Austin Gray: Welcome back to the Owner Operator Podcast. I'm your host, Austin Gray. In this episode, I'm hosting Dan Cronauer. Dan owns several different businesses—one in the pressure washing space, one in the Christmas light business, and he also owns gyms that he and his brother have built. We dive into all three of these different businesses, specifically Christmas lights in the middle and power washing towards the end. Dan has built businesses to optimize for lifestyle, so you do not want to miss this one.

Make sure to listen to the full episode. If you like these episodes, and if you're listening on YouTube, please make sure to like and subscribe to the channel. Also, leave in the comments below if you have someone you would recommend or would like to hear on the podcast. If you're listening on Apple or Spotify, please make sure to like and follow the podcast. Just like service businesses, five-star reviews are super important in podcasting as well, so we would greatly appreciate it if you would take 30 seconds right now and leave a five-star review if you are enjoying the podcast.

Finally, this episode is brought to you by OWNR OPS. OWNR OPS is an online hub specifically for people who are starting and growing service-based businesses in your own local market. Visit OWNR OPS to learn more at ownrops.com. Without further ado, let's jump into the episode.

First off, Dan, welcome to the podcast!

Dan Cronauer: Okay, yeah, sure. Yeah, I was just saying, we were talking, you know, pregame here. If there's a video feed, here's our temporary uh—like spare bedroom for our guest, and it's also my office base. But I've been debating on getting a new, like, fancier computer chair. Part of me likes to make it like—not like un—my last office didn't even have heat. I mean, I legitimately, because my thought process was get there for and just get to work, be there for the shortest amount of time, and get the most amount of work done. So I just said, "Be there for one hour and get 12 hours worth of work done."

But there's some people who go to the office for 12 hours and they get one hour of work done. So, what do I need this big fancy office for when everything's online, and you know, you could be from anywhere doing phone calls as far as like what our office stuff does? Now we do have a shop where our technicians would meet, and that office is still shabby—that's my old office—but once again, my customers aren't coming to the office, so there's no re—I actually worked for a guy who was investing all this money into an office that he rented. I'm like, "What are you doing? Like, that does not—if it doesn't produce income, if it doesn't put money in your pocket, then we need to reevaluate the situation."

Austin Gray: Yeah, I mean, it's just like this age-old thing where people think that they have to invest in an office. And it's just like, I'm right there with you. I was talking with Julius, the other pressure washing guy, the other day, and we were on the phone. I just can't sit at my desk for so long. Like, I'm an early morning guy. I get up, I like pour my cup of coffee or two, and knock out all my office work, and then I'm just out like in the field. I'm like, I love driving around, looking for deals, meeting with customers, doing that sort of thing.

Dan Cronauer: Yeah, exactly. So why would you waste all this money on an office, right? But you should have it where you're just... it's very...

Austin Gray: Now, I will say for me, I need a space—like my mental environment. Like, I can't do work with other people around me. Like, I need—I have a—I'm a big Apple AirPod guy. Like, I'll put those in and, like, you know, go to Zen town. But I need a space. But my space does not have to be, you know, fancy or, you know, I don't need marble floors, you know, for an office. I just need—I have a $150 Amazon desk and, you know, some—a computer or someone recommended to me.

Dan Cronauer: But that's it! I mean, really, the most... that's the office right there. That's—I mean, that's the lifestyle goal. I spent some time in Florida, like last month and answered calls, brought a laptop with me, and then that was my office for, you know, a couple of days in Florida.

I think that should be the goal. But yeah, the old-school mentality of like dumping money into an office just makes no sense.

Austin Gray: Dude, I love it, man. Like, so like the last probably eight to 10 weeks, I've been really focusing on working out too in the mornings. But I go to the gym at like 9 AM and then I'm there till like 11 or 12 because I'm just like working in the middle of my sets. Like, I'll go take a lap on the track...

Dan Cronauer: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Austin Gray: I know that feeling, and I hate that feeling! Don't get me—I'm not... for everyone listening to this, I'm not in that group, okay?

Dan Cronauer: That's awesome. The—because I understand it and that is the problem with going at like 11 or 9—whatever. You're entering the workday time where people can now start stealing from your Zen, you know? Like the workout for me is very sacred. I do own a gym, for those who don't know that as well, but so I like—I don't want anyone to bother me. Like this is my—I built a gym so I can have a workout and like work through my problems of my day.

When someone's calling, interrupting, I don't like it, you know?

Austin Gray: No, so yes, I agree with you. You can go for a walk and do that, but at the same time, like let's say you were on—okay right here—if I just get up, you'll leave this podcast and go do a set of push-ups. Like it wouldn't be a good podcast, right? The same thing, I believe, for the workout. Like keep that sacred, you know, do not disturb it if you can. And then when you're out of the workout—you already did your two hours of office work while you were answering phone calls at 11—now it's work hour time, or people might be calling you for deals. You have to take those calls—that's part of, you know, the business that people don't understand.

So I get it totally; I just bust your chops a little bit, but you understand.

Dan Cronauer: Yeah, no, that's totally fine. And everybody's entitled to their own opinion on this, right? I have tested that like leaving my phone turned off inside the locker, and I'm in and out in like 45 to 55 minutes at that point.

Austin Gray: Okay, yeah.

Dan Cronauer: Yep, so I think the reason I brought that up was to talk about because Julius and I were talking about this the other day. I'm so just like—I gotta be doing stuff. But when I'm like out doing stuff, I'm way more productive. So I'm just like answering phones, like sending—thinking of things while I'm working out: this person needs to be, I need to follow up with him, so like boom, hit a quick text message.

Austin Gray: Yeah, if you're the one sending out messages while you work out, that's totally cool. If people are blowing your phone up while you're working out, that's a little different story. That's where I—you know, it's like they're interrupting your time.

If you're like—I do like probably most of my tweeting at the gym, like, "Okay, I have a two-minute rest between my set." I'm like, "Perfect, I just thought of something." I like open the phone up like I'm resting anyway. I fully support that; I understand that makes more sense to me. But versus like someone calling a m workout just ruining it, you know?

Dan Cronauer: Now we're on the same page because I do throw on do not disturb.

Austin Gray: Oh, then you're good! Like when I'm walking a lap in between sets, it's like, who do I need to be following up with? Because like that—for me, physical activity—we can kind of turn this back to snowboarding or...

Dan Cronauer: Yeah! What you want; I don't care.

Austin Gray: Yeah, you got it. Yeah, it's your show. Whatever outdoor activity it is, it's like if I'm out in the field doing this, like my brain just fires so much faster and better.

Dan Cronauer: Yeah, that was something I was thinking about, like yesterday. I wasn't in a good flow state, and like man, when you're in a flow state—same thing was for snowboarding. Like there were days where, like we talked about this prior to your recording—I had two really good friends in college who were both like—we were all kind of the same level of snowboarding, and it was amazing because we all just pushed to become better every single day. And there was just like one day when you could just tell like one guy, Dustin, had it or the one guy, Dugan, had it or I had it. Like you just had the—you're in flow state, and like your tricks were just better, your riding was smoother.

And like it's crazy. Like I always wondered how the pros—like the day they're all good, they're all amazing, but the day someone wins a competition is because they were just in that state where they were just like stomping moves and just hitting things in transition perfectly. And kind of what you're talking about is being in that flow state when you're out like going, going, going.

Austin Gray: Oh, I love that. Yeah, just as much as anybody.

And like you could feel the difference—like yesterday I was not a flow day for me. It was kind of late, and I actually said to my friend yesterday, I said, "Yo, I need to call you on Sunday night. I need to give you a list of the stuff I'm going to like accomplish this week." And that's actually almost advice from a marriage counselor I went to with my wife years ago. She's like, "On Sunday night, you have your business meeting. Like you guys look at your week in advance, say, 'Hey, here's what we're going to do, here's what this is going on, here's this responsibility,' and it just sets that week up for success."

And I've kind of—the wintertime for me is a little different because I don't have as much going on with day-to-day stuff or technicians or guys or like, you know, business-wise. But my—some of my businesses are so automated that like I almost forget. Like the two gyms I own, I just took a check—a check yesterday, I wrote a check myself, and like I wrote a $2,400 check that the gym just pays me for just being there, right?

And I would tell myself, I didn't have a good day yesterday. Like it was more money than people would make in two weeks. And like I didn't have a flow state day. I just wasn't firing how I like to be firing and that is like honestly one of the hurdles I have is where I'm at in business is like I did really good for probably 90% of people. But if I try to look at myself in that top 10 percent, I'm like it was a bad day—it was okay, it was all right.

So you've—I’ve seen you talk about this on X a lot—like you're optimizing for lifestyle totally with your businesses. Can you take us back to... well first off, can you tell our listeners just like what businesses you own for those?

Dan Cronauer: So, I started a—um, I was supposed to be a gym teacher. I didn't make it, sadly. And once again, designing for lifestyle—like legitimately, why was I gonna be a gym teacher? So I could have the summers off hanging out! Like gym teaching life is probably the best teaching life you could ask for. I love playing dodgeball, or you know, like any type of—I'm a huge play guy, right? If I'm not working on something, I'm playing.

But, yeah, it didn’t work out. So I started a roof cleaning business. And then we got more into—as fast as I got into roofs, I started getting, you know, adding exteriors and then, you adding concrete and then started working to commercial-wise and like things like that. So, I've had the roof cleaning business for about 12 years now. I did sell a portion of it before I built the gym. I knew it’d been tough to run the residential and build a gym at the same time.

So I had sold the residential and the Christmas lights together to one of my employees. He kind of messed it up, which worked out really well for me because as I was finishing the gym—like, me and my brother physically built the gym—like that was our way of like saving $300,000 was by building the gym ourselves and not, you know, having a labor force, essentially.

And the gym got finished up, and within like two weeks, I had a manager there running the gym. Like I knew there's no way I was running and managing the gym—like there's just absolutely not! So we had a person running it, and he gave me some free time back, so I ended up getting the power washing. Someone called me like, "Hey, you need to take the power washing business back."

Which I did, and it was great! So I was able to like now have more time to focus back on power washing. Like kind of like how we were saying, "Stealing time from the gym." The gym idea was stealing time from my power washing business. You know, I wasn't able to focus 100% on growing the power washing business because I was thinking about, you know, how the gym was going to run, systems of the gym, you know, what style of gym are we going to do, you know? Is there a pool? No, it's not. Pools are way expensive.

But my point is like all those things had to be answered. So I got the power washing business back and I—not that I had like, you know, many retirements, but I was making like, let's say, $100,000 a year. I had a manager, I had two technicians, and they were able to just do everything that they had to do. The phone would ring, they would get the estimate, they would do the estimate.

The manager would schedule the job, the two techs would do the work, check would go to the bank from the assistant, and like I was out. And like I had nothing—I could make $100,000 and not work like at all. But like as lifestyle creeps in, I have two kids now—like $200,000 goes real fast. Like you could spend that in—I could probably spend that in about four months, you know, or less than that, depending on what we're doing.

So I then got into the commercial space and then we started doing more like gas stations and condenser coil cleaning and like whatever commercial—we have some big water tanks that I was working for like the public utility that we did, um, stuff like that. But I added on Christmas lights because I needed something for my guys to do. We do have—I’m in Pennsylvania—we do have winter; like you can't really power wash when it's too cold.

So the Christmas lights business is its own separate LLC, but it's tied into like power washing; it's kind of a division of it because there's some guys who will cross over to both. And yeah, Kingle Lights—the lights business has been unbelievable! I mean, that literally added like a second income for us. Like that most people like would take as like a part-time joke. Um, I think this year I probably did about $90,000. So, I would have—I personally would put $90,000 in my pocket from October 1st until you know, January 15th.

Like we have a little bit of break in between during Christmas when we're putting lights up, and they're just hanging out. But, uh, from install to takedown—that's our time frame there.

Can you break down that business model for us just like high level Christmas lights?

Dan Cronauer: Oh yeah! So, Christmas lights—Joe Biden economy, nothing with politics, but it was a down year for sure. We ended up growing still because we added some stuff. But as far as, um, we typically add new customers every season. So uh, people move into a new house—like you said, you just did, did so I would, you know, give you a flyer. You'd call us up and say, “Hey, I want some Christmas lights.” Our presentation is this: they are your lights; we're taking care of them for you.

If you had like left a boat at a marina—which once again, I use an example—just like a boat at a marina. I'm using expensive things; people think boat, they think expensive. Marina, they think expensive. Our lights are expensive. Like these, these are a luxury service. We don't want people calling who just kick my tires—like I absolutely hate tire kickers. And maybe it's a skill that I have—I’m not—I can't dunk a basketball, but I can pretty much pick up like what a person's going to buy from us or not.

When I get a person on the phone and their first question is like, "Oh, how much does it cost?"—like that's not my customer. Like they're just asking for price; they want the lowest price. I don't care. Um, and I usually drag my feet with that estimate. I tend not to do it because the next phone call I get is like, "Hey, um, I need you to do my lights." Like that's the person I want. They're like, "We seen you, what you do. Our neighbors have it." Like those are the words I'm listening for and like we need a team. "When can you do it?" That's another like key phrase—"When can you do it?"

So that's an estimate that I would prioritize and send out to them.

So how it works for us is, um, we never go to any sites. Everything's done online as we were talking about with your mobile offices. So, the estimate would come in; I pull it up. I use Microsoft Paint or whatever, you know, Microsoft art program, you know, basic program they have on our computer.

I mark it up, I send it back to the customer with our estimate. Hey, here's like the yellow line—this is going to be x. Here's the yellow and orange line—it's going to be x plus y. Here's the landscaping that's designated purple. So if you want everything, it's x, y, and z—you pick, tell us what you want, and then, you know, we'll get it scheduled.

As far as getting it scheduled, they'll do—I usually ask them like, once again, I'm setting them up to be a customer. I don't say like, "When can you do—you want it done?" I don't ask them that. I say, "What color light would you like?" So now they're opening this estimate, they're thinking to themselves, "Okay, I see my house in warm white," or "I see my house..." I use a warm white, right? "Like you want a cool white? You want a multicolor? What pattern do you want on your house?"

So when they get that estimate, they're visualizing their house already decorated.

They reply back, "Yep, we'll get it scheduled." Uh, so actually, it's funny—I have some like local—like my, um, some family members, it's kind of like some part-time labor there. Some kids from high school make these light strands up. This is like the—the—if anyone who's listening to this, this is the most important part of this business.

You have your low dollar hour labor make the lights ahead of time in the office so then your high dollar hour labor—your install crew can just bang that job out. So instead of like putting the light bulbs in the light strands on the job site, you have it done in a warm basement or warm office space or wherever you can ahead of time.

So, we’d have like, you know, last year, we had like stacks of reels. I’d be calling these kids out of high school like, "Hey, you got to skip school today and come make some lights because we—we're that busy."

Um, last year wasn’t the case, but you—we definitely had a down year; we still did some new installs, but as far as work, we do a new install. I would then tell the customer the following year is 25% off. Once again, I'm automatically assuming that they are coming back. They already spent this high dollar—this is our Amazon Prime model.

You spent $130 for the year; you're then going to use Prime the rest of the year. So they spent—they bought their lights already; they spent the most amount they're going to spend.

Um, the next year's 25% off. So I'm like, "Hey, I reach back out to September. We automate an email; it's going to send out and say, 'When would you like your lights put up? We start putting up October 2nd.'"

And they respond, you know, October, November, whatever that is.

Um, at a 25%, you know, reduced cost. So, um, I think we had like 250, or I could look it up—at 280, something like that customers that we did, and that year one—if it's new customers, they have to buy the lights.

So that year one price is—they're paying 100% of the cost of the service, so the service and the lights. And then year two, I tell them we discount the lights, we discount the service by 25%.

So their cost is now 75% of whatever it was the first year. Now, people do add, you know, they do—which is fine—but we see that all the time. They’re like, "Oh, I spent $2,000 a year one; you're telling me, you know, it's now $1,500?" Like, "Ah, let's add some more stuff!" So it's back to $2,000.

Like people do that all the time. But for 50% of our customers, they're at that—they're at that fixed rate, and then they stay at that rate until they say, "Okay, like, we're done," which we then see like some customers probably do like seven or eight years. You're like, so every year, they're like, "Okay," like they just know we're coming to put them up.

But, um, there’s a new thing in the light industry happening now. We see with the popular brand is Gloie. Um, they're like an Amazon light—I wouldn’t recommend them, I don’t, but people know that name. Um, there’s some permanent lighting going out there, so we had some customers this year who said to us, "Hey, we don’t want the seasonal light because we have to pay for you to put it up and down every year. Let's give us a permanent light."

So we were actually debating whether we want to do that or not because the permanent light takes away from our seasonal customers. So by giving them a permanent light, we don’t see that customer anymore.

But if you look at like the profit on it, we might make three years of profit, you know, by doing like—if you have a seasonal profit and a permanent light profit, the seasonal would take us, you know, three years to make what the permanent made us.

So we said to ourselves, "H, it’s probably still worth it to have both—to offer both!" Some people don’t want the permanent lights.

Austin Gray: I think they look really good, and you can't tell they're on there! So, um, I recommend them to people who want them, but your permanent install might be like $12,000, and your seasonal install might be like $2,000, if that makes, you know, sense.

Dan Cronauer: Why are there differences in price?

Austin Gray: The permanent lighting is a completely different system. It's a, um, it's a—like Wi-Fi, they’re—it's like… the difference in price in like, you know, um, Honda or like Lexus or like, you know, a Honda and a Mercedes. Like it's a different—it's completely different, you know, apples and oranges there.

So that’s why there's different prices.

Dan Cronauer: Got it.

Austin Gray: So do you think people are going to start moving more to the permanent model?

Dan Cronauer: Oh, that's exactly what's happening!

So actually, this is a good podcast lesson. We’ve—um, he thinks he’s our competitor, but he’s really not. He’s a guy who’s had seasonal lights for, um, maybe 15 years now. He did it before us and, um, so we came on the scene and in true fashion just like beat the piss out of this guy.

Like he was so angry about like things and like, uh, I'm the type of person like I don't care about the competition. Like I'm like, dude—you do you, we're going to do us, and like yeah, that’s fine.

So one of his—he wasn't giving great service to some of these customers either. He was putting their lights up like December 5th, and people want their lights up by November 1st.

Like you want—they want to show off to their neighbors their lights are already up; they don't want them up that late in December. So one of his customers, um, you know, called us this year in November and said like, "Hey, our guy said that he can't put the lights up until like December 5th, and when we asked him about doing permanent lighting, he said no—like I'm not going to do permanent lighting. I would then lose you as a customer."

And this actually cracks me up because I’m a huge capitalist and like the money tells you what to do. So in this case, he said no to doing permanent lighting, which he’s fully capable of doing.

And um, the customer called me up and said, "Hey, like the guy who we've been using for the past like 10 years, uh, won't do permanent lighting for us—will you do it?" So of course I'm like, "Hell yeah, we’ll do it."

So, uh, we get an $8,000 permanent job. We do the front of their house in permanent lighting, and that guy just lost out on a customer who he can no longer service. He missed out on $8,000 and now can no longer service them for the next, you know, 10 years.

So all because he didn't want to—and it's like dude, in business, like you don't choose whether you want to or not; the customer chooses for you.

Austin Gray: Absolutely! The customer chooses for you. So you're pivoting more into permanent lighting at this point?

Dan Cronauer: No, I—I don't want to plan. I don’t want to—um, do more permanent. I mean, what we have is a crew who could do permanent lighting, yes.

But would I like seasonal as well? Absolutely! I’ve been giving people the option. So what I said is we had probably about 80 new installs the year before, and this past season we had about 20 just because of the economy. People were just not spending discretionary money, let’s face it. Having your Christmas lights done for you is a very luxury niche.

Like, you know, a certain amount of people can afford that and a certain amount of people cannot. And, um, so just a down year. But we still increased revenue by adding more permanent lights. So we—the people who had money still had it and they were switching to, um, you know, we had a bunch of permanent calls that were, you know, like I said, our average job might be like $1,800 to $2,000 for seasonal.

Um, you were getting these $10,000, $12,000, $14,000 permanent jobs. So that was able to fill up some schedule time for us and also be a big, you know, chunk of change that we’d get for adding that service.

So I don’t want to pivot to it because it’s really, uh...

Austin Gray: We haven’t even talked about it. You know, power washing is my mainstay, but the hardest part for me is this time of year—like my most stressful time of year—because I don't know if I have zero dollar coming in next month or I have $1 million worth of stuff that I have to get done.

So someone had said this like, "There's two problems you're always going to have in a service-based business. You're going to have not enough work or not enough crews." And you want to choose to have the not enough crews part. You know, not enough work is a horrible problem, but not enough crews is a bad problem. But so, you know, I'm sitting here like, "Alright, it's February—what work are we gonna have? Is our work going to start March 1?"

We might just get a phone call or email, "Hey, here’s 700 gas stations; start them!" And then you have to ramp up to getting enough crews and people to accomplish 700 gas stations or, um, I don’t know if we—I might not get that phone call at all, which is super stressful.

The beautiful part about Christmas lights is I already know I have 250 customers who are coming back next year. I mean, give or take 5 percent, you know? And then, we’re going to add some new ones in there too.

Dan Cronauer: So, you can really forecast with that recurring revenue style. And honestly, I don't—I always tell people the best business ever is Christmas lights because you could just predict on how well you're going to do.

And I don't know any other service-based business that, like, reoccurs like that. If you’re putting a pool in, pools in one time, you're done. If you’re clearing a land a lot, you're clearing land one time—it’s done.

And, um, that's what makes service businesses so hard. Even in power washing, we wash a house—they stay good for three years. So some of our people will get it washed every, you know, two or three years, which they’re the best.

But, uh, we do—if we do a roof, it stays clean for five years. It’s hard to get that reoccurring customer—you’re constantly chasing your tail. And that’s one of the reasons I wanted to get into the gym business was because, um, you build it one time, you sign a person up, and you know—they keep coming in, paying. It’s a much more relaxing business model.

But as far as like cash flow and like growth, um, I have a friend who's a Naval Academy officer, and um, he said the problem with the gym is like you can't just pick up the phone and call and get more people. Like he's right!

Like the gym caps out at a certain number. That's how much profit you’re going to do each year. And unless someone puts a, you know, housing development with, you know, 10,000 homes next to you, like, you're not—people aren’t moving to you for the gym.

Whereas in power washing, I’m able to pick up the phone and, you know, start cold calling or cold emailing these people in different areas. You know, we expand our territory. Instead of being, you know, a half-hour radius, we're now an hour radius and we get a whole bunch more work.

So, um, I've come to learn there is like positives and negatives in both sides of the, you know, industries.

Austin Gray: Yeah, absolutely! I'd 100% agree with you. One of our first businesses was a co-working space, and we experienced the same exact thing. It's like, yeah, that business can like—once we filled it, it was relatively easy to just keep going, like, but there's just no more—like you can't generate anymore, and it's only going to pay you a couple thousand bucks in profit a month, which it like—it still does, so it's fine.

But I get bored easy, so it’s like there's no challenge there. And so that’s why I jumped into the service game, is like, yeah, dude, when you start a service business, you can always pick up the phone.

Like two days ago, I was designing, uh, you know, like mailers to go out to like our specific targeted area. That's fun to me! Whenever there's this—like so many people that you could put a service out—even if it is a one time! But I do agree with you, like I'm falling more in love with the service businesses that have recurring style revenue to them.

Yeah, because I mean, it's just—you could sleep better at night, there’s no doubt about it.

But you just said something that, uh—like trigger is a bad word, but uh, you said something that like hit me in the soul. Um, and I'm not sure who's listening to this, you know, as far as demographic, but if you have kids, it's a bad thing that you can always pick up the phone and call.

So, just—you said you always pick up the phone and call. You're right, like I cannot take my kid snowboarding today, and I could sit here and pick up the phone and call.

And we were in Disney a couple weeks ago, and like I had a phone call. Like of course, I want to take it because I love the game. Just like you're talking about, like talking to someone about a big, you know, multi-thousand project is really fun for us as business owners.

Um, it's my favorite part of the game. Increasing the, you know, the sales is just something I’m chasing after.

But when you have a wife and family and kids, like I can't do it. I don’t have boundaries when it comes to like, you know, turning the phone off or like not answering it, um, because I'm afraid I'm gonna miss a call that's like, you know, super important.

But that's a definitely—and maybe most people aren't at that, you know, phase. But, uh, it's a real thing, you know, being able to control like when you make those calls and when you don't make those calls or enjoying the moment, you know, with your family member, spouse, girlfriend, whatever, and not being in business mode.

Um, I swear, uh, I believe this—that I had really bad, um, like anxiety, panic in college—like no reason! I love people! I love crowds of people. I love like your groups, and like I'm all good with all that, and then all of a sudden, I like just got hit by a bus. I couldn’t go to the cafeteria; I couldn't eat; couldn't do anything because my anxiety and panic were so bad.

And then I started business, and all of it went away. And I joke that like my brain now has something to stress, or like not stress, but like think about or work on or grow, um, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Like I could literally be in hell and still thinking about my business.

Um, which is amazing, you know? I think it does like cure a lot of anx—it gives me an anxiety that makes sense, whereas before my panic and anxiety made no sense whatsoever.

Austin Gray: That makes complete sense. And I can resonate with that so much. I'm sitting here over here like, “Man, that's like punching me right in the gut too,” because it's so true. Like my anxiety now is like, dude, I got three pieces of equipment—they’re all multi-hundred thousand pieces! It’s like, yeah, I got to go drum up work to make sure that those pieces are paid for every single day, right?

But that—that's what makes it the hardest about being present with the wife and kids because you could always be on!

Dan Cronauer: Exactly! So that’s something I’m like really trying to work on right now.

Austin Gray: How are some ways that you do that?

Dan Cronauer: I don’t—I’m bad at it! That's what I said, I'm like, I’m...

Austin Gray: I am too, man.

Dan Cronauer: Yeah, I'm not good being present. And, um, I think it takes a little bit for the spouse to, you know, learn, but they eventually do. They're like, "Hey, like, you know, the reason we’re in Disney this week is because that guy over there is answering the phone—like when we’re in Disney."

So, you know, you have a spouse that understands—I don’t think kids understand that as well as a spouse does. Like a spouse kind of gets it that like you have to—you put the food on the table or like you—you know—we might be on our honeymoon and I’m answering phone calls, and that’s—I mean, yeah, I could not—I could let them go.

And this was a couple years ago; now I have other people to answer the phone, and that’s really the answer is like, you start hiring more people to take, get some of your time back. And like they said, it’s the first part of business.

And, uh, I’ve gotten, um, you know, good at that. So I do have people who answer the phones for me, so I don’t answer the phones anymore. Um, but I call myself like account manager; there are certain accounts that I want to still go after.

Right now, I’m working on, you know, the United States government. And if the United States government calls my phone, I’m going to answer that because I want to get this job, you know? I want to get this contract.

So, uh, no, I—I—the answer is hire people to buy your time back. So I don't do any of the labor portion of myself, so it’s a lot of time that I can spend with my family. Yesterday it was 11 AM; I was in the hot tub with my son, right? Like most people are working; I have the freedom to do that.

But then it could be I'm in Disney World or it’s his birthday or whatever, and I’m answering the phone. Actually, I was—I’m answering the phone!

So, um, that’s how I deal with it, you know? They get me when they get me, and then they don’t get me when they don’t get me.

Austin Gray: And you know, I don’t know if that’s right or wrong, but that’s how I do it, man.

Dan Cronauer: Yeah, that's awesome. I love those moments when it’s like most people are working right now, and technically like my phone could ring, and I might have to answer. But whenever you get to like take your kid to the pool in the middle of the day in the middle of the week, like those things are awesome, and that’s like one of the best things about owning your own business, in my opinion.

Dan Cronauer: It’s absolutely!

And I think we’re going to see, um, you know, more and more of that—or like the ability. Um, I know a guy who’s a travel nurse, and I'm like, man, that's like a really good lifestyle.

Like he can technically—he's almost a travel nurse but also like a temp nurse, so he just opens an app up and like turns it on, and like they'll fill his schedule immediately with work. And then he's like, "Alright, I'm going to wherever for the next two weeks."

He just turns the app off and goes and travels, and then he comes back and turns the app on, and he's almost like a temp nurse. I know he does both, but, um, sounds like a really good gig if someone who, um, you know, everyone's got to work, right? It's like, what, you know, capacity, but being able to choose when you want to work.

Um, same friend—the Naval Academy guy—he is, you know, getting out of the military and looking to buy a business. I know a very popular thing right now, um, you know, he's studying at Georgetown to be able to do it. And the first thing he said to me was, "I want to work 50 hours a week, but I want to pick my 50." And I was like, "Wow, I guess I have it pretty good because that's exactly what I do."

I mean, I might work 30 hours a week or 10 or 50, depending on the week, and as you know—it's business!

So, um, this time of year, I could choose to work zero and take my kids to rewards today like I’m going to do, or I could work for 10 hours trying to find new leads and New opportunities if I want to, which I do enjoy doing.

Austin Gray: So, um, yeah, being able to control those hours is a huge perk of business. And, um, how do we get there? That’s something we talk about.

Uh, yeah, I’m not sure if most people are in that owner-operator phase. Um, starting part-time—like, you know, don't stress yourself out.

Um, same thing for employees—there’s always someone out there who was looking for... let me—let me rewind. I always walk into a gas station at like, let’s say, 11 PM, and I’m like, "Man, who the hell wants to be working that shift right now?" But somebody is. Like there’s someone at that gas station—like that’s the shift that gets robbed; that’s, you know, like all the problems happen.

But they found a person, so I always tell myself whenever someone uses like, "Oh, like there’s no good workers out there; no one wants to hire.” Like, you know, to work. I’m like, "Dude, there’s someone working at the gas station at 11 PM, like overnight."

Like they have somebody they hired; they found somebody. So um, if the gas station can hire someone from that 11 PM to 7 AM shift, then I should have no trouble finding someone to fit our needs and our time frame.

And, um, it’s been the truth. And then I—I just really do a good job of taking care of our employees. But, um, part-time, you know, someone's looking for extra cash.

Years ago, this was much easier when everyone was, you know, there’s a lot of unemployment going on. You know, people won—like 2008, 2009. I started in 2012, so you had people who didn’t have jobs coming out of college without jobs, and they wanted to, uh, you know, get some extra side money.

So, um, you just schedule your jobs Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday—they help, or whatever days, or meet your helper. So if you have a helper who’s good for Wednesdays and Thursdays, then book your jobs for Wednesdays and Thursdays and then have them do it.

Eventually, that helper becomes a person who can either train your next guy or starts adding more days into their schedule and becomes a full-time person. That’s kind of how the process works. But you don't—for me, making that commitment to somebody that I'm going to hire them for, um, a 40-hour-a-week roll is really stressful.

Like, that's a tough thing to do, and like if I'm G to commit to you, like I'm going to commit. So you were saying like, you have those three pieces of equipment worth a couple hundred grand—I have like 10 people worth a couple hundreds of grand that I have to make sure they have work coming in so that I make money because, um, I'm definitely an eat-a-leader-eat-last type dude.

Like I will make sure they have money and they're paid before I put any money in my pocket ever. So, um, but start part-time! You hire someone part-time, and then they roll into a full-time, and you get busy enough where you have to add another guy in.

Or like you get to the point where you're losing money doing the labor. So, if I'm on the roof actually cleaning the roof, and I missed 10 phone calls for people who want jobs done, then I just fell into that category. I'm losing money being on the roof.

Um, Robert Kiyosaki—great book, Rich Dad Poor Dad—I absolutely, like, loathe working for money! Like the—the fact of like trading my time for hours. Um, I mentally, physically like can’t do it. I’m like the worst worker in the world when it comes to that.

Um, but if you just said like, "Here’s the internet and a phone—go work when you want to!" And like make calls and like, you know, try to grow this into something like then you—I love it! I’ll work all the time!

Austin Gray: I'm right there with you. I also hate other people telling me what to do or when to do it!

Dan Cronauer: Yeah, exactly! I'm not good at that!

Austin Gray: No! So I love the fact that you dove straight into that because that was exactly where I wanted to take it now was just like, whenever you started your power washing business, yep, you were the one on the roof in the beginning, right?

Dan Cronauer: Yep!

Austin Gray: And then basically like what Dan just broke down, you know, for everybody listening right now who is in that like solo owner-operator phase, yep, like he just gave you the playbook for how to—how to sort of like grow next. Like, what’s the next step? You find a brother, you find a brother or a friend or, you know, somebody who’s going to be a colleague.

You might even have it—your full-time job, what your do on the side.

Um, a friend of mine who I helped start his own, uh, you know, power washing business —that’s what he did. He took our friend who’s also his colleague and was like, "Hey, like he want to make some extra money on the side?"

Everyone wants to make extra money on the side! I've never met a person who doesn’t want to make more money. So, um, you just find that person filled into your schedule.

Uh, he was a school teacher, so, um, he started his jobs at 3 PM. So, when someone would call like, you know, asked to get up on his schedule, he’d say, “Um, you know, our first spot opens 3 PM.”

They don’t know that he was teaching all day! They’re like, "Okay, great! Put me at 3." So, he’d show up at 3 o'clock with his buddy, and they would clean the roof or wash the house from, you know, 3 to 5 PM, and that was their first job!

And then, um, he got to the point where Monday through Friday was filled. Saturdays were then filled because Saturday’s the easier day to find extra help because people are off.

So scheduling people Saturday, and now it’s 9 AM; he’s sitting in school, his phone’s ringing, he can’t answer because he’s teaching, and he’s like, "I need to quit my teaching job because I’m losing money being a teacher."

And that’s exactly what happened!

So, like, that’s how you do it. I had a helper for my first year, and then, um, I had a—I actually love this strategy too—plan a vacation, and you’re not allowed to close!

Like when people have a vacation, they close their business. I’m like, that’s not acceptable, in my opinion.

Um, because your customer’s going to go somewhere else—it was, um, I think it was my second year actually. I knew my family was planning a trip to Hawaii. This is why I was younger, so I was going with my parents and my brothers and sisters. And, um, I was like, "Oh, like, I have two guys now working for me full-time; they’re counting on me. I can’t just close and tell them, ‘Sorry! You’re not getting paid this week,’ ‘cause what are they going to do? They’re going to get jobs elsewhere!"

So I’m like, "Alright, I got to figure this out." So, I had two guys. I—the one guy was with me last year, so he knew what he was doing already. The other guy got trained by him.

So now I had two guys who knew what they were doing. I went to Hawaii, and because of the time difference, um, it's like 5 AM in Hawaii, I was awake, and, uh, the phone started ringing in Pennsylvania.

And I was answering phone calls and scheduling—like scheduling jobs out and making sure they were good to go.

And, um, they ended up doing like, I think it was $6,600 worth of work that week while I was in Hawaii.

And like it was a moment like I'll never forget. I’m like, I just got paid more to be in Hawaii than like I would have... you know, like blew my mind.

And it was really no sweat off my back because all I had to do was answer the phone while it was still dark in Hawaii because of the time change. I was still awake, so it wasn’t a big deal.

But, um, the next week we still had work to do because of me answering the phone. And, uh, yeah, I mean, I was like, "Where can you—where can you do that? Where can you go on vacation, make more money?"

And, um, that’s systems, which you come into play later on with employees.

Austin Gray: I’m over here laughing because I remember having that first like Epiphany moment too, whenever I actually like put my ego aside to get out of the machine, because I love operating.

But once I like paid somebody who’s really good at their craft to do it, I’m like holy crap we are so much more efficient on this! And now all I gotta do is go line up the jobs and just stay in front of them.

So that’s why I’m laughing over here because I mean, so you say you love operating, and that’s great!

Like you all operate! And I think I do too; it’s just disguised as business ownership.

I’m operating this business even though I don’t want to admit that, like, yes, I can, you know, take some time off!

But as far as the commercial stuff goes, like residential—no, I don’t operate whatsoever.

Like I can’t name you one residential customer we serviced last year—I—I—which is really cool—I have no idea!

But commercial-wise, I like operating it! I like growing it! I like pursuing more accounts! I like breaking into new states!

Um, we did—we’re in Pennsylvania; I was in Ohio, New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland last year—however many that was and, um, like doing powerwashing—so like that was really fun for us.

But I’m like okay, um, I have a—he’s a great dude on Twitter—St. Louis Chris. He just posted there’s a conference in Florida. I’m like, okay, I’m going!

So, there’s a conference in Florida in March, and my goal is to meet somebody in like Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina—because with the seasonality of power washing right now, I look at it like I’ll have a month where we’ll do—we’ll put $300,000 in the bank, right?

Like June, and then I have a month like January where I’m like negative $30,000 because I have no one working; you know, there’s nothing going on.

February, negative $30,000—just my overhead, you know, the insurances—like all that stuff—like just call it. It is what it is.

So, I’m at even 60 from zero to February, you know, 31st or February 31st, um, because, uh, we don’t know if March is a—is it early spring or are we getting a 20-inch snowstorm? We have—we have no idea.

And that’s when honestly most power washing businesses go out of business is that January, February, March timeframe because you’re not making any money—all expenses!

So if I can go down south to this conference and meet some other people who have, you know, businesses in that—I could help service—like kind of work with, um, I could add in another, you know, $50,000 month in February or January that we could do work down south—that’s my goal!

Austin Gray: Yeah, that’s awesome!

So we’re going to be getting to the top of the hour here, and maybe we’ll have to do a version two here and bring you back on and dive deeper into this.

Um, that was going to be one of my questions is just how do you manage the seasonality of the power wash business? And so I think you just—you just answered it right there!

Where you going, but how have you done it in the past? Do you keep your people on full-time?

Dan Cronauer: No! So how do we do it? We tell people they’re teachers in reverse, and they’re like, "Oh, okay; makes sense!" So, um, you know, they might—our technicians might make $60,000 to $80,000 depending on their role, and they get two months off.

And they’re like, "This is great! You know, so they have..." which is actually, it’s better than teaching. I get—the wintertime off, you know? So they’re like, "Okay, I’ll go somewhere, you know, vacation in January or February."

So that’s typically how we would handle it! Just like—it's—it’s about like just, um, perspective.

It's like, "No, you’re not unemployed; you’re just a teacher!" You know, you’re—you’re off because we know teachers are coming back in September.

Um, we know, you know, March 15th, you know we’re back and rolling again.

Austin Gray: Last five minutes here—yep—give us the quick down and dirty on if somebody wants to start a pressing pressure washing business, what do they—the bare minimum—what do you need?

Dan Cronauer: Bare minimum—I love this question because everyone would say power washer and whatever piece of equipment they’re about to buy, and I’m going to tell you the exact opposite.

I’m gonna tell you, don’t buy a power washer. Buy a yard sign and buy some flyers and put them out. And if someone calls you, go do an estimate. If they say yes to your estimate, then go buy your power washer!

Do it reverse! Like don’t buy a power washer then hope to get jobs—buy marketing material!

I—we even talked once about marketing. Marketing is actually my favorite thing because it’s about humans and how they interact and how they like do—why they make decisions and stuff like that.

And, um, so yes, by—I—I—before I bought a hot water power washer, I went out and sold a couple thousand dollars worth of jobs and I lined them up and my power washer was paid for in the first, you know, two weeks I had it.

Um, it made life a whole lot less stressful. But that’s how you start a power business, and any business that’s why I don’t—this answer is universal!

You—I technically can take—if you’re not sure what you want to do, if you want to be power washing, you want to be a painter, go buy yard signs and phone numbers or whatever for all of these and flyers, and then put them out!

But it’s got to be professionally designed. You can’t have a—a flyer—no one’s going to call you; no one’s going to respect you. And, um, they’re—they’re not gonna give you like the high dollar that you deserve as a service, you know, business owner.

Austin Gray: I love it! Pre-sale before—Dan, you just gave us the masterclass on how to start that. Can you pronounce your last name please?

Dan Cronauer: Cronauer!

Austin Gray: Yep, Dan Cronauer here on the podcast. Thank you guys for listening so much. Dan, thanks so much for being on the show. We are definitely going to have to do a round two of this, because I want to dive into pressure washing. I want to dive into marketing because you and I both get very excited about marketing, and I think we could do a whole hourlong podcast specifically on marketing if we wanted to.

Dan Cronauer: It’s the most important part for starting!

Austin Gray: Absolutely, yeah!

And continuing, yeah!

Dan Cronauer: No, yeah, I know what you're saying!

Continuing—like your—how well you did the job carries you forward, you know, after that. But especially for starting out, you have to market well.

And then to dive back into what we were talking about earlier, like if you're in this service business where it's like one-off jobs, you have to continue to drive leads!

Dan Cronauer: Yeah, exactly!

Austin Gray: Yeah, that 100%! And, uh, that’s—most service businesses, unfortunately, do have that one-off nature!

Um, which makes it really tough, as you know, you have a bunch of equipment outside, and you’re like, "Oh, that didn’t start up today." Well, that’s a zero in the book!

But it challenges you to get creative and go figure out ways to sell more jobs and find new leads.

And so we’ll dive into that on the next episode!

Dan Cronauer: Sounds good. Thanks for having me; appreciate it!

Austin Gray: Thank you!

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