HTML clipboard
After receiving many basic questions on the subject of following a specific pressure washing business plan, it seems that I should take just a few sentences to explain what a business plan really is and isn’t.
First off, a business plan could also be referred to as a business guide. When a person decides to start his own business, it is always good to take the time to write down certain details pertaining to the goals and planned activity of the business. On the subject of pressure washing, an individual might already have chosen a specific type of cleaning he will perform, who his perspective customer is and what his primary equipment needs are. Obviously the information in this type of business plan is going to be limited to the experience and general knowledge of the new business owner. Now in most cases, his knowledge will be limited to whatever type of cleaning offered and tools used by his former employer.
The point to emphasize is the fact that this new business owner is going to be limited to his or her basic knowledge as one who is very limited in experience and influenced heavily by whoever taught him the trade of pressure washing. In addition, his knowledge of the actual running of a business will be very limited because it is truly a rare thing if a small business owner shares his secrets with someone who might become his competition some day. It just doesn’t happen that way in the real world.
Wouldn’t it be better if this new owner had the benefit of someone who was thoroughly familiar with the trade, the latest technology and trends of the industry, customer relationships, business building, dealing with competition and so on? Better yet if this source’s knowledge were based on experience and not just on theory or other published information.
So while it is always a good practice to take note of one’s own thoughts of building his business, it is even a better practice to seek out advice of someone you can trust for additional help in areas where you would naturally lack experience.
We should also mention what a business plan “is not.” A good business plan should present the author’s way of doing things, his sources of products and supplies, his advertising secrets and should explain why the author makes certain suggestions and so on. But a good plan is not going to simply tell the reader to ‘do this.’ In other words it will provide direction and reasoning behind the decisions that were made by the author but provide various options to the reader. There are hundreds of questions that arise when someone starts a business, this experienced source is going to help the reader make those decisions based upon his years of experience in the real world. In essence a good business plan will serve as a step by step guide.
So the new business owner should seek a source that has decades of experience in the field of pressure washing. It would be good to avoid anyone with just a couple years experience since it would be obvious that this source would not have much more experience then the new person starting out. It naturally takes time to learn to deal with customers, trends in the economy, changes in advertising, changes in cleaning technology and so on. It would also be good to find someone who is still active in the industry and is publishing information to deal with problems in 2010 and not those of a decade ago. Look for specific information concerning various problems faced when trying to satisfy customers and make profits during a bad economy.
The idea is that learning from someone else’s experience can save one from making the same mistakes everyone makes. A smart person can benefit from the errors made by others. A good pressure washing business plan will save the new person from wasting thousands of dollars on equipment he’ll never use as well as wasting hundreds of hours doing office work if he can use someone else’s business forms, etc.
Lesson 1…Find a Good pressure washing Business Plan and you’ll save time and money!
Authors bio is coming up shortly.
