Carpet Cleaning Start up questions, advice and wisdom appreciated

Mark Saiger

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Just an FYI @Ivan Turner I have the 210 tanks and pump outs because when was doing more restoration it came in handy a few times, but have not used them very often.... But when needed they were handy... Lol

They are still pump outs that can be a pain that malfunction it seems... But handy :)
 

tres davis

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Mark, I've seen some of your pictures and saw a decent amount of drying equip. You don't post much/if at all about restoration. What is your % of restoration? And why do you shy away from it (if that's correct). Seems you could expand and add a lot with your market/connections/reputation
 

Mark Saiger

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Mark, I've seen some of your pictures and saw a decent amount of drying equip. You don't post much/if at all about restoration. What is your % of restoration? And why do you shy away from it (if that's correct). Seems you could expand and add a lot with your market/connections/reputation

I shut down the fire and smoke division 3 years ago, got even ticked off enough to sell most of my water restoration equipment and focus now on carpet, Tile and Grout and upholstery cleaning... and just a little water restoration...mainly cat 1 losses.

There was some turmoil locally with a couple of other companies for legal matters and everyone involved doing that kind of work were being associated with being not reputable... So that gave me a reason to get out.

Most of the remaining restoration companies are covering a very large area to make it and I also got tired of the hours.

Very happy and feeling satisfied now with what we do and we are now dominating that part of the market because of making it the focus before anyone else could.

Life is good :)
 
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tres davis

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Very cool, happy that you have found your sweet spot. I'm working on that now. Definately a challenge in this industry to balance horizontal and vertical growth. Do you actively turn down larger floods or just not go after them?
 

Mark Saiger

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Very cool, happy that you have found your sweet spot. I'm working on that now. Definately a challenge in this industry to balance horizontal and vertical growth. Do you actively turn down larger floods or just not go after them?


I end up turning down a lot of water restoration just because we are busy with the other.

We also now just tend to take care of regular good customers....

Now, I go south to warmer climates in January rather than fight with insurance companies and clients who were heading on exotic warm vacations with money owed to me for restoration work...

No matter how much my contracts would be there to have my names on checks, they would always be people that got the money and disappeared....

So, I am happy to go south first!
 
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TomKing

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Ivan


If I were going to do it again 7 years later. This is how I would go about it.

Remember I started with a used Bane and a used truck also.


Truck

Get a Hydramaster4.8 or Butler PTO. Day 1 no questions

The $900 monthly payment is nothing to the production you can get.

Why? Employees can deal with this.

Advantages - Chevy with a Hydramaster 4.8 can haul Restoration equipment, Butler cannot.

Repairs - Hydramaster can go to local service center. Butler cannot.


I do think that Butler seems to have a somewhat better service record if you listen to guys talk.

Brian runs 30 of them must be something to it.

You just give up the restoration space and with your mix that might mean something.


Had a guy start a small water job yesterday hydramaster, 1 dehu, containment, power box and 12 air movers all in the back.

Can't do that with a Butler. Quick $2,500 - $3,000. Easy. Butler would need a trailer or another vehicle.



Box Truck

Employees in a 16 foot truck cleaning residential just seems like daily problems.

Guys bang up small vans all the time. 16 feet man I would stay away.

Sure some do it but no one that runs massive fleets does it. Learn from the big national guys.

Besides as you grow residential cleaning several truck mounts can come in handy for water loss extracting lots of properties at once. $$$$


Night Employees

It will be a greater challenge to get employees for your night crew than the day.

Work your employees Monday to Thursday nights. You will get better people.

I have never lost a job over striving to clean Monday to Thursday.

We do select Saturday work. 3-6 Saturdays a year but it is really big dollars for all and we give guys comp time off later.

Pay an after hour’s bonus for really late work. Helps moral.


Marketing

Let's talk on this live.

We can trade some coaching. Cleaning advice for water loss advice. I could use a little more water work.

You helped me at my first SFS years ago. Happy to help.


Restaurants / Night work

Stay away unless they can be done from 5-9 p.m.

They have no loyalty.

Too many guys work for nothing. You will always be under cut.

You will spend lots of time selling trying to keep your routes full.

200 foot run is not enough for commercial. Need 350 -450 sometimes.

We stretch and then pull off hose as we can to increase vacuum.


Pricing

Go for an hourly earnings on the truck not sf.

Who cares how much you clean it’s about how much you make each night!

You’re a better business guy than me this should make a lot of sense.


With 2 guys I want a route to do $800 - $1200 per night.

If you do restaurants at $190 - $275 a pop you will need 60 plus routes per month to run full.

Selling new accounts will be a constant push to have a full schedule.

Some guys will jump in and talk about big accounts worth $10's of thousands. I have a few but they are rare.

Most commercial accounts want cheap pricing.

I would go after big commercial A level office's you can Cimex not new restaurants.

We are selling away from all of our restaurants and the guys are liking it.


Scheduling

Lots of people make careers out of working second shift. People hate third shift.

You can easily ask a guy to go noon to 9pm and be back at 8 pm the next day.

Later than that it is impossible to get good people long term to do crazy hours. Sure owners will do it employees will not.

We are sliding people’s schedules to meet 8am to 9pm commercial now.

Later than 9 pm we stay away from unless it is big Cimex for awesome hourly rates.

We send 4 guys so it can still be done by 11pm and everyone is back at 10:30 am to start next day.


We used commercial big time when we started, today it accounts for about 20% of our business. It was 50-60% 3 years ago.

We have grown tired of the push and turn over. There are other services to sell that have higher margins. Let’s talk about those live.


Call Billy Lewis he helped me on commercial. He has done it for years and still does it.


Let's talk after the holiday. Happy New Year.
 
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Ivan Turner

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Tom thanks for the advice and wisdom. We'll talk after the Holidays.

Noble, great question I'm glad that you asked. If you go back and re read my post, the content really had more to do with selecting a truck mount and looking at doing commercial/restaurant work. So the answer is NO.
 

rjwood

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Most restaurant owners are so used to slave labor that they refuse to pay for fair work. And they're very arrogant about it to boot.

I rarely bother even accommodating restaurant owners with my time any longer. I see Mark Saiger does well with restaurants. Do you get a fair price, Mark?
 
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Mark Saiger

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Most restaurant owners are so used to slave labor that they refuse to pay for fair work. And they're very arrogant about it to boot.

I rarely bother even accommodating restaurant owners with my time any longer. I see Mark Saiger does well with restaurants. Do you get a fair price, Mark?

I font give them much of a discount because they usually take more work. We tend to get the jobs after others fail and then they are willing to spend more
 

rjwood

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That's kinda what I figured. What's your rate for restaurants? I've gone as low as .30 sq/ft and they complain. I did recently do a Chinese restaurant twice - I told them I'd need to raise the price which they balked at so I sold them some equipment instead. I did well enough in the end.
 
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TomKing

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We need you two on a webinar..
How does the 1st week in February sound?
I can't do February at all. We are opening a new showroom.
RG Décor, We will be expanding our large rug selection and adding furniture and home décor.
 

TomKing

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Most restaurant owners are so used to slave labor that they refuse to pay for fair work. And they're very arrogant about it to boot.

I rarely bother even accommodating restaurant owners with my time any longer. I see Mark Saiger does well with restaurants. Do you get a fair price, Mark?
BINGO Winner. That could not be more true. I love it when they say " Our terms are 90 days" Like you get to tell me how to run my business.

How lucky I am to have your business Mr. assistant manger. We love cleaning all the crap off your floors because you can't get your employees to vacuum. Heck you probably don't even have a vac in the place.
 

Joe Appleby

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BINGO Winner. That could not be more true. I love it when they say " Our terms are 90 days" Like you get to tell me how to run my business.

How lucky I am to have your business Mr. assistant manger. We love cleaning all the crap off your floors because you can't get your employees to vacuum. Heck you probably don't even have a vac in the place.


You da man Tom!
Don't forget, "Can you wait until 11:30 PM, we just sat another table. Speaking of tables,
my manager didn't tell me we had to move the chairs and tables. Sorry, I don't have the staff to do that."

I can't remember the last restaurant job we did.
Although, back in my 20s I did a lot of trades with them to stay fed.
 
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jcooper

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I can't do February at all. We are opening a new showroom.
RG Décor, We will be expanding our large rug selection and adding furniture and home décor.

Kablamooo!

Way to go, Tom! On that same street?
 

Mark Saiger

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That's kinda what I figured. What's your rate for restaurants? I've gone as low as .30 sq/ft and they complain. I did recently do a Chinese restaurant twice - I told them I'd need to raise the price which they balked at so I sold them some equipment instead. I did well enough in the end.

Yes...have gone as low as .30 cents, but wasn't as bad and knew I could probably be in my rate wanted/needed of $200-$250 per hour per van...but it gets skinny if the manager or someone messes up....

Most of the time, I do get a pretty full rate up to .38 cents per sq foot...but I also don't care if I get most of those jobs....

I let the others fail and then they pay the higher price :)
 
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