One of my Facebook group members asked a question that made me think that the answer should be a blog post.
He wanted to know if most pressure washing professionals are using QuickBooks (QB) for their book keeping. Well QB is the #1 seller for a reason. But we use QB for so much more and since I have friends that work with Intuit in QB design and debugging, I have learned how QB can also help small business owners with their marketing.
And since June is National Entrepreneur Do-it-Yourself Marketing Month this would be a great time to show everyone some tricks and hand out tips.
First if you are not using QB you should really consider it. And if you are not fully using the report features, you are missing out on a major portion of what QB can do for you.
Did you know you can use features in QB to segment your customers in to specific groups to use later for marketing?
Go to your QB and pull up the Customer Center. Once there click on any customer you want. There you will see just under the Customer name a field called “Customer Type” This was designed to be used to indicate almost anything about your customer that you want, but it can be used for marketing by creating reports. It has been reported in surveys to QB that over 60% of QB users do not use the "customer type" function which is a terrible waste. To get to this field click on the “Edit Customer” button, top right. Once there click on the “Additional Information” tab. Now you can access the drop down menu and use the “Add New” feature. I would suggest using this to segment your customers buy type of work you do. For example if you do only a limited type of work like only house or window washing you might want to list the types but Square foot size ranges or type of house or building. Ex: Under 1000, 1500-2000, Two story, split level, ranch, strip mall etc.
But most of you have a range of work you perform like house wash, roof wash, and flat work (such as driveways or side walks). Then your list could look like this: House wash <1000sq, House wash/gutters, Gutter clean only, deck wash only, deck wash/strip & stain, etc. I have not found a limit to the number that you can use and no # is given in QB help.
Some might want to use the “Job Type” under the “Job” tab in this way instead which would also be fine, but if you have already been using QB for a while and have never used the Job function it is not possible to go back and convert past invoices so this may not be where you want to segment. But you can use it moving forward as a great tool to separate invoices for the different jobs you do for customers. But you must be consistent in naming your types of jobs to make reporting easier later. But with the “Customer Type” area you can go back and modify all or as many customer records as you would like.
Once you are using the “Type” area you can create reports that give you details to make e-mail or direct mail campaigns work.
You can also use Custom fields to help you even further. For instance you could set one of these fields to be called “last date of service” then every time you have finished invoicing a customer you go here and enter in the date the job was completed. Later when you need to find customers to fill your schedule in a specific location or area you could create a custom report asking it to give you all house wash only, house/gutter and house wash/roof cleaning customers that you have not serviced yet this year to be listed. This list could further be sorted by adding other criteria like city or zip code and then be exported to an excel file where an e-mail list is made to send out a targeted e-mail offer, for example saying that you will be in that area next week and that you have three slots open and if they call and book an appointment by Friday they will get a free gutter cleaning (Or any other added service benefit you may want to offer)
Using the date of service you can also make your lists for thank you cards for the past month, find customers that have missed their normal yearly cleaning time or even for sending out customer Birthday cards if you have made a field for that.
Other things to look for when researching customer files: Review their invoices. Are they a once a year house washing customer that you have been washing for the last 5 years? You could send out a customer appreciation or referral offer. Is there a pattern of when they call or schedule their service with you? If you are slow in June you could possibly pre sell past July customers early with a phone call or an offer. Have you ever done any extra side work during one of these visits but not every time or have you ever noted there was other work available at this home that you have not done or that some one else is doing? Send them an offer like; “With any house wash every 100 square feet of flat work cleaned, you get 10 feet free.” to help get work you have not had in the past but know is available.
Make use of the notes section! Take notes on the job in a note book or on the quote form and transfer these notes into QB for a future gold mine of marketing information. Like “Customer just put in a pool, add quote for pool deck next year.”
In the newest QB version 11 they have a great new feature that allows you to attach additional documents to the file as a whole or to each invoice, estimate or sales order. You can use this feature to attach photos of the job, either at the time of the job quote, or B & A photos of the job after you are done. Then next time you can pull up what the property looked like to remind you of certain things you may have forgot to include in your costs or to notice changes when you visit that have been made since that last job that might change the price. Such as added planter boxes to the deck railings. You can also use this to attach copies of supply lists or invoices so you can remember how many cans of stain, the exact color and price you paid last time. This way you can find out the current pricing for these items ahead of time and adjust your billing or estimate accordingly. You can go back and attach new documents to old invoices with out a problem so even if you have supply lists, invoices and photos 10 years old you can still add them now to your current customer records. Once you have made and attached the copies, you may be able to get rid of the old paper work altogether. Clutter saving alert!
If you have different crews or employees doing work for you be sure to use the “Rep” drop down menu for this. This can help you track who did the quote? How many hours some one worked or the number of jobs done when paying your employees or if a customer has a praise or complaint you can easily tell who was last at that job. Or if a customer asks for the same tech you will know who to schedule. Even if changed to a new Rep at the next job visit or quote, the older invoice will still retain the past information. Great feature to use.
Now one feature I wish they would change is in the wording of the drop down menu in the “Job Info” tab. Right now it lists: None, Pending, Awarded, In Progress, Closed, and Not Awarded. I would like this to also allow you to add to these ones like: Quoted, Scheduled, Do Not Accept Job, etc.
But even leaving it this way you could still do a search for all pending sales orders to find customers that you quoted for a job (pending) that never called you back, to allow you to make a call or mailing list for follow up contact. You can also get pretty long with your job description with about 100 characters. The “Job Type” names must be shorter, at about 20 characters and this is where you can segment your customers by the work done, if you did not want to use the first location I discussed earlier "Customer Type".
Another really cool new feature in QB 11 is the map and directions feature. Not sure if a booked customer lives near one that is calling to schedule? Just click on the word “map” in blue under the customers address and the location will come up in Google Maps. It can also give you directions between addresses. It also gives you a space to enter notes if you have to remember things like “Gate will be locked, combo is 5-23-16 and must close gate behind or dogs will get out.” But this only works for the main address for the customer, so if you have a commercial customer with one mailing address and multiple locations knowing where their post office box or corporate office is may not be as helpful.
There are so many ways you can use the custom fields for marketing there is no way to list them all and I am sure you might think of ways I have not heard of yet. Only realize that in the older versions there are only 7 slots that can be used for custom field entry and once they have been made and used they can not be changed unless you make one inactive. Once you make it inactive it will not be searchable. The newer QB11 and maybe even QB10 will let you have more than 7. This has allowed us to add things like Facebook Friend and Newsletter subscriber as custom fields to our current customer accounts.
Well I hope this has helped you QB users and any that may be trying to decide if QB is a smart investment. But no matter what computer book keeping system you use, be sure to continuously make back up copies. We back up our QB files to readable/writable disks each week and once a month run a complete drive copy of our data to alternating portable hard drives. This way we can never lose more than a single week of QB data or a whole month of most of our other data to fire or theft. Another way is to pay for off site down loading, which is becoming very convenient and more affordable than ever before.
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Monday, April 11, 2011
Inbound Marketing with Social Media
Finding new ways to market your business with out breaking the bank is one goal almost every small business owner wants to find.
During this month I plan to give you some suggestions, links to resources and hard facts to try and help you reach this goal.
Social Media is the new way to reach old and potentially new customers. Inbound Marketing is the future of small business. Outbound marketing may become all but extinct in the next 10 years. It is necessary to have more than a web site these days and to try and find customers via direct mail, e-mail and other media campaigns. Customers are tuning out and avoiding traditional methods business use to use to sell their products and services. New prospects want to find you when they need you, not you find them and interupt their day. They want real value and information even before they are willing to contact you about a service you could provide for them.
As we know most web surfers will make a decision to stay on your site in less than 3 seconds and many web analyst’s are saying that it has moved down now to less than 2 seconds.
So how can you make your web site be the one a service surfer will find and then stop and take a look at?
I will give you a list of 5 key elements here and then elaborate a little for you under the list.
Your business name that corresponds with the work you do: Bill’s Pressure Washing and House Cleaning. You can even use multiple names and have multiple sites if your work is strongly divided, such as All Kitchen Hood Cleaning and Bill’s Pressure Washing. You can still use one phone, just have two separate numbers that are forwarded to a single phone, most phones now will let you know where the number was forwarded from so you will know how to answer the call.
Or you may need to have multiple landing pages added to your web site, designed toward each part of work that you cover. It no longer smart to have just one main page of your web site listing everything you do. You must have that plus a page for your deck cleaning and repair, roof washing and gutter cleaning, house washing, concrete cleaning, Christmas light decorating... any job you do can have its own page which in turn can all link back to one contact entry page.
And with so many new searchers using their phones, iPads and other smaller screen devices you will need to revise your pages to give those viewers information in the way they will see it, only the left top 1/3 of the page.
Ok on to point #2. Now that your surfer has stopped you need to grab them with an offer and call to action. Do you offer same day free estimates? Free gutter cleaning with new roof cleaning? 20 sq ft free concrete cleaning with each 100 ft cleaned?
What ever the offer is, make it stand out, be clear and then have an obvious button to click on for them to take action with. I could write a complete blog just about how to do this, and I will, but for now just know this is what needs to happen to get the contact.
Point #3, to be able to give examples of how you can solve their problem, you first need to know what that problem is! This is where creating pages within your web site with Meta tags and key words to specific words and long tail phrases people to search are become very important. You want some one that searches for “lowest priced house washing in Fulton county” to find your page on house washing, not to be taken to someone else’s page or even to your web site to a page about deck washing or roof cleaning, even though you may do all three, that surfer will have clicked off your site before you can blink. I will expand on this in a future blog post.
#4 - visuals. Visuals are becoming more and more important to surfers; they don’t want to have to read everything they want to know, they want to see it. Pictures tell the story many times much easier and faster than words can. The brain can process pictures over 10 times faster than when reading information that the picture is showing. For example:
These Before and After photos of removing rust from a concrete patio is understood much faster than reading the statements. “We can clean your concrete patio, walk way or drive way from rust, dirt, oil, and tire marks.” or “We can remove rust caused by patio furniture, so on and so forth.” Not that you should not still make the statement, but understand that people scan information, especially text and photos catch the eye. Videos are even better. You can improve the time spent on your site tremendously, sometimes by more than 20% with video. For example if your average page view is currently 6 seconds and you add even one 1 minute video, when it is watched you have increased your view time over 10%. Have multiple videos available that are shorter like 20-30 seconds and you will increase the number of videos a single person will be willing to watch and you can reach view rates of 20-40% higher than your starting 6% rate. Be sure to state near the video how long each one is to increase the chance of even the first view. People will not click on videos they feel are too evolved or will abandon one once it starts if it is moving too slowly or does not start to answer their problem or question.
Lastly give your surfer the option to learn more and engage with you in the future. Offer them newsletters, future discounts if they leave you their email, links to other information they may want to learn about, etc. These are opportunities to be able to contact these people in the future even if they did not click over and fill out your free estimate or contact form. They may just be price shopping and would like the opportunity to try you later if you sent them a discount offer and would be willing to just leave you their email address but not their name, so don’t require it.
I know this has been a little long but I hope you will come back and view the follow up posts that we will have. To be sure you are included, you can join our e-mail list by going to our web site www.soapwarehouse.biz then you will receive newsletters or you can go and like our Facebook page's or subscribe to this blog and you will know when new posts are added. You can even follow us on Twitter.
Thanks for reading.
During this month I plan to give you some suggestions, links to resources and hard facts to try and help you reach this goal.
Social Media is the new way to reach old and potentially new customers. Inbound Marketing is the future of small business. Outbound marketing may become all but extinct in the next 10 years. It is necessary to have more than a web site these days and to try and find customers via direct mail, e-mail and other media campaigns. Customers are tuning out and avoiding traditional methods business use to use to sell their products and services. New prospects want to find you when they need you, not you find them and interupt their day. They want real value and information even before they are willing to contact you about a service you could provide for them.
As we know most web surfers will make a decision to stay on your site in less than 3 seconds and many web analyst’s are saying that it has moved down now to less than 2 seconds.
So how can you make your web site be the one a service surfer will find and then stop and take a look at?
I will give you a list of 5 key elements here and then elaborate a little for you under the list.
- Quality information above the fold and on the left 1/3 of the web page.
- An obvious offer and call to action.
- Examples of how to solve their problems (the reason they have searched)
- Include visuals (especially video)
- Ways to continue to be educated or engage if they want too.
Your business name that corresponds with the work you do: Bill’s Pressure Washing and House Cleaning. You can even use multiple names and have multiple sites if your work is strongly divided, such as All Kitchen Hood Cleaning and Bill’s Pressure Washing. You can still use one phone, just have two separate numbers that are forwarded to a single phone, most phones now will let you know where the number was forwarded from so you will know how to answer the call.
Or you may need to have multiple landing pages added to your web site, designed toward each part of work that you cover. It no longer smart to have just one main page of your web site listing everything you do. You must have that plus a page for your deck cleaning and repair, roof washing and gutter cleaning, house washing, concrete cleaning, Christmas light decorating... any job you do can have its own page which in turn can all link back to one contact entry page.
And with so many new searchers using their phones, iPads and other smaller screen devices you will need to revise your pages to give those viewers information in the way they will see it, only the left top 1/3 of the page.
Ok on to point #2. Now that your surfer has stopped you need to grab them with an offer and call to action. Do you offer same day free estimates? Free gutter cleaning with new roof cleaning? 20 sq ft free concrete cleaning with each 100 ft cleaned?
What ever the offer is, make it stand out, be clear and then have an obvious button to click on for them to take action with. I could write a complete blog just about how to do this, and I will, but for now just know this is what needs to happen to get the contact.
Point #3, to be able to give examples of how you can solve their problem, you first need to know what that problem is! This is where creating pages within your web site with Meta tags and key words to specific words and long tail phrases people to search are become very important. You want some one that searches for “lowest priced house washing in Fulton county” to find your page on house washing, not to be taken to someone else’s page or even to your web site to a page about deck washing or roof cleaning, even though you may do all three, that surfer will have clicked off your site before you can blink. I will expand on this in a future blog post.
#4 - visuals. Visuals are becoming more and more important to surfers; they don’t want to have to read everything they want to know, they want to see it. Pictures tell the story many times much easier and faster than words can. The brain can process pictures over 10 times faster than when reading information that the picture is showing. For example:
These Before and After photos of removing rust from a concrete patio is understood much faster than reading the statements. “We can clean your concrete patio, walk way or drive way from rust, dirt, oil, and tire marks.” or “We can remove rust caused by patio furniture, so on and so forth.” Not that you should not still make the statement, but understand that people scan information, especially text and photos catch the eye. Videos are even better. You can improve the time spent on your site tremendously, sometimes by more than 20% with video. For example if your average page view is currently 6 seconds and you add even one 1 minute video, when it is watched you have increased your view time over 10%. Have multiple videos available that are shorter like 20-30 seconds and you will increase the number of videos a single person will be willing to watch and you can reach view rates of 20-40% higher than your starting 6% rate. Be sure to state near the video how long each one is to increase the chance of even the first view. People will not click on videos they feel are too evolved or will abandon one once it starts if it is moving too slowly or does not start to answer their problem or question.
Lastly give your surfer the option to learn more and engage with you in the future. Offer them newsletters, future discounts if they leave you their email, links to other information they may want to learn about, etc. These are opportunities to be able to contact these people in the future even if they did not click over and fill out your free estimate or contact form. They may just be price shopping and would like the opportunity to try you later if you sent them a discount offer and would be willing to just leave you their email address but not their name, so don’t require it.
I know this has been a little long but I hope you will come back and view the follow up posts that we will have. To be sure you are included, you can join our e-mail list by going to our web site www.soapwarehouse.biz then you will receive newsletters or you can go and like our Facebook page's or subscribe to this blog and you will know when new posts are added. You can even follow us on Twitter.
Thanks for reading.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Blast Off Graffiti Remover
During the month of March, 2011 call us at 800-762-7911 to order your first bottle of Blast Off at a 20% savings, $19.99 instead of $24.99. Just watch our video and see how fast Blast Off works.
Our other graffiti product Shadow Away is also on sale for 20% off.
Shipping costs are additional, but added discounts for multiple units are available.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
How to figure chemical soap dilutions?
I must try and help out customers with this almost everyday so I thought I would make a post out of it and possibly a white paper to send out so I would not have to repeat my self as much and for easy reference.
Plus I can easy get confused or tongue tied on the phone sometimes so it is a good idea to have it all written down some place.
First you will need to know how you are going to apply the chemical mix to start with. Figuring ratios for a pump up sprayer is easy, but the most common piece of equipment for this need is the pressure washer. So you first must know what dilution ratio or fixed mixing ratio your machine puts out. This can be easy for some, but many customers call me all the time saying they have no idea how much chemical their machine takes in and how diluted it is sprayed out.
The first place to look is in your machines owner’s manual. It should give you info like its flow rate or the gallons per minute the machine can generate plus its fixed mixing ratio. This can vary by machine and some larger models may even have a dial that allows the operator to change the mixing ratio. Another place to look if you no longer have your manual or if you bought your equipment second hand and never had one is on the internet by putting you make and model number into the search engine. You can also sometimes go to a local dealer that may have manuals in stock or that can order one for you.
A harder way to figure it out is to use a do it your self method. Take a measured 1 gallon (128 fluid ounces) and place it in your machines chemical mix tank or insert your down stream hose into the gallon container. Turn you machine on and run it dispensing all the water coming out of the wand into a much larger container, such as a 5 gallon bucket. Take care to have the machine set at a low PSI so all the water makes it into the container, a closed 5 gallon tight drum is good for this. Once you have drained the gallon of water out of your chemical mixing tank or with your down stream hose measure the amount of water you ended up with and then divide the amount by 128 (ounces in one gallon) to find out your machines ratio. If you ended up with say 900 ounces you would get the results of 7.03125 which I would consider being a 1:7 ratio. I would run this experiment at least 2-3 times comparing the results and taking the average for best results. Some of our customers have even been known to add food coloring to the original gallon to help them gauge when they have used all of it up.
So lets us say your machine has a permanent setting of 1:7 and you need to take your concentrated chemical and get it up to a 1:25 application ratio. So you need to figure out how much water to add to your chemical, that once it is placed in the chemical mixing tank or suction hose dropped in the container you are down streaming from, your machine will produce the needed 1:25 ratio.
This means we have to use the algebra we never thought we would ever need once we learned it and then forgot back in school and create a mathematical equation to do our work for us.
First we will put the dilution we need to end up with on the left side of the equation (see below)
Next we have the detergent, ‘d’ and water to think about. Say we want to make a 5 gallon container, ‘p’ of chemical product mix. And (p-d) is the amount of water we need in the container and 7p is the additional amount of water that the machine will be adding while dispensing the contents of the container. So we set p=5 gallons and we solve for d and find that d=1.538 gallons of detergent.
1 = ____d_____
25 (p – d) + 7p
Now I am not going to sit here and teach you how to step by step figure an algebra equation that many would not be able to remember just like back in high school. But I am going to give you the link to a web site that has a dilution calculator right there for you.
http://jansson.us/mixingratio-concentration.html#pressureWasherCalculator.
What I suggest is that you go to this site, make the calculations for all the products you regularly use knowing your own machines ratio and our products dilution rates or the ones you use with our products. I would then round the results and make a dilution chart to keep as a mixing guide.
Here are just a few examples from what some customers I know have and the products they use.
Customer #1 uses Brown Derby with cold water that we suggest mixing at 1:50. His machine is set from the factory at a 1:20 ratio and he mixes his premix in 5 gallon pails that sit on his truck.
His equation would look like this:
1 = ______d_______
50 (5 – d) + 20*5
But in the calculator it looks like this:
Detergent Water
Final Mixing Ratio: 1:50
Pressure Washer Mixing Ratio: 1:20
Desired Volume of Pre-mix: 5 gal
Pre-mix Concentration: 41.18/%
Detergent: 2.059gal= 263.5 fl. oz
Water: 2.941 gal= 376.5 fl. oz
Giving this customer the directions to take 2 gallons (rounded down) of our Brown Derby with 3 gallons (rounded up) of water to make his pre mixed 5 gallon pails to down stream with his machine to get a very close 1:50 ratio of cleaner to water.
Let’s take one more case:
Customer #2 uses Mighty Max as a house wash at a 1:20 ratio and his machine is set at a 1:7 ratio. He on the other hand only wants his 5 gallon pails filled with 3 gallons of mix so they are easier to carry and move around the houses. His results would be this:
Detergent Water
Final Mixing Ratio: 1:20
Pressure Washer Mixing Ratio: 1:7
Desired Volume of Pre-mix: 3 gal
Pre-mix Concentration: 38.10%
Detergent: 1.143gal = 146.3 fl. oz
Water: 1.857 gal = 237.7 fl. oz
Or if rounded, 1 ¼ gallon of Mighty Max to 1 ¾ gallons of water, making a slightly greater than 1:20 mixture.
Once you know your normal values you can more easily adjust the mixtures as needed for other considerations like water temperature, air temperature, or amount of product you have left available to do a job. How to estimate soap use for your season will be kept for a later post. Use this winter time off now to make these charts and be better prepared for spring.
Plus I can easy get confused or tongue tied on the phone sometimes so it is a good idea to have it all written down some place.
First you will need to know how you are going to apply the chemical mix to start with. Figuring ratios for a pump up sprayer is easy, but the most common piece of equipment for this need is the pressure washer. So you first must know what dilution ratio or fixed mixing ratio your machine puts out. This can be easy for some, but many customers call me all the time saying they have no idea how much chemical their machine takes in and how diluted it is sprayed out.
The first place to look is in your machines owner’s manual. It should give you info like its flow rate or the gallons per minute the machine can generate plus its fixed mixing ratio. This can vary by machine and some larger models may even have a dial that allows the operator to change the mixing ratio. Another place to look if you no longer have your manual or if you bought your equipment second hand and never had one is on the internet by putting you make and model number into the search engine. You can also sometimes go to a local dealer that may have manuals in stock or that can order one for you.
A harder way to figure it out is to use a do it your self method. Take a measured 1 gallon (128 fluid ounces) and place it in your machines chemical mix tank or insert your down stream hose into the gallon container. Turn you machine on and run it dispensing all the water coming out of the wand into a much larger container, such as a 5 gallon bucket. Take care to have the machine set at a low PSI so all the water makes it into the container, a closed 5 gallon tight drum is good for this. Once you have drained the gallon of water out of your chemical mixing tank or with your down stream hose measure the amount of water you ended up with and then divide the amount by 128 (ounces in one gallon) to find out your machines ratio. If you ended up with say 900 ounces you would get the results of 7.03125 which I would consider being a 1:7 ratio. I would run this experiment at least 2-3 times comparing the results and taking the average for best results. Some of our customers have even been known to add food coloring to the original gallon to help them gauge when they have used all of it up.
So lets us say your machine has a permanent setting of 1:7 and you need to take your concentrated chemical and get it up to a 1:25 application ratio. So you need to figure out how much water to add to your chemical, that once it is placed in the chemical mixing tank or suction hose dropped in the container you are down streaming from, your machine will produce the needed 1:25 ratio.
This means we have to use the algebra we never thought we would ever need once we learned it and then forgot back in school and create a mathematical equation to do our work for us.
First we will put the dilution we need to end up with on the left side of the equation (see below)
Next we have the detergent, ‘d’ and water to think about. Say we want to make a 5 gallon container, ‘p’ of chemical product mix. And (p-d) is the amount of water we need in the container and 7p is the additional amount of water that the machine will be adding while dispensing the contents of the container. So we set p=5 gallons and we solve for d and find that d=1.538 gallons of detergent.
1 = ____d_____
25 (p – d) + 7p
Now I am not going to sit here and teach you how to step by step figure an algebra equation that many would not be able to remember just like back in high school. But I am going to give you the link to a web site that has a dilution calculator right there for you.
http://jansson.us/mixingratio-concentration.html#pressureWasherCalculator.
What I suggest is that you go to this site, make the calculations for all the products you regularly use knowing your own machines ratio and our products dilution rates or the ones you use with our products. I would then round the results and make a dilution chart to keep as a mixing guide.
Here are just a few examples from what some customers I know have and the products they use.
Customer #1 uses Brown Derby with cold water that we suggest mixing at 1:50. His machine is set from the factory at a 1:20 ratio and he mixes his premix in 5 gallon pails that sit on his truck.
His equation would look like this:
1 = ______d_______
50 (5 – d) + 20*5
But in the calculator it looks like this:
Detergent Water
Final Mixing Ratio: 1:50
Pressure Washer Mixing Ratio: 1:20
Desired Volume of Pre-mix: 5 gal
Pre-mix Concentration: 41.18/%
Detergent: 2.059gal= 263.5 fl. oz
Water: 2.941 gal= 376.5 fl. oz
Giving this customer the directions to take 2 gallons (rounded down) of our Brown Derby with 3 gallons (rounded up) of water to make his pre mixed 5 gallon pails to down stream with his machine to get a very close 1:50 ratio of cleaner to water.
Let’s take one more case:
Customer #2 uses Mighty Max as a house wash at a 1:20 ratio and his machine is set at a 1:7 ratio. He on the other hand only wants his 5 gallon pails filled with 3 gallons of mix so they are easier to carry and move around the houses. His results would be this:
Detergent Water
Final Mixing Ratio: 1:20
Pressure Washer Mixing Ratio: 1:7
Desired Volume of Pre-mix: 3 gal
Pre-mix Concentration: 38.10%
Detergent: 1.143gal = 146.3 fl. oz
Water: 1.857 gal = 237.7 fl. oz
Or if rounded, 1 ¼ gallon of Mighty Max to 1 ¾ gallons of water, making a slightly greater than 1:20 mixture.
Once you know your normal values you can more easily adjust the mixtures as needed for other considerations like water temperature, air temperature, or amount of product you have left available to do a job. How to estimate soap use for your season will be kept for a later post. Use this winter time off now to make these charts and be better prepared for spring.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Blast Off Graffiti Remover, no water needed.
Soap Warehouse is introducing it's latest group of products.
Blast Off Graffiti Remover, Shadow Away Graffiti Remover and Cleen Fast commercial spray cleaner.
First we will tell you about Blast Off, it works like nothing else on the market today for removing graffiti.
You spray it on a dry hard surface that has a graffiti tag of paint or permanent marker on it, wait around one minute or less and then just wipe off with a dry cloth.
See for your self, watch our 60 second video. No water is needed, in fact water reduces the effectiveness of the product and the surface needs to be dry before applying Blast Off for it to work properly.
You will not believe how easy graffiti will come off. Blast Off works on metal, plastics, fiberglass, vinyl, tile, grout, composites and many natural stone surfaces. It is great to use on vehicles, metal buildings or machinery casings, in bathrooms on walls, stall dividers, and fixtures.
Blast Off is pH neutral, biodegradable, non corrosive and contains no petroleum distillates and is safe of factory applied paint and powder coats. Easy and very safe to use.
Blast Off can of course not be used on surfaces that have been spray painted, or painted with Latex or Epoxy paints as this is what it is designed to remove. It should also not be used on Screen printed signs as it will remove the dyes as well.
Blast Off is most effective on new graffiti on hard non porous surfaces that have not had any other cleaner used previously to try and remove the tag.
Our next product Shadow Away is for larger graffiti tagged areas on concrete or masonry or when a shadow has been left from trying to remove graffiti with a cleaner that did not entirely finish the job.
Shadow Away is also pH neutral, biodegradable, non corrosive and contains no petroleum distillates and needs to be applied to a dry surface.
Shadow Away will remove shadows or ghosting that has been left behind by other cleaners. It is a spray that is designed to make a gel to get down into the pores of concrete, mansonry and to cling to verticle surfaces. Shadow Away will continue to work and stay on the surface dissolving the paint or marker as long as the area is keep wet with the Shadow Away or Blast Off until it has completely released the stain from the surface. A brush may be used to push the paint around to be sure it has been completely released. A white powder will apear as the product is allowed to dry but that will rinse easily from the surface once you know the painted area has been loosend and or removed by wiping. Once you have released all the paint with Shadow Away you may use a pressure washer to rinse the area clean.
I will talk about Cleen Fast in our next post.
Blast Off Graffiti Remover, Shadow Away Graffiti Remover and Cleen Fast commercial spray cleaner.
First we will tell you about Blast Off, it works like nothing else on the market today for removing graffiti.
See for your self, watch our 60 second video. No water is needed, in fact water reduces the effectiveness of the product and the surface needs to be dry before applying Blast Off for it to work properly.
You will not believe how easy graffiti will come off. Blast Off works on metal, plastics, fiberglass, vinyl, tile, grout, composites and many natural stone surfaces. It is great to use on vehicles, metal buildings or machinery casings, in bathrooms on walls, stall dividers, and fixtures.
Blast Off is pH neutral, biodegradable, non corrosive and contains no petroleum distillates and is safe of factory applied paint and powder coats. Easy and very safe to use.
Blast Off can of course not be used on surfaces that have been spray painted, or painted with Latex or Epoxy paints as this is what it is designed to remove. It should also not be used on Screen printed signs as it will remove the dyes as well.
Blast Off is most effective on new graffiti on hard non porous surfaces that have not had any other cleaner used previously to try and remove the tag.
Our next product Shadow Away is for larger graffiti tagged areas on concrete or masonry or when a shadow has been left from trying to remove graffiti with a cleaner that did not entirely finish the job.
Shadow Away will remove shadows or ghosting that has been left behind by other cleaners. It is a spray that is designed to make a gel to get down into the pores of concrete, mansonry and to cling to verticle surfaces. Shadow Away will continue to work and stay on the surface dissolving the paint or marker as long as the area is keep wet with the Shadow Away or Blast Off until it has completely released the stain from the surface. A brush may be used to push the paint around to be sure it has been completely released. A white powder will apear as the product is allowed to dry but that will rinse easily from the surface once you know the painted area has been loosend and or removed by wiping. Once you have released all the paint with Shadow Away you may use a pressure washer to rinse the area clean.
I will talk about Cleen Fast in our next post.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
National Cleaning Expo coming to Charleston.
The next National Cleaning Expo event will be held September 29th and 30th at the Embassy Suites North Charleston - Airport/Hotel and Convention Center located at 5055 International Blvd., North Charleston, SC 29418.
This event is in the same location and imediately follows the CETA Powerclean show being held the 27th and 28th.
Soap Warehouse was a sponsor of the Tampa NCE event and will also be a sponsor in Charleston.
This event is in the same location and imediately follows the CETA Powerclean show being held the 27th and 28th.
Soap Warehouse was a sponsor of the Tampa NCE event and will also be a sponsor in Charleston.We would like to take this time to congratulate the winner in Tampa of the Soap Warehouse $250.00 product prize coupon, Mr. Brian Welker of 'Great Panes Window Cleaning and Under Pressure Cleaning' from Statesboro, GA.
Soap Warehouse will repeat this $250.00 product prize coupon again at the event in Charleston.
Our main product manufacture I.T.D. will be at the CETA Powerclean show so those that plan on attending on the 28th, for CETA's first ever Industrial Users Day, should be sure to stop by and say hello to them and tell them how much you like their products that we sell.
I.T.D. is a manufacture for many distributors and suppliers across the country not just Soap Warehouse and has a great reputation in the industry.
I hope to see you in Charleston.
I hope to see you in Charleston.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
What is the best truck wash soap?
This is a topic that has been hotly debated in chat rooms, on forum boards and at round table discussions for years. And the fact is there is NO SINGLE best truck wash soap.
The best soap is what ever gives you the best results for the job and regulatory situation your business may come across. For you this may change quite often to hardly ever at all.
Here are 5 things you have to consider and determine for your self, what soap is the best truck wash soap for you for each job.
1. Do I have waste water issues to consider that can not be easily fixed, possibly with just reclamation?
If so you may first want to see if the job can be done effectively with a “Green” product or by using a two step, waste water neutral process. Remembering though that even when using a 100% “Green” product the materials that are being washed off will NOT be “Green” and you will still have some waste water issues to deal with.
2. Is the soap going to require that the washing process take too long and take too many steps to complete to be cost effective?
For instance is the soap a no brush that can just be sprayed on and rinsed off? Or could the soap cause an additional step, like having to apply aluminum brightener, to be required for surfaces dulled by the use of the wash soap or a wax applied? Is the soap a safe finish product that won’t harm poly coats, glass or aluminum?
3. Is the soap easy and safe to use for equipment and operator?
You need to find the right balance for you and the job you are doing. Can the product run though the washer pump or must it be down streamed. Some times you must take added safety measures, goggles, wet suit, water proof shoes, etc to have a chemical strong enough that will do the really tough work fast. Other times the best cleaner can be as safe as plain water.
4. What will be the final cost to use the soap you chose?
Just because a product is expensive or inexpensive should not be the biggest factor in what you choose. You can buy an expensive product and end up using only a few ounces, spending a dollar or two a gallon, compared to another inexpensive product that you must use at full strength that ends up costing you many dollars a gallon. Take the time, Do the math!
5. Finally how good and for how long will the vehicle' look last once washed?
Because face it, if a soap does only a fair job of cleaning, and does not get the results the customer wants, they will find someone else to do the job next time.
Here at Soap Warehouse we have products that will cover all these different needs.
Our #1 seller Brown Derby is a fast, no brush, great results product. But you may have to follow the wash with an aluminum brightener or use it in a two step process on some types of vehicles. You also have to be sure it does not dry on hot metal or glass. But it is #1 for a reason, IT IS A GREAT SOAP that does a great job fast!
We have quite a few no brush "Safe Finish" truck washes, one that even leaves a near wax shine with no wax build up because there is no wax in it, it just looks that way, our Big Rig Truck Brite. It is our best results safe finish for that reason. Not to be out done though by our top selling safe finsh Blue Lighting.
We have a super concentrated ecomonical truck wash like our Truck-N-Tuff aka T-N-T. One 6 gallon pail can be mixed 1:9 to yeild you 54 gallons of product you just spray on then wash off in most cases. Pump it straight through a pressure washer with no added diltution with a low volume fine mist nozzle and you can wash whole fleets of rigs with just a few gallons.
Our two step wash products give you that "dirt just falls off the truck" action plus leaving you with pH neutral waste water that all you will need to do is filter to the required level before discharging into the proper sewer line.
All of our truck washes even those that are DOT hazardous when shipped in thier concentrated forms, once mixed and used at the recomended dilutions rates on their labels are Biodegrdable and all cassified under the USA's CLEAN WATER ACT as non toxic pollutant's.
If you have any questions about any of our truck wash products call us today at 1-800-762-7911.
The best soap is what ever gives you the best results for the job and regulatory situation your business may come across. For you this may change quite often to hardly ever at all.
Here are 5 things you have to consider and determine for your self, what soap is the best truck wash soap for you for each job.
1. Do I have waste water issues to consider that can not be easily fixed, possibly with just reclamation?
If so you may first want to see if the job can be done effectively with a “Green” product or by using a two step, waste water neutral process. Remembering though that even when using a 100% “Green” product the materials that are being washed off will NOT be “Green” and you will still have some waste water issues to deal with.
2. Is the soap going to require that the washing process take too long and take too many steps to complete to be cost effective?
For instance is the soap a no brush that can just be sprayed on and rinsed off? Or could the soap cause an additional step, like having to apply aluminum brightener, to be required for surfaces dulled by the use of the wash soap or a wax applied? Is the soap a safe finish product that won’t harm poly coats, glass or aluminum?
3. Is the soap easy and safe to use for equipment and operator?
You need to find the right balance for you and the job you are doing. Can the product run though the washer pump or must it be down streamed. Some times you must take added safety measures, goggles, wet suit, water proof shoes, etc to have a chemical strong enough that will do the really tough work fast. Other times the best cleaner can be as safe as plain water.
4. What will be the final cost to use the soap you chose?
Just because a product is expensive or inexpensive should not be the biggest factor in what you choose. You can buy an expensive product and end up using only a few ounces, spending a dollar or two a gallon, compared to another inexpensive product that you must use at full strength that ends up costing you many dollars a gallon. Take the time, Do the math!
5. Finally how good and for how long will the vehicle' look last once washed?
Because face it, if a soap does only a fair job of cleaning, and does not get the results the customer wants, they will find someone else to do the job next time.
Here at Soap Warehouse we have products that will cover all these different needs.
Our #1 seller Brown Derby is a fast, no brush, great results product. But you may have to follow the wash with an aluminum brightener or use it in a two step process on some types of vehicles. You also have to be sure it does not dry on hot metal or glass. But it is #1 for a reason, IT IS A GREAT SOAP that does a great job fast!
We have quite a few no brush "Safe Finish" truck washes, one that even leaves a near wax shine with no wax build up because there is no wax in it, it just looks that way, our Big Rig Truck Brite. It is our best results safe finish for that reason. Not to be out done though by our top selling safe finsh Blue Lighting.
We have a super concentrated ecomonical truck wash like our Truck-N-Tuff aka T-N-T. One 6 gallon pail can be mixed 1:9 to yeild you 54 gallons of product you just spray on then wash off in most cases. Pump it straight through a pressure washer with no added diltution with a low volume fine mist nozzle and you can wash whole fleets of rigs with just a few gallons.
Our two step wash products give you that "dirt just falls off the truck" action plus leaving you with pH neutral waste water that all you will need to do is filter to the required level before discharging into the proper sewer line.
All of our truck washes even those that are DOT hazardous when shipped in thier concentrated forms, once mixed and used at the recomended dilutions rates on their labels are Biodegrdable and all cassified under the USA's CLEAN WATER ACT as non toxic pollutant's.
If you have any questions about any of our truck wash products call us today at 1-800-762-7911.
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