Okey what i dont understand is why are you getting a worker for pressure washing job? wouldnt it make sense to pressure wash yourself and for worker to advertise? You will be very lucky to find a worker with same work ethic and standarts as you as its not his business. so in my opinion hire someone to do the advertising and pressure wash yourself
If you're going to invest money, it should be in digital marketing as well. Running ads where people are. You read so much about hormozi, but I feel you really need to look at your customers personas and advertise where they'll be. Doubling down on this would be so much more worth your time at this point.
What if you have an employee for the pressure washing but the jobs aren't coming in? You'll lose money on the employee you can't use. Whereas you can always keep the advertisement going indefinitely. It makes loads more sense to just hire someone to do the advertisment work. Flyers. Website. Social media. Etc etc.
Hi Jon! Your story reminds me of myself back in 2010 during the financial crisis. I went self employed and tried to go out on my own, instead of pressure washing i went in to site engineering and land surveying. Different area i know but similar in many ways. My startup costs were around £55k as the equipment is hella expensive, and in actual fact the job is not even as profitable as jet washing now that i see what they charge. So some tips going forward in case you find them useful: 1. offer more add on services. In your niche this could be gutter cleaning, dog poop clearing from the garden with grass treatment (£100+ for that!), window cleaning and also basic garden maintenance like strimming and mowing. Since you are struggling to get enough regular clients you really need to offer some more services, diversify a little. 2. Offer a package for a yearly or 6 month coverage, where you could come back however many times in exchange for a discounted fee. 3. Utilize social media to advertise. Get the ads out there for the freebies, you will definitely build a sizeable email list!! Brits love a freebie - use a video for better conversion. Get ads up in supermarkets and anywhere that accepts posters. Also pay a kid to post the leaflets instead of you doing it, save your time for more valuable income creating tasks. 4. Only get a van or hire someone if you have an ongoing order book you need help to fill. Hiring someone without at least enough customers to cover their wages for a period going forward is a very quick way to go bankrupt. Also £30k is too much for a relatively low skilled job, start at £25k with a monthly bonus based on work completed - this incentivises them to also find new customers and to actually do a good job! Heck for £30k id come and do that job! Some food for thought there and i'm sure you have probably considered most of what iv mentioned. Enjoying the content, keep up the good work!
Wouldn't it be much easier, and much MUCH more cost effective for someone to do the advertising for you? You can literally pay a kid like 50 quid and they will deliver the letters. Or the Royal Mail. And you could advertise online as well, on FB for example, where you can target your specific area. I think expanding to another employee and a van is way too early. Especially when you have so few jobs. You can let someone else take care of the advertising, which does not require learning the skill, driving, and close to zero quality control, and still do 1 or 2 jobs per day yourself until you have like 4-5 jobs per week and money is rolling in consistently. Maybe I am wrong though, obviously. Let's see how it goes. Great series, I am a huge fan.
Jon, if you haven’t already, make a google map listing in the area you operate within and use keywords in the business name. It works well, and it’s free marketing!
I don't know the first thing about running a business like this, but at 4k in the hole I feel like I would start getting friends and family to market, between letters, shared posts, social media, tiktok, facebook, local area group pages online and try to smash out as many as you can every day to reclaim some money from the debt. Then after getting back to zero with a good flow of customers and advertising I would then look into leasing a van for yourself, not hire anybody. Pay friends cash in hand to help you out?
Do you have a teenager in the family or friends with younger siblings who would want to make some part time money delivering your advertisements? Seems like a perfect job for them 2-3 times a week. Just hand them a fat stack at the start of the week and pay them a flat rate for delivering all the mailers. Love the van but I think you could branch out in cheeper more effective ways before such a large step
Honestly at this point I'm beginning to think it's fake? If not, I hope I wish him the very best and would recommend getting a 2-3 day a week job; pressure washing 2-3 days a week and 1 day admin. Every business takes time to grow and word of mouth will get more jobs in the longterm than hours spent leafleting. Slowly but surely works in my opinion
Not to be rude but you are getting far too ahead of yourself, you are still thousands in debt and will continue to go into debt without even buying a van or employing someone. You have absolutely no safety net.
@@hennnnerz Hes already 4 thousand in debt, considering he has no real asset worth and plans to spend upwards of at least another 5 grand worth of debt to finish his plans he will be counting his days in business
outsourcing the job rather than the advertising is the wrong move, you need to gain more experience in pressure washing also outsourcing the advertising will be way cheaper as its unskilled.
I think you’ve got it a little backwards…? Person you hire should be posting the letters, not doing the pressure washing, surely? Posting is an easy, but time consuming task, perfect for a teenager’s part time job. It’s a little early to be hiring other pressure washers, imho
Definitely, this would be a way cheaper approach where he with his accumulated experience can keep the momentum going and not risk hiring someone completely incapable of delivering a satisfactory service which would surely hurt his reputation. Customer satisfaction and reputation should be his main focus, happy customers tend to spread the word to others so in that aspect it's free advertising.
Cant you hire someone with who already has a van that way you dont pay for a van or insurance and make it a way so that they are self employed like uber etc
probably not a smart financial decision to be spending money in RENTING, not even buying, RENTING, a van and hiring an employee when you're still 4k in the hole
In terms of your marketing have you set up a facebook business page or instagram? Local area groups, buy and sell groups on facebook etc… work wonders for service based businesses. The benefit of posting on your business page before and after imagery/videos would be excellent for generating new businesses. Would be very wise to do that if you’re not would require much less time and effort compared to posting letters.
the only advertising he's done is putting letters in people's mail himself and then hoping that one person will get it and then through word of mouth get their neighbors to hire him as well or recommended the service to someone who's not in the neighborhood. no actual advertising, just a piece of paper being slid through people's doors. which, at least imo, most people just see it as some sort of scam junk mail ad and throw it out
@@Ray_Vun yeah i have followed Jon for a year or so now and been watching this series closely waiting to see if he will venture into digital/social media marketing. A much more diversified marketing strategy in my opinion would save him a lot time, effort, money and increase leads massively.
I feel His current strategy is to target affluent neighborhoods with a lot of elderly folk. That demographic tend to have some money, but they usually need help around the house, which is where Jon is probably hoping to come in. They also tend to not be too tech savvy, so facebook business might not be effective, so I think that’s the main reason for the letters. He’s also aiming to be the go-to guy for an entire neighborhood (the neighbor referrals) and get them all as repeat customers, facebook ads might not be able to deliver that kind of targeting.
Could Kendra not do the advertising and he continue to do the pressure washing? I feel like since she has stakes in your success she will try a lot harder than someone else he hires
Glad you got some money in! Have to say I'm not sure outsoucing the pressure washing rather than the advertising would be the best use of money when you are this far in the red, your taking your finger off the quality control of your product which seems a risk, may have been better to just pay Royal mail to deliver your flyers. Looking forward to seeing how you get on :)
Royal Mail wont start tomorow. Maybe hire some teenagers from craigslist? I also pay more mind to leaflets that are clearly printed at home or some library printer. Those stand out.
1:47 In the U.S. you would've committed a federal crime here. Important notice to American viewers - don't do this! "It is a crime to put anything in anyone's mailbox, with or without consent. Mailboxes are considered federal property and tampering with them in any way is a federal crime." Take it from this European who did this many years ago and got a stern talking-to from the local mailman (fortunately didn't go to jail, lol).
