Dear Friend,
If you are a professional concrete stainer (or aspire to be one) and dream of doing really big jobs that could be worth $30,000, $50,000, $60,000 or more, I have great news for you. I have done many such jobs and they can have a big impact on your profitability if you do them right.
But, if you don't know what you're doing they can cost you very serious money. If you do most of your work with residential clients then you'll find the world of big bucks contracting like starting a whole new business. You can definitely do it, but It's not a place you want to go without an experienced guide by your side.
I can be that guide for you.
Hi, my name is Gaye Goodman. I started my staining business in 1995 and since then I've stained hundreds of structures both big and small. Since the publication of my first video, How to Stain Concrete Floors almost ten years ago, I have been the leading trainer of acid stainers around the world. My manuals and DVDs have been sold in more than forty countries and students have come to my seminars from five continents.
While I've always enjoyed the smaller, residential projects, the most satisfying and profitable work by far has been the big commercial jobs. Imagine the satisfaction you get from a great staining job. Now multiply that by ten, fifty or a hundred. Staining a floor that will be seen and enjoyed by tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of people is a thrill unlike any other in the staining business. And if you haven't experienced this, you can and I'll show you how.
Imagine getting calls from architects and contractors begging you to bid on their work. Sound farfetched? It's not.
As you build your reputation as a big project stainer, that's exactly what is very likely to happen. But the big project contracting world is a small one and if you blow a big job, word will get around about that as well. Particularly now when work is hard to find for many construction people, one of those big jobs could carry you for months, if you know how to work them.
Now you can learn from my mistakes.
Call me crazy, but I jumped into the big project world wide-eyed and innocent. Boy did I learn the hard way! The lessons I learned were expensive. But my mistakes have turned into money in the bank because I learned from each and every one. I just kept asking the "dumb" questions and pretty soon I was being taken seriously by the big players in my market.
Now, after more than ten successful years of staining, I'm semi-retired and focusing my attention more seriously on sharing what I've learned with people like you who are working hard to make ends meet, support your families and raise your kids. Or, you may be a bit older and looking for ways to fatten up your nest egg for those years when you're ready to slow down. Either way, big commercial projects can be a windfall.
To help stainers like you break into the big-time, I've put together a new DVD as part of my Acid Staining Secrets of the Pros™ series called:
Acid Staining for Commercial Spaces
From marketing yourself to post-job follow up, I've laid out step-by-step the critical business, technical, and workflow knowledge you need to make your big jobs successful. You can see from the chapter listing to the right that I've covered every phase of the work from how you get the business to how you structure the deal to all the steps of doing the work at the scale demanded by big jobs.
This DVD isn't for beginners.
It's for people who already understand the basics of acid staining. If you're new to staining or don't feel you have the technical skills, you'll want to get my other materials first. Click here to learn more.
Some stainers complain that with big jobs, they're usually getting paid less per square foot than they did with those smaller residential jobs. That's probably true, but WOW!...so many square feet! Ten, twenty, thirty thousand, just waiting for you and your crew to transform into gleaming color.
What is true is that your workflow will be different on big jobs and you've got to have a good crew trained and ready to go. But the real key is knowing the ins and outs of:
- How to bid the big jobs
- How to land them
- How to work with the owner and architect
- How to manage the work flow
- How to manage your relationship with the general contractor and the other subcontractors
- How to make sure the floors continue to look fabulous for years
In the DVD I address these issues and much more. The DVD runs forty-five information-rich minutes in twelve chapters with and I've included an additional two special bonuses I'll describe in a minute.
For example, you'll learn a simple marketing trick that has gotten architects calling me and telling the building owner that I'm the stainer they want on the job. Knowing this trick is the difference between being just another anonymous subcontractor, or being a player, a recognized name that gets preferred treatment even before the work is put out to bid. It all depends on your knowing what to do. I'll share with you what has worked for me and helped me land big highly profitable jobs with schools, public buildings, country clubs and museums.
Unlike residential work, on a big commercial job you're usually not dealing with the building owner. You're a subcontractor working for a general contractor. This may seem like a little difference, but it changes the game in many ways small and large. The better you understand this, the more likely you are to have a successful job.
A successful job begins with how you
submit your bid.
I'll show you how to make sure you get paid for all the work you contracted for and how to successfully pass on costs for fixing bad or damaged slabs that could demolish your profit margin. There is one sentence you must include in your bid to make sure you don't wind up paying for problems that others created.
I'll also show you some of the things to look for in the contract that the general contractor is likely to send you that can not only turn a good job into a nightmare, but can come back to haunt you ten years later! I'll also tell you when you need an attorney to go through the contract with a fine tooth comb. Once the contract is signed, you're stuck with the terms of the contract. If you didn't understand what you were signing, you're out of luck.
I show you step-by-step how we tackle big jobs not in some theoretical way, but by actually going to a major project jobsite and watching me and my crew at work practicing what I preach.
- Inspecting the slab - this is where knowing how to structure your contract is critical. If the slab has been power trowelled and burnished to the point where water beads up on it, you have a major slab preparation chore in front of you. If you followed my advice, you'll get paid for fixing the concrete contractor's mistakes.
- Stain tests - I'll share a trick here that can save you hours of work. If having been told by the owner the area for your stain tests would be covered with carpet or tile and instead he/she decides to stain the area where you've done your tests, this technique will allow you to integrate your tests into the final stain. This may seem like an unlikely scenario, but believe me, it happens frequently when the owner gets excited about how the stain samples look. By the way, that extra square footage to stain is a profitable change order to your inital contract!
- Fixing cracks in the slab - I'll show you a gizmo you can find at any good woodworking store that can save you hours when patching cracks.
- Slab cleaning tricks - With commercial projects, you are very likely to run into a wide variety of cleaning problems. In the video you'll learn how we effectively get rid of painter's overspray, tar, curing compound (which will leave white spots in your stain), enamel, oil, even how to deal with a battery acid leak. These are the tricks that can make your job go smoothly but set you back for days if you don't know how to handle them.
- Critical wall masking tricks - If you make a mistake masking walls, you may have to pay the drywall contractor, the painting contractor or the finish carpentry contractor to fix your mistakes. This can completely crush your profit margin on the job (not to mention your enthusiasm). I'll show you four tricks that will save you costly wall repairs.
- Preparing to stain - When working with a saw-cut slab, I'll show you one simple technique that can save you a day or more of drying time.
- When you'll need to resurface the slab - If the slab has been over burnished, has old, tough mastic residue, or has had epoxy paint or finish applied, you're going to have to grind the top layer off the slab. I'll show you how and what machinery you'll need.
- Organizing your crew - The key to a profitable job is productivity. You'll learn how to organize your crew for each step of the staining process.
- Creative colors and looks - Anyone can slap some stain on a slab. If you want to develop a reputation as the go-to guy or gal stainer, you need to be able to show a wide range of creative techniques. Imagine creating exciting looks and textures with three things you can buy at your local feed store!
- Sealing the floor - More than anywhere else, this is the part of the job that can break the bank. If your sealer fails, you'll be working nights and weekends for free grinding off the old sealer, resealing and refinishing the floor for days or weeks. There are four key principles you must know to minimize the chances of a sealing failure. And the first technique begins before you even get to the job site!
- Touch up tricks that can make the whole job - Not every blemish or flaw in the slab can be fixed with acid stains. You have to know how to get rid of spots, bucket rings, places you missed or where the stain didn't react properly. Using materials that are compatible with your sealer, you'll learn the basics of how to use faux painting techniques to invisibly blend in problem areas.
- Final finish - To get that perfect mirror finish, you'll learn how to get the floor "clean enough to eat off of" and how to apply your final finish quickly and thoroughly to wrap up your job and delight the owner. I'll even share a trick with you on how I saved days of work on a major project by getting five coats of final finish down in one night.
You'll learn all that I've described and much more as my crew and I actually take you to a large project site so you can watch us step-by-step organize and execute the job.
As I promised, there are two important bonuses
on the DVD for you.
- Critical Issues in Large Commercial Staining Projects - There is so much important information about the contracting world that I just couldn't fit it all in the main video section. So I've added a twenty-five minute interview with me to cover a whole range of issues of importance to you if you're serious about getting into the big-job market.
- How to plan and schedule and who you need to stay in very close touch with at the general contractor's office
- What you'll need in the way of financial reserves before you bite off one of these big jobs
- How I decide when to bid and when to walk away
- What insurance and bonding issues you are likely to face
- How to deal with sales tax issues
- And much more
