I guess the competition are the guys working out of their pickups selling garbage they buy at Lowes and Menards and sell dirt cheap. :shrug:
I haven't really run into a lot of competition.
Getting ready to step up the advertising.
Building this thing one step at a time.
:0008
Jack,
when I was doing Paving, Seal Coating and Striping, our competion were the "Gypsie Crews" who did exactly as you have described above.
Crews with rust bucket trucks would show up with 250 gallon seal coat containers and TRY to do a good job on a parking lot at a 7-11 or Circle K. In CA you didn't need a contractors license to do a job if the price was less than $900.00. They would bid $850.00 on the seal coat and then $250.00 on all the painting, (Stripes, Handicap Stalls...) They normally stole the Handicappped Signs late at night from other locations because the rest of us honest and licensed companies would mark our signs.
So, at on Circle K in the Red Neck Town that I lived in, Gypsie Sealing bid $880 for sealing + rebuilding ramp ( with 3 bags of DIY asphalt :facepalm: ) Second crew, Gypsie Striping bid $300.00 for painting and signs. My bid was $2300, quite a bit of difference in price huh? I can go into all the BS that it takes to prep a parking lot, the make up of the seal coat, blah, blah, blah. In the bid was to REPLACE the Handicap ramp, stripes, we bought new signs, set them in concrete, replaced 8 parking bumpers.
My bid was declined, they went with the Gypsie crew(s). I asked if I could see the bid, and I told the Owner/Manager that when the 1st rain comes and washes all of the less than hard work Gyspie 1 had, down the drain and into the street, that my bid will be $3200, to clean up their mess and do the job right. He said that it wouldn't be necessary.
Two weeks later, we got a nice storm, I had a crew of 4 waiting at the truck stop, I went to Circle K for a coffee and the local rag and stood underneath the awning and watched all of the seal coat disappear into the street, get stuck to vehicles coming and going.
He came outside, 1st told me I was loitering, so I said I need smokes and went and bought some. Came outside and had 1 or 3? And brought up how fucked up his parking lot looked. How much the city was going to fine him for all of that emulsified shit washing into the drains was going to cost him. So the numbers started to add up in his pea brain.
Well, what can you do about it now? I'm totally fucked ! Yes sir, you are, but I can try and stop the damage that Gypsie 1 and you have done, sign this contract, 50% is due now, the balance due 2 weeks upon completion. He signed, I called my crew, then started to throw sandbags out in front of drains and in driveways of parking lot. Suprisingly :shrug: several cops showed up for their morning java a few minutes later and saw the river of shit that was being dumped into the drain. Ironically all 3 of them were in my National Guard Unit, who knew?
He still got fined, but a lot less that what it could have been had I not thrown out sand bags.
You will deal with these Gypsie Shit Bags who have either been fired, quit or laid off from their former employeer and have some idea in their head that they can do the job on their own and pass go without following the rules and the law. They rarely dispose of their refuse properly and somewhere in your AO, there is a secret spot where these turds dump all of their shit.
Turn these assholes in ! :0074
They give honest contractors a bad name.
Good luck in your new enterprise !:toast: