As with any trade, a contractor entering into the pressure washing industry has their sight on one primary goal. That is to make money and LOTS of it.

This is probably the one common denominator that most pressure wash contractors give as their reason for joining the rank and file as a professional power washing contractor. Obviously there is nothing wrong with making money with your business; this is why you are in business right? Often time a contractors success is measured by pressure washing Augusta prescribed benchmarks passed down from one generation to the next. One of them being how much money do you make? The formula has always been that money equals success. The other is whether or not you are busy? If a contractor is busy, then the old cliche is that they must be successful because their busy. And if a contractor is busy 7 days a week from sun-up to sun-down then obviously they are making great money ~ right?

The Rat Race of Success?

Imagine having a 5 year business plan that yields a surge of growth for your business that everything else in your life is on hold in order to accommodate the abounding growth you experience year after year? The influx of sales calls must be answered within 24 hours preferably. Once answered, then you must schedule the estimates. Do not forget to take the time to proof read your marketing fliers/postcards in between answering all the sales calls and the estimates that you just scheduled. Phone time with your distributor is a must in order to keep the chemicals/soaps stocked. The phone time with your distributor also affords you the opportunity to ask technical questions about the “rattling noise” you hear on your rig when it is in operation. For some of you, if your rig goes down then you are nonoperational at least for the next 24-48 hours at minimum.

Fellow contractors need their time also on the phone with you so they can “bend your ear” for tips and suggestions. Set some time aside at night to keep your companies web presence in the forefront for your customer base and to answer emails from customers that opted to not call you during the day. Training any new employee will take a good chunk out of a work day so plan accordingly. If you are a one-man operation you obviously will need to finesse your washing schedule in order to make time to actually perform the work that was booked from those sales calls mentioned earlier. In the past you were able to make bank deposits every Friday but today you just cannot seem to make it to the bank until after it is closed because you literally have a thousand other priorities going on with the success of your business.

In between this fast operation tempo you may manage to give your significant other a call on the phone to let them know that you will not be able to make it to your sons little league game or your daughters dance recital again as promised. You offer up a sincere and heart felt apology not only to your significant other but more importantly to your child who is obviously upset that you will not be there – again. You had every intention to make it this time when you left for work that morning but as luck would have it a customer frantically called at the last minute saying the stain you applied yesterday was not the right color! Before you hang up with your wife you mention that you will not make it home for dinner either. Has this been your routine lately? Do the demands of your business and the priorities associated with it overshadow the very reason why you are in business of pressure washing in the first place?

What is Your System?

Business growth and the effort that is required to manage that growth can be a pleasant experience as a pressure wash business owner. As your business grows externally i.e. sales, marketing, increase in contracts, you must ensure that you internal business infrastructure i.e. employees, managers, sales team is also growing to compliment this external growth. It is highly recommended that your business plan not only speaks on “systems” but more importantly that you understand the action on your part to place the right people into your business so that the “systems” in writing can turn to “systems” of reality. As business owners, we often overlook the infrastructure portion of our business plan by diverting our attention on only how to get our phone to ring.