HOW TO START AND OPERATE A
CARPET CLEANING BUSINESS
_________________________________________________________________
There are two fairly new,
and very important conditions existing
in the world today that have
not only made the carpet cleaning
industry a 'multi million
pound business', but also practically
guarantees your success as
an entrepreneur in this field.
First, almost all homes and
offices built since 1960 have wall
to wall carpeting.
Secondly, the replacement
costs and the cyclical faltering of
the national economy have
caused people to want to make what
they already own last
longer, especially in the case of
carpeting, which is a
sizeable investment.
Most businesses employ
janitors or janitorial services to vacuum
their carpets after hours
daily, and then "master" carpet
cleaners to deep clean them
every three months or so.
Homemakers also generally
vacuum their carpets perhaps several
times a week, and then hope
to deep clean every spring and
autumn, depending on the
kind of household traffic, and on their
budgets.
It's true that people
everywhere try to save money by handling
these jobs themselves.
However, empathy with the
people, and an understanding of this
trend, should be neither
cause for alarm nor a deterrent to your
success in this business.
Most people are just too
busy to handle all their do-it-yourself
projects.
They continually put off
until later any chore that requires
special equipment.
This is especially true with
carpet cleaning, because deep down,
they're fearful of botching
the job.
Thus, they're more than
willing to pay an expert or a specialist
to do this kind of work for
them.
It doesn't take any special
education, skill, or experience to
operate a professional-type,
deep cleaning carpet cleaner.
Yet, from your first job
onward, you should project the image of
a thoroughly experienced
expert in your field.
Be clean, and conduct
yourself in a business-like manner at all
times.
Dress neatly. In fact, one of the best ways to get off to a
fast start is to purchase a
working uniform from Alexandre.
When you hire people to help
you with the work, outfit them
similarly.
Go out of your way to be
polite and friendly with your
customers, but refrain from
being too friendly.
Avoid getting involved in
extended conversations - if you are to
keep on schedule, you won't
have time for a lot of talk.
Keep your equipment clean,
properly maintained, and operating
smoothly.
Have your supplies organised
and within easy reach.
Don't allow yourself to be
caught in a position where you have
to make excuses because the
equipment won't function properly,
you can't find what you
need, or you suddenly find yourself out
of certain supplies.
When working just concentrate on doing the job and moving
on to
your next customer.
If the customer questions
you about the cost to do the other
rooms, give an estimate and
set up a tentative appointment,
which you should later
confirm with a call-back after checking
your schedule.
Don't try to sell your
complete carpet cleaning services on this
first call, but do be sure
to leave a business card with the
name of your company and
your phone number.
Your service is the
"deep down shampoo cleaning" of carpeting in
your customers' homes or
places of business.
Always strive to use the
best equipment that's available.
Later on - possibly on a
month or six weeks - you'll want to buy
or lease your own equipment.
Your business will grow and
flourish as a result of your doing a
good and complete job every
time.
It may take you a few
minutes longer - especially when you are
learning the equipment and
establishing a procedure - but in the
end this wilL pay off with
satisfied customers; and a group of
satisfied customers is the
key to your becoming wealthy in this
business.
You want your customers to
call you again and again to clean
their carpets.
Being pleased with your
work, they'll spread the word about your
service, free of charge!
And this, of course, will
generate an almost unlimited amount of
ongoing work for your new
business.
And I'm going to show you
how you can get started in this
business, and make £300 or
more per working day, with virtually
no investment!
The important part of this
business - or any business - is the
owner-operator's "sense
of marketing" and salesmanship.
Make no mistake about it,
all businesses success through
marketing strategies and
salesmanship.
You won't be selling a
product with this business; you'll be
selling a service.
And the selling of services
is often more difficult than product
sales.
Your success in this
business will be predicated upon the sales
efforts put in.
Getting if off the ground
will require a great deal of selling
expertise on your part.
You'll have to sell yourself
AND your services.
Therefore, it will be to
your benefit to learn all you can about
selling.
Then, you should continue to
add to your knowledge through an
ongoing programme of
learning.
Keeping up to date and being
aware of successful selling ideas
and methods will add to the
total success of any business person.
Even before the acquisition
of equipment, you need customers.
Your prospects are all the
businesses and homes with carpets in
your area.
Your problem is going to be
in reaching these prospects,
impressing upon them the
benefits of your service, and getting
them set up with an
appointment for you to do the work.
I have fund that the least
expensive and most productive method
of reaching these people is
by way of neighbourhood "hand-out"
flyers or announcements
delivered door to door.
These flyers are
advertisements or announcements of a "Carpet
Cleaning Special",
printed on A4 sheets of paper that invite the
recipients to call you for
an appointment.
Study the carpet cleaning
service ads in your local papers, the
yellow pages, and any
similar flyers you may have received or
seen.
Make a pencil sketch of your
own flyer, emphasising customer
benefits and your
capabilities of doing the job and take your
ideas to your local copy and
design shop.
Explain your project, and
ask for them to design you an
attractive flyer. When you have one which you are impressed
with, have printed however
many copies of it you want to start
off with. While you are having them printed, make
arrangements
for the delivery of these
flyers to households in your local
area. Your local papers will usually offer a
distribution
service, usually costing
between £7 - £10 per thousand
delivered. One thing before
you start handing out your fliers -
be sure that you have
someone available to answer your phone and
set up appointments for you.
You can pay to have an
answering service handle these calls for
you, but if you have a
member of your family at home, this would
be best.
You should èave a set
pattern about the answering of calls, and
an appointment book.
Usually, your flyer will
advertise a special, such as:
'Your living room carpet
deep-cleaned for just £20. Get all the
ground-in dirt and
unpleasant odours out. A professional job by
experienced master carpet
cleaners, and we can do it all for you
tomorrow. Give us a call,
set up a carpet cleaning appointment
with us now; and we'll have
your home sparkling clean, ready for
company, in no time at all!'
This_special offer should
take you no more than half an hour in
the customer's home, meaning
that you can book appointments at
the rate of one every ninety
minutes or less, depending on the
travelling distance between
appointments.
By setting your first
appointment for 8.30am, and working
through the whole day,
allowing 30 minutes between appointments,
you'll be able to handle
seven appointments per day.
At £20 per call, you will
gross £140 per day.
You'll also find that as you
gain experience, you can cut down
considerably the time it
takes you to do each job, as well as
your travel time between
jobs, enabling you to book more
appointments.
Just as soon as you have job
appointments lined up, hurry over
to your local carpet cleaner
distributor, your local dry
cleaners, or even some
supermarkets, and rent a steam clean
carpet cleaner.
Most of the time, you won't
have to pay until you return it, but
even if you do have to pay
at tha time you take it, the cost is
usually £12 or less for
twenty four (ours.
Read the directions and make
sure you know how to operate it.
Then load it into your car,
van or pick-up, and set out for your
first appointment.
You should bear in mind that
carpet cleaning is a type of
service business that takes
you into the homes of your customers.
Therefore, how you look,
dress, and handle yourself -
particularly in the presence
of your customers - will have a
direct bearing on the
success of your business.
The average price tg the
customer to have a 12 by 18 foot wall
to wall carpet shampoo
cleaned is about £50.
Your materials to do that
size job will cost about £3.00.
The typical job involves
more than just one room, and the
average period of time spent
on the typical job is about two
hours, with an average
billing to the customer of £75.
Materials for each £75 job
cost you about £5.00, all of which
means that with just five
appointments per day, five days per
week, your gross income
before expenses will be approaching
£2,000 per week.
Most people who set up
carpet cleaning businesses manage to
gross £50,000 or more the
first year.
I've described to you how to
get started with virtually no real
investment.
However, I do advise you to
either purchase or lease your own
carpet cleaning equipment
just as soon as you can possibly
afford it.
Several equipment
manufacturers have financing plans available.
It would be well to check
out several of these plans before
purchasing your equipment.
Even better than the
financing programmes offered, some of the
manufacturers have business
start up programmes to help you
along the way.
They will provide you with a
complete carpet cleaning business
plan, numerous advertising
materials, a regular newsletter
featuring business ideas
from all the buyers of their equipment
and low cost supplies.
Before actually starting
work in your carpet cleaning business,
you should talk to a few
business insurance agents to get
complete business insurance
against damage to any of your
customers' carpets or
accidents in their homes.
Being able to state 'all
work fully insured' will greatly add to
your business image.
Definitely plan to run an ad
in your local telephone directory.
You'll be really surprised
at the number of calls you get from
these ads.
At least in the beginning,
you should run a regular ad in your
newspaper.
The ideas of free publicity
and promotion are limitless, so use
your imagination and push to
get your name in the paper and on
radio and TV as often as
possible.
There's always going to be
competition.
Some of it will be good for
you, and some of it will be bad for
you.
Accept is as part of life.
Just keep in mind that you're in
business because you feel
you can do a better job; you can do it
more efficiently; and you
can do it with greater satisfaction to
your customers than anyone
else.
Be aware of the competition,
but don't worry about it. Just
stick to your own business
plan, and you'll be ok.
Depending on the population
of your area, you should be planning
for additional carpet
cleaning machines and the hiring of people
to do the work for you
within three to six months - that is,
unless your original motive
for a business of your own was to
see how fast you could work
yourself to death.
Assuming that all goes well
with you, within a couple of years
you should have hired help
running the business, while you enjoy
the fruits of all the hard
work you put in at the outset.
Incidentally, I personally
don't see the need for you to even
consider buying a franchised
operation.
There's just too much real
help available for the independent to
go to the considerable
expense and obligation of a franchise.
Starting from scratch, and
as an "independent", this is most
assuredly a low investment,
low overhead type business - the
kind we recommend for anyone
and everyone who's determined to
make it on his own.
A carpet cleaning business
of your own is one of the easiest of
all small businesses to
start.
You'll find the initial
start up costs well within your reach,
and the margin of profit
most astounding!
It's an easy business to
operate, and yet one that can be called
necessary to today's
standard of living.
It carries a very high
rating on all business evaluation
stability charts, and it's a
business that will grow rapidly to
bring you the monetary
rewards you desire.
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