Soap Warehouse Blog

Over 48% of mobile users, use their device to search and find information about local companies and products while they are out shopping to help them with their buying decision. And out of those 48%, 53% make a decision to purchase or order services because of their search.

This confirms that not only do you need a presence on the internet that is optimized so potential customers can find you, it is imperative that once these mobile viewers find you they can see and understand your content so they might chose you over the competition.

It does not matter if you have spent hundreds of dollars on a web design, you need to keep up to date and be sure now that your web site is mobile freindly.

Here are a few articles and tutorials I have found that may help you. And if you are not the tech savy one, make sure your web designer if earning his keep.

http://blogs.sitepoint.com/7-tips-to-make-your-web-site-mobile-friendly/

http://webdesignledger.com/tools/11-excellent-solutions-for-making-your-website-mobile-friendly

http://www.noupe.com/how-tos/tutorials-for-making-your-website-mobile-friendly.html

http://www.mikeindustries.com/blog/archive/2005/07/make-your-site-mobile-friendly this one is much older but still has some good info.

So do not put this on the back burner just because you think you are generating enought leads from your current web site. Go ahead and mobilize yourself today.

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.

1. Quality information above the fold and on the left 1/3 of the web page.
2. An obvious offer and call to action.
3. Examples of how to solve their problems (the reason they have searched)
4. Include visuals (especially video)
5. Ways to continue to be educated or engage if they want too.

With #1, it must be immediately clear to the viewer that they have found a site that matched their search no mater what it was; example seeing a house being washed for house washing, a painter painting a room for a paint company, etc.

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, at the top right of this page, and you will receive newsletters or you can go and like our Facebook page's or subcribe to this blog and you will know when new posts are added. You can even follow us on Twitter. All buttons are at the top of this blog page. Thanks for reading.

We spent this past week in Louisville, KY at the Mid America Trucking Show.

 Our booth 62124 in the West Wing at MATS (Mid America Trucking Show)

We had over 1000 attendees stop at our booth during the three day event. We had 6 winners of 5 gallons of our Big Rig Brite truck wash, 18 winners of a water calculator and with our prize wheel gave a way over 800 other smaller prizes including 50 of our very popular "Brown Derby" hats in honor of our #1 selling "Brown Derby" truck wash.

We also participated for the third year in Bricktown Media's, Big Rig Network MATS Sweepstakes, giving away more 5 gallon tight drums of Big Rig Brite truck wash. The winners were Darrell West

  and Matt Jarvis

Show Specials will still be available until the end of April so if you are in need of some great products and have never tried us before you can visit our page of Show Speicals and buy some today.

 

I am sure there are more than 5 but these are the top ones contractors need to consider in making the decision to buy early and buy as much as they can now before the main cleaning season gets started rather then to wait or to purchase in smaller volumes during this year.

1. Buying in volume saves.

2. Buying before fuel costs rise that will increase all costs.

3. Keeps your costs stable for your customers.

4. Buying concentrated product vs. RTU saves on storage.

5. Buying in kits vs. single 5 gallon tight drums.

When you know you will use 5-6 kits of product during the year buying all or most of it early will save you money. Most freight companies charge the same for 0-300 lbs of product to be shipped so for most of you that would be at least 3 kits to make 3-6 55 drums of concentrated product or 6 - 5 gallon tight drums. Plus the next 300 lbs can be a fraction of the cost of the first 300. For instance 2 kits bought three times last year to IN cost one of our customers $2,220.44. If he buys at least 3 kits at todays shipping cost it will be $1,042.89 and even if shipping does not go up he will save at least one complete shipping charge of between $135-$140 this year. And if he could purchase all 6 now product and freight would only be $1,961.08 saving him over $259.36 from last year. He would be able to hold his prices stable to his customers and since our products are concentrated, he only needs to mix them as he needs them saving storage space he would have used if the product were all RTU (ready to use).

You can save even more if you normally buy single 5 gallon tight drums of product to go ahead and buy kits instead and place one large order. One customer in MI bought from us 5 times last year a total of 5 - 5 gallons of Mighty Max, 6 - 5 gallons of Brown Derby, and a few other single 5 gallons of things like Aluma Brite and Concrete Cleaner. His total expense last year, with most orders shipping UPS Ground, was $1,484.62. Now if this year he bought one kit of Might Max for $280 that would make him 11 - 5 gallons (enough for two years, or less if he increases his business), 1 Brown Derby super concentrate for $150 which will also make 11 - 5 gallons, plus the 2 Aluma Brite for $130 and Concrete Cleaner for $50 that order would weigh 290 lbs plus the pallet keeping it just under 300 lbs for a total shipping cost via R&L just once of only $163.58, for a grand total of $773.58 for at least a years worth of product saving himself $711.04, plus having twice as much of two products.

If you would like us to evaluate what you purchased last year and make a recomendation of what you could buy now to save yourself money in the long run call us at 1-800-762-7911.

It is almost time for the largest trucking show in the US to be held again in Louisville, KY. This year it will run for three days March 31st to April 2nd at the Kentucky Expo Center.  Mid America Trucking Show web site.

There is scheduled to be over 1000 exhibitors of which Soap Warehouse will be one. We plan on introducing and demonstrating our newest line of products, graffiti cleaners to the trucking industry.

'Blast Off' will be demonstrated once an hour for almost the entire length of the show. This easy to use product is perfect for the individual O/O trucker to have in his rig to clean any painted graffiti tags that might pop up on his trailer while out on the road. Blast Off information video

'Shadow Away' is more for exterior building cleaning of graffiti from off of brick and other porous surfaces that graffiti makers may have tagged or to use when some other cleaner was unable to remove a tag leaving a shadow behind.

Soap Warehouse in Booth 62124 in the West Wing will also be having daily drawings for 'Big Rig Brite' truck wash and will once again have a prize wheel in the booth with prizes of smaller product samples, trucker gifts and our famous 'Brown Derby' hats that so many attendees wanted last year.

For information about all our great products at Soap Warehouse or to pre register for our booth drawings, Registration.

See you at the show.

 

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 easier reference.

Plus I can easy get confused or tongue tied 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. 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 for got 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, bookmark it, 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 some examples from what a few customers I know have and the products they use as some examples.

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: : Pressure Washer Mixing Ratio: :

Desired Volume of Pre-mix:  gal^†

Pre-mix Concentration:	%
Detergent:	gal†=	fl. oz
Water:	gal=	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.

Next 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 to move around the houses. His results would be this:

Detergent Water Final Mixing Ratio: : Pressure Washer Mixing Ratio: :

Desired Volume of Pre-mix:  gal^†

Pre-mix Concentration:	%
Detergent:	gal†=	fl. oz
Water:	gal=

 

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 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 whole season will be kept for a later post. Use this winter time off now to make these charts and you will be better prepared for spring.

If equipment costs this year have put you in the red I have a suggestion to turn that red to black next year.

If you have been in business for at least two years and up to now have had a good profit track record, now may be the time to switch from owning your own pressure washing equipment and rigs to leasing them or at least any new ones.

If you are wanting or needing to expand your business and need another rig but just can not find the financing due to banking changes or you need the benefit of cash liquidity in your current business dealings look into leasing.

There are numerous companies that will lease complete pressure washing rigs; to find one is as easy as doing a computer search engine query for "name of your town or state, along with the words "pressure washer leasing" or "leasing for pressure washing equipment". Many of the best deals can be found with local family owned companies but there are a few National franchise chains as well that lease, such as Hotsy and Hydro Tek.

The value in leasing vs. buying out right are many, but here are a few.

1. Less of a large up front cash out lay, as needed if you are buying outright or making a down payment for a loan.

2. Monthly payments are usually lower per month with a lease vs. a loan repayment. Generally you can make your lease payment up in a day to two. Giving you the freedom to make money for yourself the rest of the month.

3. Tax benefit in being able to write off most if not all of the lease payment expense every year instead of having to amortize the equipment cost over 5-10 years of tax returns.

4. Selling older equipment or rigs that may be getting close to the end of there working life span now and using that money to get industry cutting edge equipment that may be out of your price range if you had to purchase it out right your self.

A leasing contract is also usually easier to get approved then a bank loan since the company you are leasing from deals in this type of equipment daily, and can reclaim the equipment more easily than a bank can if you are unable to met your monthly payment obligations. Also leases are easier to get out of if the equipment is not performing to your needs and might even be able to be changed or adjusted while only having to modify the lease slightly as your business needs change.

I hope this has given you some thing to think about if you are needing to improve your equipment next year while lowering your overall cost of that equipment. Happy New Year.

For similar tips go to www.pressurewashers.lifetips.com.

If you’ve been feeling somewhat discouraged about business this year and feel that you were not moving in the right direction, now is a great time of the year to take stock and review your accomplishments.

Operating your own business can be like a wild roller coaster ride. There are the highs of a really good day and the lowest of lows of the really bad ones, or when a great job prospect falls through. Often when you’re feeling down on yourself and your business it’s really not warranted. Here are some tips to make yourself feel better:

1. During the year, monthly, or even weekly if you have time, record your progress for that time period. At the end of the year, you’ll be able to look back and see how much you really have accomplished. If you did not do that this year it is not too late to get the appointment book or job accounting records, take a look at your email account and take a trip down memory lane. Make your self a list of the following:

• all the contacts you’ve made in person;
• all the one-on-one email, Facebook or similar contacts you’ve made;
• any networking events, lunches, meetings you’ve attended and the benefit you got from them;
• press releases you published or any free publicity you’ve received;
• any classes you’ve taken to further your business and how they improved your business plan;
• any recognition, award or nomination you’ve received;
• new clients you’ve signed on and how much they financially impacted your bottom line;
• volunteer projects you’ve taken on;
• potential clients who’ve shown an interest in you that you can revisit this next year;
• creation or improvements of your web site, business cards and other marketing materials.

2. Join a business Success Team. These weekly group meetings with other small business owners are great for sharing ideas and the agenda often requires participants to report what they’ve done the past week and set a new goal for the following week. This is great incentive to do what you said you would. Not all “B&I” groups are the same so find one that fits your marketing style and has members you think you can learn from.

3. Ask clients for feedback on the work you’ve done for them. Get verbal testimonials over the phone, in writing is better and if possible shoot B&A video of jobs with the customer’s reaction after work in finished. Photo B&A will work too.

4. Keep an e-mail folder where you keep testimonials and any positive feedback you’ve received for something you’ve done. Go back and read it when you’ve feeling down.

5. Call up a friend, networking buddy or another entrepreneur and go for coffee. Getting out of the office and sharing similar concerns with a like-minded person is a great morale booster. Knowing you are not the only one in the same boat leaves you feeling better.

6. Finally make your self a list of how you can use these positive things to promote and make your business better in the next year.

Happy Holiday and Happy New Year to you all.

Hopefully you have had a chance to view our newest video for our new graffiti remover Blast Off.

The company that made that video for us is iMotion. If you think that video was hard for us or expensive to make, think again. Learn what we did earlier this year by downloading this PDF and action guide that won't cost you a dime: https://imotionvideo.infusionsoft.com/go/xmas1/a196/

iMotion Video wrote this short guide to tackle the biggest obstacle that they face every day..."How to make video commercials that sell" They produce hundreds (literally) of videos each month for businesses in all sorts of niches so they see their share of challenges for sure.

Make sure you get this action guide today because the form will also get you registered for their "Done For You" discount video productions, the same kind of program we are using.

This week, on Wednesday, they are going to have a 24 hour sale for their discount membership which is already a ridiculous deal.

We joined a few months ago and already are seeing the benefits. If you want to start promoting your business with video but don't know where to start or think you will have to spend a lot of money on equipment or time you don't have, the action guide will give you some good pointers to consider. If you're looking for a competent yet inexpensive video company to actually make your videos for you then you'll be as happy as we are.

Either way, make sure you get your action guide today before they take the page down: https://imotionvideo.infusionsoft.com/go/xmas1/a196/

The PDF and action guide are free so grab it while you can.

https://imotionvideo.infusionsoft.com/go/xmas1/a196/

This post it to finish off our detailing our new graffiti cleaners, the last being Cleen Fast, we know it is spelled a little different but it cleans a little different too. Cleen Fast was designed with the commercial fleet industry in mind. Cleen Fast contains all natural ingredients and is fully biodegradable. Clean Fast is very effective on cleaning, including mold and mildew staining found on vinyl and fabrics in commerical vehicles without harming most surfaces and doesn't need to be rinsed after it is sprayed on and wiped off. It comes in a trigger spray bottle ready to use and it deodorizes as it cleans, leaving hard surfaces streak free.

Cleen Fast contains No chlorine, bleach or butyl's making it easy on the user and the fresh lemon scent makes using Cleen Fast more enjoyable than other cleaners.

Cleen Fast can also be used wilth Blast Off and Shadow Away to clean up the loosened paint mess from graffiti cleaning. Cleen Fast will also stop the action of Blast Off if it is accidently sprayed on a surface it shouldn't have.

To order or to get more information call Soap Warehouse at 1-800-762-7911 or go to our web site

Special pricing is availble until the end of 2010 to introduce these products to the public. Blast Off and Shadow Away come in 22 oz trigger spray bottles, in 1 gallon refills and in cases of both. Cleen Fast comes in quart size spray bottles and in a case of 12.

There is no reason to let graffiti build up on your property, it is a known fact that once a wall area or object has been tagged it is more likely to be tagged again in the next 48 hours.

Stop graffiti fast and easy with the products from Soap Warehouse.