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 businesslike
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 one of the uniform catalogues.
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 these advertising specials, 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 found 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 have 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 in the
morning, 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 the
time you take it, the cost is
usually £12
or less for twenty four hours.
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 to 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 £2.00,
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.
As ever, good luck!
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