Soap Warehouse Blog

During this month of Business Planning in December, we will take a look again of how to use a customer referral program and how to analysis its progress or failure. I know this will be a long post, but please bear with me.

First of course is to all ready have a referral program in place. Next if you have been using more than one type of reward or style of gaining a referral these must be segmented out.

Next you must count the number and type of responses you got from these referrals and how much you monetarily gained from each type.

Once you have this data you will be able to make predictions for the coming year and institute changes that could improve your results.

Let us take the following results as an example to be able to follow how a referral evaluation might be done.

Say company ABC PowerWash serviced 250 customers during the past year.

Of those 250, 200 where residential and 50 commercial. And of the residential 75% where repeat customers from some time in the last three years 45% in the last 12 months.

And with the 50 commercial customers half are contract customers that you see on a monthly or at least on a quarterly basis with the rest being new or only the occasional once or twice a year customer.

Of the 200 residential customers only 20 (10%) participated in any kind of referral program the entire year: an average of 5 per quarter.

10 handed out your cards and got you 16 new customers from them, with you giving your old customers a $25 credit card gift card as a thank you. Total spent in gift cards $400. Say these 16 jobs brought you an average of $800 per job with a 20% profit that would have been $2,560.00. Thus it cost you 6.4% of your profit to get this work, 2560/400= 6.4. Or 2560-400=2160/16=$135 profit per job.

Now in the next few months (90 days) if you tested out a new incentive offering half of your customers a $50 card instead of the $25. If in this case you saw an increase in the number of booked referrals from the higher card offer you would be able to see if the amount of increased business was worth the expense.

For example you offer the next 20 customers (10 of each offer amount): 2 customers got you jobs at the old $25 rate but 5 customers (1/2 of those offered) got you jobs at the higher $50 per rate. Leaving the average job cost and profit the same let us look at the numbers.

2 x $800 = $1,600 x .20 = $320-$50= left you $270/2 or $135 per job for your profit.  The same 6.4% cost of return that you had this past year with this same offer. Now let us look at the referrals offered at the higher card amount.

5 x $800 = $4,000 x .20 = $800 / $250 card cost = or 3.2%. You might think that was better but look at the total profit per job, 800-250=550/5=$110 profit per job after paying out the cards. But did you lose in the long run? If you go with the set amount that only 2 out of every 10 customers will take the $25 card and give you a referral, that means you will miss the other 3 at the $110 profit for each.

You need to figure out if those potential three new customers a quarter that will cost you the extra $25 per job in profit at the initial job is worth it to you. Could be if you have lots of open time and you need that $330 cash flow for your family. Plus if they become a returning customer or better yet become a free word of mouth referer. So you increased the number of old customers that participated from 20% to 50% but did slightly reduced your profit per job from the year before for these initial jobs with the higher offer.

Now let us look at the other 10 residential referrals from last year that you had. 6 had given you names of a friend or family member that booked a job because you offered them a free service on their next years business (they had turned down the $25 card offer prior to your $100 offer), that was to say, you offered them what you would have normally charged a customer $100 for (but costs you $40 to provide) to be free at their next visit. 

Again let us use the same average price and profit for these jobs. So 6 jobs x $800 =  $4,800 x .20 = $960 / $240 (the actual cost to you) = 25% of the cost came out of your profit. This looks like a much larger cut out of your profit, but look at the profit per job, 960-240=720/6= $120 profit per job. It is actually better than the $50 gift card, since the out of pocket expense is $10 different, $40 vs. $50. While you might think giving away free services wouldn't be smart you can see it could be better on the bottom line by bringing you more work. But since they had already turned down your $25 card offer for the free service is this offer of free service something you want to keep? No real way to tell.

So as stated earlier for the next three months you offer half your customers the $25 card and the other half $50 gift card and don't make the $100 free service available at all and you still got the 5 new customers. Since you have no idea how many of these 5 (or more) you would have gotten if you had kept the $100 value offer you will just have to use the ROI of $110 per job as the result. Your next 3 month test may have to be the $50 card vs. the $100 free service offer.

Now to the last 4 referrals from the previous year. These where from customers that you had not given any incentive too (maybe you had already given them a great deal, or the job was very small and you did not want to invest any more of your profit into them) but because of your work they had referred new customers to you any way, six in fact. So the cost of a referral program was nothing, and profited you $960, but these customers consisted of less than 2% of your total client base, which is the national average of unsolicited word of mouth referrals.

Now to the commercial jobs. Of the 50 as stated above 25 are contract customers that get special pricing and you gained only two new customers as direct word of mouth referrals from them. Both were non incentive referrals since there was no incentive referral program in place for the commercial customers. So the profit you gained from these new customers was say $3,000 total for the year. Of the other 25, 12 where occasional customers which brought you no referrals and next 11 where new ones you had spent time finding, visiting and getting yourself at a cost of over 50 man hours during the year. The final two were the new referrals your contract customers brought you equaling your 50 total commercial customers for the year.

So let us say you are thinking about expanding your referral program in to your commercial side to see what could be the benefit. You also choose to try the $50 gift card as your incentive. In the next three months this was your result: of 12 customers offered, you got 2 new referrals, one being a new contract customer and the other will probably only be an occasional once or twice a year job. Already you have gained the same number of new referrals that you got in total the previous year. If the one contract customer will give you a profit of $200 per month and the occasional job bring you and estimated $550 of profit for the year you gained 12 x 200 =  $2,400 + $550 = $2,950 / $100 (gift cards) 2.9%, or 2950-100=2850/13 (jobs)= $219.23 average profit per job. And since the previous year you only got the two new contract customers by the free word of mouth method you can look at the $3,000 they brought vs. the estimated if the trend holds of 2 new customers a quarter to bring in around $6,600 over they year. 12 + 9 + 6 + 3= estimate of 30 jobs x $220 average profit = $6,600 estimate. This could be over twice the amount you received with no referral plan in place. It could be more or less depending on when they come on board and if they are monthly or only an occasional customer. And if you can handle the increase in your work load.

I hope these examples has you looking over your referral plan and running tests to see what profit increases and improved cash flow you can make this next year in your business. Happy New Year.

Do a Competitor Comparison Chart to see where your business stands in your market.

First list who your competitors are by name and address. Do they compete with you in just one area, for just one service or type of customer? Do you only have competition with one other business for one service by five for another? You might want to switch your service emphasis more to the one with less competition for a possible larger profit?

Not all of you competitors may be easily recognizable. They may not be listed in the yellow pages, have a physical office, or even have applied for a business license that you can reference.

Look in your own mail for coupons for those advertising to do your services, keep your eyes open for signs, vehicles, other print advertisements. Check on line by doing a search by service name and location name. For example: "Roof Cleaning" + "Snellville, GA". I just did and got over 4,000 results, basic "pressure washing" was even higher, 6,780. But more specific services like "exterior house washing" + "Snellville, GA", got only 49 results. So who's name keeps coming up? Those are your competitors.

Just because some may be small does not mean that they are not a threat to you. Nor does the fact that your area might have some big players mean that there is not enough business for you all. What you need to find out is what each player is doing so that you can do it better and gain a larger and hopefully a more profitable share of what is out there.

Here is an example analysis grid. Make changes to headings and cell sizes as needed. For example: Many may not need a selection row. Fill out the me section to compare. You may also have to break down some cells in to sub cells, like "Service" in to multiple services. You might also first fill in what the competitors have to be better able to fill in ours to match "apples to apples". Do not be afraid if you find that you have something no one else does. That may not be bad at all but in fact a great marketing and value point for new customers.

Table 1: Competitive Analysis 

After you finish filing it out you will have a better understanding of who your competition is, what a customer may see in them and how to improve your postion to these customers to gain their business.

We are starting out November asking the users of our most popular truck wash product "Brown Derby" to send us comments, testimonials, before and after photos, results you made happen for your clients and even video clips telling us what you like about using Brown Derby.

And as appreciation for the responses, we will offer up to 20% off product costs on your next order placed before December 31, 2011. Good on any of our products not just Brown Derby. This offer of course can not be combined with other customer discounts or used on shipping. Amount of discount will vary between 10-20% depending on the amount and type of the response.

We hear all the time from our customers that they love using Brown Derby but we would like to learn specific information, a detailed account and results for clients so that we can use them later in promoting this great product.

So if you have used "Brown Derby" in the past or are using it now, weather you bought it directly from us or even just through one of our customers, go to http://bit.ly/BrownDerbyStories and tell us your Brown Derby stories.

As we mentioned in our last post the Power Washers of North America was set to have their annual convention in Nashville, TN and it was a great success. We introduced four new products, held booth drawings, donated two $100 product coupons as door prizes and two cases of our new Dyn-O-Coil as auction items.

The PWNA hosted almost 100 contractors from all over the country, even as far as Hawaii and over 12 vendor exhibitors at the Hotel Preston. Although the weather was cold and gloomy the accommodations were well received and did not require that anyone leave the hotel during the entire event. Which was convenient because the time was packed morning to night with courses, learning sessions, snack and chat lunchs, and trade show vendor times. There was even a special cocktail hour, award event and following meet and greet Saturday night.

If you are a contractor and are not a member of the PWNA you should really think about joining The PWNA.

Here are a few shots from the event:

The 2011 Power Washers of North America convention is next week. It will be held this year in Nashville, TN, October 20th-22nd.

Soap Warehouse will be there as an exhibitor and is also a Gold Sponsor of this years event.

We will be introducing some new products, a few that are to full fill needs that our customers and past trade show participants indicated that they wanted.

First is our Dyn-O-Coil Mineral Scale Preventer System. Many contractors complain about how their hot water machines get fouled and had problems stemming from hard water issues. So with that in mind this new product will inhibit scale crystal formation and even remove existing scale on coils, in a pump, on valves etc. with no harm to the machines parts.

Just a 1/2 ounce of preventative per gallon of soap mix is all that is needed, 1 quart per 55 gallons of water for prevention or 1 gallon per 55 gallons of water to work on removal of existing scale buildup.

Soap Warehouse will be giving away 4 gallons a day as a booth drawing during the event as well as donating 2 cases to the PWNA auction to raise money for the organization.

Next is a product for roof washers that were having trouble with their bleach solutions staying long enough on steep pitched roofs that they did not want to be up on. This product we are calling "Hang Ten". Because this solution additive will thicken to hold the chemical on the roof even at a high degree of roof angle. All that is needed is for "Hang Ten" to be 5% of the solution mix. Ex: 1 quart (32 ounces) per 5 gallons (640 ounces). The quart being 5% of the 5 gallons.

Hang Ten can be mixed into straight 12.5% sodium hypochlorite or into a dilution. It even has aded surfactents such that other cleaners should not be needed in most cases. But it can be used with our product Citrus X-terior if added cleaners and fragrance is desired.

Hang Ten will not thin out over time, in fact it may get slighty thicker than its original thickness at 30 minutes out. The normal rest time we suggest after mixing and before use.

We also have two new Kitchen Exhaust cleaners; "Bonzi" and "Hood Cling" These are for our Hood cleaning customers that either wanted a product like another "Bonzi" product that is out on the market or one that had longer cling time on veritcal surfaces but with out adding any foam component to get it.

Both are sodium hydroxide products and should be very price competitive with others in todays marketplace.

Be sure to stop by our booth at the PWNA for a special thank you gift, to register for a chance to win some Dyn-O-coil for your self or to order product at show special savilngs.

See you there. To read more about Dyn-O-Coil or to order

How Hard Water Effects Pressure Washing 

For most of the country hard water is a way of life, the only difference may be in the degree that you have it. So how does hard water effect pressure washing and what can be done about it?

First lets us discuss where hard water is found and where it comes from.

Water hardness is rated by GPG - grains per gallon, and hard water, higher than 1 GPG includes 85% of the country. The amount of hardness will vary from slight to extreme, see map.

Hardness Levels

• Soft water – less than 1 grain per gallon
• Slightly hard – 1 to 3.5 grains per gallon
• Moderately hard – 3.5 to 7 grains per gallon
• Hard – 7 to 10.5 grains per gallon
• Very hard – 10.5 and higher grains per gallon

Rain water dissolves minerals present in rocks as it passes though the ground down to the water table, aquifers and wells. Carbon dioxide being heavier than air also combines with rain water underground and helps convert the carbonates of calcium and magnesium into bicarbonates. These bicarbonates being soluble in water cause hardness. These bicarbonate salts exist in the form of positive and negative ions which can be used, as you will see later, in ways to help incapacitate or remove them by certain methods, one being ion replacement.

Disadvantages of hard water

For the pressure washing contractor the first effect of hard water is on the soaps and detergents. Because soap and detergents have an ionic nature, when they dissolve in hard water, each soap molecule reacts with any calcium ions, limits the formation of lather and instead forms precipitates or scum. This scum essentially renders the detergent ineffective, so much more soap is needed to clean if used with hard water.

The second major problem with hard water is that when it is heated, it will deposit solid calcium carbonate or lime scale. Scale is a poor heat conductor and in a hot water pressure washers scale insulates water from the coils heat source. For many pressure washers a hot water machine is a necessary time saver, since heat increases the effectiveness of soap and helps break down and dissolve the contaminates they are trying to remove for their customers. But the scale produced in their machines when using hard water will very quickly start to reduce the machines effectiveness to heat and maintain hot water as well as restrict water flow in the other pressure washing equipment, even to the point of changing the flow rate Gallons per minute or PSI that the machine should be producing. As flow is restricted it places a heavier strain on the pumps motor which can cause early wear and failure.

Water Softeners

To reduce the negative effects of hard water, many ways have been developed to remove hardness. These techniques range from adding softening chemicals, to either the soaps, the water or both, in order to avoid having to use larger quantities of detergent and stop lime scale. Portable filters can be used to filter water running through the machine to change the ions to prevent scale build-up on the heating element. Water softeners work using a technique called ion exchange, whereby calcium and magnesium ions are replaced by sodium ions, which do not cause hardness. Even separate machines containing magnets are now being used to alter the molecules action in the water just before entering the machine to inhibit scale build up with out using chemicals at all, just electricity.

You may already be using softeners

Soap manufactures are very much aware of this problem and many add softeners to their chemical mixes without the customers not even knowing it. These softening benefits may be communicated in the detergents description with phrases such as "superior ingredients", "great suds action", "works well in hard water" "cleans well in cold water". Just like car wash patrons that are not aware that they are probably getting extra sheeting and quick drying chemicals added to their final rinse whether or not they are paying extra for them, just because the car wash owner wants you to be happy with a dry car and come back again. And since these chemicals are not hazardous they are not mandated to be listed on a MSDS or reported to consumers.

Local water departments may also be adding softeners to the water supply that you are not aware of. In known hard water areas ground waters may be treated by lime softening, as are many hard surface waters, or by ion exchange softening, in which calcium and magnesium ions are exchanged for sodium ions as the water passes through a bed of ion-exchange resin. The only way to know how hard your local water is, is to have it tested or read up on it in the latest water departments federal reports. Most are easy to find or copies supplied when requested as long as you live or own a business in their jurisdiction.

Costs to create a balance

You as the pressure washing professional must gather information and then weigh the options available to find the most cost effective way to combat hard water and it effects on your equipment and bottom line.

Here are some numbers we have gathered from speaking with owners of pressure washing equipment businesses that also handle pressure washing repair.

The pressure washer part most effected: the hot water coil, second is the pump itself.

The time and cost of de-scaling a coil; time 4 hours, cost average $260.

Cost of replacing a coil $800 - $1,800 depending on size and brand of machine.

Infrequency of run time is a larger factor in regards to scale build up compared to the length of run time. In other words you can't just say you should clean your coils after every 100 hours of run time. A machine that was run 100 hours in 5 hour long sessions all in one month will have much less scale build up than a machine that ran 100 hours used in only 1-2 hour sessions that covered a 6 month long time period. It seems one point is the frequency of heating and cooling, along with the length of time that water circulates through the machine, that can play a role in build up. For instance here is a photo of the inside of a home owners pump that was used only twice but three months apart and when the owner pulled it out again 6 months later was having trouble with stuck valves.

You can work from the front of the problem and buy soaps with added softeners, buy additional softeners to add to your chemical mix or water tanks, attach filters or electromagnet systems as water comes into your machines or on the back side just periodically use coil cleaners or pay to flush the scale from out of your machine to deal with hard water. Any way you go, costs will occur. It is just up to you to evaluate your options and find the most cost effective solution. Because the only other recourse is to ignore the facts about hard water and pay for it over and over again in mechanical repairs and replacement costs.

Soap Warehouse has just added a new product to our line called Dyn-O-Coil. This is a additive to use in your mix water or any soap product that will prevent or even remove scale deposits over time. This product is in addition to our So-Soft water softener and our Non-Acid Coil Cleaner that we introduced earlier this year. Call to order 1-800-762-7911 or view pricing on line in our catalog.

This is for everyone that says "they do not have the time" to put into Social Media to have it work for them. Now granted this 10 minutes is only after you have done the initial set up work and yes that does take a little time, but you can spend 10-15 minutes once a day for a first week or two to be set up to follow all these short steps. I will give you the list then show you where to go to set each one up.

2 minutes: Check Twitter to listen about your company and products.
1.5 minutes: Scan Google Alerts for your company name, products or executives names.
1 minutes: Check Facebook stats at your Companies Page
3 minutes: Look for questions and answer at least one a day
2.5 minutes: Use Google Reeder to check other sites like Flicker, Digg and others.

Total 10 minutes a day.

Now the longer you spend at some, like with Q&A's, that will be to your advantage. You may have days where you find more than one or two questions that would be good for you to answer so realistically you may spend 20-30 minutes on these five items on some days. Or you may only do 4 for the 5 like I do most of the time.

1. Checking Twitter. Well first you have to have a Twitter account. And that is easy and free by going to www.twitter.com. Once you are set up you can then use one of two tools; TweetDeck or Twitter Search.

For TweetDeck you must go to their web site www.tweekdeck.com and sign up, it's free and then set up your scan board. I like this because once it is turned on at the beginning of the day every time a new item is posted to any of the categories you have it set to show, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter etc. the posts will flash up in the top right corner of your screen and ping you. If you are at your computer you can glance up to see if it is a post you would like to comment on. Remember sites like Facebook are about relationships not selling so just making comments keeps you relevant to your FB friends.

Now Twitter Search is much easier and you can use it as much or as little as you want each day. Just go to the Home Page and up in the search bar put in your companies name. Be sure to place quotation marks around it or you will get posts that contain all the words themselves not just in the order of your business name. For example Joe's Pressure Washing will return "Joe's" "pressure" "washing" and "pressure washing" instead of the "Joe's Pressure Washing" that you want. Or you can go to the advanced search and enter it there before saving. You might also want to chose some that are close, that your customers might enter instead and incorrectly, like "Joe's Power Washing" "Joe's Power Wash" and remember capitalization does not matter. You can also list product names if your business has them, like ours does. After each search you can click at the top on the "Save this Search" button if you where happy with the results. Once it is saved when you come back each day. Look just above the posts and click on the "Searches" tab. A scrolled down menu will appear with all the searches you have saved.  Click on which ever one you want to check at that time. You can also keep up to date with temporary items and delete them once they are over.

2. Scan Google Alerts. This is very similar to the Twitter searches we just discussed.  You go to www.google.com/alerts to set them up. You list what you want to know about that is coming out on the web and then set it as to how often to send the results to your email account. I have it set for as it happens but I have over 10 alerts, and I might check it a few times during the day. You may only have a few you will need to set for, so once a day or even once a week may be fine. But remember the longer you wait the longer your response time will be to react to anything negative. You will need to have your business name as well as your own name. For those I would set it for all results. But for topics you might want to set it for Only the best results like I do for "restaurant fire", "power washing", "pressure washing", "graffiti removal" and again do not forget the quote marks. You can also set it for whole phrases as well like "fleet truck washing". You can also use a special email account just for these alerts so you do not clutter up your regular account or have your email filters set so that any email coming from Google Alerts goes into a separate folder so it is easy to open and scan them. This is what I do. I also have alerts set for topic phrases to gather information for my blogs.

3. Check Facebook Stats. Go to your company page on Facebook. On the top right hand under the bar, click on the Edit page button, when this comes up on the left side there is a list and near the bottom of the list is a bar graph called Insights. This will give you a lot of valuable information about who is coming and using your site. It can tell you how many daily, weekly and monthly users are using your site. It also shows what posts got interactions. Enabling you to go back to the post and continue the conversation.

4. Search for questions to answer. You need to put your self out there as an authority in your business or just to interact. For this you can use sites like Ask.com at http://www.ask.com/answers/ and click on the Ask People tab, at Facebook Questions http://www.facebook.com/questions/ see what your friends are asking and answer or ask your own question with poll options. With Yahoo answers you can get out into the www audience not just the people you know and this can bring even more people to you. This is the one I use the most. Go to http://answers.yahoo.com/ and set your account up. and then to browse categories. Most of you will find questions to answer in the Home and Garden section. Found one asking about paint colors, if bleach hurts vinyl siding, what size pressure washer to buy to start up in the business and how much should an average pressure washing job cost. All these and more would have been great for many of you to answer. You make your comments and then you are able to link to web pages to back up your answers. You can link to your own website but do not use it all the time or as the sole link. Anyone can click on your avatar with the answer and find your information that you set up when you joined and this is where you need to list your web site and company information. Also if you have good answers, the person that asked the questions chooses the best answer, then you get a better ranking and more people will listen to what you have to say. You can also create a network and gain fans.

5. Google Reader found at https://www.google.com/reader/ this is good if you already have a Google e-mail account or want to get one just to have your Google alerts sent to it and to use the reader. You can link your web site , your competitors sites, Youtube, Flicker any site you want to visit to check on what is new.

GATS as is it more affectionately known, has come and gone for another year. This past week in Dallas TX, truckers and trucking enthusiasts came to see what was new in the industry, look at cool decked out trucks, and listen to country music singer and song writer Jamey Johnson perform.

GATS East is one of the three top trucking shows held every year in the US. And although Soap Warehouse was not an exhibitor this time, we have been in the past and we continued our 4 year run participating in Big Rig Network's Sweepstakes, with drawings held daily at their booth.

Soap Warehouse gave one lucky winner per day a 5 gallon tight drum of concentrated truck wash. Winners could chose between five different washes: Brown Derby, Big Rig Brite, Blue Lightning, White Lightning or Truck-N-Tuff.

This years winners for the first time were both from TX; Roger Horton of Grandury and Jack Currie of Kennard.

We congratulate them on being our winners and look forward to them using one of our great truck wash chemicals to clean their rigs.

Our next event to exhibit will be in October in Nashville at the Power Washers of North America Convention. But our next Truck Show will not be until next Spring we we will once again be back at the Mid America Trucking Show in Louisville, KY. We will look forward to seeing you there.

This time of year, is what we often call the “dog days” of summer, many parts of the country have been sweltering under conditions of oppressive heat and high humidity. But suffering from extreme heat can be preventable.

Summer heat is also an added hazard to your job. Water is the largest component of the human body, making up 50 to 70% of the body’s weight and as the temperatures climb so does your bodies need to replenish that water. 

6-8 eight ounce glasses of water a day is what the normal person needs for their body to function properly, but you need even more when you have added factors like heat and exertion that are causing you to loose extra water, through perspiration. 

You should always drink an extra glass of water before starting any physical activity, in side or out. This will help keep your heart rate and body temperature lower. Water should be continued to be consumed at a higher than normal rate if your physical activity continues for more than 30 minutes, especially in high temperatures and humidity. 

Two main functions of water in the body are temperature regulation and the removal of waste products. If you are not needing to urinate more often, even though you think you are drink enough water, then you probably are not, and may risk becoming over heated and experience heat stroke or heat exhaustion. List to recognize the difference will be given a little later on.

First; following these guidelines can help you maintain proper hydration during work and exercise in hot weather:

1. Weigh your self without clothes before and after a normal days work, especially during hot weather. For each pound of body weight lost you should drink two cups of fluid. This should give you an idea of what you have been missing, so you can make changes to your routine.

2. Drink a rehydration beverage containing sodium to quickly replenish lost body fluids. The beverage should also contain 6-8 percent glucose of sucrose (carbohydrate). But do not replace all normal water consumption with these. Do not drink sodas or coffee as beverages with lots of sugar or caffeine dehydrate you.

3. Drink 2.5 cups of water 2 hours before out side work or exercise.

4. Drink 1.5 cups of water 15 minutes just prior to working or working out.

5. Drink at least one cup of fluid (water or drink beverage) every 15 to 20 minutes during working or physical activity.

6. Weigh your self every night to see how you are doing and replenish, with water, the amount you need to get back in balance. See #1.

As the weather gets hotter your body loses more water. You should drink additional amounts per hour as the temperatures rise to compensate for this loss.

Drink water even if you do not feel thirsty; by the time you do feel thirsty your body could loss between 2 to 5 cups of water, even more when out doors. When you are dehydrated your attention and concentration can decrease by 13% and short term memory by 7%. Dehydration can increases accidents!

How to tell the difference between Heat Stroke and Heat Exhaustion:

While heat exhaustion is a overheating of the body, heat stroke is a severe condition that can result in bodily harm.

It is heat exhaustion if a person shows a marked improvement after drinking small amounts of plain water and being placed in the shade, heat stroke victims may not.

Heat stroke comes on faster than heat exhaustion with symptoms such as dry mouth, gaunt or pasty appearance, vomiting or lapse into unconsciousness.

Although heat exhaustion can exhibit a rise in body temperatures a temp over 103° is at heat stroke level.

A person with heat exhaustion may be perspiring while a heat stroke victim might be dry because their bodies ability to sweat has broken down and is not functioning properly.

A person with heat stroke may also be having mild hallucinations or show signs of mental incapacity prior to unconsciousness, such as not being able to follow simple directions or answer easy questions.

A person on low sodium diets or if they have lost large amounts of fluids containing salt, such as sweating, or are on certain medications are more likely to experience heat stroke vs. heat exhaustion and then giving these victims fluids containing electrolytes and sodium such as a sport drink will be of a higher benefit than that of just water.

How to help someone with heat exhaustion or heat stroke:

• First move victim to a cool or shaded area and administer water.

• Loosen any constricting clothing or extra layers of clothing.

• Check victims temperature if possible, note if they are sweaty or dry.

• You can place cool towels or wet clothes on the head, chest, midsection, and arms to reduce body temp, but do not use ice.

• Ask the person simple questions and to follow simple commands, such as what day it is, their children's name, to touch their finger to their nose, or count back from ten.

• If you suspect heat stroke call for help immediately, lie the person down with legs slightly raised, if conscious allow them to sit up to drink fluids, ideally a sport drink, every 5 - 10 minutes until help arrives.

Keep your self safe when working in the heat and hope for a break in the temperatures.

Just wanted to let everyone know what a great time we had down in Tampa at the end of July. Normally you do not find large industry events going on during the summer months because it is the "Busy Time" for most pressure washing buisnesses. But some times it is great to take a few days off during the rat race of the season to step back, take a breather, and enjoy meeting and learning with fellow pressure washers.

This was held at the MainSail Suites and Conference Center, a stones throw away from the Tampa International Airport and just a bridge away from the beaches of St. Petersburg and Clearwater. The main days were Friday and Saturday, but for some things started on Thursday for intense learning with a Roof Cleaning Certification Class. More Certification classes continued thru the weekend for Wood Restoration, Seal n Lock paver sealer, Waste Water Control, UMACC's Safety Certifcation with a second Roof Cleaning Certification to finish things off.

In the Main Ball room, there was a General Admission program that included speakers with topics that covered direct mail marketing, illegal discrimination, DOT hazmat regulations, roof cleaning safety as well as a few motivational speakers. On Saturday morning there were multiple hands on product and equipment demonstrations that were put on by the many exhibitors that had tables and booths set up in the front entrance halls. During the two days there were also other pay to learn classes that covered things like Graffiti Removal, Commercial Kitchen Cleaning, Pressure Washing Basics, Equipment Maintenance and Fleetwashilng.

But it was not all work, Friday night the NCE had a dunking booth to kick off raising money for their chosen charity of the event, Hillsborough County's "Make-A-Wish" Foundation. During the weekend they raised just over $4,000 for this charity. Most attendees went out Friday night to the Causeway to "Whiskey Joe's" restaurant and bar for food and fun, and some stayed on after the end of the event on Saturday to take in a day over at the local beaches.

Soap Warehouse is proud to be able to help sponsor, exhibit and attend events such as this throughout the year. Our next show will be the PWNA (Power Washers of North America) Convention in October held in Nashville, TN. Hope to see you there.