Fleet Wash and Truck Pressure Washing Accounts - The Money Is In the Time Not the Job
One challenge with being in the fleet truck wash business, especially if you are doing it on a mobile bases is when you have a large corporate account that has offices spread out all over the place.
Often you will see one of their locations, and decide that would be a good account, so you bid on the contract and you get it.
Next thing you know, they like your work, and they wish you could do other offices because all the terminal managers or all the managers running those locations are talking to each other in meetings.
Because you're doing such a good job, there is a lot of intercompany referral going on, and your name keeps popping up at the top of the list as being a trustworthy fleet washing business, that does excellent work.
Okay so let's talk about this for second shall we? The problem that mobile truck washing or pressure washing companies get into is taking all these smaller satellite offices that have very few trucks, and are great distances away from their home base operation.
Not long ago I was discussing this with a fellow entrepreneur who had several truck pressure washing accounts.
He noted that on a couple of these accounts he was driving about four hours round-trip to do as few as 20 vehicles, and he could not raise the price too much, as the manager would get upset at that satellite office and expect extraordinary services and quality due to the high price.
The reality is the high price per unit is really all about paying for the travel time, and speaking of time, one of the best ways to figure this out is to start with a basic philosophy of; "the money is in the time, not in the job.
" In other words, the price per unit hardly matters, it's all that drive time, transporting your labor back and forth, the wear and tear on the vehicle, and the fuel cost which are really hurting your bottom line.
When bidding accounts like this you need to make a minimum of $60 per hour plus fuel costs and vehicle maintenance costs of $.
10 per mile up and above the unit price you are charging per vehicle.
If you're unable to charge for the travel expenses, then that has to be figured in to the price per unit.
There is no other way to do this, you don't make money while you are sitting in traffic or driving to a location, you are putting miles on your vehicle and real depreciation on your equipment.
And those hours you are paying to workers add up quick while you are in route or returning.
Indeed I hope you will please consider all this and think on it.
Often you will see one of their locations, and decide that would be a good account, so you bid on the contract and you get it.
Next thing you know, they like your work, and they wish you could do other offices because all the terminal managers or all the managers running those locations are talking to each other in meetings.
Because you're doing such a good job, there is a lot of intercompany referral going on, and your name keeps popping up at the top of the list as being a trustworthy fleet washing business, that does excellent work.
Okay so let's talk about this for second shall we? The problem that mobile truck washing or pressure washing companies get into is taking all these smaller satellite offices that have very few trucks, and are great distances away from their home base operation.
Not long ago I was discussing this with a fellow entrepreneur who had several truck pressure washing accounts.
He noted that on a couple of these accounts he was driving about four hours round-trip to do as few as 20 vehicles, and he could not raise the price too much, as the manager would get upset at that satellite office and expect extraordinary services and quality due to the high price.
The reality is the high price per unit is really all about paying for the travel time, and speaking of time, one of the best ways to figure this out is to start with a basic philosophy of; "the money is in the time, not in the job.
" In other words, the price per unit hardly matters, it's all that drive time, transporting your labor back and forth, the wear and tear on the vehicle, and the fuel cost which are really hurting your bottom line.
When bidding accounts like this you need to make a minimum of $60 per hour plus fuel costs and vehicle maintenance costs of $.
10 per mile up and above the unit price you are charging per vehicle.
If you're unable to charge for the travel expenses, then that has to be figured in to the price per unit.
There is no other way to do this, you don't make money while you are sitting in traffic or driving to a location, you are putting miles on your vehicle and real depreciation on your equipment.
And those hours you are paying to workers add up quick while you are in route or returning.
Indeed I hope you will please consider all this and think on it.
Source...