Bio on Ken Snow (in prep of the Hot Seat)

[Ken Snow]

Mike asked me to post a bio (it is written in the 3rd person for publicity purposes) to let you all know a little bit about me and my company. Here it is and I am honored and excited (not to mention a little bit nervous) to have been asked to participate.

Ken

Kenneth Snow is President of Hagopian Cleaning Services (HCS), one of the largest independent cleaning companies in the country, which services the Detroit & Ann Arbor Michigan, metropolitan areas. Hagopian has over 100 employees and offers carpet, upholstery & fabric partition cleaning, as well as hard surface cleaning in homes and businesses. Hagopian has a 20,000 square foot cleaning plant, cleaning over 32,000 Oriental and Area rugs annually, and a 7,000 square foot facility devoted to water and fire damage restoration. It's sister company Hagopian World of Rugs (HWR) has 3 retail & Showrooms, selling oriental & area rugs as well as wall to wall carpet. HWR also has a showroom in the Michigan Design Center.

Ken has been in the industry and with Hagopian since 1980 and co-owner since 2000. He has performed most job functions (and sometimes still does) from sweeping the floors to cleaning carpet, rugs and furniture to negotiating equipment, vehicle and computer purchases for this over $9,000,000.00 business unit of the Hagopian Family of Companies.

Ken is also the Advertising Director for Hagopian Advertising Agency, an in- house agency that handles all the marketing plans, advertising creation and annual media buying of almost $700,000.00 for Hagopian Cleaning Services.

In his spare time Ken enjoys reading, playing racquetball & tennis, singing karaoke, working (playing) with animals and traveling the world and also the United States.

Industry/Business Affiliations

Eight-Mile Blvd Association - Board Member & 3 term Treasurer
International Society of Cleaning Technicians - member & past President
Oak Park Chamber of Commerce-Board member, 2 term past President
Oak Park Business and Education Alliance - Board Member, 2 term past President

Memberships

Ann Arbor Art Association
Detroit Institute of Arts, Founders Society
Franklin Racquet and Health Club- Level A Racquetball and 4.0 Tennis player.
Madison Chorale- 2 term past President, 1st Tenor
First Congregational Church Of Royal Oak, MI - Guest Tenor Soloist
Church Of The Holy City, Royal Oak, MI- Guest Tenor Soloist
Michigan Humane Society- 27 year member
Armenian American Business Council- 10 year member

 

[Steve Toburen]

What happened to the karaoke, Ken?

Steve

PS On re-edit I guess all those guest tenor soloist gigs fit the bill. I'm impressed!

 

[Goldenboy]

$99.95

Founder of the $99.95 whole house special.


Golden Boy

 

[Ken Snow]

What do you mean Steve- its in there :-). Actually I didn't have that in as this is my corp bio, but I added it for this forum.

Ken

 

[Steve Toburen]

Sorry Ken. Are you sure you didn't edit that in on me!

Steve aka "Washed up old rug-sucker that needs glasses"

PS I guess I just wanted to catch you making a mistake! Foiled again.

 

[Chris Muetterties]

Ken,
I will be looking forward to you night in the Hot Seat !!
As for the part time cleaners and their comments just forget them !!

 

[Mikey P]

Please forward any questions you have for Ken to my PM box.

 

[Ken Snow]

Thanks Chris~ hope it is enjoyable for all, including me as I am going to have to stay up past my bedtime for this one.

I also know pot shots go with the territory, but I do wish people would know their facts before they they take them.

Ken

 

[truckmount girl]

I like Ken more and more all the time.

Take care,
Lisa

 

[Ken Snow]

 

[Guest]

Don't worry about it Ken. I'm sure most people that take shots at you are just jealous.

Dave

 

[Guest]

Toddler Boy...last I heard Ken's job average for residential carpet cleaning was at or near $150. Stick that in your corn cobb and smoke it part timer. You only wish you had one of those a day Two a day and you'd be stoked.

 

[Goldenboy]

Take a fooken joke.



Golden Boy

 

[Mikey P]

Ken

Could you tell us now what forms of marketing you do to keep all those trucks busy?

 

[Carpet Dude]

Ken.......to honor your success....the church memberships could be tops on list...without it.....what can be possible?

cheers........

 

[Ken Snow]

Sure Mike

In order by volume

1. Radio- 6 stations
2. TV - 2 networks in early to mid am, no cable right now)
3. Newspapers- major Detroit daily as well as a couple other monthly ones.
4. Yellow Pages- necessary evil, especially with another company with similar name.
5. Data Mining- mailers reminders etc. to customer base
6. Specialty publications

Did this from out of town without going onto my work computer so I hope I didn't miss anything.

Ken

 

[Mikey P]

I woulnt ask how much that adds up too..... :shock:


You're kidding about someone else using the Hagoipian name, right?

 

[Ken Snow]

Unfortunately, about 30 years ago there was a breakup of the Hagopian family and one of the brothers was allowed to use the name also, with a little twist to it. that is why for marketing purposes, we have a dba of The Original Hagopian Cleaning Services.

Adds up to over 600k for the 2007 budget.

 

[Joe Denman]

Ken,

Good luck in the Hot Seat! I hope everyone can get past the $99 amount and see the value of your marketing program.

I applaud you on your openness and willingness to share your secrets of success. Continued good luck to you...

Joe

 

[Jack May]

Some of my questions would be:-

Were you instrumental in developing and implementing the current systems that you have today?

What books (being down under, we don't have the availability to courses like SFS etc) have you read and found useful in the growth and operation of such a company?

What's your BIGGEST fight with on a daily basis? Staff? Consistant flow of work? Marketing? Management of business in general? ????

Do you do any/much water or fire damage restoration type work? If so, how do you plan for the unpredictable schedule required for this type of work?

John

 

[Mikey P]

Do you tell clients of the Hago when they call you that they dialed the wrong number?


How do they deal with it?


How do you keep track?

Are their trucks another bold color to help with the confusion?

 

[Steve Toburen]

How does Hagopians find/ train/ motivate good employees and most importantly KEEP THEM over the years?

Steve

PS I'm going to be there for your Hot Seat, Ken. It will be good to see you squirm. Now the shoe will be on the other foot! Ha-ha-ha ...

 

[Ken Snow]

Thanks Joe~ I appreciate your thoughts, and hope your doing well with all your V's. Heard from Slick at all?

Carpet Pro- My employees and managers are probably responsible for the vast majority of our systems. I view myself as a facilitator, putting the right people in the right place, with the right resources and moral support so that they can be effective in their jobs. I do reserve final say and am usually intimately involved in major decisions. In my day to day activities, I am a buyer of media, and working with my in house creative person and external people. Spend a lot of my time with sales people.

Lots of great books to read through. Guerrilla Marketing; Rich Dad, Poor Dad; Servant Leader (anything by Blanchard); FISH; plus many others I can't think of right now. If you want a complete list e-mail me and I'll try to put one together in the next month.

Biggest daily struggle is keeping my management team motivated. Unfortunately middle mgmnt can be a tough spot, they are the ones who talk to the occasional unhappy customers, and get the employee "issues".

We do quite a bit of water/fire damage, although it has been much more competitive in recent years. It is always a challenge to manage the time of the people who do the work, and we try to keep them busy by working in our plant when they do not have jobs to go to or follow up at.


Mike- We never talk about the other Hagopian unless a caller brings it up to us. More often than not as they are a small company, a caller thinks we are scheduled and is calling to find out what time we're coming and we have no record. We do not track this at all, but we are communicating with our database and I bought 1 800 HAGOPIAN a few years ago.

Their trucks are white, not flashy at all.

Steve- I know you'll be rooting for me, and we'll both be up past our bedtimes that night.

With a few rare exceptions (Exec level CFO, marketing person etc) we get our new employees, from recommendations of current employees or customers. While there is the occasional dud, we have found a much higher success rate this way than by traditional advertising. New team members are mentored by a veteran for a few days at least and learn about the different parts of our business. Ultimately I want to develop our own customized fast track program. For motivation we try to have fun every day~ we have a Tuesday bagel and donut day, we have a theme day once a month or so, where many of us dress up in whatever "goofy" theme it is. Most importantly we give everyone respect and appreciation and try to recognize them when they do things right vs just harping on them when they do things wrong. We also have an incredible benefits package including medical, dental, vision, life, STD, LTD, a MSA & Dependent Care Savings Account, 401k & Hagopian Investment Plan (HIP) which allows them to earn prime interest rate for investing in the company (this is after tax). We also pay well for all positions.

Ken

 

[Mikey P]

I dont see this thread slowing down so I am going to "Lock" it so we dont take away too much from ken's Hot Seat session.

I hope to see you all there.

I have a feeling it may give Jim a run for his money in terms of attendance..