Joey..
First off....
Your observations are dead on.
Thank you very much for having the nuts to stand up to liars, cheats, sociopaths, douchebags and GJPs.
Hey Mike, Happy to answer these questions.
Now, lets hear more ab out you..
-How long in the trenches?
I've been cleaning for almost 6 years, with the first year being part time while I worked overnight stocking shelves to keep food on the table.
Pretty much just me. I have been taking my now 16 year old with me for the last couple of years on some Saturdays and during the summer when it didn't interfere with his football. I also have a good friend that helps me once a month to clean 4 restaurants plus I can sometimes call on him for bigger jobs, they just have to be worked around his regular job.
-Business model you would most like to emulate?
I always thought 3-4 trucks at the higher end of the pricing for my area would be ideal but I'm rethinking that these days. One thing for sure is I want to get to a point where the business doesn't stop if I take a few days off or get hurt. I'm starting to think basically an owner/op with a couple/three employees and 2 trucks may be the way to go for me but time will tell.
-How has your area weathered the downturn...
Being an area that relies on people coming here for vacations, I think there has definitely been a bit of a slow down and I have certainly seen some businesses closing their doors and foreclosures are through the roof. That being said I think there is plenty of evidence that we have weathered it better than much of the country and certainly better than most of Florida.
As for me, my first full year was 2008 so I don't really have any perception of what things were like pre-downturn. Then in 2010 we had the BP oil spill and although very little oil made it to our beaches people stayed away. This had a definite impact on me, after almost doubling sales in 2009 from 08, 2010 was flat. I didn't fully grasp the impact the oil spill was having at the time and had a serious sit down with my wife about the future of the business. We decided to spend 2011 revamping things, new website, new business cards,
service monster, etc. I even tried to hire someone to help consult. The idea was if we didn't see pretty good increase in 2012 after implementing this stuff then I'd start thinking about getting a real job, man what a drag that would be after being my own boss for 4 years. Long story short 2011 ended up 10% and 2012 ended 25% over that, so here I still am and so far 2013 is looking even better. I feel with what I've learned and with managing to survive those toughest first 5 years, I'm here to stay.
-List the top five tricks, services, products or life lessons this board has given you
This is a tough one. I had never cleaned a carpet before when I started. The guy I bought my tm from went with me on 1 job to show me the ropes and I took an
IICRC class so other than some of the technical stuff from the class most of what I have learned came from trying stuff mentioned on the boards.
The top 3 are pretty easy though, in no particular order. 1.
Greenglides- I cleaned 2 houses glideless and was ready to put the tm back for sale, I've not cleaned without a glide since then. 2. Pre-scrubbing with a 175, this gives me the ability to know that I've cleaned it as good as it can be cleaned. 3.
Service monster- Without them I might not still be in business. 4. Cobb's dynachem line- Great product, great price 5. Carpet repairs and the kool glide. I don't do a whole lot of them but it's nice to be able to when asked.
-Do you pre vacuum when they aren't looking?
I probably pre-vac 70% of jobs. Always if there are pets in the home and anytime I think that it will benefit. I do not pre-vac vacation rentals or for some of the property managers I work for because they are getting a discount from my normal pricing.
-your next truckmount will be a....
I'm thinking
butler. I have a white magic pro-1200 and I really like the reliability of it and think the
butler would be similar if not better. If i decide to go slide in it would probably be a Judson.
-Nice website, who did it for you and how many new customers a month come from it?
I found a local guy to do it. His name is Brandon, his company is Clickscrazy.com anyone thinking of have a site built should check out his portfolio. I checked out the industry guys and decided I just wanted something a little more unique, not to mention some of the industry guys have built sites for other cleaners in my area so I felt like that was a little bit of a conflict.
I just pulled the report. 117 new customers in the last 12 months from the internet. Of course I'm sure some of those come directly from google places but I don't have it tracked down to that level.
Not really, just hope everyone gets out there and makes lots of money this spring.
