Lacking water, power-washer seeks rainmaker.

• Author: Taylor, Mike
• Position: Money Matters

FOR 18 YEARS, JIM ULATOWSKI'S COMPANY HAS provided snow plowing and power washing for auto dealers, trucking companies, construction sites, heavy equipment and vehicles such as the ski train to Winter Park.

"We wash buildings, we wash warehouses, we do graffiti removal," Ulatowski says. "The list is endless. We wash everything that you don't want to or don't have time to."

But in the past year, Ulatowski's company, Wash on Wheels Inc., has faced two formidable obstacles: Lack of snow has meant little plowing to do, and Denver water restrictions have cut deeply into the power-washing business.

Only four of his six power-washing vehicles have been running of late.

Car dealerships, which used to wash cars twice a week, were reduced to once a week by city water restrictions. Ulatowski, who has 250 clients in all, estimates cutbacks have trimmed his business by 35 percent.

Because of the economy and the driest year on record, it might seem that Ulatowski is simply in the wrong business at the wrong time.

But even before the water restrictions took effect, Ulatowski decided that water--or lack thereof--wasn't the only factor in his company's fortunes. He decided he needed help to figure out how to run his company more efficiently.

So several months ago he turned to Lake Business Development, a business consulting firm in Denver run by Elizabeth Lake Key and her brother Eric Lake, a CPA. This begs the question: What could an outsider do for a company that its founder couldn't do--couldn't see--for himself after 18 years?.

Ulatowski has an answer for that.

"I, like so many business owners, started out small, just myself and one truck," he said. "I don't have a business background at all. I'm just a hard worker. I know how to put in the hours and get the job done. So as we evolved over the years, it was kind of learn as you go. In doing it that way, you don't always get the proper systems in place."

Elizabeth Lake Key put it this way:

"Things were changing in his business and he needed to try and figure out what to do with it. So we built a model for him. Then we put together action plans for him. Some of the plans called for additional marketing and targeted...