
Category: Allison’s Updates

As businesses, I think we are all concerned about how this is going to affect us. The fact is, we just don’t know. No one does. What I do know is that J. Racenstein has been leading the industry for...

Business Owner or Entrepreneur: Which One Are You?
Banner entrepreneur concept with business vector icons Over the weekend, I read an article from Business News Daily that argued that just because you are a business owner doesn’t mean you are necessarily an entrepreneur. I’ve always used the terms interchangeably, but...

Patrick Clark: Never, Never, Never Give Up! (Part 1)
Patrick (Pat) Clark is a well-known name in the soft washing industry, and for good reason. Pat’s multi-million dollar company, Precision ProWash, has several locations located across the East Coast. He is also the founder of Gutter Butter (a company...

Snapshots of the Past 26 Years: My Top 10 Industry Changes
This past Friday was a big one for me. I not only hit the half-century mark, I also am at a point where I've written for the cleaning industry for more than half my life.The year was 1994. I was...

How to Respond to Negative Online Reviews
You've worked hard using the tips in How to Get More Online Reviews to build your online reviews and it's going great! Then a disgruntled customer -- or worse, a fake one -- leaves you that 1 or 2-star review, and it's there, on...

What You Can Do about Fake Negative Online Reviews
Sometimes negative reviews are legitimate and, unfortunately, sometimes they are just made up. It’s not unheard of for disgruntled employees or competitors to post negative reviews under fake names in order to make your company look bad. What can you...

How to Get More Online Reviews
A new study released by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that customers of service industries -- including window cleaning, pressure washing, and gutter cleaning -- listed their top 3 reasons for hiring the service company they chose. The...

Get Ready for the Stuff of Life
As a business owner, and especially as an owner/operator, it’s so important to have coverage that will take care of your family if something happens and you cannot work. A few days before Thanksgiving, I was veering right onto an...

8 Steps to Creating New Year’s Goals that Stick
"Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one’s thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world."- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe I'm one of those people -- like many -- who start off the new year with...

What’s on YOUR Wish List This Christmas?
With Christmas less than a month away, I've been thinking about I would like for the holidays this year. So far, all I’ve come up with is a cheap waterproof speaker so I can properly sing in the shower, and...