Daymon Pascual

ServiceMonster’s Adam Wirth sits down for a conversation with Daymon Pascual, the owner of P4 Services, a window cleaning company located in the heart of ski country near Breckenridge, Colorado. Daymon started his business over 25 years ago, beginning with just a bucket and squeegee, and gradually expanded his operations to serve both residential and commercial clients. P4 Services has become known for delivering professional picture-perfect window cleaning and additional services like gutter cleaning and snow removal in the mountain region.

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To scale his business and streamline operations, Daymon made the decision to  integrate ServiceMonster software into his workflow and free up time for his teams. Read the interview transcript to learn more about how  leveraging certain ServiceMonster features allowed him to not just thrive during a pandemic, but to even acquire another business and see his revenues grow.

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Full Interview:

Adam:

Do you wanna kind of talk about really quick just what the P4 stands for? 

Daymon: 

Yeah, we're a window cleaning company. Back during the 2000 census, I was talking with one of the census people there and they made the suggestion, “how about Pascual’s Picture Perfect Panes?” I was really struggling to find a name at the time, so I said, “you know what? That's the best idea I've heard yet. Let's go with that.” 

Adam:

I'm always excited when I get to see someone from my home state. I grew up in Colorado, been up here in Washington now for, gosh, 15 years. I'll always miss home a little bit. And you're actually in the heart of a ski country too, right? 

Daymon:

Yeah, that's right. We're up in the mountains near Breckenridge. The four big ski resorts here are Breckenridge, Copper Mountain, Keystone, and Arapahoe Basin, that region,. Then Vail is over the hill and on the other side of things. We have a branch of our business on that side too. 

Adam:

There's kind of a couple of things I wanna talk about in general, but I think the easiest place to start is: what's the P4 story? What led you to getting into this and how'd you get to where you are now? 

Daymon:

Well, yeah. I'm kind of that typical service related business story starting, real basic just bucket and squeegee walking down Main Street. We have a classic little main street here in our town with just a bunch of restaurants and storefronts and things. So I started going on Fridays and just going out and washing people's windows. 

I got about 70% of our main street and then just started building it from there. 25-ish years later I’m now shooting to try to get to a million bucks a year, but it's gonna be a little while before that. I think I’m doing maybe three quarters of that right now. And also building a team, an organization, and integrating as much of those different technical elements like ServiceMonster that we can. We were one of the first companies to really get on board with email and contacting all of our clients that way, just certainly embracing all the different technical elements that could help us. 

I actually felt kind of stupid that I hadn't adopted a CRM sooner and in something like ServiceMonster. So when that was suggested, it didn't take me long to see the value of that and it has really proved to be very, very helpful in scaling a business up.

Adam:

So what were you using before ServiceMonster? 

Daymon:

You know, just kind of more of an organic thing with email, Google Calendar, and QuickBooks. I feel like that's a good development that people can go through because then you understand the systems better through kind of having to create it yourself and integrating those different elements.

And even today, we still feel that having the Google side of things with ServiceMonster and a little bit of QuickBook still works really well. The diversity there is nice because you have redundancy when any one of those elements can be not cooperating, and you have the other ones to help in the process.

Adam:

Are you primarily handling commercial, residential, or do you have a healthy mix of both?

Daymon:

I would say our business is just hard to break into those two completely. We do a lot of property manager work, and up in a resort area the property managers are handing a great deal of the residentials. So they resemble more of a commercial client than your typical residential client.

But yeah, probably 60% residential and then however we want to specify the commercial side of it.  We find that the big resort buildings and larger buildings like that are pretty competitive and it is not really worthwhile pursuing. So we're mostly on the residential side.

We're also doing the gutter cleaning, certain exterior cleaning elements, not so much power washing in our area. Painters mostly take care of that. It's much more of a dry climate, as you're familiar with, so it's not as much of that need for power washing but also some snow removal. Historically in the past for winter, because it's a no-go for window cleaning five months of the year. So it's very seasonal. 

Adam:

Absolutely. They're super high up in the mountains you said at the start right up there by the main ski resorts in the Rocky Mountains, so it's a seasonal operation a lot of times. Having those services you can do to offset that down period is super critical.

Do you know offhand, without taking a peek into your account, what your average invoice has been the last couple of years?

Daymon:

I would say we are right in the $500 range, something like that, per average. 

Adam:

That's phenomenal for the industry. We have metadata that gets pulled and we’re making sure that we understand our clients. That's really kind of what we look at with our data. 

You guys are running a great ship down there and really what I noticed, what jumped out to me, is you had kind of been stagnant for a few years based on the data that you imported. Obviously you started in 2020, like we said, and then you had a steep 62% growth rate that first year you swapped. What do you attribute the most to that? 

Daymon:

Well we reached a point in the business where I kind of reached the end of my rope. Classic story that way. I just got to a point where I just really came to an emotional dead end and needed to make some changes.

One of the biggest changes was getting a business coach and just starting to look outside of my little world here for some help in how to go about business. So I hired Jason Evers outta Florida, who had just recently sold his window cleaning business. He's kind of a smaller coach in that way. He coaches maybe a dozen different people. He's part of the Conquer group.

Adam:

The Conguer Group, yes.

Daymon:

So anyway, Jason really came on board and just helped make some really good recommendations, one of which was how to grow as far as acquisition. So a few stars aligned at that point. Another business was looking to sell over in a neighboring region, and we were doing a little bit of work over in that region, but not a lot. So we bought that business. That just almost doubled our amount of revenue of course. 

And with all these different elements that Jason had recommended, he really recommended we get on board with some kind of CRM.

That was just a really big part of how to scale. I also had good systems. Before I was running all those elements myself. I was answering the phone and it was a real typical story - I had really learned a lot about all those elements of that lead, estimate, work order, invoice, collections, and that process. And so it was really nice to get something like ServiceMonster and generally just be like, oh wow, this just makes all that so much easier and integrates it, of course. It has been absolutely crucial in how we scale. 

I do want to promote the whole leads side of ServiceMonster. I think it's just phenomenal that as a funnel, we're pretty much just not answering our phone anymore. The voicemail just says to go to our website, see the link to get a quote, and fill out your information there. And it'll get you in the workflow.

And I'd say between that and another web form that's more designed for our existing clients, 90% of our workflow is going through that. We're barely having to deal with phone calls anymore, which has been just a phenomenal improvement in our workload and tedium. 

Daymon:

I have to say, big time, kudos to your support team and everything you're doing that way, I really feel like I made the right choice because of those elements. When you need to talk to somebody, when something's not working, you can always get through. And that's just been fantastic and I really appreciate that.

Adam:

I really like being part of a team that feels like we're being heard and problems get fixed and it's not just dealing with some faceless group. Like so often things feel these days. 

Adam:

How many people do you have in the system? Like how many employees are you working with? 

Daymon:

Just basically the two, sort of three of us in admin. It's myself, Anthony, and my wife and bookkeeper, Anne Marie, who also is in the system a little bit, mostly through just the bookkeeping side. But then we have four crews running and a sort of a fifth subcontractor crew out in the field. So that's pretty much our calendar each day, managing four crews, four routes. During our peak season we had 12, 13 technicians including the couple of admin people.

Adam:

Now are they using the mobile app on the field? How's that experience kind of been for the team? 

Daymon:

I think it's been really good outside of this other region that we've been working in. In the Vail Valley and Eagle County, the cell reception is terrible. So that's where we run into problems.

We even try to sell boosters in the vans, but when there's no signal, there's no signal. So it doesn't matter how much you boost. That's just been a real inherent issue obviously. We work around it and our check-in times are not as accurate as we'd like because of that. So we deal with that. But the mobile app's been great. Especially this year, it seems to be running really, really well. 

Daymon:

It seems to me that really in the last year or two things really have coalesced and the functionality got better there. I also got a newer phone, so that might have something to do with it [laughing]. I upgraded phones and it seems to work a lot better now. 

I'd also like to mention though, one of the things I really feel super happy about my choice in going with ServiceMonster is the commissions and utilizing commissions.  Because from what I understand, it's not many, especially in that price range, that allow for commissioned work. That was one of the other pieces of advice that I was given about how to restructure the business, is to go to an all commission based pay structure. So we're not really dealing with hours by crews anymore, although we do like to look at that as well, just so we can cross reference and make sure that people are making good enough money for the commissions they're getting.

The commissions are really, really robust I think. I love the way that system works within ServiceMonster. It's something that I would recommend to everybody as far as one of the key functionalities within ServiceMonster. 

Adam:

Well, I definitely appreciate that. Really, the other thing I kind of wanted to mention, because you were going through all these changes when you had this massive growth between 2020 and 2021 and you were doing all of that through covid. Grabbing the coach and, and grabbing ServiceMonster, getting your processes set up on that end, but also dealing with Covid. You're not even just surviving, because a lot of service providers were just kind of surviving, but you were absolutely thriving during that process.

What do you attribute to that? Was there anything special you guys felt like you were doing that really helped survive that process? Make it feel more natural for the users or? 

Daymon:

Well, we just have a unique situation there where everyone came to their mountain homes during the apocalypse in the way, right?

We had this huge boom from people utilizing their mountain homes during that time. And so we actually just saw a huge increase in people who haven't been at their homes in many years, and we're going out and cleaning these disgusting windows. You know parts of the Vail Valley where these people own five and six homes like this all across the country.

I call it the CEO Reserve in some of these neighborhoods. And these people hadn't seen their Vail house in many, many years. And then they were there, finally. So that was a big part of it. We just got lucky that way. We've seen that back off a little bit now. This last year wasn't that same effect as much.

But now we've gained a whole new level of robustness as a business because of that growth period. Mostly just being able to afford a bigger team and all these kinds of things where our competition remains far, far behind that in general. So it's just led to a synergistic kind of growth that way overall. But the covid thing for us wasn't a struggle at all. It was just mostly a struggle to staff and keep up with the [orders].

Adam:

Yeah, failure to service or anything. Even if you consider that lucky to be in that particular area, still just being aware of the opportunity and everything you had done to position yourself there so that you were the one that was being called in those situations is really… you call it luck but still there's tons of hard work that led to that one moment. The moment in itself was lucky, but it was really because of everything else you had set up. 

Daymon:

Yeah, it was really a bunch of these different congruences all coming together at that time that really just led to a lot of growth very quickly.

And now we're up 28% I think this year, so some good growth. Again, mostly just having to raise prices I think has been the main element of revenue growth there. But also being able to staff a little better this year as well. 

We really just went after that element as one of our most important things that we had to tackle and that came through and next thing we know, we were a little overstaffed and so we were able to just hit the pedal to the metal and take on as much work as we possibly could. And that, that's all just part of that scaling. 

That ability to up the amount of jobs we're doing in a week and deal with that whole boom or bust, or whatever may be in our case, just really all came together to be able to grow. 

Adam:

With that amount of growth, adding the extra team, adding a different location, how did you handle some of the dispatching? Did you feel like ServiceMonster helped with some of that? Or were there other areas you feel really helped as you grew to more crews that really set you apart? 

Daymon:

Absolutely. You know, one of the things that I don't think would've been possible even 12 years ago or something, is… so this other region in between one of my two regions is an 11,000 foot pass. That can be a horrible drive, you know? So when we bought this other business, you know Vail Pass, right? To commute over into this other region is not efficient at all. And that's where a lot of companies have tried it, but it doesn't work.

So when we took over this other location, we got a couple parking spaces in this lot in a base that way. Our crews are over there and some are over here, and we're sending them work orders each day and that dispatching is so crucial that way. There's no home office that they have to necessarily be at.

The app is always providing where they’re going that day, all the details. So without that, I don't think that [our] acquisition would've been realistic at all, honestly. That [dispatching] was just absolutely crucial. 

Once I had used the[ServiceMonster] platform for one season and I was approached about this business coming up for sale that next season, I just thought, wow, yeah, this is very doable now. All because I'm using this platform.

Adam:

And when you do you have a set up, so like you have a specific color for that region? Is it obvious on the schedule?

Daymon:

Yeah, we utilize the directional color chart and so in the queue it's pretty easy to recognize that region by color and that's been really nice.

I was just doing that earlier today where we have 33 different jobs in there. It gets to be a long list. And when you're just trying to search for one in a specific town to add on that day, your eye just starts going for orange or yellow or whatever it is. And that's worked really well. 

And so, we were trying to warm up to the idea of how we could grow even into some of the metro areas, and we experimented with that a little bit this summer. Just dipped a toe in to see how that went. I can see it being very doable. Whenever you bring on a new region, it's just a whole other set of problems and marketing issues and yada, yada.

But you know, I just see the [ServiceMonster] platform making that much more doable for us in the future. 

Adam:

Nice. Well, I definitely wish you luck on your expansion, if that's your continued journey of growth. It's amazing to see that. Always a pleasure to chat with you.

Daymon:

Um, Yeah, it's been likewise. I, I just really want to say just excellent work to you guys. I just feel like I made the right choice, you know?

Even though of course it's not perfect, overall the customer support is phenomenal. The overall functionality and robustness of the system is just great. And it takes a while to learn, to get the hang of it. But once you do, there's so much you can do with it. So I just really say good work to you guys.

Adam:

Well, I definitely appreciate that, Daymon, and like I said, I appreciate you taking the time. You're, you're a busy, busy man, so it's been great having you and  we're excited to share this with the world, so to speak, and go from there. 

Daymon:

All right. Good talking with you as well. 

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