From One Truck to Two Brands – Scaling a Power Washing & Lighting Business in NJ
Hey everyone—Daniel here, owner of Garden State Exterior Solutions out of New Jersey. I started with just power washing, grinding it out one job at a time. Over time, I built Bayside Power Washing into a 5-star service, and recently expanded into permanent exterior lighting with North Pole Lighting. Now I’m running two service divisions under one company, and I’m focused on scaling the right way—better systems, stronger branding, and building a team. A few things I’ve learned: Customers care more about trust and communication than just price Systems (quoting, scheduling, follow-ups) are EVERYTHING Upselling additional services (like lighting) can completely change your revenue Right now, I’m working on: Expanding across New Jersey Hiring and training reliable team members Investing in better equipment and marketing I’d love to hear from others in the space— 👉 What’s been your biggest breakthrough when scaling past the “owner/operator” phase? 👉 And if you run multiple services, how do you keep everything organized and profitable? Always looking to learn and connect 🤝
Pay for performance in Lawn Care and Landscaping - has anyone been successful?
I know this has been talked about many times, but I'm thinking about re-visiting this option. How have you structured your pay for performance when you have crews that do totally different things? For example- we have some crews that just do lawn maintenance (bi-weekly grass cutting, weed eating, etc), and other crews that do 'projects' (french drains, hardscapes, etc). And some guys that float between the different crews. My brain cannot conceive metrics that would be equitable for both groups. Would we have a different set of metrics for each type of crew? A different set for the grass cutting crew vs the projects crew? What are some examples of metrics that you have successfully used? How did you measure or track them? I think I'm just 'stuck' on how to even get started. I've looked at so many conversations on this that my brain is in overload. Can someone give me a hand here? Can I just see your metrics? Help. Please.
