Pressure Washing Blueprint: Step-by-Step Guide to Start & Scale

Speaker A: You think in your head, like, my journey is going to be easier and it's just not. One of the hardest things in business is deciding that your mentors are actually right the first time you hear the words come out of their mouth instead of having to learn the hard way.

Speaker B: It is the most important reason that someone starts something is that you know the why you've started. To begin with, in order to go up in life, you got to be willing to give up some things.

Speaker C: But if you don't have that clear and you don't have a clear vision and why you're doing this in the first place, um, you will, you will end up making decisions that sabotage your success. Let's go.

Speaker D: Welcome to Wash and Win with Friends, the podcast where pressure washing business owners share their origin stories, the mistakes they made, and exactly how they built a profitable pressure Washington business from the ground. I'm your host, Joshua Brown from Brown's Pressure Washing. And every episode you're getting real stories from real operators. No fluff, just the blueprint. Whether you're thinking about starting a pressure washing business or you're ready to scale from solo to multiple trucks, you're in the right place. Hit subscribe so you never miss a story. Now let's get into it.

Speaker B: Friends. Welcome to February 2026. Uh, this is Joshua Brown with Wash and Win with Friends podcast. And I've got my friend and kind of a co, brother laborer inside of our washing wind academy, David. David, would you mind introducing yourself to the Washington Wind, uh, community?

Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker A: Glad to be here and thank you

Speaker C: guys for joining us. Uh, my name is David Elam. I uh, built and scaled a main service actually here in the Dallas, Texas area over about a six year period with my wife, my beautiful wife. And um, we then sold that for multiple six figures a couple years ago. And I have had a lot of fun the last couple of years nerding out and teaching people a lot of the systems that we use to scale our business quickly. We actually 9x'd in a 4 year period so it's pretty fast and outgrew a lot of our competitors, competitors that were older than us. And so I love just teaching people those frameworks that we used, um, which is a lot of the, the frap formula, which of course we use in Washington, we'll talk about later.

Speaker A: Um, but yeah, so that's, that's what I love.

Speaker C: And I'm also an automations nerd. Um, I don't know if I really look like a nerd, but I am one so we'll just get that out of the way from the front end.

Speaker B: Well, appreciate you being here. And, and we are taking a four week block from the calendar and I was thinking like this. If I'm starting a business, especially a pressure washing business, I'm starting it in March just based on the way the weather works and most of the weather patterns of North America. March is when things start warming up and then as April gets here more and more opportunities for scaling and starting your business. And so I thought well, how can I add the most amount of value to our community? And I'm like why don't we just take them take you through a 13 steps of everything you need to do to start scale of business. So basically uh, for the next four weeks David and I are going to just walk with you on every single thing we would do to start and scale a pressure washing business. We will challenge each other, we'll get into maybe some rabbit holes along the way, but this is designed for you to be able to come back to at any time. Listen to and if you haven't checked us out or subscribed to us on YouTube yet, go to Brown's Pressure Washing on YouTube and you can see all the visuals that we're going to be using along the way. But without any further ado, let's go ahead and jump into the first things I would do if I was starting a pressure washing company or scaling a pressure washing business with where you live. And so I'll tell you the one of the first things I would do is I would do some mindset work. And I know that when we talk about mindsets we often don't think, we often don't think that, that we need to work on our own head. But I really believe starting with your mind is one of the best places to start when, when, when starting something. And, and so your why behind your what is critically, massively, I cannot overstate it. It is the most important reason um, that someone starts something is that you know the why you've started to begin with. And so as a foundation I teach three pillars for success inside of your mindset of starting a business. And, and you know David, you can push back on it and I've got my screen up now. If you're on YouTube is that the number one thing that I would do if I started a business and from a mindset set perspective is I would make sure I have purpose over profits in place. That doesn't mean I don't want to see profits take place but if you're starting a business primarily for selling it for ebitda, one day you may end up tapping out along the way because there's things that come along inside of your business that challenges the profitability of the, of the business. And Simon Sinek wrote a book called the Infinite uh, Game and he talks about that business was originally designed. David, have you read this book yet?

Speaker C: I haven't.

Speaker B: Yeah, he's the guy that wrote the book Start with why leaders.

Speaker A: Yeah, I have that one.

Speaker B: Yeah. His latest book is the Infinite Game and he shares that why most businesses fail is that they're set up for short term growth and they will help people and process and products over profits. The main reason businesses start up today is people are just thinking of how can I get rich? And what they do is that as a result they don't think about the people that are involved because they're more interested in profits than the people. And, and then your process and products get cut along the way. And so what I teach is I want to challenge you when you start your pressure washing business, think purpose over profits. Anything you want to speak into that, David?

Speaker C: I mean there's so much like we could go down a huge rabbit hole

Speaker A: and um, I will just say I'm

Speaker C: actually working uh, uh, with one of my private clients on this right now is really defining your core values. That sounds like a super vague. Honestly, if you're new in business, it probably sounds useless to you. I found after all the years in business are the most important thing that guided all my decisions was our core values. And those can be both personal core values and business. But if you don't have that clear and you don't have a clear vision and why you're doing this in the first, first place, um, you will, you will end up making decisions that sabotage your success.

Speaker A: And I found that to be empirically

Speaker C: true in my business. For example, every time I hired someone, whether it was a technician or someone in my office, an admin, if I ever violated one of my core values and core principles of who we are as a company, um, it always ended up being a detriment to the entire company versus, ah, an ad.

Speaker A: So I would just say, you know,

Speaker C: along with purpose, um, the core values and really having that clear in your company is so, so important. So um, we've actually, as I've been working with one of my clients through that, uh, it's made there in everything else in their company infinitely more clear as they've been defining their core values and how they're going to hire and then the process becomes clear, the brand becomes clear. So definitely start with why and then with that, define what your core values are.

Speaker B: Yeah, we're actually going to be unpacking core values here in a second and so I'm glad you mentioned that. And so we're going to dig into how to create some core values, what ours are inside of our company to help you maybe come up with some of your. I want to hit the pause button.

Speaker D: If you're listening to this and thinking, I want to start a pressure washing business or I need to scale what I've got, I've got something for you. Every month we run a free webinar called Washington Wind where we break down the exact steps to start a pressure washing business the right way. How to scale from solo operator to multiple trucks. A custom, uh, market analysis so you know if you're in the right area and if it's profitable. And we'll cover our in person boot camps where you get hands on training.

Speaker B: This isn't theory.

Speaker D: This is the system that helps hundreds of operators build six and seven figure businesses.

Speaker B: Here's what you do.

Speaker D: Go to pressurewashingpasture.com um, right now and reside. Reserve your spot, it's free. And you'll walk away with a plan. That's pressurewashingpastor.com and link is in the show notes. Let's get back to our story.

Speaker B: The second thing that we have on, um, your pillars, three pillars for success, is that your network really is your net worth. When you start a business, sometimes you don't recognize that your relationships will often determine how big and how fast you can grow. And so I have people that'll reach out to me because of Upflip or YouTube or you know, maybe even a podcast. And they'll say, I want to start a business. And I'm like, how big do you want it to be? I want to do a million dollars in year one. I'm like, man, you must know everybody in your city. And they're like, no, I just live inside my mom's basement and I never get out and meet anybody. I'm like, you must have a stockpile of cash. And they're like, no, I don't have any money, but I'm going to grow a big business. I'm like, uh, I need to help you have reality for a second. The first thing you need to do is start building some relationships in your community and then you need to start saving some money. And so another pillar for success is understand that You've got to have relationships and start building relationships for relationship purposes, not just so you can use them to build your network. People figure that out over time. But as you build relationship, as you save money, you'll end up building a net worth income. And the third pillar for success is. And David, it is shocking to see how many people want to start a business and don't want to give up anything that they're currently doing.

Speaker A: That's insane.

Speaker B: It is insane. One of the first things I did is I started thinking, okay, I'm going to grow a business, so what has to go for my life? So I looked at my schedule from 4am till 9pm let's say I stayed up till 9 and I'm like, I, I'm gonna have to start working an hour and a half every morning. So I cut working out out of my lifestyle. And then I looked in my evenings, I'm like, okay, I'm gonna have to start working some evenings, maybe two or three evenings to start this business. And I'm gonna have to start working on Saturday. And I literally remember watching my neighbors, it's summertime, their kids are out of school. I'm laying on the ground with my back on the concrete of my driveway. I'm torquing on a wrench and I'm working on, you know, putting the sign up or fixing a pressure washer. And my next door neighbor pulls out with their nice boat, their truck, their two kids, their dog, their wife, and they're going for the lake for the day. And I'm, um, underneath this thing on a Saturday morning, ready to go wash a roof in Franklin, Tennessee. And as I'm sitting there, I'm realizing in order to go up in life, you got to be willing to give up some things. And the same thing for you, anything you want to speak into that. Before we get into the 13 practical steps to start and scale your business,

Speaker A: David, I mean, I'll just say it's such a biblical principle. And I remember seven or eight years ago watching podcasts exactly like this. And to the younger entrepreneur, you see something like this and you're like, yeah, but I can do it different. And you don't even consciously make that decision, but you think in your head, like, my journey is going to be easier and, and it's just not. And like the, the, the beautiful thing is the sooner that you can come to peace with these things are empirically true. Like these, I'm hearing truth and I'm hearing wisdom. And like, you know, Bible says get wisdom and all you're getting get understanding. And so like, if you can just decide, okay, these are principles. And Josh Brown, you know, has a, has a multi seven figure business, so he must know what he's doing. Uh, then just like, do it the hard way. Like take what your coaches are saying and just go for it. I think one of the hardest things in business is deciding that your mentors are, uh, actually right the first time you hear the words come out of their mouth. Instead of having to learn the hard way. Because you can save yourself so much more time if you will just trust the wisdom that you get, take action on it even when it doesn't make sense. It's kind of like hearing the Lord's voice when he's like, go do this, go do xyz. And you're like, that doesn't make any, any sense. But then you go in your obedient and then afterwards you're like, oh my gosh, that was exactly what I needed to do. It's the same way with coaching. You can't see the path ahead. You've got to be able to trust what people are telling you. So that's, that's something that stands out

Speaker C: to me a lot in my own personal journey along those lines.

Speaker B: Yeah, I appreciate you sharing that. Now we're going to get right into the 13 steps that we would take in order to start and scale a business. And so also, um, make sure you subscribe, make sure you share. If you got any friends that you know or somebody you know that wants to start a business, send this over to them because it really is a blueprint for everything you need to do to start and scale. And then if you have any questions, feel free to ask them. Um, you can reach right out to us inside of what's called the as you go network. And I'll make sure things are in the show notes. But the very first thing I would do before I purchased equipment, before I purchased a website, before I purchased I did anything, um, before I watch any more of this video is I would order a market analysis. And this is something I didn't know when I started the business. I couldn't have told you what a total addressable market is, which stands for tam. Um, only thing I knew is I wanted to start a business. I didn't know what the service areas, who my avatars were, what prices I should, or, or how big I could end up growing. I didn't really have this in mind. But now that I've started multiple, um, locations and we have People who call and say, josh, I want to start a business. I'm like, okay, let's order a market analysis is the first thing I would do, is get data to understand what bucks are inside of your city. And so I'm a hunter. I love, uh, harvesting. And I'm also an eater. So it doesn't matter if it's a buck or a doe. I am probably shooting it. It doesn't matter how big it is. Uh, I want as much meat as I can to feed my family.

Speaker C: And.

Speaker B: But if you're going to hunt, everybody loves, uh, getting a lot of meat versus a little bit of meat. So you can either hunt minnows or you can hunt bucks. One of them is going to feed you and your family for a long time. Some of them are going to barely sustain you. So a market analysis does this. It takes a scan of your woods and shows you exactly where you should put your tree stand, where exactly you should be, um, setting up your trail cameras, exactly where you're to hunt inside of your woods. Because not deer are created equally. And the reason there's a 99, um, ape. The 90, uh, nine guy. Have you seen those commercials with the, uh, gorilla?

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: Yeah. The reason that's a joke and funny is because there's so many people who start businesses and they're in market for the 99 house wash guy. That is the fastest way to sink a business from, um, profitability for a long. As far as the long game, it's okay to start there. You got to survive wherever you got to eat. But as far as growing a professional and large business, you really do want to know exactly where you should spend your marketing ad budget, where you should set up your business networking groups, where you should put your door hangers, where you should put your yard signs, where you should, um, door knock. And doing a market analysis will show you exactly where that is. Further to that point, it'll help you understand if those services that you're wanting to offer are even being searched for, and if so, how many people are looking at them and where do those people live. So that's called a, a market analysis, and that's something we provide here in house. And so one of the things I would encourage anybody that's looking is to send us a message and ask for a market analysis for the counties that you want to serve in. And then we will do the work for you. And then we'll meet you one on one and go over your market analysis and then talk to you about your business plan and so forth. Anything you want to share about the total addressable market or your market analysis, David?

Speaker A: Man, I would just say it's so important. And honestly, the, the market analysis I've seen you do is way more thorough and, and amazing than any other I've seen.

Speaker C: So I'll just say to everybody, if

Speaker A: you're watching this, like, get a market out, even if you're already in business, get one. Um, one of my private clients, uh, we are, we did a market analysis, uh, this week for him and found that he's actually probably going to tap out this next year and he's going to have to expand and he's talking about franchising.

Speaker C: Anyway.

Speaker A: Um, but it's really good to know so that you know, like you said, where to, uh, put your marketing efforts and how big you can really get

Speaker C: and what your pricing should be.

Speaker B: Yeah. And if you want to see an example of what they look like, I'm actually going to show one on week four, um, on YouTube. And so make sure you subscribe, make sure you, you stay on the journey. I'm going to show you what, um, a market analysis actually looks like and, and help you understand a little bit more of that. Um, the second thing I would do, and this is, David, when I started this, I literally was creating this as if I was sending my son to Dallas, Texas to start a pressure washing company. Nice. I was like, okay, what all would I want him to have? Well, we'd order a market and then I would surround him with great people. Yeah, you don't really recognize the power of people who know things and have done things that you haven't done and things you don't know. And I'm telling you, you are more than likely going to quit your business before year five if you don't have a network or have coaches around you or some type of brand or franchiser licensing for whatever reason. When we do things as Lone Rangers, there's things that come up in our lives that overwhelm us. We did not foresee happening and we end up giving up. If you have people in your life that have gone through the same thing that you're going to go through and know how to maybe avoid certain things that are going to end up costing you thousands and thousands of dollars. Just surround yourself with coaches. We have a community. It's called Wash and Win With Friends community. It's an academy where we have video courses and weekly coaching and we talk about all the things that you need to do in order to scale your business. I would do for $300 a month. We offer that. It's a no brainer value proposition and you get trapped training along the way, which teaches you how to raise your prices over time to make sure you're making more and more profitability. So whether it's us or somebody else, there's great people on YouTube. But I would join some coaches and some community along the way. And so, uh, last thing I would say is I'd get total addressable market so I know how big my business can be and where I should put my marketing. The next thing I would do is I'd get coaches. And as I said before, there's a lot of great coaches. I would pay for whatever it's worth to make sure I had great people in my life that have gone through things that you're going to go through in the future. Now the next thing I would do is I would create a purpose driven business plan. Now David, uh, you notice that we haven't talked about websites, we haven't talked about marketing, we haven't talked about sales, operations, services, cash flow. We haven't talked about any of those things. Because when you're building a business it's important to build the foundation before you start putting up the uh, studs and all the different things, the drywall and the, the paint and the roof. Like you've got to make sure you have a solid foundation. So the first thing I do is, uh, after getting coaches is I put together a, a purpose driven business, uh, plan for those that need an example. I'm going to show you what ours here in Nashville is. Um, and then David, if you want to share, you know, anything more on top of this. But for Brown's pressure washing here in Nashville and anybody that becomes a Browns in the future, our purpose statement is this. Fulfill the great commission by mobilizing and equipping missionaries to make disciples through the marketplace. Did you hear anything about pressure washing inside of there?

Speaker A: No. Amazing.

Speaker B: Have you ever heard, um, of what Chick Fil a has said? We're not in the chicken business. We're in the people business. People business. And so for, for us, we're not in the pressure washing business. We're in the people business.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker B: Those people are on mission to serve people inside of the community.

Speaker C: Yes.

Speaker B: When we onboard somebody, uh, and we go through a purpose statement or we're trying to look at their core values or what we're going to be teaching them, we start with this. And if you can't, if you're not going to be excited about fulfilling the great commission or being on mission, mobilizing and getting equipped to be a missionary, um, to make a disciple or to be a disciple in the marketplace. You're not going to want to join our team, and that's okay for us. We're actually looking for the avatar that we desire to hire. So we're a. But if you are a person that's like, man, I want to live, I want to make money and be on mission at the same time. Let's go. And so we see, uh, incredible people joining Browns in Nashville Just because we've created a purpose statement that's more about mission than it is about, you know, offering the best services on the planet, which is very important. And it goes down to our mission statement. Our mission statement is to create jobs, make disciples and serve the city. When I use the word create jobs, there's frameworks underneath create jobs. That's called your SOPs. From a customer journey, from someone calling us to seeing a billboard to the communication over the phone to an, uh, in person visit or estimate to the services, we want to offer a phenomenal experience. And if we do a great job in our job, it's going to create more jobs. So we just train our guys. Our number one goal in our mission is to create jobs. If we create jobs, that's going to help us hire more people. If we hire more people, we're going to be able to disciple them. And if we're able to disciple them, we're going want to be able to provide more jobs, send them out to serve the city. So it's almost building block. And discipleship is more about learning how to do hard things on the job than it is about memorizing a memory verse. It's actually how do you legitimately get on your hands and knees and wash somebody's baseboards or someone's feet on a job site? Our vision is to be one company in multiple locations. Our values, which you talked about here in this, uh, a few minutes ago, is that we desire to hire humble, honest, hard working and hungry people. And so when we think of community, we talk about this inside of leadership development. So every Friday we might say, hey, who do you want to shout out? And the shout out has to be connected to one of our core values. Um, shout out Brady, because he was super hard this year. This week he ended up doing X, Y and Z. And now we're shouting each other out according to the core values. And then when you have to correct somebody because they're prideful, they were dishonest they were lazy or they're just not very hungry to grow their business or to, to, to serve or to work or to learn. You can say, hey, are you okay? Whenever you do a job interview or you know, provide a quarterly review, you're able to use your core values to be able to assess what they're doing. Is there anything you want to share on that, David?

Speaker A: No. It's so good. I love it all. And uh, we used to do something similar in our company. We do, uh, caught being awesome. We had a Tuesday morning, uh, meeting with the whole team and we do shout outs like who they caught being awesome and what core value they, uh, they, they demonstrated. So things like that are so important for culture. You really are building an organism, some a living, breathing organism, uh, in your company. And so having all of this clear is so important so that the organism, the organization is healthy and it's not a Frankenstein in a weird monster that could get out of control.

Speaker C: So I love it.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And then the last thing is this. And it might be one of the most important when it comes to creating man, they're all important. It's like baking a cake. What ingredient do you want to, you know, it's none of them. Um, maybe add a few like layers. But when, when it comes to your mission, vision, values and goals, the goal that you create should be as upstream as you possibly can think of. And so there's downstream goals and then there's upstream goals. And when I, 10 years ago, when I'm thinking about starting Brown's Pressure Washing, I literally spent days in the dark in my bedroom, everywhere I went, asking myself one question. What is the one goal that can rule them all? If I simplify, uh, everything to the team to one goal, what should the be? And do you see what we wrote down there?

Speaker A: It's so good. Yeah. And I love how you put earn because to earn a five star review from every job, you know, I love using uh, verbs in envision like this because it helps you really imagine it. And so that's a powerful verb that we've got to do. X, Y, that implies so many things so that we actually get that five star review. It takes care of the quality of

Speaker C: the work and everything and the hard working and all that.

Speaker B: Starting and scaling a pressure washing business is hard. And one of the reasons that makes it hard is, is because you really don't have the leadership, the marketing, the sales, the operation, the services and the cash flow that's required to scale a business.

Speaker D: This is why I started A Wash and Win Academy.

Speaker B: If you're interested in finding out more about the academy, you come first into a free webinar where we go over all the systems that you need to put in play in order to scale your business.

Speaker D: Tomorrow, simply go go to pressurewashingpasture.com and

Speaker B: sign up for our Wash and Win with Friends webinar. Hope to see you on the inside. Peace. And so what I'd like to do is if you're listening to this or if you're watching it on YouTube or, you know, if we've chopped it up and you see it on Tick Tock or Instagram or Facebook, I'd like for you to ask any question that you might have as it relates to anything that we've gone over so far. I've basically gone through the first three steps and also the pillars for success. And if you have any questions about finding your market, getting coaching, or creating a purpose driven business, I just want you to ask that question. Because we're going to close this first week and then next week we're going to get right into the nuts and bolts of now we're ready to build the business. And so go ahead.

Speaker A: Yeah, Josh, I have a, a question. Uh, I can imagine people may be thinking this, um, is how long would you suggest that somebody take from steps one through three, you know, like, how long should I spend on my, on my, you know, building my vision, my core values and all these things? Because sometimes what I see younger, well, really any new entrepreneur do is they'll spend six months, you know, on just like trying to maybe feel out the foundation before they even get their first customer. And so, you know, walk us through what that would look like. Somebody who's really serious and wants to go for it, but they want to do it the right way.

Speaker B: Yeah. So good, because now we're getting into personality profiles and everybody's a little bit different on how they make decisions. Um, we have strengths and weaknesses inside of our personalities. So I want to speak to the person that would just say across the board that you have maybe 10 hours a week to start a business. If you don't have 10 hours a week, it's going to be really, really difficult. Not impossible, but it's going to be really difficult. You need to somewhat have between 8 to 10 hours a week that you can start building your business because there's something about momentum that builds more momentum. And if you, if it's hard to get off the Runway, you can get discouraged. And so to the person that has 10 hours a week to give to this. Spend 20 to 30 hours processing this. Talk to friends. You're not talking, uh, you're not figuring this out alone. You've got friends that you're chatting with. You have spouses, girlfriends, boyfriends, mom, dad, uncles, cousins. Start talking to other people about it. Find other business owners that have started businesses and say, hey, what are your core values? How did you come up with those? Look at what we've, what we just wrote down. What's your market here? You know, mess with Google or Gemini or, uh, chatgpt and say, hey, I'm trying to figure out how to create a business plan or core values or find out my total addressable market. Start playing with tools. And the more that you play with something, the more likely you're going to make traction in that direction to get your business up in the air. So I'd say 25, 30 hours. And if you find yourself sitting on it for three, four, five months, there comes a time where you have to make a decision.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: If you're going to do it, you need to do it. Or you just need to say, I need to pivot and go a different direction. So I don't like for too long because there comes a time where it's time to jump, you know, the bird can't inside the nest forever.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: And you mentioned, you mentioned the word traction. And uh, this is actually on my desk right now.

Speaker C: It's one of my favorite books.

Speaker A: But this is so good if people need a framework to just get their at least their vision, mission, core values down, get a simple scorecard together like, you know you can. That book will, you know, it's got about a two or three day process that'll take you through at least the first part, you know, so if you're having trouble, that's a great one.

Speaker C: Traction by Gino Wickman.

Speaker A: And then obviously. But then go to Coaching Community because you do need to like run these things by people, get feedback, get pushback. Um, it's amazing how sometimes you'll just have blind spots and just being in a coaching community, being able to ask questions, you can get your blind spots, get your eyes opened, you know, uh, so to speak, uh, so much quicker and really helps you go faster and

Speaker C: keep that momentum going. Like, like you were talking about Josh.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And no matter where you're hearing this, as long as I'm still in business and still offering coaching, I want to give you a free week, uh, of seeing what the video courses the academy looks like, watching one with friends and so simply just send me an email Joshua as you go.netnetwork and I'll also make sure that's in the show notes but if you'd like to see preview, check it out for a week, meet us, meet other uh, guys in the community. Go ahead and send me an email. I'll send you a free link and we'll meet you on a Monday and we'll see you in the future.

Speaker C: Peace. Let's go.

Speaker D: Before you go, if you're already running a pressure washing business and you're serious about scaling with purpose, we need to talk about Wash and Win Academy.

Speaker A: If you want to build a business

Speaker D: that provides for your family and impacts your city for the kingdom, this is your home. You can even try a free seven day pass and bring a friend. No credit card, no questions asked. Simply go to pressurewashingpassure.com and click on our Start here link. That'll lead you to a webinar and you and I will have a conversation from there. If you want to get directly to me, just send me an email joshuaownspressurewashing.com today.