Hey what's up guys my name is Nolan Mayfield, I'm a sophomore at the
University of Oregon, and today I'm gonna tell you my whole pressure washing
business plan which I've been doing for six years now. I'm gonna tell you about
my marketing, my customer base, my pricing model, how I determine what I charge, and
a whole lot of other things including my equipment. Let's get started!
So I've always been an entrepreneur. when I was in the fifth grade I started a
dog-walking business called strollin with Nolan and it was a lot of fun but I
moved and I lost my customers which is why I decided to try something new.
I decided to try pressure washing. The work itself was hard, but it was
satisfying, I could get a tan, listen to music and podcasts, Radiolab is a
personal favorite, I worked with great customers, and I also got paid really
well. Now, my equipment set up back then consisted of four things. I bought a
Honda 2,750 psi pressure washer. that's about a $300 new, but I bought it for a
hundred and twenty dollars on eBay which I would recommend for you. I also got a
$30 turbo nozzle. It's a head that you attach to the end of your wand and that
really helps speed up my work. Then obviously I also had to buy a non-kink hose
and a push broom to clean up when I finished my jobs. Now when I was first
starting, I would typically charge $20 an hour. And remember I was in the seventh
and eighth grade making $20 an hour, which is a pretty awesome side hustle
all things considered. There seriously aren't a lot of side hustles that will
allow a seventh and eighth grader to make $20 an hour, but there's a couple
reasons for why that's possible. First, a lot of people don't like pressure
washing. I've heard a lot of complaints about back pain and joint movement.
Personally, I've never experienced that, but it's definitely a factor for why you
can charge that much. Second, it's a specialized skill, so as you get better
at it you develop that skill and it becomes something that's easily
marketable. Third, there's a lot of demand for it, especially in the Pacific Northwest
where I work. The heavy rainfall causes moss to grow and it leads to more
pressure washing demand. Now let's talk about the type of jobs
that I'm typically doing. I mostly stick with driveways. Driveways offer the most
amount of money and they typically take the least amount of time and they're
also relatively fun. One thing that I look out for though is to make sure that
the driveway slopes towards the street as that makes for an easier pressure
washing job as you don't have to work with puddling and things like that which
will really slow you up. That said, as a general rule of thumb I don't say no to
any type of business. I've worked on fences, I've worked on decks, I've worked
on house siding and all sorts of other surfaces. The people that hire me to do
this, or in other words my customer base, are exclusively residential homeowners. I
target residential homeowners because it optimizes word-of-mouth references and
it also excludes the need for contracts which commercial projects do require.
Which leads me into marketing. As I mentioned word-of-mouth references are
king in pressure washing or truly any small business or start up.
When people give their neighbors or family members a
word-of-mouth reference it builds a rapport of trust with your business and
you haven't even really met them yet. Which is pretty powerful if you really
think about it. However, I use word-of-mouth references in a way that
most businesses don't utilize. I use the app Nextdoor to get almost all of my
business and it's extremely powerful. Technically businesses are not supposed to
post on next-door. As a high schooler, I got away with it, but
I don't do it anymore. But what I would do is make a post of who I am, what I do,
and why I do it. I would get business through that and after I had that
business and did a good job for them I'd ask my customers to leave a review
or referral in the comment section of the post I made. The Nextdoor
algorithms would move my post back to the top of the forum which would lead to
new business. In essence it was a cycle as I got new business and then I got new
comments and then because of that I got a new business. That said, you don't have
to make the post yourself to use this method. By just having other neighbors
that you've worked for make that initial post and asking others to comment on
theirs it's the exact same idea and it can really help your business. One thing
in marketing that a lot of people do forget is that
the work you do is a great marketing tool. I can't tell you how many times
somebody has come up to me and they've asked for my contact information to hire
me just by seeing me cleaning and pressure wash and seeing how awesome it looks.
That means it's really important to have personalized business cards on you at
all times and it's also really helpful to create a yard sign and have that in
the yards where you work. Additionally I've also created a website
for my business and an Instagram page. iI my experience, however, they've not
been nearly as useful as things such as next door word-of-mouth referrals and
just working itself. Now I've told you guys how I started making $20 an hour,
but let me explain the two things that allowed me to start making $50 an hour
consistently and with good reason. The first was a major equipment upgrade.
Instead of using a 2700 PSI Honda pressure washer, I invested $800 into a
champion 4200 psi pressure washer and I also bought a 425 dollar BE-whirlaway
pressure washer. The combination of these two cut the time it took me to pressure
wash an average driveway by over half. Because of this, instead of just doing
one job in a day I could start doing two and three jobs in a single day. Obviously
this doesn't work if I'm charging by the hour though, which is why I changed my
pricing model which is the second thing that I upgraded. Instead of charging by
the hour I started going to homes and giving them quotes before I actually did
the job. My quote went something like this. I'd explained to them that I was a
college student and I was paying my way through college by pressure washing. That
I've been doing it for a while and would give them just as good of a quality as a
professional, but I would charge half of what a professional would charge. This
pitch was almost perfect and I don't think I've ever had someone telling me
that they wouldn't hire me having used that. Now, if there's anything
that you found helpful or even interesting in this video please hit the
like or subscribe button but more importantly please leave a comment on
any questions or advice that you guys have for starting a pressure washing
business. Thanks for doing this with me today I'll see you next time!