Add On Services-Professional Pressure Washing Services

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Pressure washers are an instrumental tool for providing many needed services to folks everywhere. Just as a hammer or saw are tools for carpenters, a pressure washer is used as a tool by many companies that provide you different services everyday. Pressure washers are used by fleet washers and detail shops, by pool cleaners, to clean the kitchen exhaust hoods in your favorite restaurants, and to restore wood decks and fences. General contractors use pressure washers to clean new homes and buildings before turning them over to the new owner. Pressure washers are used to clean the exteriors and service areas of the buildings that you frequent every day. They are used to clean the carts at your favorite supermarket and painters use pressure washers to prepare surfaces prior to painting. New uses for this equipment are being discovered every day. While there are many companies that specialize in providing these Pressure washing services, more and more contractors who don’t currently offer power washing are becoming aware of the many opportunities to provide pressure washing services as an “add-on”.

Company owners are constantly looking for opportunities to increase sales. Often the first direction they look to is to find new customers, sometimes overlooking the customers they already have. If you have provided great service and quality to your current customers, then you already have a track record that can work to your advantage. When you announce something new added to your existing line up of services your customers will immediately assume you will perform to the same high level of service with the new offering. These are the easiest customers to market to because they already trust you.

This is actually a great tool of accountability on the company – to provide the same high quality with an add-on service as you already provide with your regular service. If you are going to provide an add-on service it is important to give the same attention to detail as with the other services offered. An add-on service that does not meet the same level of expected quality can hurt the company’s reputation. The decision to provide a new service is one that should be taken very seriously with time and research going into this decision.

Looking at the points above it is easy to see where a contractor providing janitorial or cleaning services could add pressure washing services with some ease. A contractor providing landscaping services could provide house cleaning or deck restoration to add to the overall beauty of one’s property. Pressure washing services tap into the cleaning and restoration industries, which are services needed by all businesses and individuals. (These services are needed with more and more frequency, I’ve found, as the world we live in gets dirtier and dirtier!)

Before you go out and begin creating marketing materials for your new service, though, it is very important to learn as much as you can about these new services you will offer. Research the type of equipment you will need (including any important accessories). Learn what equipment specifications are needed to provide concrete cleaning versus wood restoration. In your research you will learn that blasting water does not clean on its own. Instead, using pressure without the benefit of the proper cleaner often damages surfaces and property. Therefore it is always important to learn about proper techniques, pressures, chemicals, and cleaners. When you use the proper cleaning and restoration products the job becomes easier, but then you also have to become educated on the proper handling and safety precautions for using them. In short, owning a pressure washer does not make one a professional cleaner or restorer. It takes some education and research to learn proper techniques and best management practices.

Pressure washing also involves environmental issues. Learning about the Clean Water Act is a starting point. The related local, state, and federal regulations based on this law say that the only thing allowed to enter storm drains is rainwater runoff. This may become an obstacle in the new service you intend to provide. You will need to learn how to responsibly clean and remain in compliance with all laws and regulations. Intentionally violating regulations may lead to very hefty fines that can ruin your day (or ruin your business).

Pressure washing is actually a very responsible method of cleaning when you consider water usage. Pressure washing actually conserves water in most cases. Take, for example, the simple task of washing a car. If we take our car to a car wash it could take up to 80 gallons of water to clean one car. If we are to clean the car at our home with a garden hose it may take approximately 18-20 gallons of water to wash and rinse the car, and this does not take into consideration the individual who continually leaves the water running with no shut off on the hose. By using a pressure washer with a gun with a shut off the same car would require approximately 8-10 gallons of water! This is very important information to know during drought restrictions! In most communities around the country, power wash contractors are exempt from water usage restrictions because of the efficiency of their work. A property owner who uses a pressure washer is usually not exempt from these regulations, because he does not understand the proper techniques and Best Practices. This is a selling point for your service, and it should be communicated to your customers as a responsible method of cleaning. In a world where environmental issues are increasingly more important, pressure washing can be an asset to your market efforts.

As the general public becomes more educated on the wide number of uses for pressure washers there is a growing need for responsible, professional companies to provide these services. We hear so many horror stories about inexperienced people causing severe damage by using a pressure washer incorrectly. Pressure washing is more than blasting pressurized water at surfaces to clean them. As previously mentioned, pressurized water alone does not clean or restore. Lamentably, the public perception is that a pressure washer alone will clean surfaces. The cleaning power actually comes from professional cleaning products combined with the use of dwell times that allow the cleaners to work on the surfaces. A pressure washer then really becomes a giant rinsing tool. Again, this goes against most public perception about pressure washer use but this is where the opportunity lies – providing a professional ‘add-on’ service of pressure cleaning. When you have learned the proper methods it is easy to outperform your competition and the homeowners themselves (who do not know any better than to use pressure and water only). Your results will speak for themselves and you will have a customer who is happy and ‘long-term’ because of the impressive results you got!

 

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