August 10, 2025 • 19 mins
Ever wondered how the pros handle the seasonal dip in residential pressure washing? Matt Jackson and Clay Smith, known as the Wash Bros, reveal their game-changing approach to commercial pressure washing that's keeping their business thriving as residential leads slow down.
The duo shares a refreshingly honest perspective on pricing commercial jobs that contradicts conventional wisdom. Forget square footage calculations—they're focused on what their time is worth and how to land jobs that generate significant revenue in compressed timeframes. "I have lost many, many jobs trying to price by the square foot," Matt confesses, explaining how their aggressive pricing strategy recently secured a $7,500 two-day project. Clay echoes this success, having just completed a $10,000 job in less than three nights—roughly $400 per hour of work.
What makes their approach particularly powerful is their use of multiple trucks and crews to maximize efficiency. This capacity allows them to underbid competitors while still maintaining healthy profit margins. They view commercial relationships not as one-off opportunities but as partnerships that can generate recurring revenue—transforming a single successful job into a $20,000 annual contract through regular maintenance cleaning.
The Wash Bros offer practical advice for finding commercial opportunities, from researching property management portfolios to leveraging LinkedIn for connecting with decision-makers. They emphasize how residential work often leads to commercial opportunities when satisfied homeowners recommend their services to employers. As Clay succinctly puts it: "Residential pays the bills, commercial builds the capital."
Ready to transform your pressure washing business with commercial work? This episode delivers the veteran insights you need to price confidently, build lasting client relationships, and create sustainable growth as the seasons change. Subscribe now and turn this fall into your most profitable season yet!
https://www.facebook.com/WASHBROSPODCAST
https://www.facebook.com/mattdrivewayguy
https://www.facebook.com/c3pressure
powerwashingcoach.com
C3washpros.com
mattthedrivewayguy.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
What's up, guys?
It's Matt Jackson and ClaySmith and we are the Wash Bros.
We are coming to you or atleast I'm coming to you live
from a commercial job, which issomething relevant and what
we're probably going to talkabout on this episode.
But thanks for tuning in.
It's Sunday, august 10th.
It seems like kids are back inschool and our season is slowly
getting back into the fallregulation of like the normal
(00:56):
stuff, but we want to kick offepisode 27, talk about where
we're at now commercial work andwhat our plans are for the fall
.
So you want to kick this thingoff, clay.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Absolutely.
It's been a great year.
It was a great busy season.
We definitely took advantage ofour numbers.
A lot of different ebb and flowthis year compared to last year
.
We're definitely ahead of ournumbers.
However, it's been more of agrind to get work.
I don't really understand that.
I know Matt has been more of agrind than last year and then
I'm starting to feel it,considering we only started
(01:28):
scaling in May.
So pretty cool year, prettycool commercial projects.
As you see Matt's on site, he'sknocking one out now.
Yeah, I mean it's been a greatyear.
Commercial jobs how are welanding our jobs?
What do you need to know goinginto commercial jobs?
How are we learning our jobs?
(01:48):
What do you need to know goinginto commercial jobs?
How are we scheduling our jobs,planning for these jobs,
because it's not just aresidential job.
There are many things that youneed to go over when scheduling
the job.
You need to go over yournumbers, your labor.
I mean, as far as your labor,you need to know when to
schedule it.
So if it's a per se like matt,he's working on a sunday because
it's a very busy complex duringthe week.
(02:09):
So you got to figure all thatout.
Know how to communicate withthese people and know how to be
professional.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Absolutely.
And you also have to know yourcosts and stuff like this.
People all the time they'relike, oh, what should I quote
for this, what should I quotefor that?
Well, how would I know if Idon't know what your costs are?
I got two guys running twotrucks for me and then I'm out
here and it's a Sunday.
So it's one of those deals yougot to understand.
All right, how fast can I getthe job done?
What is it gonna take?
Is it gonna take just bleach oris it gonna take acid?
(02:35):
You guys can see back here.
I got some efflorescencetreatment that I have to
schedule and do coming next week, just because I don't have any
of that with me.
So you got to figure out likewhat needs to be clean, how can
I clean it, and then break thatdown into like how can I be as
cost effective as possible?
Do I want to establish arelationship with people such as
in this situation and go inkind of aggressive and again,
(02:59):
that's kind of been our mantraall year long as we've grown our
commercial side of things andhonestly I think you gotta be
aggressive.
Everybody's pressure washing,everybody's into stuff.
Now we got two trucks.
We're pricing this building.
We got two buildings right nextto each other.
Super, I mean, it's big, simplestuff sidewalks, make sure
we're rinsing all the dirt offthe asphalt and then soft
(03:19):
washing these two warehousebuildings.
So, two days, $7,500500 ticket.
It's a lot of work, but wedidn't price that based upon
square footage.
We're pricing it based uponlike, what are, what the market
value is, what's our time worthand how bad do we want the job?
So I know Clay just did adealership and, uh, he has kind
of a similar mindset of that too.
(03:40):
And again, don't don't thesenew guys.
They get caught up in squarefootage.
Or they get caught up in squarefootage or they get caught up
in how to price things.
Hey, if you're an owneroperator with one truck and one
rig, you're limited to what youcan do.
But when you got multiplesetups like clay and I both do,
we can be aggressive and we canmake money at the end of the day
, it all boils down to what yourtime's worth.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
You don't want to do the square footage stuff.
I have lost many, many, manyand many jobs trying to price by
the square foot.
It's the wrong way.
I don't want to say it's thewrong way of doing things.
You want to use it as abaseline.
But at the end of the day, itall boils down to what your
times were.
When you go to a job interview,you have that like as a regular,
(04:19):
you know if you're going into aregular job, you have that
mindset of okay, I want to bepaid X amount of money per hour.
It's the same thing that thatboils down to your business.
How much does your businessneed to make per hour?
So go, sit down, figure outwhat your time's worth per hour
as a business, with residential,with commercial and go and
(04:40):
basically that's how.
That's how we do things.
It's.
It's very simple.
There's no way of uh, uh, Iknow a lot of guys they do.
Okay, I want to be 25 cents asquare foot for red clay removal
.
I want to be 17 cents a squarefoot for soft washing.
Just stop over complicating itexactly.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
A lot of times, people over complicate things
because they don't know whatthey're doing and it seems as if
they have like a definitiveanswer for something.
If they're like like, oh, thisis my heart and truth, this is
the science that I came to it,that's just feeding your ego,
that's not understanding.
Like what's your closing rate?
How many jobs are you booking?
How much capacity do you have?
We talk a lot about capacity.
Like how many trucks do youhave?
(05:18):
We have two trucks right nowworking and then me, so there's
three people.
Because I got soft wash setupson my truck.
I'm using a 12 volt to hit someof these dark spots while my
guys are both renting theparking lot.
So we have three guys workingon three different pieces of
equipment banging out thisproject.
And my employees I have hereare my college kids in the
summer so I can bake it inaffordable.
(05:40):
They make money, I make money.
We're all winning here.
Here, and it's simple.
We're not sitting here andsaying, oh, I'm going to quote
this building at 12 cents asquare, because I didn't quote
this thing anywhere close to 12cents a square.
I was able to quote this thingprobably close to eight cents a
square, but the sheer volume andthe proximity of everything to
it allowed me to get the job andthen bang out $7,500 in two
(06:01):
days.
Now, if I was sickler and said,oh no, I know what my time's
worth, my time's worth 15 centsa square, we would never even
gotten this job, we wouldn't getany properties of theirs in the
future and we wouldn't havemade that 7,500 bucks for this
weekend.
So you see guys online they getall this high tech equipment,
they get the high gallonmachines or they're just running
multiple trucks like Clay and Iand we're able to come in and
(06:24):
get these jobs and stay busy,especially when residential
season is taking a dip.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Yeah, I don't know about everybody else who's
listening, but definitelyresidential has slowed down
tremendously.
I know I spend a pretty pennyin our market.
I soak up a lot of our marketjust in the money that I spend
on local search engines.
But the commercial thing whenyou do have an opportunity, you
need to make the most of it, notonly because you want to land a
(06:53):
job but because you're spendingthat money and trying to get
these jobs right.
So the commercial leads aresometimes a little more
expensive and they are very rare.
So you only get them every sooften, or at least that's with
me.
I don't get as many commercialleads as I do residential leads.
So when I get them I want tomake the most of them.
(07:14):
And, like Matt says, you canuse multiple trucks and get the
jobs done a lot quicker.
Like we just knocked out 10grand in three nights two and a
half nights, really.
Like we just knocked out 10grand in three nights two and a
half nights, really.
So a lot of people would havebeen probably 20 to $25,000 on
that job that I just did.
Will I get some hate because Ijust told you that?
Probably.
But who's not going to be happywith making 10 grand.
(07:39):
In two and a half nights ofwork.
I think I totaled up 18 hoursof hard work is what we had in
it.
So you do the math on that, Ithink it comes down to around
$400 an hour, which who's notgoing to be happy with making
$400 an hour.
So you can hate on that all youwant, but if you want to win
these jobs, you want to getthese jobs.
That's the key to it.
I know that on a job likeMatt's home I probably could
(08:02):
have priced it around that,starting out with just a four
gallon a minute, and I wouldhave been there all week and my
costs were a lot lower back then.
So I would have made greatmoney even at that number
exactly right.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
And the biggest thing is just kind of looking at a
situation like we do a localcollege, we, we, we go in kind
of affordable, do a great job,and that relationship pretty
much turned into going frommaking I don't know like one job
say, if I was trying to takeadvantage of the guy, say I make
seven grand off of one but it'sgoing to turn into a
(08:38):
relationship where we kind of dolike a monthly reoccurring
cleaning or like a maintenanceclean and it's going to be like
a $20,000 a year contract prettymuch, because we just show up
every so often and we do like asegmented area on their property
.
And that's kind of the modelthat I'm looking to do.
And when I get in intorelationships with people like
this, my objective is to I don'tknow just grow that way.
(09:03):
Hey look, I'm affordable, we dovolume, we have the capacity,
we have the trucks.
Let's partner here.
And that's the mindset shift Ithink that's important with.
I think that that mindset shiftis important when it comes to a
commercial side as opposed toresidential.
Like Clay and I have done somany jobs, we've probably done
like 4,000 or 5,000 jobs eachother like individually.
(09:23):
We're trying to get out of that.
We're trying to move the needleand by doing a week's worth of
productivity for a truck on onejob on Saturday and Sunday, and
then the ability to go back toMonday, tuesday, wednesday,
thursday, friday and bang out aregular week, there, you're
making a ton of money.
Essentially, you're picking upa week of productivity in your
(09:43):
normal day-to-day 100%.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
You've got to look at the bigger picture, not the
little.
I can get rich off of one jobtype person.
Me and Matt do a lot of volume.
As he said, we probably serve4,000 or 5,000 customers, but we
have also served a lot of thesame customers.
Me and him are tossing back andforth and I'm sure we've tossed
them back and forth with acouple other people in our area.
Nobody is going to be loyal inyour market.
No matter how good that yousend your emails out, no matter
(10:10):
how good you send your textblasts, whatever your postcards,
no matter how good you farmyour customer, you're not going
to be able to keep all of them.
Unfortunately, that's just howit goes.
That's just the way it works.
But if you can keepconsistently doing the same
things over and over and overand do the things that you're
supposed to do, you willcontinuously grow your business
and you'll be able to pick upbigger jobs.
(10:31):
Just in time, being in the gamewith our branding and I know
it's the same for Matt we havegotten a lot of opportunities
for bigger jobs and some some ofthe bigger jobs we just I don't
have any interest in doing, Iwon't even quote them, just
because it's not worth my time.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Exactly, and that's another.
Understand your business modeltoo.
You see guys online, the owneroperator guy.
They have a huge setups withlike 36 gallons a minute, they
hook up to hydrants and they'rechasing humongous jobs all day
long.
Understand if you're goingafter the same jobs that those
guys go after, you have to priceyourself extremely thin just
(11:08):
because that's how you got tocompete.
You got to compete with guyslike that and the same logic of
us having multiple trucks likeyou want to compete with people
and what your strengths are.
You don't want to say, oh, Ican do everything, I'm a jack of
all trades, because that guy'sprobably turning down a lot of
residential work.
That guy's focusing more on howcan I clean with a lot of
volume, how can I clean with allgallons a minute?
(11:28):
He's not hooking up to somebodyin a in a subdivision off of
normal water pressure and thensaying, oh yeah, I'll clean your
house in 25 minutes.
So like, figure out how you'reset up and how you're wanting to
run your business.
Commercial is great, but there'salso net terms with this stuff.
You can say, oh, that's a$10,000 job, but do they pay
same day, do they pay in a week,or are they paying you in a
(11:49):
month.
So you got to understand that,like your business may not be at
a level where you can allowthat to happen, it works with us
because we have residentialthat pays the bills and
residential to Clay's pointwe're talking about like
marketing for commercial.
A lot of times commercial comesfrom doing somebody's house
residentially and they see youin the community, they see you
(12:10):
with the volume of residentialor, like Clay and I both have
that voted best in the upstatetrophy, that came from
residential, that doesn't comefrom commercial.
So it's one of those thingswhere, hey, if 5,000 homeowners
can use you and think you're,you're great, you're going to be
able to get some commercialjobs.
And then you can either decide,hey, do I go all in on this?
Do I kind of create more of adivision where I go in on this,
(12:33):
like, say, I have a crew on theweekends that rocks and rolls,
so I'm not messing up my regularnine to five schedule, or am I
just trying to go completelyinto the commercial space and
partner with builders andpartner with property management
companies and try to chasehigher tickets like that?
So the most important thing isjust understanding, like we say,
understanding your numbers,understanding your business and
what you can do.
(12:55):
Not everybody has the privilegeto say I'm going to buy a
$70,000 skid set up and I'mgoing to go chase these massive
jobs across the country.
That's great if you can go forit, but if you guys are trying
to model people and it's notcongruent with where you are or
what you're good at, there'sjust different steps and levels
to go.
So I think, biggest thing, lookin the mirror, figure out what
(13:15):
you want.
Are you wanting to be thatresidential guy?
Do you want to do that?
But you also have to know thedownsides of just residential
the, the swings of the ups anddowns.
That hurts us just like ithurts you guys.
So these big commercial jobshelp us stay afloat.
If we can make ten thousanddollars, we can have a slower
week and still be ahead on theweek than if we were just
(13:36):
completely in residential.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Well, not only that.
I've always kind of said thatresidential pays the bills and
commercial builds the capital.
So all that commercial workthat I normally get, we're
always putting it aside as muchas we can anyway, or we're
buying new equipment with it orinvesting it in new marketing.
We're always using that moneyto build the business pretty
much, and then obviously in theslower months that helps pay the
(14:02):
bills.
But residential pays the bills.
Commercial builds capital inthe business and helps the
business grow.
And to Matt's point, he'salways he was talking about the
residential and how many we'vedone.
Those people also worksomewhere.
So there's a good chance thatthose people if they're they
hear that their place ofbusiness ever needs anybody to
(14:22):
wash their business nine timesout of ten, their supervisor,
their boss, whoever their owner,is going to say, hey, do you
guys know a good pressure washer?
And if somebody on their teamcan recommend a good pressure
washer and if you probably cleantheir building or their house
or whatever, they're probablygoing to recommend you.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Yeah absolutely right .
I know I quoted a guy who'srunning point on this job, who's
like um, a broker in charge, soit's a commercial property
management company.
So I've quoted this guy.
He's like oh, I see you'readvertising all the time, like,
and then I've done anotherbuilding for them and he didn't
know.
So once they make a connectionthey're like oh, of course this
is a no-brainer and then you canclean other buildings for them
(15:01):
because the people that own thisown that southern culture
building that we did off ofcherrydale not charity, I guess,
yeah, off of cherrydale, orsomething pleasantberg like
years and years ago.
So, like, I made the connectionand they're like hey, we
actually cleaned your otherbuilding in your portfolio and
it's cool.
You can look on these people'swebsites, like the property
management companies, and youcan say, and a lot of times,
(15:22):
like, if you pull into a big subor a big commercial park,
you'll be able to tell likethere's a sign that says like
managed by this company.
You can find out who owns thesecompanies or who manages these
properties and then what you cando is reach out to them and
then usually their website showsa portfolio of all their other
properties.
So you can say I like thatproperty.
I noticed they have four otherproperties in town.
(15:43):
This is a worthwhile person topursue.
You can use something likeLinkedIn and try to figure out
if the company has people'snames associated with positions,
like somebody over procurementor somebody who's like a broker,
and just work your way in thatway so you don't have to just
wait until they come to you.
There's plenty of ways that youcan go to them.
(16:04):
But like also understand likehey, if they got all these other
properties, be like hey, we'reinterested in like making a
partnership with you.
I don't want to just clean onebuilding and then you call clay
the next time.
I want to make sure that we canget as much as we can and work
together.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
So yeah, then you build those accounts and then
you have 10 of them at threegrand a month.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
You're doing three thousand dollars worth of work,
like we always talk about matt,then uh, that's 30 grand a month
, just off of commercial workexactly, and then you can
essentially build out a skid ora truck, and then you can have a
truck that focuses on servingthose clients as a paramount to
your residential ones, and thenresidential, like we always say,
pays the bills and you don'thave to be like one or the other
.
You can simply add on anothertruck and scale.
(16:45):
As long as your revenue is inplace, you can build out another
truck.
So that's what we'll do.
I mean, in the slower seasonwe'll run one truck, but we're
back hammering away uh, twotrucks year round, up until
probably that slow dip we havein december and january and um,
but again, the beauty of thesecommercial projects is we can
(17:06):
pull two trucks and I can callall my help and then we can put
people on the books for theweekend and then, and then we
can make money and even like, uh, I was talking to my, my, uh,
college guys the kids who helpout in the summer and they were
saying how, hey look, if you canland these jobs on a weekend
and we're just down in columbiawe're more than welcome to like
drive up and make some money ona weekend.
So it's one of those games.
(17:27):
Yeah, it's like hey, hey, if youcan give me 500 bucks to work
for you in the weekend, I'llI'll drive up columbia as a
college kid make 500 bucksthat's right.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
I mean, who wants to work on weekends?
So as long as you pay them good, take care of them and feed
them they'll.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
They'll do whatever you want them to yeah, or like
places like this.
There's a pizza place here andthe guys like gave them pizza
and all that so they just walkout.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
They're like hey, thanks for cleaning our building
, here's pizza oh yeah that'sawesome, yeah they always take
care of you if you take care ofthem exactly but.
But yeah, I don't know whatwe're looking like on time.
Matt, I know you're kind of ina rush.
Um, I know we wanted to get onhere and talk about a little bit
of commercial work and how ourseason's going.
Yeah, we're out at that20-minute mark.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
We're at that 20-minute mark so I got guys on
the other side.
We're fighting to rinse dirt.
Everybody knows it's like thesidewalk's the easy part.
Make sure, when you're quotingsidewalks, that you factor in
the amount of time it's going totake you to rinse it all down
the asphalt nobody thinks aboutthat.
I had my fair share of it thispast week yep, you're like, oh
yeah, that's not that bad, andthen you realize it's going to
take five hours to push all thedirt yeah, you're pushing all
(18:32):
the dirt that's been sittingthere for years before that,
before you ever clean thesidewalls too exactly and just
when.
And then and then again, like wesay, we don't quote on square
footage, because if I justlooked at the square foot and
said I'll quote on the squarefootage of the hero, I would
have completely missed the timeit would have taken to do all
this stuff.
And that's that veteran adviceyou don't know until you know.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Yep, until you do it for you.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Or like curbs and stuff like that.
You don't know until you know.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
That's right.
That's right, but appreciateeverybody listening today.
Make, that's right, butappreciate everybody listening
today.
Make sure you go follow mypersonal page, clay Smith.
You can follow my TikTok, thePressure Wash Guru.
You can find a bunch of coolvideos, a bunch of cool things
you can buy for pressure washingon there.
Follow Matt Jackson MatthewJackson on Facebook this is his
personal profile, matt thedriveway guy, his business page
and join the Wash Bros group.
(19:20):
Follow the Wash Bros podcastpage on Facebook and that's
pretty much all I got.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Yep sounds great.
Thanks for tuning in, guys, andI hope everybody has a great
beginning of summer, uh, school,I guess beginning of school
season and uh and get preparedfor the fall and if you guys can
get into commercial work, now'sthe time.
So see you guys.
What's up, guys?
It's Matt Jackson and ClaySmith and we are the Wash Bros.
We are coming to you or atleast I'm coming to you live
from a commercial job, which issomething relevant and what
we're probably going to talkabout on this episode.
But thanks for tuning in.
It's Sunday, august 10th.
It seems like kids are back inschool and our season is slowly
getting back into the fallregulation of like the normal
(00:56):
stuff, but we want to kick offepisode 27, talk about where
we're at now commercial work andwhat our plans are for the fall
.
So you want to kick this thingoff, clay.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Absolutely.
It's been a great year.
It was a great busy season.
We definitely took advantage ofour numbers.
A lot of different ebb and flowthis year compared to last year
.
We're definitely ahead of ournumbers.
However, it's been more of agrind to get work.
I don't really understand that.
I know Matt has been more of agrind than last year and then
I'm starting to feel it,considering we only started
(01:28):
scaling in May.
So pretty cool year, prettycool commercial projects.
As you see Matt's on site, he'sknocking one out now.
Yeah, I mean it's been a greatyear.
Commercial jobs how are welanding our jobs?
What do you need to know goinginto commercial jobs?
How are we learning our jobs?
(01:48):
What do you need to know goinginto commercial jobs?
How are we scheduling our jobs,planning for these jobs,
because it's not just aresidential job.
There are many things that youneed to go over when scheduling
the job.
You need to go over yournumbers, your labor.
I mean, as far as your labor,you need to know when to
schedule it.
So if it's a per se like matt,he's working on a sunday because
it's a very busy complex duringthe week.
(02:09):
So you got to figure all thatout.
Know how to communicate withthese people and know how to be
professional.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Absolutely.
And you also have to know yourcosts and stuff like this.
People all the time they'relike, oh, what should I quote
for this, what should I quotefor that?
Well, how would I know if Idon't know what your costs are?
I got two guys running twotrucks for me and then I'm out
here and it's a Sunday.
So it's one of those deals yougot to understand.
All right, how fast can I getthe job done?
What is it gonna take?
Is it gonna take just bleach oris it gonna take acid?
(02:35):
You guys can see back here.
I got some efflorescencetreatment that I have to
schedule and do coming next week, just because I don't have any
of that with me.
So you got to figure out likewhat needs to be clean, how can
I clean it, and then break thatdown into like how can I be as
cost effective as possible?
Do I want to establish arelationship with people such as
in this situation and go inkind of aggressive and again,
(02:59):
that's kind of been our mantraall year long as we've grown our
commercial side of things andhonestly I think you gotta be
aggressive.
Everybody's pressure washing,everybody's into stuff.
Now we got two trucks.
We're pricing this building.
We got two buildings right nextto each other.
Super, I mean, it's big, simplestuff sidewalks, make sure
we're rinsing all the dirt offthe asphalt and then soft
(03:19):
washing these two warehousebuildings.
So, two days, $7,500500 ticket.
It's a lot of work, but wedidn't price that based upon
square footage.
We're pricing it based uponlike, what are, what the market
value is, what's our time worthand how bad do we want the job?
So I know Clay just did adealership and, uh, he has kind
of a similar mindset of that too.
(03:40):
And again, don't don't thesenew guys.
They get caught up in squarefootage.
Or they get caught up in squarefootage or they get caught up
in how to price things.
Hey, if you're an owneroperator with one truck and one
rig, you're limited to what youcan do.
But when you got multiplesetups like clay and I both do,
we can be aggressive and we canmake money at the end of the day
, it all boils down to what yourtime's worth.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
You don't want to do the square footage stuff.
I have lost many, many, manyand many jobs trying to price by
the square foot.
It's the wrong way.
I don't want to say it's thewrong way of doing things.
You want to use it as abaseline.
But at the end of the day, itall boils down to what your
times were.
When you go to a job interview,you have that like as a regular,
(04:19):
you know if you're going into aregular job, you have that
mindset of okay, I want to bepaid X amount of money per hour.
It's the same thing that thatboils down to your business.
How much does your businessneed to make per hour?
So go, sit down, figure outwhat your time's worth per hour
as a business, with residential,with commercial and go and
(04:40):
basically that's how.
That's how we do things.
It's.
It's very simple.
There's no way of uh, uh, Iknow a lot of guys they do.
Okay, I want to be 25 cents asquare foot for red clay removal
.
I want to be 17 cents a squarefoot for soft washing.
Just stop over complicating itexactly.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
A lot of times, people over complicate things
because they don't know whatthey're doing and it seems as if
they have like a definitiveanswer for something.
If they're like like, oh, thisis my heart and truth, this is
the science that I came to it,that's just feeding your ego,
that's not understanding.
Like what's your closing rate?
How many jobs are you booking?
How much capacity do you have?
We talk a lot about capacity.
Like how many trucks do youhave?
(05:18):
We have two trucks right nowworking and then me, so there's
three people.
Because I got soft wash setupson my truck.
I'm using a 12 volt to hit someof these dark spots while my
guys are both renting theparking lot.
So we have three guys workingon three different pieces of
equipment banging out thisproject.
And my employees I have hereare my college kids in the
summer so I can bake it inaffordable.
(05:40):
They make money, I make money.
We're all winning here.
Here, and it's simple.
We're not sitting here andsaying, oh, I'm going to quote
this building at 12 cents asquare, because I didn't quote
this thing anywhere close to 12cents a square.
I was able to quote this thingprobably close to eight cents a
square, but the sheer volume andthe proximity of everything to
it allowed me to get the job andthen bang out $7,500 in two
(06:01):
days.
Now, if I was sickler and said,oh no, I know what my time's
worth, my time's worth 15 centsa square, we would never even
gotten this job, we wouldn't getany properties of theirs in the
future and we wouldn't havemade that 7,500 bucks for this
weekend.
So you see guys online they getall this high tech equipment,
they get the high gallonmachines or they're just running
multiple trucks like Clay and Iand we're able to come in and
(06:24):
get these jobs and stay busy,especially when residential
season is taking a dip.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Yeah, I don't know about everybody else who's
listening, but definitelyresidential has slowed down
tremendously.
I know I spend a pretty pennyin our market.
I soak up a lot of our marketjust in the money that I spend
on local search engines.
But the commercial thing whenyou do have an opportunity, you
need to make the most of it, notonly because you want to land a
(06:53):
job but because you're spendingthat money and trying to get
these jobs right.
So the commercial leads aresometimes a little more
expensive and they are very rare.
So you only get them every sooften, or at least that's with
me.
I don't get as many commercialleads as I do residential leads.
So when I get them I want tomake the most of them.
(07:14):
And, like Matt says, you canuse multiple trucks and get the
jobs done a lot quicker.
Like we just knocked out 10grand in three nights two and a
half nights, really.
Like we just knocked out 10grand in three nights two and a
half nights, really.
So a lot of people would havebeen probably 20 to $25,000 on
that job that I just did.
Will I get some hate because Ijust told you that?
Probably.
But who's not going to be happywith making 10 grand.
(07:39):
In two and a half nights ofwork.
I think I totaled up 18 hoursof hard work is what we had in
it.
So you do the math on that, Ithink it comes down to around
$400 an hour, which who's notgoing to be happy with making
$400 an hour.
So you can hate on that all youwant, but if you want to win
these jobs, you want to getthese jobs.
That's the key to it.
I know that on a job likeMatt's home I probably could
(08:02):
have priced it around that,starting out with just a four
gallon a minute, and I wouldhave been there all week and my
costs were a lot lower back then.
So I would have made greatmoney even at that number
exactly right.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
And the biggest thing is just kind of looking at a
situation like we do a localcollege, we, we, we go in kind
of affordable, do a great job,and that relationship pretty
much turned into going frommaking I don't know like one job
say, if I was trying to takeadvantage of the guy, say I make
seven grand off of one but it'sgoing to turn into a
(08:38):
relationship where we kind of dolike a monthly reoccurring
cleaning or like a maintenanceclean and it's going to be like
a $20,000 a year contract prettymuch, because we just show up
every so often and we do like asegmented area on their property
.
And that's kind of the modelthat I'm looking to do.
And when I get in intorelationships with people like
this, my objective is to I don'tknow just grow that way.
(09:03):
Hey look, I'm affordable, we dovolume, we have the capacity,
we have the trucks.
Let's partner here.
And that's the mindset shift Ithink that's important with.
I think that that mindset shiftis important when it comes to a
commercial side as opposed toresidential.
Like Clay and I have done somany jobs, we've probably done
like 4,000 or 5,000 jobs eachother like individually.
(09:23):
We're trying to get out of that.
We're trying to move the needleand by doing a week's worth of
productivity for a truck on onejob on Saturday and Sunday, and
then the ability to go back toMonday, tuesday, wednesday,
thursday, friday and bang out aregular week, there, you're
making a ton of money.
Essentially, you're picking upa week of productivity in your
(09:43):
normal day-to-day 100%.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
You've got to look at the bigger picture, not the
little.
I can get rich off of one jobtype person.
Me and Matt do a lot of volume.
As he said, we probably serve4,000 or 5,000 customers, but we
have also served a lot of thesame customers.
Me and him are tossing back andforth and I'm sure we've tossed
them back and forth with acouple other people in our area.
Nobody is going to be loyal inyour market.
No matter how good that yousend your emails out, no matter
(10:10):
how good you send your textblasts, whatever your postcards,
no matter how good you farmyour customer, you're not going
to be able to keep all of them.
Unfortunately, that's just howit goes.
That's just the way it works.
But if you can keepconsistently doing the same
things over and over and overand do the things that you're
supposed to do, you willcontinuously grow your business
and you'll be able to pick upbigger jobs.
(10:31):
Just in time, being in the gamewith our branding and I know
it's the same for Matt we havegotten a lot of opportunities
for bigger jobs and some some ofthe bigger jobs we just I don't
have any interest in doing, Iwon't even quote them, just
because it's not worth my time.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Exactly, and that's another.
Understand your business modeltoo.
You see guys online, the owneroperator guy.
They have a huge setups withlike 36 gallons a minute, they
hook up to hydrants and they'rechasing humongous jobs all day
long.
Understand if you're goingafter the same jobs that those
guys go after, you have to priceyourself extremely thin just
(11:08):
because that's how you got tocompete.
You got to compete with guyslike that and the same logic of
us having multiple trucks likeyou want to compete with people
and what your strengths are.
You don't want to say, oh, Ican do everything, I'm a jack of
all trades, because that guy'sprobably turning down a lot of
residential work.
That guy's focusing more on howcan I clean with a lot of
volume, how can I clean with allgallons a minute?
(11:28):
He's not hooking up to somebodyin a in a subdivision off of
normal water pressure and thensaying, oh yeah, I'll clean your
house in 25 minutes.
So like, figure out how you'reset up and how you're wanting to
run your business.
Commercial is great, but there'salso net terms with this stuff.
You can say, oh, that's a$10,000 job, but do they pay
same day, do they pay in a week,or are they paying you in a
(11:49):
month.
So you got to understand that,like your business may not be at
a level where you can allowthat to happen, it works with us
because we have residentialthat pays the bills and
residential to Clay's pointwe're talking about like
marketing for commercial.
A lot of times commercial comesfrom doing somebody's house
residentially and they see youin the community, they see you
(12:10):
with the volume of residentialor, like Clay and I both have
that voted best in the upstatetrophy, that came from
residential, that doesn't comefrom commercial.
So it's one of those thingswhere, hey, if 5,000 homeowners
can use you and think you're,you're great, you're going to be
able to get some commercialjobs.
And then you can either decide,hey, do I go all in on this?
Do I kind of create more of adivision where I go in on this,
(12:33):
like, say, I have a crew on theweekends that rocks and rolls,
so I'm not messing up my regularnine to five schedule, or am I
just trying to go completelyinto the commercial space and
partner with builders andpartner with property management
companies and try to chasehigher tickets like that?
So the most important thing isjust understanding, like we say,
understanding your numbers,understanding your business and
what you can do.
(12:55):
Not everybody has the privilegeto say I'm going to buy a
$70,000 skid set up and I'mgoing to go chase these massive
jobs across the country.
That's great if you can go forit, but if you guys are trying
to model people and it's notcongruent with where you are or
what you're good at, there'sjust different steps and levels
to go.
So I think, biggest thing, lookin the mirror, figure out what
(13:15):
you want.
Are you wanting to be thatresidential guy?
Do you want to do that?
But you also have to know thedownsides of just residential
the, the swings of the ups anddowns.
That hurts us just like ithurts you guys.
So these big commercial jobshelp us stay afloat.
If we can make ten thousanddollars, we can have a slower
week and still be ahead on theweek than if we were just
(13:36):
completely in residential.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Well, not only that.
I've always kind of said thatresidential pays the bills and
commercial builds the capital.
So all that commercial workthat I normally get, we're
always putting it aside as muchas we can anyway, or we're
buying new equipment with it orinvesting it in new marketing.
We're always using that moneyto build the business pretty
much, and then obviously in theslower months that helps pay the
(14:02):
bills.
But residential pays the bills.
Commercial builds capital inthe business and helps the
business grow.
And to Matt's point, he'salways he was talking about the
residential and how many we'vedone.
Those people also worksomewhere.
So there's a good chance thatthose people if they're they
hear that their place ofbusiness ever needs anybody to
(14:22):
wash their business nine timesout of ten, their supervisor,
their boss, whoever their owner,is going to say, hey, do you
guys know a good pressure washer?
And if somebody on their teamcan recommend a good pressure
washer and if you probably cleantheir building or their house
or whatever, they're probablygoing to recommend you.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Yeah absolutely right .
I know I quoted a guy who'srunning point on this job, who's
like um, a broker in charge, soit's a commercial property
management company.
So I've quoted this guy.
He's like oh, I see you'readvertising all the time, like,
and then I've done anotherbuilding for them and he didn't
know.
So once they make a connectionthey're like oh, of course this
is a no-brainer and then you canclean other buildings for them
(15:01):
because the people that own thisown that southern culture
building that we did off ofcherrydale not charity, I guess,
yeah, off of cherrydale, orsomething pleasantberg like
years and years ago.
So, like, I made the connectionand they're like hey, we
actually cleaned your otherbuilding in your portfolio and
it's cool.
You can look on these people'swebsites, like the property
management companies, and youcan say, and a lot of times,
(15:22):
like, if you pull into a big subor a big commercial park,
you'll be able to tell likethere's a sign that says like
managed by this company.
You can find out who owns thesecompanies or who manages these
properties and then what you cando is reach out to them and
then usually their website showsa portfolio of all their other
properties.
So you can say I like thatproperty.
I noticed they have four otherproperties in town.
(15:43):
This is a worthwhile person topursue.
You can use something likeLinkedIn and try to figure out
if the company has people'snames associated with positions,
like somebody over procurementor somebody who's like a broker,
and just work your way in thatway so you don't have to just
wait until they come to you.
There's plenty of ways that youcan go to them.
(16:04):
But like also understand likehey, if they got all these other
properties, be like hey, we'reinterested in like making a
partnership with you.
I don't want to just clean onebuilding and then you call clay
the next time.
I want to make sure that we canget as much as we can and work
together.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
So yeah, then you build those accounts and then
you have 10 of them at threegrand a month.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
You're doing three thousand dollars worth of work,
like we always talk about matt,then uh, that's 30 grand a month
, just off of commercial workexactly, and then you can
essentially build out a skid ora truck, and then you can have a
truck that focuses on servingthose clients as a paramount to
your residential ones, and thenresidential, like we always say,
pays the bills and you don'thave to be like one or the other
.
You can simply add on anothertruck and scale.
(16:45):
As long as your revenue is inplace, you can build out another
truck.
So that's what we'll do.
I mean, in the slower seasonwe'll run one truck, but we're
back hammering away uh, twotrucks year round, up until
probably that slow dip we havein december and january and um,
but again, the beauty of thesecommercial projects is we can
(17:06):
pull two trucks and I can callall my help and then we can put
people on the books for theweekend and then, and then we
can make money and even like, uh, I was talking to my, my, uh,
college guys the kids who helpout in the summer and they were
saying how, hey look, if you canland these jobs on a weekend
and we're just down in columbiawe're more than welcome to like
drive up and make some money ona weekend.
So it's one of those games.
(17:27):
Yeah, it's like hey, hey, if youcan give me 500 bucks to work
for you in the weekend, I'llI'll drive up columbia as a
college kid make 500 bucksthat's right.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
I mean, who wants to work on weekends?
So as long as you pay them good, take care of them and feed
them they'll.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
They'll do whatever you want them to yeah, or like
places like this.
There's a pizza place here andthe guys like gave them pizza
and all that so they just walkout.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
They're like hey, thanks for cleaning our building
, here's pizza oh yeah that'sawesome, yeah they always take
care of you if you take care ofthem exactly but.
But yeah, I don't know whatwe're looking like on time.
Matt, I know you're kind of ina rush.
Um, I know we wanted to get onhere and talk about a little bit
of commercial work and how ourseason's going.
Yeah, we're out at that20-minute mark.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
We're at that 20-minute mark so I got guys on
the other side.
We're fighting to rinse dirt.
Everybody knows it's like thesidewalk's the easy part.
Make sure, when you're quotingsidewalks, that you factor in
the amount of time it's going totake you to rinse it all down
the asphalt nobody thinks aboutthat.
I had my fair share of it thispast week yep, you're like, oh
yeah, that's not that bad, andthen you realize it's going to
take five hours to push all thedirt yeah, you're pushing all
(18:32):
the dirt that's been sittingthere for years before that,
before you ever clean thesidewalls too exactly and just
when.
And then and then again, like wesay, we don't quote on square
footage, because if I justlooked at the square foot and
said I'll quote on the squarefootage of the hero, I would
have completely missed the timeit would have taken to do all
this stuff.
And that's that veteran adviceyou don't know until you know.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Yep, until you do it for you.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Or like curbs and stuff like that.
You don't know until you know.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
That's right.
That's right, but appreciateeverybody listening today.
Make, that's right, butappreciate everybody listening
today.
Make sure you go follow mypersonal page, clay Smith.
You can follow my TikTok, thePressure Wash Guru.
You can find a bunch of coolvideos, a bunch of cool things
you can buy for pressure washingon there.
Follow Matt Jackson MatthewJackson on Facebook this is his
personal profile, matt thedriveway guy, his business page
and join the Wash Bros group.
(19:20):
Follow the Wash Bros podcastpage on Facebook and that's
pretty much all I got.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Yep sounds great.
Thanks for tuning in, guys, andI hope everybody has a great
beginning of summer, uh, school,I guess beginning of school
season and uh and get preparedfor the fall and if you guys can
get into commercial work, now'sthe time.
So see you guys.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.