How Old Glory Washing Solutions Went From 157 to 266 Google Reviews in Three Months

How did a car dealership manager start a pressure washing company in Panama City Beach?

Dean Jackson came out of the car business, where he had worked his way up from cleaning cars as a kid to general manager, with a stretch in Army military intelligence in between. The idea for a washing company came from a dealership. The dealership had built a 15,000 square foot, multi-million dollar building, and when it was about to be delivered he wondered who cleans these things. The answer, he found, was that nobody really did.

A cousin in upstate New York, a teacher who pressure washed in the summers, walked him through the trade. Dean and his wife moved to be nearer family in south Mississippi, landed in Panama City Beach, and started Old Glory Washing Solutions in November 2022.

There was no investor behind it. “It was just me and my wife trying to figure this out day by day,” he said. They took whatever came, from a single driveway to a huge church or commercial building. Today the company covers the coast from about an hour east of Panama City to the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and does pressure washing, soft washing, window cleaning, paver sealing, and garage and patio coatings.

Why did Old Glory work for free for its first four months?

Because Dean wanted reviews and referrals before revenue. For roughly the first four months the company took no money. Every job was free, and every customer was asked for a five-star review.

In the fifth month Old Glory did $20,000. The free customers had started sending relatives: a cousin with a driveway, a daughter who owned an office building.

He paired that with relentless visibility. He said he is never seen without Old Glory gear on, and in the early days he had a rule to hand out 15 business cards and get 15 names every day. “If you don’t live this every day, guess what? People don’t know what you do, they can’t hire you,” he said.

The result: he had told people the company would do $65,000 in its first year, and it did about $189,000. He said revenue multiplied again in the second and third years and that the goal now is to crack seven figures, which he believes would make Old Glory the only washing company in the Panhandle at that volume.

What does he call the simplest advantage in home services?

Answering the phone. Dean said the company answers its phone 24 hours a day.

It goes beyond picking up. He answers with “How can we serve you today?” and said too many owners think the customer owes them the business. His cell number is printed on every company vehicle, including his own, so a customer with a problem reaches the owner and not a switchboard.

The company’s slogan is “making Panama City clean again.” When Dean arrived, he said, people were still wary of hiring contractors after bad experiences following Hurricane Michael in 2018. He sees Old Glory’s job as putting that trust back.

When should a pressure washing company add paver sealing or coatings?

When customers keep asking. A mentor taught Dean that if someone asks you three times, you are missing something in your market. Within two or three weeks Old Glory had about ten requests for paver sealing, and once the crew was sealing pavers, customers wanted their garage floors done too.

It is not a cheap move. He put the machinery for coatings at $40,000 to $50,000. Old Glory did its first jobs for free, paying for everything itself, and went through what he called pretty intense training before working on a paying customer’s house.

Customers were also asking for a referral he could not give. There were franchises coming in from other cities, but nobody local offering the level of service he wanted his name next to.

How does he build a team that cares?

By hiring for how people treat people, then leading from the front. Dean said his crew includes former military and people he brought down from the car business in New York. None of them grew up wanting to be pressure washers. “If you can take care of humans, you can learn any task,” he said.

He still shows up on jobs unannounced, puts on a different shirt and starts cleaning. The morning of the interview he had sealed pavers by himself for a customer of two and a half years. Too many owners, he said, want to be absent and go fishing at noon. “If you are willing to lead out front, it’s amazing what your guys will do.”

He is also starting Game Changers, a quarterly gathering that puts experienced tradespeople in a room with people trying to get into the trades, alongside his work speaking to high school and college students about careers that do not require a university degree.

What would he tell an owner struggling in year one?

Work harder and get around the right people. His blunt answer was that if you are not making what you want to make, you need to double down. Put the phone away, go talk to people, and build value before expecting results. “Put yourself around the people that you want to be like,” he said.

He also pushed back on the idea that weekends are off limits. His crews often prefer weekend work at banks and commercial sites because nobody is around.

His closing point was that the bar is low. Customer service has fallen off everywhere, he said, and a company that provides it will get the reviews it needs and accelerate.