Episode 10: Risk Management

in this episode of The Clean Hour, we explore one of the most overlooked areas of running a successful pressure washing business — managing risk.

Every business faces challenges. Equipment breaks down, cash flow tightens, customers complain, and unexpected problems happen. The difference between successful businesses and those that struggle is how prepared they are.

We discuss:
✅ Why cash flow is the lifeline of your business
✅ Preparing for equipment failures and unexpected costs
✅ Protecting your reputation and handling customer complaints
✅ Diversifying your income and lead sources
✅ Creating contingency plans for the unexpected
✅ Learning from mistakes and building a resilient business
✅ Practical ways to reduce risk without slowing down growth

Whether you're just starting out or running an established pressure washing business, this episode will help you prepare for the unexpected and build a business that's stronger, more resilient, and ready for long-term success.

🎧 Subscribe for weekly episodes helping pressure washing business owners grow smarter, faster, and more profitably.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello, welcome back to the Clean Hour Podcast. It's episode 10 today, and uh we're back talking about risk management. So, double digits, we are um it's flying by, man. Um, welcome back. Are you alright?

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Yes, all good, my friend. All good this end. Looking forward to getting into risk management. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 0:18

Episode 10. I remember when we um first had the idea for this. It seems like ages ago now. We're already run to 10 episodes, man. It's crazy, it's flying by.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Yeah, absolutely. It's been quick, hasn't it? It's gone really quick. Yeah, man.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

But yes, I've enjoyed it though. It's been good, really good. Good, good, good. Risk management. Um, I thought this sounded a bit boring. I said this to you before we didn't understand it full fully, but when you explained it, it's it actually becomes really interesting and it becomes something necessary as well. Um, so it's basically about every business faces setbacks, but how prepared are we for those setbacks, isn't it? So there's lots of different areas that we can touch on, but um to kick things off, just give us an overview. What risks do businesses face, and let's keep it to exterior cleaning.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

Okay, risk management. Um massive, massive um subject, and it can go off in a whole manner of different avenues. But if we can keep it really simple and really give a lot of value in this podcast about the risk management, so when we talk risk management, right, we are 100 miles an hour doing our job going that way, we're going forward 100 miles an hour. What we don't then appreciate is we're not looking at risks, and when I say risk, what what risk can we do? Right. So if you run an exterior cleaning company and you are a one-man band, two-man band, and you're running it all on your home PC or your laptop, are you backing it up every week? Or is your whole business for the last year, 10 years, 20 years on your laptop? If that laptop vanished or broke, have you lost your business? Is all your clients on there? Is all your invoicing on there? You know, so if you if your laptop went or your computer went down today, how do you know it was your money? If all your invoices on there, or your one-page work on there, you know, so risk management is right. Every Monday morning, I'm gonna back my hard drive up to an external hard drive. So then if my computer goes down, it doesn't matter. I just plug my hard drive into another one and we go again. Risk management. What's the what's your management if your van gets stolen? If you've got two months worth of work in front of you, what what have you put in place for your pressure washer breaking? You know, it's having this management in place that you know it's an SOP and it's a standard operation procedure. If my pressure washer breaks, what do we do? What do we do? How do we get over it? Because I've got so much work in front of me. What is the plan? The plan is I've already got in place that I'm gonna borrow a pressure washer off my mate who's two counters away because he's got two or three of them. I'm gonna jump in the van, drive over there. He's already told me I can borrow his pressure washer because he's got a spur one. That's what I've got in place for that. My van beans don't know what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna hire a van, I'm gonna use the car and I've got a trailer. That it's stuff like that. So that's where risk management comes into play. Is now we're not saying this is gonna happen to you, and we're not saying that you know you might go the whole of your career and nothing ever goes wrong. Highly unlikely. If you think about your own business journey now, when stuff breaks, it it sort of becomes the end of the world, done it for the first 30 minutes. But if you've got a risk management procedure in place, then actually it's quite simple because you go, yeah, it's fine. Yeah, it's annoying that the pressure washer has broke, it's annoying that my van wet belt has gone. But this was the plan that we had in place for it. So that's what we're gonna talk about today. That's risk management. It does sound corporate, but when you break it down to external cleaning, there's so many little things we can do. Just have a plan to compensate for that risk. That's it, mate.

SPEAKER_01 4:44

Yeah, so it's it's to future-proof and solidify your business, isn't it? It's it's just the phrase risk management that is making it sound weird. I think let's just say how to how to solidify and future-proof your business, how to make it stronger uh and prevent damages long term. Um, that's a better way to maybe say it. Uh, yeah. So let's start with um, let's just pick different areas, let's go financial to begin with, then. Um what's what risks are we looking at with finances? Are we talking cash flow problems, um paying expenses, dealing with customer payments, what are we thinking here in terms of finances?

SPEAKER_00 5:17

Okay, so what I'd be saying with your finances is checking your bank every day, either the end of the day or the start of the day. Understanding what money in, money out looks like. Because we live in a world now of cybercrime, don't we? And and banks are getting dipped daily. Your bank might be getting dipped if you haven't looked at your bank for a week. And what they're very clever at doing now is disguising these payments as very small numbers: £7.50 to the AA, £6 to Halford's, stuff that automatically doesn't stand out because the figure's so small and it's it's it may be a store that you do use. So financially, check your banks daily, make sure you know what should be in your account daily, check the transactions because if you're letting them slip, there's a risk there, right? What what is the risk? If you don't if you notice something on your bank that isn't right, cancel the card, block your card, so no more can go out until you spoke to your bank. That is one thing that every business owner should be doing in risk management is checking the banks daily, every day, every day without without checking every transaction. That's the first thing with with financials is having that in place. Uh, another one that um in financials is your accountant, right? You can pay insurance for your accountant, and what I mean by that is if HMRC or the inland revenue decide to do an investigation on your business because something doesn't sit right, and it can be anything that triggers an investigation. I went 25 years without an investigation. November last year, I went through an investigation, and it was the reason why I went through an investigation because I'd been paying VAT every quarter, and I always owed them. I always owed them, you know, whatever six, seven, ten grand. I always had to pay my VAT quarter. Came to this quarter, they owed me 13 grand. Why? What a previous quarter, not this quarter, because I had bought new machines, new vans, new equipment, and it turned the turned the books around that they owed me so much money, right? That's regular investigation, right? They they wrote to us and said, We're going to investigate your last two VAT quarters. My insurance policy then kicked in to pay my accountant because the work you have to do for an investigation, they don't just say, Oh, can you send us a couple of invoices? No, no, no. They want to come to you, they'll either come to your office, your home, or your accountant's office, and they will spend the day going through everything, every single item that you've bought and claimed VAT for. Over X amount of years. No, well, they do it over the last mine, was over the last two quarters. So so six months worth of invoices in and out, they investigated, right? They investigated that. But they'd spent hours previous with my accountant going backwards and forwards, then they spent a day with a well, that's a bill of like four or five thousand pounds. Have you got four thousand pounds for an investigation? Probably not. Get it insured, get it insured, get investigations insured, speak to your accountant to see if they offer you the insurance. It's worth the extra 30, 40 pounds a month on your accountancy bill to get yourself insured to protect you from that. It's like any insurance, isn't it? We think we're never gonna need it, but when you do need it, you're better off having it in place. So those just two quick things that I would say that you need to be looking at as a business owner. It's risk again. The risk is if we get investigated, my accountant's gonna have that bill. If someone's dipping the banks, if you've got lads that have got debit cards for materials and you run your business that way, or on charge card, checking your bank daily, will make sure that everything is aligned. Not everyone's trustworthy, right? Not everyone's trustworthy. So the risk is someone's taking money out of your bank, you need to know where it's going. Hence they're the two top things financially, I would say. Interesting, interesting.

SPEAKER_01 10:14

Definitely. Uh, and what about um let's talk about cash flow and seasonal slowdowns? So obviously, if you're just offering pressure washing for driveways and patios or gutters, there will be a point throughout the year when work dips off, um, assuming you don't offer roof cleaning or something, see like all year round. So, how important is it to have money in the bank and to make sure you know customers are paid you, you've you've you've taken into account when things slow down to keep your business going because if you have got nothing at the end of each month, one slow month can ruin you, can't it? So it's important to to look after cash flow and make sure you're on top of that, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 10:52

It it is, you know, you your your your role in the business is to provide longevity. Longevity is provided with cash. Cash flow is is the biggest killer of every business. Understanding cash flow and being able to manage cash flow, you know. I I I speak to people that say, oh yeah, I've got fucking invoices that are outstanding that are you know 15, 25, 35 days. And I say to them, uh who are they with? Are they commercial? No, no, no, they're domestic, because I haven't got round to fucking chasing them. Fucking suicidal, right? You're not they're not fucking friends, it's a business transaction. You need that cash in your business because you've got to keep the wheels turning, you've got to keep people paid, you've got to pay your suppliers, you've got to buy materials, you've got to pay wages, you've got to put fuel in your van. Mrs. Jones that hasn't paid you 1500 quid for repointing a patio and jet washing it, mate. She needs to pay. You know, domestically, you should be 24 hours from completion. The minute you complete that job, the invoice should be sent. From the invoice landing, they've got 24 hours to pay it, and you need to be on that and getting that money in. Relentless, relentless, it's not their money now, it's yours. There was a transaction agreement. You said you will do X, they said they will pay Y. You've delivered X, now they need to pay Y. That's how it works. Not oh, I'll chase it at the weekend. No, you chase it now. If it's overdue 24 hours, bang, you you're on it. Um cash flow, the lack of cash flow will kill any business. It does. I've been there, I've I've sat for hours trying to work out who we're gonna pay, who we can speak to, who we can't pay, how we're gonna talk to them, because it is absolutely critical. And you're only as good as your debt recovery, aren't you? If if people don't want to pay you and you're soft at it, then you're gonna go out of business. Yeah, you're gonna go out of business. You need it coming in, you need it coming in, and in the domestic world, right? It's pretty a nice place to be domestically, because if you're invoicing every day, you're getting paid every day. So the cash is always dropping in to your bank every day if you're busy. And I think the other part of the question was you asked about slow months, didn't you?

SPEAKER_01 13:40

And the year end like an emergency fund kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00 13:43

Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is a really, really tough one, right? Because if your numbers aren't right at the start and you're living hand to mouth, which a lot of pressure washing companies do, because we're in this race to the bottom, they're not building up a war chest. And if you're not building up a war chest, how do you how do you survive that the lean periods? Because there is going to be lean periods, because we know that external cleaning is seasonal. So what do you do? You then go start picking up other work, and you start picking up. I don't know why my clock rang. Apologies in the middle of that, my bloody timer rang. Um, but you then start to pick up other work to get you through the leaner periods. Where if you've if your pricing's right and your cash flow's right, why why don't you just start putting a little percentage away? Every job, right? Every job has an emergency fund. And the emergency fund can be for anything, can't it? A broken van, it can be. Emergency fund isn't for holidays and it isn't for treating the missus and kids, right? That's not what it's for. As much as it's tempting, and we've spoken about this before, being there, got the t-shirt, got the hat, gone fuck me, I'm gonna take them around the world, done it. Fucking disaster, right? Because you come back and something goes wrong and you've got no money. Your emergency fund is for business emergencies. Now, it doesn't have to be massive. If you're a one-man band, right? An emergency fund might look at maybe five grand. It might look at five grand. You go, well, with five grand, I'm not gonna do nothing for the whole of November. I'm probably gonna let's say, oh no, I'm making this up. Let's say we're gonna make a grand in November, and I may need to dip into the emergency fund, I may need to take 1500 quid out of it, and then the same in December, and the same in January, the same in February. Now your emergency fund is back down to almost zero, but you start in prime season again and you start building it up. If you get to the end of this season and you haven't got an emergency fund, what what are you gonna do? Seriously, what are you gonna do? Now, if you're a bigger company, the size of your company determines your emergency funds. You know, I I see people say you should have in your emergency fund three months of running costs.

SPEAKER_01 16:22

Yeah, is that including is that including your own payment as well, or just the business expenses? Yeah, it's everything.

SPEAKER_00 16:27

That's everything. So so they're saying that if your business overheads are 20 grand a month, then 60 grand should be ring fenced in your emergency account. That's it. You can even put it in a high interest savings account and take it offline, put it anywhere, put it under your bed, but you've got it. But it's interesting, isn't it, right? Because I I read a stat about personal savings and personal finances, and it was something like I want to say something like 56% of people haven't got access to a thousand pound, haven't got access to a thousand pound, and now we're asking business owners to have three months worth of money. Have I got three months worth of money in my businesses? Probably not, if I'm honest, fire and security, definitely not, because it's a massive beast. Um definitely, absolutely nowhere near that. Um that that's cash critical, always is it just the way it is. Cotswall roof cleaning, yes, just Cobra, yeah, absolutely, mentoring, yeah, definitely, because there's no overheads really. But but one of my biggest companies, no, we haven't. We haven't got it. So managing that risk is sleepless nights, I promise you. So, you know, don't I'm not sat here from an ivory tower saying everything's fucking great, and I've got it, isn't it? But it's how you manage that, innit? But if you you want to seriously look at your cash position, you know, there's an old saying, isn't there? For the old and bold of us, cash is king. Uh and what they're saying is if you've got cash on the hip, as Delboy used to say, then you can get through these stormy waters, can't you? If you're running hand to mouth, that's a massive risk. Yeah. Massive risk. If your van blows up tomorrow and you can't afford to get it repaired, or hire a van, what do you do? Yeah. What what do you do as a one-man band?

SPEAKER_01 18:48

That that that's what I would say. Well, let's go into let's go into the operations side then, because that's good. That's quite a lot of finance there. It's very important to think about that. Let's talk about operations then. I think it was a few episodes ago you told us about your military-style routine that you and Keith have for your roof cleaning. Um I guess what happens if you can't work tomorrow. But let's um let's go equipment failure then first. Do you have doubles of everything? Because I remember when I the first six months of my cleaning business, I didn't all didn't even have O-rings. I think I said this in one episode when it went, I didn't even know what one was. I just wasn't prepared. Do you do you try and have two of everything, or do you have backups or the ability to fix things? Like what are you thinking there in terms of kit database? A little bit of both, right?

SPEAKER_00 19:36

And and I think what we do is I think people rely on equipment far too long. And when you buy something new, right, and I'll and I'll say this, I'll talk about Cobra, right? I'll talk about the air compressor, right? I believe, and I might be proven wrong, and other people might say differently, but I believe the shelf life, operational shelf life of a cobra being used every day is two years. Now it'll go longer than that, but two years I believe is the optimum life, and it's the same for a pressure washer, right? So what I'm saying is, is if you buy a pressure washer from any of the companies and you pay three grand for it, right? Three grand, three and a half grand for a decent Honda, or you pay fucking four grand for a Cobra, right? Two years, you have made your money a million times over, right? A million times over. So the mentality should be right, in two years, I'm gonna buy a new pressure washer, right? Maybe you can upgrade to a slightly better one, I don't know. Maybe you're gonna buy the same again, right? Because you've earned so much money on that machine, right? My roof cleaning is a thousand pounds a day. Cobra's paid for in a week. In a week, it's paid for. So at the end of two years, when I've earned a fortune from it, I'm gonna buy another one and I'm gonna start using the new one. And my old one will sit and I'll rotate that probably every six weeks and give it a run out. Same with your pressure washer. So now you're building this own risk management into your equipment. Don't throw the old poles away, don't throw your old backpack away. Repair the split hose on your gardener backpack and keep it, keep it as a backup. You know, there's a thing, there's a fine line between hoarding and being operationally efficient with equipment. And it's just having that knowledge that if a key piece of equipment breaks, I I I don't I watch you know all these boys that do these pressure washers and when they In midseason, they are flat out repairing, building new systems. You ain't gonna walk into it tomorrow and say you can't just fix this for me. No, you're gonna be in a queue. Well, if that's critical to your business, do you not think you'd be better off having a spur one in your garage or your shed? Or you go as far as having it on the van. I carry two cobras. Why do I carry two cobras? Because I work an hour away from my business. It's a petrol engine. If that petrol engine decides not to work, well, I've lost a thousand pounds that day. So it's just little things like that. If you've got a second machine that's critical to your job, then have it in the van with you. Or have it in a if you're not far away, have it in a unit. If you work within the 10-15 miles of your unit, brilliant. You can nip back and get it. Work carries on. And that's what I'd say. I think people hang on to things and use it with no backup way too long. Everything's got a lifespan on it. Everything we bought.

SPEAKER_01 23:10

Checking that it always links back to the same issue though, which is money. Because I remember last year, last probably this time last year, I was up doing a roof. It's a three-dayer. I got onto day three, and I probably had a quarter of the house to do, and I was buzzing. I was like, here we go, whistling into work, get this done in the sunshine. And about 10 minutes in, my masmatic um the rotary arm clipped a top clipped a tar and snapped into. Uh and I I didn't have a backup and I rang Rutland Pumps, PWS, no one had one in. I think Rutland Pumps did, but they were three and a half hours away. And I was like, Fucking hell, man, like what are you meant to do? What do you do? And luckily I found someone who was close in the end, but yeah, just if you if you don't have these backups, then this is it.

SPEAKER_00 23:53

In an ideal world, right? In an ideal world, you would have everything doubled up in your garage in an ideal world. In an ideal world, but when you've got key bits of kit, right, if you spend two and a half grand on a key bit of kit and you say to yourself, right, the lifespan of this is two years. I'll probably get four out of it, but two years, right? Take that two grand, two and a half grand, divide it between if you work 50 weeks a year, you're saying the lifespan is two years, divide the two and a half grand through a hundred fucking a hundred weeks, innit? So what's that? 2,000 divided by 100. 25 quid a week, right? 25 quid a week, if you say to yourself, I'm gonna put 25 quid a week away and I'm not gonna touch it for a hundred weeks, what's it for? Because in a hundred weeks I'm gonna buy a new machine, that's it. I know it's sad, it's it's very easy to say that because money for everyone is different, and there's gonna be things that we need. But if you've if you're serious about building a safe business, then then start looking at your equipment. Don't fucking run it into the ground and then moan on social media because your fucking pressure washer or your compressor or your fucking van is fucking broken because you've run it into the ground. Be ahead of the game, be ahead of the game. Service equipment. How many vans do we open up that are in shit state and kit thrown in? Look after your kit. Like Trigger said, look after your broom, your broom will look after you. And it's a famous line in Unfools and Horses. You've been watching that, you've you've dropped a couple of references on it. I know I have, yeah. And it's right though, isn't it? It's right. If you look after your equipment, then it'll serve you well, but don't hang on to it forever. Everything's got a shelf life. Invest in your business. You know, that asset is still in the business, so there's still a value to it. Yes, it's depreciation. When your accountant does your accounts, we put depreciation into our assets, but it's still got a value, even if it's sat in the garage. It's still a value in your company. Yeah.

unknown 26:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:27

I think equipment insurance as well is a big one. Because when because you have your public liability insurance, don't you, when you have this kind of business, and there's an option to add on um your cover your equipment up to whatever you put it to, six, seven, eight grand. Um, it's really easy to not add that bit on. I I I know people who haven't added it on before. But if you're if you've got if your van mounted and your p and your machine catches fire and your whole van goes up with all your kit, you're gone. If you if you're not insured with that, if that's not an extra cover, you're out of business, probably, unless you've got another seven, eight, nine grand sitting there, plus a second van. So um insurances are a big one. Um yeah, definitely make sure you have that insurance for all your kit as well. Um and also I think suppliers are one to think about as well, you know, like where you get your hypo from your buyer's side, or um you know the brushes for your kind of for your machines. Uh what happens if that supplier goes down, or what happens if their backlog is three months. Um I don't want to get too much into your story about Cobra, but that that's something of how Cobra came about, wasn't it? It was supply issues, so um have that in the back of your mind as well. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:39

I I became my own supply chain. Yeah, that was it. That that's the story. And and and you know, don't put all your eggs in one basket. If you use if you use X company for X products, have a backup, right? Have a backup. And a prime example, right? This is this is this is a really good one, right? So I've got four businesses. I could very easily have all four businesses marketed with one of my marketing partners, but I don't what do I do? I split it, I split it because I'm getting knowledge then from both sides of the funnel, from you, Michael, and from Sam Arna. And the risk is then if if you what if I had all my businesses with Sam, say, right? And Sam decided to murder that he's won the lottery and he's off to sit on an island somewhere, and no one's ever gonna get hold of him ever again, you know. He's not far away from that. No, but and we we laugh and joke, don't we? But that you know, but shit happens, doesn't it? Shit happens, and all of a sudden you're like, ah, what where's my market gone? He he was responsible for bringing every job into my business. So what I've done is I've I've split it between you and him, and I have a great working relationship with both of you. Why have I done that? Because you've both got a different outlook on marketing, you've both got a different level of experience, and it minimizes my risk. So if you buy your chemicals from a supplier, you know, and we talk about loyalty, there's nothing wrong with being loyal to two or three companies. Because if you're loyal to two or three companies and you spread the loyalty and the funding, guess what? You've always got someone you can call on. You can always call on someone. If you've if you're loyal, you see all the time, oh no, I only go to them, they are fucking brilliant, and then when you ring them and they can't get you what you want, because they're in demand, or they've got a backlog, or their suppliers let them down. Guess what? You find yourself in a problem again, you know. So so literally, have a look around. Yes, they may not be as great service, and they may be slightly dearer, you might find they might be slightly cheaper. All of a sudden, your supply network, you're then spreading the risk. You want to make sure your job is to make sure that your business can function every day. How? Spread the risk, minimize the risk, have several suppliers. Don't be fucking, don't be hell-bent on one supplier and that they're the greatest things like spread. Yes, that really goes, but I also use another supplier who is equally as good, and we share the love and we keep me moving. If that supplier can't get it yet, maybe the other one can. You're back to work again, aren't you? That's what it's about. You know, just don't have all your eggs in one basket.

SPEAKER_01 31:01

That leads me, you know. That leads me on nicely to marketing because I think it's the same issue. Um, the same uh concept applies, sorry. I've said to a few of my guys, you know, I love you, I love having you as a client, of course I do. But you don't want me as your only source of leads because if I pack it in, or when leads slow down, like it does sometimes at this time of year, what's your backup? How are you still getting working? And that goes back to, like you said, putting your eggs in one basket. If you go 100% of your marketing budget into Facebook ads or Google ads or SEO or nothing, what happens when that dries up? You have to have as many uh streams of leads for me as possible to keep everything going. You should definitely double down on what works the most. So if Facebook ads are bringing in the most for you, yes, that should be where most of your income goes to it. But you have to have your socials go in, you have to have your organic SEO, you have to maybe try Google ads, you've got to do your Facebook ads, yes, do some leaflet and some door knocking when you're unabout, because that way then if one of them slows down, your business doesn't slow down. Um and so what do you reckon that with marketing? Do you have different streams? Do you do you or do you if you and well no, you don't put your eggs in one basket? Yeah, but why is that important, do you think?

SPEAKER_00 32:20

Yeah, um, so we've we've just literally turned our paid ads back on um seven days ago, six days ago. Um, and the only reason we've turned them back on is to test our new ad. That's it. We haven't turned it on because we want paid ads. We turned it on because I need to test and make sure that the the videos we've made are gonna work at the end of the year. Now it's been off for two months, two and a half months. We haven't paid any paid ads because our other avenues are working. Our blogs, our social media, our website, our organic, our SEO, our door knocking, our not door knocking, our leafleting is all working. It's all working for for for the roof cleaning, but now we're testing these ads, and I need to test them in a hard market. The hard markets now. Would I ever rely solely on one form of marketing? No. Because what happens tomorrow if we wake up, and we've spoken about this, haven't we? And Facebook just decide that roof cleaning ads is a low ticket, and they fucking do it anymore. They just wake up tomorrow, Mark Zuckerberg turns around and goes, right, anyone that doesn't spend 10 grand a month on Facebook on ads, fucking close their accounts because we're making billions from big blue chip companies, and all these people that aren't spending 10 grand a month are costing us in man hours. We can reduce a massive proportion of our staff and make more money. What happens if he does that? What all these people that solely rely on Facebook? Guess what? You're fucking gone. Yep. You're gone in the blink of an eye. What happens if Facebook suspends your account tomorrow for a violation that didn't happen? But they think it happens, so they've suspended it, and you spend the next six weeks trying to get your account back. What happens if your account gets cloned and people are fucking trying to hack into your don't forget Facebook. If you're using Facebook paid ads, that's a money transaction to your bank. These get hacked every day. What happens if someone hacks into that and they have to close down your Facebook account? And the only way you get business is through Facebook. Guess what? Your your pipeline stops tomorrow. It fucking stops. Then you're gonna have to rethink it of how you're gonna get working. So what we're saying is is yes, use all these great things that are great at generating work, but don't have all your eggs in one basket. Have them spread around. Like Michael said, double down on what works, but have a little bit of Google, have a little bit of fucking social media, have a website, have SEO. You don't have to have it in thousands of pounds, but just have a little bit of it and just keep chipping away at it. All these other bits take time, don't they? SEO takes time, it's not an overnight win, it's a take time. But pay someone, if you can't do it yourself, pay someone for the next two, three years to do your SEO for you to build you up onto page one of Google. Then maybe you don't need to do Google paid ads, maybe just have £50 a week on Google paid ads. But if you're not monitoring it, you know where it's coming from. That's maybe you need to go in the local magazine, maybe you have a £25 ad in the local magazine every month. You might just get one job a year, but if that one job is a thousand pounds, you're gonna make 750 quid on that job, aren't you? So it's these little things, don't just think that Facebook is the fucking magic being, you know. Take the risk away from it, take the risk away, put yourself in a comfortable position where you think, okay, if my Facebook went off tomorrow, yeah, I'd be fucking I would panic because it is a proportion of my work, but I've not had it on for three months, and I've got three months booked up, so I've got three months to unpick the Facebook mess, relaunch it, get it back up and running. I'm not going fucking hell, it's the end of the world, because everything else is working in the background, so it's that sort of risk management around marketing, you know, and and there is good people out there doing good things with marketing, you know. Like I said, I've got two of them. I'm I'm privileged, I've got two good mareteers who do my marketing for me, who I speak to every week to make sure we're doing the right thing. I'm not spending millions of pounds with them, but it's a sensible budget, it's not a massive budget, but it's I'm limiting the risk.

SPEAKER_01 37:38

That's what I'm trying to say. I'm limiting the risk. You think it's worth talking about reputation? So protecting your reputation in terms I know we spoke about this last week a bit, um, but I think your reputation can take years to build up, but one mistake can ruin it, kind of you can ruin it in minutes, you can ruin it in one job. So, like, would uh would a risk be not collecting Google reviews and not not showing off that side of your business? Because let's just say, let's say you've got five Google reviews, let's just say, let's say very small amounts, and then you get one or two horrendous ones from a really bad week, your reputation then is almost half bad, half good, and that's really, really hard to come back from. Whereas if you had 250 really good reviews and one or two bad ones, then the risk is different, isn't it? It's gonna be you're probably down to a 4.9 out of five instead of a five. Whereas if you were down to like a two-star on Google, that can finish your business off, really, because people are gonna check you out and then not obviously not go with you because it looks awful. So do you reckon there's risk in reputation? Is that something to think about?

SPEAKER_00 38:47

Yeah, um risk risk in reputation is is massive, and it's not to be it's not to be um neglected, you know. You need to I I I I mean look, look, I I'm fucking always speak very open and honestly. I can't speak too much about it, but what I can say with reputation is my reputation at the moment is under attack from a certain individual, and I've had to take legal action and spend a lot of money to issue legal action because lies and rumours fucking damage reputations, um, and that's all I can say on that because it is in the hands of the legal teams and they're dealing with that, but yes, your reputation online, especially in a world where we live online, right? It's very easy, and people think there's no repercussions, right? There's massive repercussions, you can't just go spouting shit about people and protecting your reputation. We spend years building a reputation, and you have to look after that with your Google reviews, with the way you speak and conduct online, and if people want to try and take you down through whatever, you've got to have the conviction to step up and protect your reputation. You know, if people leave you a bad review on Google, right? In their mind, it's warranted, in your mind, it probably isn't. But how you respond to that Google review? I've got one bad Google review, I've got a one star on William Hale Fire and Security. A woman really, really, really wasn't happy with the customer service, right? Not the work, the customer service. I read the review, I read it again. I then waited the next day, read it again, and then replied. Don't reply instantly because you'll probably say something that you can't unpick. So let it sink in, go and do a bit of fact-finding, and then write your reply. And and I wrote the reply, and and it's on there now, everyone can see the reply. I I replied honestly, sincerely, and I just apologised and said, look, as much as we try to get everything right every day, we're human beings at the end of the day, and I wholeheartedly, as the fucking owner, apologise. I can't do any more than that. I I absolutely we got it wrong. It's very rare we get it wrong, but we did. And hands up, I am so sorry, and I I accept your review as a one star as as correct. I can't do anything about it. You know, I can't do anything about that, but it but it's your reputation is massive, right? You you you know, you you've got to protect it at all costs, at all costs, but you've got to be open and honest. If we get it wrong, hands up, you'll get more kudos from putting your hands up. I could have gone back and argued with that, right? I could have gone back and said, absolutely you're chatting shit, absolutely no chance, you're full of shit, you're just on a vengeance for us because we wouldn't give you a discount. That probably would have bought quite a lot of mileage with people reading in going, oh yeah, there is people out there just want stuff for nothing. But but she wasn't, she had a genuine point. We as a company fucked up the customer journey, like the last episode, we got wrong with her for whatever reason. It slipped through the net, and we had to own it. I had to put my fucking hand up and say, You're right, that that that your job is worthy of one star, and I can't get out of that. I haven't asked Google to remove it, it's been on there over a year. Has it damaged the company? No. Have people not come to us? Maybe one or two have seen it, but it mixed in with another fucking 55-star reviews. Okay, but I've owned that and said, look, yeah, I I fucking got it wrong. And we apologize. We're only human.

SPEAKER_01 43:15

It's all about being transparent, is it? I think people prefer transparency. Yeah. And I was thinking, um, yeah, we s we've banged on about this a lot, bang this drum a lot, but you're not just posting on social media, getting yourself under the camera. I think that can um reduce risk because if people say if someone calls out your character or calls out, says you're you're this, you're that, you're unprofessional, you do this. But if there's videos of you every day for the past three years explaining processes, being open, being transparent, mentioning mistakes, mentioned in wins, getting your personality across, people are much less likely to see the truth in that, I think. Whereas if someone's calling you out for doing whatever and there's no face to the business, there's a few posts and no one knows who you are, it's more likely that you can buy into that, I think. So protecting yourself, yes, get the reviews, but also. Tell your story and get yourself in front of the camera, it makes you more human, and it's just another way to protect yourself, I think. If you keep doing it, it has to be obviously real. Don't don't try and be someone you're not. But if you if you are a genuine person, get that across, and people will believe you, and people buy into it and ignore the noise, I think.

SPEAKER_00 44:15

Yeah. And the other thing is as well, with that that's a good point, innit? Is it just tell the truth. No good going on social media and lying about something, pretending you do it, or pretending you've done something or you haven't done it, or just you know, just be fucking honest with people. Yeah, just be honest, and people buy into that. Because if you lie, right, it will come back round and bite you on the arse somewhere. It it just will, won't it? Yeah, somebody will find a video where you've said something and then they've proven that you're full of shit.

SPEAKER_01 44:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:52

Because people are out there trying to do that. That's just life. That's just the way we're living.

SPEAKER_01 44:56

If anyone's ever contacted me about working with me or who do work with me, they'll know I'm very, very honest and transparent. I try to be anyway. I say to everyone on like a discovery call, I say, I am not promising you any leads. I say you're gonna get a load of shit leads as well as good ones, and that's the game. And I'll tell them straight up, I'm not promising anything. And I said, if people do promise you the world, I think just take that with a pinch of salt and keep an eye on that because you can't. And me being transparent like that, I think is benefiting me in the long run because it's honest and it's true. I could say, I'm gonna get you 200 amazing leads a month for three pounds a lead and it's gonna transform your business. Give me the money now. And some people will do that, some agencies will do that, but I don't, and I say, Yeah, some some days you might get absolutely nothing, some days you'll get 10 leads, you know what I mean? And I think just being having that all your cards on the table is the best way to be for business.

SPEAKER_00 45:45

Absolutely. I uh it makes me laugh. You know, the biggest one I've heard recently about me is that I'm full of shit that I don't charge a thousand pounds plus the VAT a day for roof cleaning. I stand in people's gardens, talk to them about the price. Yeah, I'm walking around saying another thousand pound here. What why would I be doing that when these people are seeing their houses on social media? I'm like that. What why would I fucking lie about it? What have I got to gain? I'm fucking proud that I'm probably the dearest roof cleaner in my area. I'm I'm fucking proud of it. I I always how many reels do you see of mine that says if you're looking for cheap, keep scrolling?

SPEAKER_01 46:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:27

But people still say, ice full of shit, Ed. Well, you'll you'll get that.

SPEAKER_01 46:30

I think in this industry as well, if you're listening as well, it's competitors will try and get at you. People who might be jealous of you or might not be where they want to be in their business, they will try and get at you in any way they can. And that's just you know, beware of that and just be ready for it because it happens in this industry. It does lots of industries it does as well. But don't be surprised if you get a random bad Google review off someone you've never heard of because it happens, or if you it's just people just do. They don't instead of working on their own business, they'll try and bring yours down. That just happens in life, I think. And you've got to just do what you can, be transparent and build up your own reputation.

SPEAKER_00 47:05

A little funny story, just quickly on reviews, right? Somebody left us a review for roof cleaning the other day, and I thought, don't recognise her. We went back through the CRM, we quoted it, right? And she said we were too dear. She obviously got someone cheaper, forgot who she got, and left us the review.

SPEAKER_02 47:28

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 47:28

I was like, ah, fucking brilliant. People are leaving us reviews and we haven't even word from, you know, that's just a mad story that, innit? Yeah. So whoever did the work, thank you, because your customer left us a fucking lovely review.

SPEAKER_01 47:42

Some people just don't, they just don't they don't think about you, do they? They just think about them. I remember for my wedding business, right? Uh, like at most businesses, when COVID hit, when Boris Johnson announced that lockdown and all the weddings were cancelled. And if you remember that, or obviously you remember lockdown, but weddings were hit bad. So every wedding that you had booked in was cancelled or at least postponed. So all the wedding suppliers were dealing with this, right? And in between that, someone booked a call with me, like a dis a discovery call uh for their wedding. And I missed the call because I was dealing with all this shit from the lockdown. Yeah. And I woke up and there was a there was a one-star review on Google and Facebook saying, if you want um if you want uh reliability, don't go anywhere near these. They didn't turn up to my call. I looked at it and I thought, what the f and I can't be back saying, Do you know what's going on in the world at the minute? Do you know that every wedding's been cancelled and it's really hard and we're all dealing with it all, and I'm sorry I missed one call, but it and but they don't care. People don't give a shit. They'll just they want to vent their anger out and they'll just they'll just do it.

SPEAKER_00 48:40

So I think you know you've got to you've got to protect your reputation at all costs. You've got to stand you've got to be easily done. You've got to be true, yeah, true true to your values, don't lie, up and own everything, yeah, you know, uh and and really up and own it. If you drop a bollock, own it. Just own it. Because to know today's news, today's news is tomorrow's chip paper wrapper, innit? It's gone. Just own it, just own it, don't try and push it under the carpet, face it front on, fucking apologise, move on. Life's too short, but but reputation is is we we know don't we know companies, we know companies that have got an awful reputation, but still do all right. And I don't just mean external cleaning, right? I'm talking about big companies, you know. I think one of the biggest companies that's got the world's probably the worst reputation ever is Pontins, the holiday camps they're absolutely dreadful, but they're still booked, over booked every week, every week, with an absolutely awful reputation. They've made TV programmes about how bad they are. That but but they're still booked, yeah, you know, but but they they just deal with it. They deal so everyone's reputation, good or bad, you've just got to deal with it, haven't you? You know who they've got a good reputation.

SPEAKER_01 50:12

Is um I think Ryanair. Have you ever seen Ryanair on social media? Yeah, it's absolute genius. People will send pictures saying booked a window seat and there's no window, and they'll go back at them with a joke and say yes, so whatever. That is, I mean, I'm not saying to you for you all to do that, but there are ways that that that shows you their personality and them owning it and being transparent and doing all that is is protecting them. They're getting slated left, right, and centre every single day, Ryanair, but you still go with them and they own it and they lean into it. So there's ways to there's ways to there's ways to approach it. Yeah, how long have we got left because my camera died for a bit? I don't know what we're on. Oh fucking buddy. Okay, right. Let's go into a question each. Um keep it risk. Risk, risk, risk. One for you. What's the biggest risk you've taken in a business for the better or worse? And did it pay off?

SPEAKER_00 51:10

What's the biggest risk I've taken? In a business. Um let's keep it current. Let's keep it current. Um Cobra was probably the biggest risk. A lot of money. To get brushes, it cost me 13,000 pounds just to get the brushes that I had to pay cash for, you know, to get brushes to keep my business going. Um massive risk. And then the work behind the scenes to build that company up as quick as we have. Um massive financial risk. As it paid off, time will tell. It's it's exceeding its targets, it's exceeding its profit, um, and it's building, but it was a massive financial risk just to buy the brushes because that's all I ever wanted, which would have cost me £13,000 you know, out of Warchester. So, yeah, that would say Cobra. And that's keeping it really current. I could have gone back, I've been in business 26 years, I could have gone back, loads of things. But as an entrepreneur, we live in risk. That's what keeps us alive is living in risk. Yeah, but a current one, one that's really current, and I suppose to our viewers, is is the Cobra risk, yeah? Trying to build something massively controversial and massively risky. Yeah, yeah, man. I would say that definitely. Cool. Yeah. Question for you. Um I'm gonna go back to the this podcast again. Now listen to this. Is there anything? And it's really easy because I haven't thought of a question. Is there anything you're gonna take away that you're gonna implement in your businesses for risk after listening to a speech today?

SPEAKER_01 53:04

I wonder if I post more mistakes, more for the agency, you know, because trying to build personal brand and stuff.

SPEAKER_02 53:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:16

Like I said, I'm very transparent when I speak to people. Yeah. But I wonder if there's if there's value in putting a video up saying I got it wrong. Yeah, I wonder if that's uh something to lean into. Yeah, it is. Yeah, I've had this bad client or this this campaign flopped, or you know what I mean? Things like that. Yeah. I wonder if there's yeah, that's it's made me think of to do something like that.

SPEAKER_00 53:39

Yeah, and that's really interesting. I put my I put a video up yesterday on Copswell root cleaning, and it was titled, I got it wrong. Yeah. I I fucking got it wrong, I made a major mistake and I lost a thousand pounds yesterday. Because where we thought it was a one-day job, it ended up being a two-day job. Well, at a thousand pounds a day, that's a thousand pounds we lost yesterday, and I had to own up and say, Yeah, I got it wrong. Did we cut corners? No. Did we try and rush the job? No. We did it in two days. Did we try and put the price on the customer? No. We've we've taken it, swallowed it, and moved on. But I I think I think owning up to mistakes publicly, um I think it I think it absolutely builds trust. I think so. At speed. Because but not everything's fucking roses, is it? Not everything goes to plan. We're running, we're running businesses. Every day is an uphill fucking struggle for something. Every day something will go. A little bit fucking hell. Could have done without that. It might be your cost per leads go up, it might be your van didn't start, and it's took you a couple of hours later to get on site. You might have got on site, your pressure washer didn't fucking start. You might have got on site, your cobra didn't fucking start. You might have fucking whatever your scaffolding, you're missing a leg off your scaffolding. Fuck's out. Fuck where's the wheel? Where's the wheel off the alley tower gone? It's just things happen that throw your day, and I think highlighting it just shows that you are human, you are trying your best, but shit goes wrong. But we have a plan. We have a risk management plan. Every business that's watching this over the next week, write yourself a little risk management plan for certain things, and just keep it on your phone, on your computer, pinned to the wall in the office, right? Pinned to the wall in your garage, fucking on the sun visor of your van. Just have a think about what if what's the risk to me and what is the plan? What is the SOP to get myself out of that predicament? Because at some point in your business career, you're gonna have to call on it, and you'll be glad that you've thought about it now and had something in plan in place for that risk. Absolutely. And let's pray to God it fucking never turns up, even better. But if it does, you're on the front foot. Once you've shit your pants, you're gonna go, yeah, I'm on it.

SPEAKER_01 56:20

Yeah, yeah. Do something today that your future self will thank you for. And that's a good quote. I um I think about that a bit. Um, all right, questions a listener. Uh, this isn't about what we're speaking about, but I was holding that I would answer it. Uh for a driveway and patio cleaning business, what would you consider a healthy quote acceptance rate during the first year? So I guess that's more me. I guess you can give a roof answer if you want in a minute. But driveway and patios, um, first of all, during the first year, I don't think that matters. I think if you portray yourself in a way, no one has to know that you're in your first year. So it's up to you how you uh want to position yourself. Um in terms of Facebook ads, I would say 20 to 30%, I would say. So if you were to get 100 driveway or patio leads, I would hope you could close somewhere between 20 to 30 of those in a in a good month. Um roof cleaning, you might know a bit, Matt, it it drops, it's lower than that, it's probably 10 to 20 for roofs. Um, but you'll get a higher acceptance rate on driveway and patios instead of compared to roofs, um, just because it's lower ticket and people are more open to paying the lower the lower prices from Facebook ads. In terms of organic, uh, I wouldn't know, it depends where you're getting your leads from. But that's for a Facebook ads answer. I would say 20 to 30 percent for driveways and patios. So that answers that. Cool. Um all right then. Two left, man. Two episodes left.

SPEAKER_00 57:45

There you go. Season one. Season one is coming to an end.

SPEAKER_01 57:48

Almost, man, yeah, yeah. Network and partnerships next week. Network partnerships, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:55

Yeah, it's a big topic, innit? Big topic.

SPEAKER_01 57:58

They're all big topics, man. Like even like I said, even some of them on the face of it seem a bit slow, but they're not at all. They're these are they're all specifically designed to help you move you along from day one.

SPEAKER_00 58:08

So hopefully um I'll tell you what would be interesting, because we've got two minutes left. I'm watching the clock that we don't go over and we keep to our guidelines, is yeah, would it be really interesting? Maybe in the next whatever we do next, is we find somebody who's followed us all 12 episodes and maybe have them as a guest, yeah, and ask them has it moved your business? Have you moved personally? Has your business moved? And just get you know a real honest take from them. Say, what do you think? You've started on episode one, you've got to episode 12. What are we saying?

SPEAKER_01 58:51

Yeah, man, I like that. If you're listening to this then, because I I we get a lot of messages saying that that they're regular listeners. If you want to come on in a couple of weeks' time, if you followed this journey and found it useful, drop me a comment below the video or DM one of us on Insta or TikTok or whatever, and we'll get you on if you want to come on, if you're feeling brave. That'll be good. That's a good idea, man. Like it.

SPEAKER_00 59:11

59 minutes, we're done.

SPEAKER_01 59:12

Right, cool. We're closing. Thank you very much for listening again. Hope you've all enjoyed it. And uh, we will see you for week 11, the Panoma episode. I'll see you then. Yeah, cool. See you then. Take care. Bye bye.