Hey, I can do X, Y, and Z. Maybe I’ll cut you a little discount here to close a deal because this is something too that people don’t think about. Every sale, every lead, there’s lifetime value, right?

So a lot of times people will gauge how their Facebook program is performing just on sales. I’ve been with you for a year. This is what I sold in a year. Next year, we can’t count that towards the return. But it’s like, well, if it came from the advertising, it’s still returned. They became a recurring customer for you, right? If they’re going to use you every single year for a service, that’s a really high value customer that you got them because of that lifetime value.

So patience, being willing to not negotiate, but to just go out of your comfort zone, close a deal, you know, because it is very, very competitive. And they’re probably being that they’re a Facebook lead. They’re probably getting quotes from other people as well. Like, yeah. Cause if you think about it, when I’m sure this happens to you, like if you engage with our page or you engage with something else, you’re going to see competitors start popping up because Facebook’s algorithm is like, oh, these guys interact with a marketing company. These guys interacted with an insurance company and you start seeing all the competitors because that’s how Facebook makes money.

So when someone interacts with your ad, you’ll be darn sure that Facebook is going to then start showing your competitors to these people. And in the same circle, you might not even be the first one. You might be the third one. And if that first guy didn’t get on top of that lead fast enough, that could be your lead to get. Like being after that stuff and being fast is really important. And, you know, back to when Connor was there talking about lifetime value, that is something that people that we talk with, they don’t always just grasp it. They’re just young business owners or what the story is, but they don’t, they don’t look at the lifetime value. They only look at like what’s going on right now.

They don’t look at last month or the three months before that I killed it but as soon as they have a bad stretch of a week or two which it’s marketing it happens you know sometimes they get really upset and i’m not gonna say they lose their mind but you know they start judging facebook you know as a viable source just on those two week period because it’s just you know things aren’t going well for the moment that’s just the ebbs and flows of facebook you know it works that way you have to look at it over bigger periods.

CRM, Follow-Up & Central Virginia Power Washing

But the other part of that is, is having like your CRM or, you know, even like a monthly newsletter, which by the way, we know we will do that for clients if they don’t. Do that already, which again, we’ll put together like a monthly newsletter, just staying in front of your list and reaching out to people in a manner that you’re staying consistent.

Because if you think about it, you know, some people just live and die based on their Facebook ads, on the leads they’re getting today. And they don’t go back after the cheapest customers, which are your past customers. And then if you think about it, that’s actually how you build a business. You don’t build a business based on increasing your volume from what it is this month to next month and bigger even in the following month. You’re building a business because you’ve got your book of business to go back on. And now you’re building on top of it. And that’s just the part that people miss. Again, just again, from our perspective on this side of things.

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.

Now uh let’s go on the next client who you got?

Yeah so the next one central virginia power washing long time client um he’s been with us for i want yeah i’ll just say his name it’s nick fleming on yeah we did a podcast with him, man. This guy kills it. I want to say he’s been with us for as long as I’ve been here, which is since 2021. He does fantastic. His program is one of the most consistent you will find of our clients. Mainly does all pressure washing, but here’s one thing I wanted to touch on.

We’ll get a lot of people that ask us, well, you know, can I run ads for just pressure washing? Like that’s all they wanted the headline to be pressure washing. And like, sure, you can do that. But the best way to go about it is one vertical at a time. So one service that’s kind of like a lead in because what it does is it just helps the algorithm again, like know who to show the ad to a little bit easier and quicker. So he does a house washing campaign. Now, right now he’s also running Christmas lights also. So his cost per message for the year, $16 cost per message. So that’s across the year. That’s not just like last month or anything like that.

And I didn’t mean to interrupt you, but with him, he runs an aggressive offer. It’s an offer that a lot of people balk at. But what happens is he’s just become a master of using that as leverage to get in front of somebody. And then from there know he’ll walk the property and man if you go back to my podcast you’ll see this guy is super knowledgeable super he’s just he does everything right if you go to his youtube channel he has over 600 videos and what he does in his videos is every time he gets a question from a client he was going home and he was filming an answer to that video so now his staff can just send him answering these questions to potential customers and such or if a customer finds him on youtube or on facebook and they find a way to his youtube channel man I mean, closing the deals almost comes down to just meeting with them and working out the details. He’s just become a master of working on these offers that, again, some people balk at. They’re like, hey, I won’t work for that. But the truth of the matter is he does now and again, but he doesn’t. It’s the foot in the door. It’s to attract that attention.

Bundle Offers & Capital Pro Janitorial

Yeah, he’s mastered the bundle offer. And so, I mean, like he kind of said, we did an interview with him. He talked about how he presents every potential customer with good, better, best. Here are three package options. The higher package you choose, the more of a discount you’re going to get. And what it did for him is it raised his average ticket. And like you said, he is running a really aggressive offer. He’s running the exact offer we would suggest for any client across the country. It doesn’t matter if they’re in their first year of business or 15th. This is what we would suggest on Facebook. It’s proven. It works.

Now, some areas can get away with some other offers. Like with him, for example, we actually did test some new offers this year. And we found very early on that that one is just the most consistent for him like that. It just performs the best. So yeah, the good, better, best kind of strategy of bundling is something I started suggesting to anyone that has questions on, you know, how to make sales and how do you raise your average ticket? I mean, that’s how you’re going to do it. You know, that, that is just bottom line, the, a great way to kind of boost that average ticket and make Facebook more feasible and close more truthfully.

Yep. Yep. All right. So, and we were trying to keep these down under 30 minutes. We’re about 20 minutes deep. So we’ll, we’ll do one more client and who do you got?

Yep. So this one is Capital Pro Janitorial. So they are in Albany, New York. So it’s actually getting pretty late in the season here, but he started in late July with us. So he even missed like the busy season. I mean, he, he did, he missed the prime months. And the prime months are March and April. Yeah, March, April. In the Northeast here. Where we are, Pennsylvania, New York, the Northeast, May is pretty busy as well, and June. But the prime months across the country, it’s going to be March through May.

But yeah, so he started doing a house wash. He had a $17 cost per message on that. Same offer as the guy in Virginia. Yeah. Um, and a $30 cost per lead. So again, same kind of concept as everybody, like for every two messages they’re getting, one’s turning into a lead. And so that’s where cost per message is important. You know, it’s not the be all end all, but if you can get that conversion, then the lower you can get that cost per message, the better your ads are going to perform, the more leads you’re going to get.