Mike, like Tim says, keep it simple and utilize your 30 years experience as a roofing contractor.

Our SoftWash quotes are similar to the SWS quotes, but fine tuned to our specific market and home designs. We list roof cleaning, gutter cleaning, exterior cleaning, windows, decks, walkways, driveways, retaining walls and fences.

Typically we will put a price on every item that should/could be treated, total at the bottom. Then we offer a "full package" price at a discount, or let the customer pick the items they want treated now at the full price per item.

AC will tell you to put a price on everything, and I agree. Once homeowners see how well the cleaning is going, they often ask for everything on the list to be done. Best to have a price on all of that in advance.

We never spell out our process in our quote, that's done on the sales call. We never discuss things like "3% or 4% chemical solutions" either. We use phrases like "the right cleaning solution for the surface being treated", and stay away from the words chemicals and bleach. Not because they're BAD words, but because the phrase "cleaning solution" is all that's necessary.

Hope this is helpful. 

Hi Guys, I have some questions here as well. How do you set up pricing, by the SQ ft? Or is there some other way. I am getting my flyers out now and want to go bid some jobs, but I have no idea where to start with pricing. 

Dave,

Several things to consider for pricing. First, you'll probably want to set a bottom line price for any job so if you get a 1,000 sq. ft. roof cleaning job because the realtor told them to get the roof cleaned before putting the house on the market, you won't end up working for peanuts. Does the roof have gutters? If not, that adds to the amount of time and effort it will take to properly care for the plants and property. Is the pitch steep? If so it will cause the cleaning solution to run off faster creating more runoff and possibly requiring multiple coats, increasing time and your cost out of pocket for the extra chemicals. Are there valleys where two planes of roof meet? This will cause a lot of fast runoff to manage, especially for newer roof cleaners. Is the roof lightly stained or heavily stained? Heavier stains require a stronger mix and more follow up which is more money and time. Factor in cost increases for items that increase difficulty, time and out of pocket costs. I am on the newer side myself, and when I go out and do my measurements, I point out where the difficulties may lie with the job so they understand why the job isn't as simple and spraying a water hose at a stain. I print out a Google Earth top down view image of the roof I'm measuring and mark up measurements, flag problem areas, and figure the final cost at home. I print a 2nd copy to show the customer at times to help explain issues that cannot be seen from the ground. I was measuring a roof recently where I was taking longer than normal to measure the roof and when the owner popped her head out I showed her why, her roof looked like a puzzle with multiple pitches and about a dozen valleys. Gorgeous house, but a pain in the rump to measure and clean. I charged appropriately (about $1,400) and the customer didn't bat an eyelash. Forbes did a study a few years back of the top 10 deadliest jobs in America, and roofing (installing, maintaining etc.) ranked #4. Getting on a roof is risky business. That's part of the cost as well.

I read on another post recently some great advice for new cleaners - don't offer 'new guy prices' because you're new. When you put gas in your work truck, buy your chemicals and equipment, pay your taxes and any help, you're not getting 'new guy' prices from these other vendors, you're paying 100% full price just as everybody else is. You should charge appropriately.

As always, great advice Troy. Thank you for always being so thoughtful and thorough with your responses.

AC, if only Orlando wasn't so far away...

Josh Agadoni wrote:

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As always, great advice Troy. Thank you for always being so thoughtful and thorough with your responses.

AC, if only Orlando wasn't so far away...

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 My pleasure Josh!  I seriously underbid my first few jobs.  If I can help someone avoid this mistake, it will put a smile on my face.  Nobody needs to charge full price more than the person just breaking into the business with more equipment and chemicals to buy to fully get off the ground.  :0)

Mike,

I get a fair amount of my business through Thumbtack.com, even though I don't think much of them.  Because my first contact with them is via a website, I usually share the link to the ARMA technical bulletin that covers roof stains.  It's an official document from the manufactures that a) spells out the proper way to clean an asphalt roof is bleach and water, and b) spells out plainly not to allow pressure washing companies anywhere near their asphalt roof.  From there I tell the customer that when you take the process mentioned in the technical bulletin and take it to a professional level, that is what Soft Washing is, and that it is the method I use to clean roofs and homes.  I use CH for the time being, so when I see the opportunity I play that to my advantage.  I explain that Round Up is basically a 1.1% sal****er solution to kill plants.  Sure, the scientific names of the salts are difficult to pronounce, but at the end of the day, it is just salt.  I laugh every time I walk by a bottle of Round Up knowing people are paying $25+ for a gallon of salt water.  I mention that test that Brandon did in his back yard where he sprayed a roof strength mix of SH on his grass (no rinsing etc.), and sprayed an equal strength mix of CH next to is (also no rinsing).  The SH side died, but the CH side for the most part didn't even turn the edges of the grass brown.  That's because the bleach in the cleaning solution isn't what is most dangerous to the plants, it's the salt mixed in combination with the bleach.  The same goes for your eyes, a SH mix burns a lot more than getting CH in your eyes.  So on the flip side, CH has calcium which is a plant nutrient instead of a plant poison (think of rose bushes and bone meal - the bone meal is calcium).  I don't play this card all the time, but when a customer has taken a lot of time and effort in their plants, it tends to give me cleaning process a little bump over the competition.  Green Wash also allows us to use a lower overall amount of bleach so that protects the plants further.  I played these cards a couple days ago on a job I'm going to measure this weekend.  The lady told me she was getting three quotes.  My reply, "As well you should!  It's just good business to cover your bases."  She had sent me a picture of the front of the house and I noticed in the older Google Earth image the yard was sparse and uncared for, and in her picture the yard was in nice shape and well loved, so I knew she would love hearing how I will take top notch care of her plants and that I don't have salt in my nix.  I finished by telling her about what Plant Wash was, how it protects the plants by neutralizing any cleaning solution that was on them, and it would render any overspray that made it to the ground inert, and protect as much of the aneroribic bacteria in the soil and why that was important.  Somewhere in there I mentioned that I may not be the lowest price out of the three bids, but hopefully she would see that Panoramic Clean offered the best value and level of care available to her property and plants.  She is quite eagerly awaiting my quote.  :0)

I'm still very new to sales myself so I may have made several new sales guy mistakes and expect people will probably tell me so (I hope so actually - I welcome constructive criticism), but maybe there is something in there to get your foot in the door on a couple of jobs.  I can tell you I will be attending one of AC's sales classes at some point.  At AC's Revolution Camp he was teaching the class primarily, but often dropped little tidbits of sales knowledge that was really helpful.  If those little tidbits were great, I can't wait to see what a full sales class is going to entail after his company has closed 80,000+ roof cleaning jobs.

We don't live out here, John. We THRIVE.  

I'm with Brandon! There are plenty of us West Coast Entrepreneurs here that could benefit from this type of specialized training.

Knowledge is power...