This is when you should raise prices (CRITICAL TIMING)

In this episode, hosts Aaron and Cody Yarbrough tackle one of the most critical decisions for business owners—when and how to raise your prices. Whether you're new to the pressure washing business or a seasoned pro, pricing can be a major source of stress. Aaron and Cody provide practical advice, benchmarks, and strategies to help you identify the right timing to increase your rates and grow your profits. From understanding your P&L to mastering the art of positioning, this episode will empower you to stop leaving money on the table and elevate your business to the next level.

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Transcript

This is when you should raise prices (Critical Timing)
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[00:00:00] How's everybody doing today? It is a Monday, June 10th, right here in central time, 9 55 AM. I got my good boy, Cody Yarbrough Cody Yarbrough right here on the line today Wanting to talk to you guys about something.

I know if you're brand new in the business, this is a thought that has come up in your brain and probably caused you a little bit of stress when you should raise your prices and we want to give you kind of some benchmarks, some navigational beacons, if you will, to where you can know when you need to raise them to where it's not always just a feeling or, a lot of you guys deal with stress and you never raise them.

There's guys who. been probably washing forever. We talked to Gibson. He's guys are still doing the same price that they were doing eight years ago, and they've never raised their price and their business is suffering for it. So Cody, thanks for coming on today. 

I ain't no thing, man.

It is my birthday today. I'm [00:01:00] 38 don't really care about it. I don't really care about it in a way. We do same thing we gonna do. It don't matter really. But yeah, so guys are like he's talking about. I did an interview with a guy in a lawn care industry Saturday, and he was basically outlined the same thing that we see here in the pressure washing space.

And it's a lot of guys that are fearful to raise their prices. Some of that comes from different reasons. Maybe they suck at closing and so Instead of getting better at closing they try to make up for it with a discount right or lower prices or whatever And we see it a lot with guys always looking for a discount when they're buying something which is nothing wrong with getting a discount necessarily, but it's it just messes their mindset up because as they're looking at their income and their outgo, if they're not making As much money as they'd like to make there's only two sides of the equation that you can play with How much money did you bring in?

And how much money are you spending on your fuel, your truck your [00:02:00] chemicals, right? Your parts, your consumables, all the marketing. And so what happens a lot of times is guys really aren't sure how to work on the income side of the equation. It's either they don't know how or they're too lazy to put in the work to attain those skills.

And so they only default to the savings side of the equation. So if you're an astute business owner, you should probably be trying to really hit both sides of the equation. But I will tell you that the savings category, it can only get you down to a certain level and you look at your P and L's and you look at how much is going out, right?

You can only get down. There is a bottom there that you can't go any lower than that, but the income side of the equation The top end there is infinite literally infinity so That's what we talk about a lot of times and guys if you can learn how to raise your prices when and how to do it where to land at in your individual market It can position you in a certain way versus your [00:03:00] competition.

That's a big deal that I think a lot of guys don't really understand the positioning. Aaron, you talk about positioning a little bit. That's a, that is a thing. 

Sure. I think what guys, the reason guys don't understand positioning in general, a lot of them have probably never heard the word positioning optics.

The way something is perceived can create. Price elasticity in the marketplace. And, when I first started my business, I was just a dude in a truck and I was really broke in a really bad situation. So I didn't have the wrap on the truck. I started, listing out the things I didn't have that could make me look pro right.

With the wrap on the truck, the uniforms, the bad ass gear, all the stuff. So I said I just have to lean on aaron's personality and make them like me and trust me. And so trust though, a lot of guys don't understand how far trust [00:04:00] goes. Trust really is all of it, frankly. So how can I garner trust from these prospects to where I can turn them into customers?

And for me, it was just becoming really relatable, really personable with them. Spending more time on the estimate, I think guys who don't have a ton of lead flow early on and are brand new in the business, I believe they should do in person estimates so they can learn substrates so they can learn what stains look like and the difference.

And that was something that was good for me. And then just going out and. Just making them honestly getting a belly laugh out of them, at some point in the interaction to bring them a little closer into the rapport and then quoting the price definitely above where they would normally pay.

But I was a one man guy with pretty lean expenses. So I started becoming really profitable. Thus is the lean and mean Academy and that whole mentality that's permeated [00:05:00] YouTube in a way. But that's how I did it. And I think that's how a brand new guy should do it. It's the position themselves as more trustworthy around the persons.

Cause I was cleaning windows, Cody. So I was cleaning interior windows when I first started. And I would position myself as the only guy in your master bedroom. Like I was the dude, there wasn't a crew of second chancers out here that are going to be in your master, but, and I would position against it.

I would totally say, Hey, like there's a lot of bigger companies out there. As they have crews. Yeah. Their background checked, but. I'll be honest with you. I'm a one man show. I will be the only person in your home. I definitely have to clean your kid's bedroom. I'll be the only person in there.

I'll be the only person in your master bedroom. I promise you, I will do an excellent job. And they, that immediately. Cause they've heard horror stories of, theft, little stuff, guys here today, gone [00:06:00] tomorrow, stuff like that, those richer clients, they meet you, they trust you, they're like, you're the only one in our place.

We trust you. Heck come on in. You know what I mean? And so it was an immediate, I can almost charge one and a half or double. Like I've had people pay me double than what they paid last time. And that's how I garnered that trust. So that's positioning guys. Positioning is what you can't fix. You feature okay.

In a big way. Like I couldn't fix that. I wasn't a big company. I couldn't fix that. I didn't have a wrap on the truck at that time. I couldn't fix that. I didn't have uniforms that I didn't have a million reviews. So I featured it. So I said, look, I am the smallest guy. I'm the leanest guy. I am the guy who's out here.

I'm going to be the only guy in your house. And they said, all right, cool. So it was more of a boutique positioning of a window cleaner. So what you can't fix, you got a feature. And that's exactly what I did. That was my positioning on raising my [00:07:00] prices beyond everyone else. 

Yeah. So you're looking at these things like the landscape is mysterious I think to a lot of new guys and they're really not sure what you know numbers I would be interested to know how many dudes even pull a p& l every month and look at it, and analyze their numbers because that's that little piece of accounting there will tell you a lot of things that You can get some information about your business.

So your close ratio, that's a big deal. That's a big deal for guys in the truck. We want to know what we're closing at for inbound qualified leads. That's important. Make sure they're qualified leads. And then how many of those can you close? And then you need to do some self analysis and see if you're good at closing, because if you just get closing, That can skew your close ratio.

Learning those skills, learning where you want to land at in the market in positioning. A good example is like Honda engines. Okay. Everybody wants a Honda engine. Why? Because [00:08:00] Honda has done a really good job of saying that they are. The motor right snap on tools. No, they're probably they're all fine.

It don't really matter But that's not how people think about it out there in the world. We're looking at our pnls We're looking at our outbound expenses. We're looking at our income And i was talking to gibson saturday the lawn care guy and he was talking about how everybody You know price goes up except the service industry guys You Everybody is they're totally fine with paying full price everywhere else except when it comes to us and I'm just not okay with that.

I'm, I don't know, what motivated a lot of guys. I don't know what motivated you if you're watching this video to get into the business, but what motivates me is changing my family trajectory, taking my family tree in another path. And what's going to get me there is profitability. And so I don't have any kind of qualms about charging.

In fact, I feel like it is my duty to extract as much money [00:09:00] out of the marketplace as the marketplace is willing to sustain. Now that's with the caveat that you're going to do an excellent job when you get there. Now we don't really say that much because I feel like that goes without saying duh Obviously you're going to do a good job.

You're going to stand behind your word You're going to take care of the client if something does go wrong but a lot of guys they have a really hard time with feeling I think internally justified with charging enough money and This is why we see so many service businesses fail. They come into business, they get up and off the ground and in year two or three, they're selling, if they even make it that far, they're selling all their equipment and they're getting back out of the business.

And then people will say, Oh, I'll see the market's too saturated. No, it's not that it's not, that's necessarily too saturated. It's that it's easy to get into. Therefore, a lot of people get into it. Therefore a lot of people ain't going to put in the work or learn how to charge a higher price. and be okay with it.

And if you can't see that you needed to raise your prices in the [00:10:00] last since COVID last, whatever you want to call it, four years, whatever it is. I don't know what other example we're going to get in our lifetimes, guys, that like you should have raised your prices. If anything preemptively, so we just went through that home prices are Astoundingly higher than they were even two years ago A lot of guys if you look at the house you're in now, you probably could not rebuy that same house today You're just lucky that you were already in it, right?

Okay. Look that's a thing that happened I guarantee you in the next 25 years If it's going to happen again now, it could be multiple of those could happen And so I'm not going to wait and be reactive. I'm going to try to get on the front end of that and position my business correctly. Learn the skills, know my numbers and charge as much as I can, because the more you charge, the more war chest you can build to weather those tough times if they're coming and it just makes life a lot easier.

It keeps your [00:11:00] sustainability a lot more. You're hard to kill with profits. Yes. The higher the profits, you are much harder to kill. And I like being hard to kill. You damn 

right. Guys, before we get too deep into this is really great info. Some guys brand new, don't even know what a P and L is.

I know, look, dude, me cutting lawns at 17. We had no damn P and L man, it was all, happy to get paid. Okay. Probably using some gas out of dad's gas tank out behind the shop to run the mowers, definitely parking the trailer at my parent's house at 17, for sure. But before we get too deep into this, Cody and I have a serious starter event coming up, June 28th, coming up.

And 29th at Southeast softwash headquarters down in Roanoke, Alabama. Cody real briefly, let's share with them what this event entails and I'll share with them what my side entails. 

Yeah, this'll be we're getting on up there in the serious start. Emily's cat Emily's coming to get her [00:12:00] cat because the Missy Moo is having her morning.

Insanity Missy, you piss me off, but you are very pretty. So I'm gonna let you slide. Come get your damn cat. She's playing in in Legos, but no, so we've set, we sold out every serious starter we've ever done. We have a tendency to try to have one or two more guys in there than the room can even hold.

And so this'll be probably the last one for the year. We don't really do a much in the fall. Just depends on how our life's going, but it's a two day event. A lot of information. Day one, we're going to talk about softwash 101. We're going to go through how to wash downstreaming, softwashing, substrates, chemicals, ratios, specialty cleaning, packages, how to turn all of that technical knowledge into a sales process with the customer equipment, maintenance, equipment selection.

We'll go out on the job site and clean something, and we'll go through that entire, what it looks like to pull up to a house, do a job, and leave, and this is coming from me, and I've done [00:13:00] millions of dollars in washing TCs. I don't know why your 12 volt ain't pulling water, dude. Couldn't tell you.

I have to look that later. Day two is normally when everybody's mind is expanded a little bit. Cause Aaron's going to jump in there and talk about a lot of marketing stuff. I've said in the class a bunch of times, I don't really stay in there anymore on Saturdays because I've heard it. But the first few times that I got to hear Aaron's Saturday portion on the marketing advertising section, it was like, holy crap.

And we've implemented a lot of that stuff into Southeast softwash. And it's really blew up our presence. It's taken us to where we're able to do million dollar months. Now we just did a million dollars last month, did a million dollars a month before that did a million dollars a month before that, and trended maybe do that again this month.

So I don't know what take, I don't know if you guys, I'm not telling you, do a Millie and you're washing truck, but I'm just telling you that these things will scale your company. These are just tactics, that you're not, I promise you, you're not aware of right now. So come and learn 

Aaron.

Don't do nothing. Hey, you don't 

do shit. [00:14:00] 

It was even do over there. He just walks around, smoke cigars, man. 

I don't know what he does. More or less wizard. 

He just needs to make more videos. That's all I know. 

It's some good information. So 

yeah, they do. 

We feed you both days. Go ahead. 

Day two. I just want to tell you guys I don't do a presentation so it's not a bunch of slides.

It's not really something that you can absorb. Through a bunch of slides, what I'm going to do is I'm going to open my laptop. I'm going to open my process to you on how I build out organic traffic for websites. See the majority of the traffic that comes a large majority of the traffic that comes to Southeast softwash and my local service business.

And it's very similar on how you market. These two things is organic. Okay. It's organic SEO. It's search intent based traffic. Now, I want you guys to [00:15:00] ask yourself, what will be the value of having people in your area whether it's a mile, five miles, 10 miles, 20 miles away, Google pressure washing, and you show up at the top.

All right. According to Cody, that's worth a million dollars a month. Okay. So right. For your business is probably worth, 30, 40, 50, a hundred thousand a month, something like that. With a pressure washing guy. Um, 

It's a game changer because now you're not chasing leads. They come to you and it's a positioning tactic as well.

So it's a it fixes a lot of problems and Just that one thing man Like it will change a lot of your ability to do what we're talking about in this video today to raise your prices Because if you got lead flow, then you got cash flow if you just know you've got X amount of leads coming to you through Google that are intent based or ready to buy, they're looking for a guy.

You're not twisting their arm to get them to buy. That means you can start massaging your number up, right? So you hit a ceiling in your local market and you will, you'll find out what the number [00:16:00] is. But you can do that from a position of what Joe Rogan says is F you, right? I'm trying, I'm doing that a lot with my life.

I'm. I'm putting myself in a position where I can do things, but I don't need to do one. And that's a much less, it's that old, you take the nervous, the cat in a room full of rocking chairs, feeling off of your business because, Oh I just know, I'm going to have a certain amount of lead flow.

Now I can still go do a Facebook ad or yard sign. I still do the. Throw the gas on the fire marketing But i've just got a furnace that burns and it's going to do x and therefore we can Sit back and plan the business This is guys this is really working on your business and not working in your business And that the day that you really realize that you're able to do that.

That's a big day. That's I got into this and had no idea where we were going. We're just washing stuff, right? And now five, six years later we're in a completely different place. Didn't plan some of that. It's just you feel like they picked your Spanish galleon up and just [00:17:00] dropped it somewhere in the Atlantic.

And you're like hell, I don't know. There's the dipper. Let's go that way. But eventually you do start getting. A trail that you can follow. And that's much funner. It's a much more sustainable business because you at least know what you're trying to get to. 

Yeah. You can make educated decisions when you have a constant, you have a, what's called a control in marketing.

You have something that, I'm going to get about this much of a dollar amount in jobs per leads of leads per month that come into my business. So for the new guy. A great for a new guy for a great lead flow, a great constant control would be 8, 000 a month, right? Brand new, that's great. And so he can say, okay, I know, guarantee that I'm going to have, and within the season, I'm going to have about 8, 000 a month coming in from these leads.

Okay. And we're, it's going to grow over time as you [00:18:00] keep doing the process that I'm going to teach you guys. He has that control coming in. So now he can make educated decisions on other marketing that could be a little more risky, right? Hey, I want to run this ad. I want to get a bunch of yard signs.

I want to do this. I want to do, stuff that kind of takes a little more effort than Google does. He can make more educated decisions on where he places his money. If he wants to get a, another employee or he wants to buy a piece of equipment, he knows that amount of money is going to come in every month.

And I'm going to tell you guys, for a lot of you, you've never ran a business. You don't understand the stress of cashflow. Okay. You don't understand that. And. As soon as, if you've never ran a business and you're brand new in this, as soon as December hits, you will understand the stress of cashflow. Because you can't spray frozen water unless you're in, Florida guys don't have that problem.

So that's what I'm going to teach you in day two, bring a notebook, bring an open brain bring a damn neural link hard drive, because I'm going to pack it full [00:19:00] of information that's super implementable. On June 28th, 29th series starter event. 

Yep. We've already sold a good few little tickets and I don't think we've mentioned it, but one, we're always, 

dude, we're like, we're so terrible at promoting our own event.

We got other shit going on. Too much stuff going on. But let's get back to when they should raise prices. I know we talked a little bit about, about P and L Cody, and that's a new guy probably doesn't even know what that is. Guys. If you don't have a CRM quote, IQ will definitely give you this option as far as downloading your P and L and stuff like that, and being able to see it, a concrete, expenses, income outgo where you have a bottom line.

That's what the whole term bottom line for you. Guys who were employees at one point in time recently. That's what that is the bottom line, the number that's left over. So you're 

going to plug your, if you guys are using Kodak or something, it integrates into QuickBooks and that's the most common [00:20:00] accounting software.

And you don't have to be like. A super nerd to run quickbooks, but it I recommend getting an accountant for sure but you need to be real familiar with your pnl like you need to be checking it Basically and know what your break even number is per day. That's ideal a weekly break even number What do you need to earn per week to clear some money at the end of the month and you start having targets that are?

Much more Right here, I can shoot this it's right here so it'll integrate over and dump all your money and then you're just looking at it's really simple on a wash truck or a lawn care guy or anything like that because you're looking at a service based business doesn't really have cost of goods, right?

You're not buying a thing. So the closest thing we could. Throw in that category would be your chems your bleach. We can call that cost of goods, but it's not it's consumable So you really just have expenses. That's what you're going to be doing to get your top line You run your expenses, right?

Probably not a bad idea to put yourself on payroll and help yourself out on some taxes tax structuring by having [00:21:00] your paycheck already deducted out and so you know, what's your paycheck going to be? I don't know depends on how quick you want to run the business or grow the business if you want to blow it up Pay yourself as absolutely little as possible and keep everything in and reinvest it there'll come a time when you start paying yourself more later, but you got your top line This is how much money we brought in from all of the homeowners and mrs Jones and all the people they gave us x amount of money last month and this is what it took to run the company truck Insurance, chemicals, did I spend any parts this month that I have to, and it's not a lot of money is why it drives me absolutely nuts because an average rig is going to be a 1, 500 a year, in upkeep for the equipment.

So it's comes out to freaking nothing a month, but dudes flip out about having to replace a hose or a swivel or something like that. So you got your expenses, you run it, and then you've got a gross profit. And you got some more stuff in there that you'll take out and [00:22:00] you've got a net profit Okay, and that's the number that you want to find is that bottom line number and then with that data you can start saying Okay, it's January february march april may june We know that what the front half of the year looks like we know what q1 looks like q2 looks like Q3 looks like q4 looks like some of you guys are shutting down completely in q4 Okay, so that means you need to raise your prices And you need to position yourself in the market to X number so that your year extrapolates out to this Okay, you gotta have a number that you're shooting for It is not a good idea to just go out there and say to hell with it Whatever happens because if you don't have a goal Here's how you guarantee to not hit a number is to not have one.

If you don't have a number, we talked about this yesterday. Would you say a little super pump logo up there? So then there, you got a little soup pump logo. We didn't just say, Hey, my good, we're going to make a pump and see where it. [00:23:00] No, we had numbers. It had to hit, or we would throw it in the ditch and start over.

And it honestly probably added a year to the process. 

Oh yeah. 

Think about the lost sales of a year. You didn't have a pump, but. Think about how you wouldn't have been in love with the pump if it wasn't what you wanted. Okay, so don't go out there and make today's sale and sacrifice tomorrow's business model over today's sale.

We want to get the thing right. Once it's right, we know what we're shooting. If you wanna make a hundred your old job, you made 70 grand, right? You wanna make a hundred, you wanna make 125, you wanna make 150. Whatever you wanna make on that truck that you're willing to work, like you, you may be, Hey dude, I'm gonna work every Saturday too.

I'm gonna work six days a week. Or you may have a wife and three little kids and you're like, I need some family time. There is nothing wrong with either one of those. You just gotta figure out what you want to do. And then massage your pricing to reflect that. But I will tell you that there is a [00:24:00] landmine there because if you start raising those prices, just willy nilly, and you're not getting yourself better.

You're not advertising better. You're not positioning better. You're not learning how to close better. You're not doing a good job. When you show up, you're going to self implode. You can't just go out there and say it's a 4, 000 to wash your house. And that's how I'm going to fix my P& L. Okay. Good fucking luck because you're not going to close any deals.

So there is a dance, right? That we're all doing all the time. I just saw an article yesterday where McDonald's is trying to bring back some of that cheap because of inflation and people mad because that it's the dance. We're all playing. You go get mad at McDonald's. You want to.

It ain't McDonald's idea. This is capitalism. Another guy comes into your market with a wrap truck, a piece of equipment. You know what it is? It's called capitalism. And you got to figure that crap out. I think what we see a lot of times is guys, number one place they want to run to give a discount, drop the price, lower the price, [00:25:00] instead of working on all these other areas.

that affect that bottom line. 

Yeah. I think the whole skills portion, for example, we talk about, I gotta, this is just about a fifth of the papers. I just bought another course. So I'm studying again. But guys, we, I say that to say that you have to go out and try to seek out the knowledge to learn, because how would I know how to market like this if I didn't seek the knowledge and learn and try and all of the intangibles guys, this isn't something that someone can take from me.

It's in my brain now. It's, but a lot of guys, they discount all of that and they just go straight to clean, clean everything. Maybe run some Google ads. If they got, some balls, a lot of guys are too scared to run Google ads, right? It's you got to expand your courage. Okay. And your self esteem about what you believe you can do.

Every single one of you watching this right now [00:26:00] can do what we're saying. Skills, you're capable. I promise there are people making way more money than you that are dumb. All right. I promise you that, dude, but they're not dumb in the fact that they're willing to invest. I know guys, the guys who go the fastest in this business, Cody, and we've seen it.

Are. Guys like Todd, catch out guys like Andrew, Clay guys people that have come to our events and they just keep absorbing dude, actually West falls, actually West fall. Like you're sitting there watching them and they're just like, no, I'll buy that to John McAbee, right? John McAbee was doing probably 30 K a month, just in roof painting.

He was a painting company, but he was expanding. Oh, cool. Thanks. Great. Battery exhausted. Yeah. Yeah. You mirroring what I feel like right now. Gorilla. Gorilla. Here we go. Let me let me redirect to the boom. There we go. [00:27:00] Oh, see. No guns. Standoff. Oh, can't get me hard to kill, man. But investing in those intangible skills, learning how to sell, go take a selling course.

Like I don't care whose it is. It could be a car sales guy course. 

We bought them. We bought some for the company spent like tens of thousands of dollars in sales training just this year for the guys in the company. And that's something a lot of people wouldn't do, but You've got to you've really got to start understanding like I tell guys when they come to my regular class The number one question I get is how much do I charge?

And I say hell, I don't know and i'm being funny I'm setting them up for a game that we're going to play But this is what I tell you go back to your local market grab your reach down in your pocket Pull a number out when you're looking at that house that you think you got a number We got a number.

Okay. And you're looking at that house and you got a number pops in here and [00:28:00] throw it out there and see what happens. But here's the cool thing. We're so profitable in this industry and this business on the per job basis that you really can't screw up too bad. And it gives you runway to start figuring it out.

But here's what you need to instantly start tracking. Am I closing every one of those when I throw that number out? That's called your close ratio. If I'm closing 80%, 90, 85 percent of those, when I throw that spit ball number out, then that means I should raise my price because I'm either very good at closing, which you not.

Or your price is just about too low. So that's a indicator. That is a We got some data. We've shot some rounds down range and we've got a cluster that's tied to the right i'm gonna click this way and click this way and i'm gonna massage that over Quote iq will have you some national average Square foot pricing.

I hate a square foot price. [00:29:00] I don't believe in a damn square foot price It's a cheat. It's a cheat You lazy ass you too don't put in the work. So you're saying but what's the average in the nation? That ain't got nothing to do with rock meals It ain't got nothing to do with you see him saying ain't nothing got nothing to do with rock It really don't It's you gotta find out your number So what you do is you take that first season and you figure out what your number is and then You extrapolate back do the math and say okay what does that equal per square foot because I know that a house that looks like that's vinyl I need to be at 700 You know for these kind of houses these I'll look at them like if it's three bed, two bath, two car garage.

All of them are the same damn thing. Okay, they are all the same if I look at this is how I quote This is how I quote that right there And if it's three bed two bath two car garage and they got a one cat and one dog, [00:30:00] it's this fucking price. Okay There's another bracket past that and then there's another bracket past that and then there's one lower than that Okay, and we don't really even like that Going to we'll go there, but the ones below that you don't go there.

We don't even go there So we're shooting at this band. It's middle class suburbia These are your vinyl siding neighborhoods where you pull into the subdivision and the little sign out front looks like it was six grand Okay, all right Then the next block You pull in and there's sprinklers and shit, right?

There's a little guy on a golf cart picking up stuff with a gopher, right? There 

you go Yeah, 

another category and then we go up from there and it's g wagons and like shit like that So i've got my numbers and I want to hit the top end of all of these different we went to Where do we go chops lobster bar last night in atlanta?

It's my birthday we went to Alyssa's birthday is tomorrow. Our birthdays line up real close. [00:31:00] Dinner last night was 2, 200. Okay. Damn dinner was good as hell. 

Rocks up on the new balances. I 

already knew it was going to be, it's look, the waiter had a GMT on. I was like, I appreciate that.

You'd a waiter pop in a Rollie GMT. It's okay. I'm fine with paying it because I'm buying a memory with the family more than I'm buying anything else. Honestly, the steak I had, I've had just as good of steaks at freaking Texas Roadhouse. Hands down. I have had just as good of a ribeye at Texas Roadhouse, but you don't remember Texas Roadhouse.

You remember Chops Lobster Bar in Atlanta. That's what you remember. And I want the customer to remember the experience. Now, we're just Washington House, okay? It's not like you're going to become best friends. But I want it to be a, I'm going to charge a boutique price, but I'm going to deliver a boutique service.

They're going to, when I [00:32:00] leave, they're going to be like, damn, that guy's he's legit. That's good dude. He's my guy. And this is how you formulate your structure. It just gets easier over time. If you'll do it this way, that's why we say year two hits different. Year three hits like even different, because if you do it this way, it just gets easier the longer that you're in business.

Yeah, I think the biggest cheat code, and it's hard to quantify into words for guys on how to do that is just care. If you just care, don't skip steps, what is a boutique service? That's a big question. It's called. Yeah. Just don't pull the hose over their daylilies. 

Stop! Don't pull the hose over their little landscape lighting.

That's an easy one. But the daylilies! See, you can murder a bunch of daylilies and not even feel it in the pool, see? So what you got to do is, you're going around the house. You parked [00:33:00] in the driveway here, a lot of house here. You pull that hose way to hell out here and go around, 

make a finger. That's right.

You don't pull it straight off and cut the corner because you're ripping up. Or daily it's called care. That's a boutique service along with having, a personality that's just a little bit better than a cardboard box. Like you need to just be a little better, be personable. Don't be just, someone who doesn't even speak to the person.

If they're there. 

I got a big problem with guys that, that try to give away the farm to compensate for care. It's no man, that's not care. I care that charge high tech charging a premium price because I factored in to that boutique experience. I'm usually gonna do one extra. That's real easy It's free.

It's literally nothing [00:34:00] and they didn't ask for that's the catch They didn't ask and i'm gonna i'm gonna say at the end of service. Hey, by the way, I got your patio furniture we cleaned that off while we were back there. Don't worry about that. Looks really good Thank you guys for the business. You hear the tone the cadence change in the voice If I'm traveling correctly, I can do that and they it feels the guy last night brought out dessert Because it was our birthday.

I don't give a damn about no free cheesecake. I'm gonna buy the cheesecake Okay But he's doing it for a reason because the margin In the 2200 is already baked in for them to bring out the 18 dollars Cheesecake that I would have bought so you know what we bought some more cheesecake because it was really good But you can't do that if you're on a shoestring budget What guys do is they're on a shoestring budget, but they feel like they want to offer that little bump to the customer So they spend an extra hour and a half rinsing It's like what the hell did that do the customer don't [00:35:00] So you feel like you did something and it don't look no different charge correctly.

And that gives you the ability to give that boutique experience overall. 

Absolutely. So I think we hit the PNL, right? You can see it through data, right? And also we see a close ratio, right? And we talked a little bit about what is a boutique service? What justifies being high ticket as something.

Look guys, I'm gonna tell you something. Let me, I'm just gonna be straight up honest with you guys. Okay. I wasn't the first soul until I came on this YouTube talking about high ticket. Okay. I'm about tired word. High ticket being thrown around. That is a lean to mean Academy word. And y'all know it all the way back 2018.

But I appreciate y'all making it ubiquitous. Why is it ubiquitous now is because the new guy, I believe in my heart that the guy who's just getting started in his business, okay, he's leaving his job or he's. [00:36:00] Lost his job, whatever. He's just getting started. I believe you should be able to replace your income within a year.

I know it's possible. I've done it. I've taught, we've taught thousands of guys around the world how to do it with one truck starting out. Okay. And, but the only way you're going to a survive and be able to do that is do what we're talking about here. Which is position yourself as a boutique service, raise your prices, you're going to do it on data, but that's probably going to be late in the year, late your first year, definitely your second year, you'll have the data because when you first get started, you have no data to even know.

And come to the event, serious starter. Like I'll share with you guys, like we'll have a lot of time to talk and eat lunch and stuff. We feed you guys both days, but I, if you've got questions about like how to price and stuff what would I price something at? I'll answer your question on what I price it at and help you out there.

I think the starting point for a lot of guys, just that [00:37:00] interaction of taking money from a customer. If they're at a job, Cody, they've never had to do that. 

It doesn't it don't feel icky when it's on your paycheck. Now, you have to eat when you did it, when you looked at them and they gave you the money.

The damndest thing is customer don't feel no kind of way about it. No, you're making it all up some bullshit that is wrong. And it's. It's people over profits. Just go get my Glock and kill it real quick. You've got to make a profit. What we've seen guys so much, that's why we take such a stance against it is because we don't want you to fail.

And what we've seen literally with tens of thousands of interactions with guys in the industry. Is it's I know this for myself too. It is a scary thing to start a business. It is you're terrified You probably don't really show that if you're stoic and you shouldn't be don't go around crying But when you get in you a long time and [00:38:00] you're in that truck going back home on friday And you didn't make enough all week you're operating out of fear.

And so we just see it a lot The tendency is to go lower the price tendency is to go to the bottom It's a race to the bottom because you're trying to drum up business And what we're telling you is do what you got to do today But don't let that become the plan for your company because if you do you'll be five years in it making 250, 000 with a steel got a broke mindset And you're trying to return pumps that are wore out.

You're trying to skimp on your marketing. You got a one page website. Looks like gas. It's you make plenty of money now. What you did is you programmed your mind the wrong way. If you're broke, you are literally broke, dude, go charge them. But go charge 'em 1 99 and get you some cash. But don't let that become who you are.

Don't let that seep into your bones because it, the bonus operandi, . It'll do, dude, it'll do it. And that's why so many businesses fails. 'cause literally, they weren't charging enough. If you get those [00:39:00] customers that say the last guy charged me 150. Why? Okay, call him. He don't answer the phone no more.

Why didn't make no money? See. He didn't make any money. You've got to get okay with making money. You've got to be okay 

with it. It's the low ticket wins, for a guy starting out are more bad than good, frankly. Now he can't see that longterm is because he has gotten the Pavlov. Like he's gotten rewarded.

The bell rang. He told him one 99. He got some food, right? The bell rang. He told him 200. He got some food, right? Totally. And he's trained his own mind to here's 

what's crazy. You're what you just said. I want you to run through that again. What happens? Go ahead and run top to bottom that again, give them the scenario.

When they got started, 

they 

charged 99 bucks. 

What happens? [00:40:00] Bell rings. He gets the check, a little check. We get some food. He goes out there. He does it again. He charges 99 bucks. He gets a check. He gets some food. He maybe goes up to 149, right? He gets it. Bing. Get some food. And he feels like he made progress.

Add three years to that. If he's around, if he's around in three years, he looks over at the next aquarium with a mouse in it. And that mouse. Is charging 6. 99 and getting some food same bank same reward and instead of him saying because this is difficult for us guys to do Instead of looking at me a business owner that does millions of dollars a month And learning from me because i'm very open about it because i'm not arrogant But I preach to the guys that they have a hard time hearing it But I say look man, i've made more money in a month than your wash business has ever made And I'm telling you that [00:41:00] as a dummy redneck that has figured some things out I want you to do is take a page and I want you to go in too.

I want to see you win It's not i'm not saying it from areas. I'm saying look i'm the mouse in the next aquarium And what y'all don't see is i'm looking at another mouse in my next aquarium that's doing a hundred million dollars But here's what's easier to do It's easier to look at the next aquarium and say, that's a scam.

People over profits. That's something wrong with that mouse right there. See he's charging way too much because it's hard to tell yourself that you have left money on the table. You have not moved your family up a notch. It's all it's easier to spin a web of horseshit that you say I don't want no money.

No way Than it is to say damn, maybe I got some things I need to 

change And maybe I need to learn some new skills 

Ain't that crazy that it's easier for a guy [00:42:00] to turn on making a profit and make that The wrong he said I don't want that much food. No way Instead of saying, damn, there's guys out here.

The day that you find out there's another wash company in your area, making 300, 000 a year, and you were making one 25. It's he puts his pants on the same damn way. Now you've got a moment, a mental fork in the road that you've got to say I'm either going to go and study and learn and figure out how to get, okay, he's doing, I can do it.

Or I do more than that. It's an epiphany moment, but it's, it is the moment of salvation. You either hear the gospel, believe and receive, but that requires repentance. It requires you to turn and go the other way. It requires a change in direction, or you say, I don't need to be saved. No way I'm good with being I'm good with the one morsel.

And it's just so strange to me that humans. [00:43:00] It is easier for us to say we don't want it. Knowing good and that ain't true than to say, Yes, I want it and I've got to figure out how to do it. Because that second option comes with work. It comes with a lot of staying up. It means you're going to get to work all week, go home, hold that stack of damn papers up again.

That y'all see how that was, he don't 

even, 

he don't need that shit. He don't need none of that. He's doing it because he's looking over there and saying there's 

more. There's something, I don't know for sure. There's a lot. I don't know. I've done pretty good, but I'm like, bro, like I'm trying to find probably about, I don't know, in this stack, probably about four things that messed me up for about an afternoon.

Like that. I didn't know like mind blowing stuff. All of it's not going to be mind blown. Most of it's going to be stuff. I know. I don't care about that stuff. I know most of it's going to be that, and I still bought it, [00:44:00] but I know there's about four things in here and this ain't, it's probably going to be about a phone book when I've done print.

And then I got to get some more ink, but there's going to be about four things that get me a little messed up. I got to go sit out on the porch and puff about it. I'm saying like they make me think, and that's how you have to dig for info. It's a sifting. It's like you're mining gold out of the river.

It's like you're panning. I'm panning for the nuggets, man. I'm panning. I'm constantly paying that sluice is working. You know me how we are, dude. My sluice is working 24 hour day. If I ain't sleeping, Aaron's thinking about where is the edge? How do I refine the edge even more? Because I know there's so much I don't know.

Now I do walk on my chest out. A lot of guys don't like that, but here's what I believe. I believe you should go out and you should get yourself some wins. Okay. And you should walk with your chest out in your winds, but that's not saying that, everything [00:45:00] it's also humbling because I'm studying.

I'm so I'm confident, but I'm also humble. I'm walking. I'm two different dudes here. I know I can be effective. I know I can go out and kill it. 

You got to walk. You gotta walk on the field like Nick Saban. That's 

right. 

I'm here day. But when the get over, you're going right back to blocking and tackling and doing the same things that you had to do, fundamental.

So I wanna see you win. And what I know is if you don't do these things, you may be okay right now, but. The next time something happens, the next iceberg probably gonna sink you. We didn't need to make a batch buster valve. We didn't like, oh shit, we're broke, let's make a valve. It wasn't that. It was like, let's make that.

I think we could, we didn't need to make a super pump. That's two years ago. It was literally when we took that trailer the guy down in Fort Myers I got hit by the hurricane. That was our first, Adventure when we got on the call with the engineering team was like hey This is what we want to do and it gets this [00:46:00] is that was two years ago We didn't need to but what happens is guys don't raise their prices until they hit they need they hit the iceberg and then they're like, oh shit.

Then it's too late You don't have any runway. You don't have any more chests there to play with So what we're telling you guys is Don't leave money on the table. Get your skills up, learn how to close, learn how to position yourself in the market, know your numbers, really analyze your P and L analyze that close ratio.

Look, you ever seen the shark tank where the guys, they go in there and they'll ask them, they're just like, Oh, I don't know. And they're like, what the hell? You don't know your numbers. But then every once in a while, they'll get some guy walks in and they know it like that. It's that's a business owner.

They, if you don't know your numbers. That means you don't really care about it. Know your numbers, know where you're at in the marketplace, know where you want to go and promise you, you can make a lot of money, but you can actually make a legacy business out of this industry. You really can.

It's a, it's fun. I enjoy it. I enjoy making money. I enjoy the hell out of it. I enjoy changing my family tree. I enjoy giving. [00:47:00] I'm very generous very generous, but you can't be generous hanging out on damn money. You can't do it. It's wild as hell. You can't do it. I just won't give back what you're going to give.

You ain't got none. You buried it in the sand. You didn't double it, but a widow's mind. See that guy that he was wicked and unprofitable. He put wicked in the same category as unprofitability. And so I don't want to be caught like that. I want to make sure that we are. Making as much as we can doing an excellent job.

We're always learning, making herself better. And I'm okay with making a profit. It's actually wild as hell. That's the whole point. 

That's the mantra of 2024 guys. Be okay with making a profit, do an excellent job, show up, care about what you're doing, because I'm going to tell you, there's going to be a price that you throw out there.

If you, if somebody gets hairy, and they're like, Hey, I'm going to charge 5, 000 for this job. You might get it once, right? You might get it once, but the market will [00:48:00] herd you. Okay. So don't ever worry about overcharging. If you wanted to go there for too long, the market will say, and your closing ratio will start going down, and you'll start closing 10%.

And you'll get those real high ticket jobs because 10 percent of the market. I can't have that. I gotta be closing 50 percent at an above average rate. I gotta be sitting at the peak of pricing within that 50 percent close ratio, that 40, 30, I'd say 40% That's the point. The point is you could never overcharge for very long.

You 

can't overcharge. It's not possible. It's not 

possible. 

You can't. You're ripping people off, Washington. It's literally not possible. The economic system of capitalism and the free market will tell you there's a roof there. [00:49:00] You'll hit it But what we know what we're telling you guys is there's no bottom you can go do it for free.

No 

Village wild dude. It's wild. 

I don't let nobody do shit on my property for free On the side of the other way is what we're saying I'll see. There's something loaded in this free thing right here. And I ain't about it. He said, no, I just want to clean your stuff for free. I do it for views. No, I'll say you're doing it for view.

See, it ain't for free. 

Get a pressure wash punks comment. There's pretty good. He's that I'm at home waiting to talk to our contractor doing a 320, 000 home renovation. You can't do that by charging chump change. 

Hey, and on that, the PWP, we're going to make a cheers to that guys. Go out and get this money.

We love to see it. The serious starter event, June 28th, June 29th, Cody, any last words for we cap it off and go make some money today. Price got to go [00:50:00] up. Let's go.