Which? Oriental rug cleaning, air duct cleaning, or neither!

hanks75

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Jan 19, 2009
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Lookin to diversify my services. Wonderin which service has been the profitable for you? I forgot to mention vct strip & wax. I want to to offer more in an effort to boost revenue!!
 

hanks75

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Re: Which? Oriental rug cleaning, air duct cleaning, or neit

carpet, upholstery, tile & grout
 

John Buxton

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Re: Which? Oriental rug cleaning, air duct cleaning, or neit

Depends on your area. What service is lacking? How much are competitors charging? Rug cleaning, and VCT is cheaper for you to get into.

I used to do duct cleaning but it got too competitive and the price is way down from what it was.
 

Walt

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Re: Which? Oriental rug cleaning, air duct cleaning, or neit

Going against conventional wisdom, I suggest that you don't deversefy too much. My experience is that you end up being inefficient. I've "done" all three.

Duct cleaning - to do right costs a lot to get into it. Forget ram air and roto vac - lame.

Rugs - to do right takes a good deal of knowledge and space.

VCT - low wages and typically done at night. It can rob your energy for more profitable ventures. But it is fairly cheap to get into. And likely you won't ruin anything. I did this for years. It paid the bills, but I wouldn't do it again unless I really had to.

Have you tried diversifying in to commercial? Likely you already have what you need.
 

randy

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Re: Which? Oriental rug cleaning, air duct cleaning, or neit

Walt said:
Going against conventional wisdom, I suggest that you don't deversefy too much. My experience is that you end up being inefficient. I've "done" all three.

Duct cleaning - to do right costs a lot to get into it. Forget ram air and roto vac - lame.

Rugs - to do right takes a good deal of knowledge and space.

VCT - low wages and typically done at night. It can rob your energy for more profitable ventures. But it is fairly cheap to get into. And likely you won't ruin anything. I did this for years. It paid the bills, but I wouldn't do it again unless I really had to.

Have you tried diversifying in to commercial? Likely you already have what you need.[/quote

That would be my thoughts EXACTLY. Especially two years into your enterprise, I would focus on doing a better job at marketing your core competency. If you already do Tile & grout, upholstery and carpet I would add small to medium sized water damage jobs if you must add something. Oriental & area rugs would be next but that will require some training and serious capital investment. You could start with a few water damage jobs with say maybe 12 air movers & a couple of Dehumidifiers.

If I had it to do over I would never have gotten into airduct cleaning, water damage work or in house rug cleaning. There is plenty of money in carpet cleaning to make a great living in about 9 months out of the year, without getting stretched out into a billion different services ALL OF WHICH HAVE TO BE MARKETED.

Despite what all the equipment sellers will tell you, there is just as much margin in carpet & upholstery cleaning (operated right) as there is in all ancillary services that this industry works so hard to sell you on getting into with classes, seminars etc.

Be carefully about diversification.
If you are looking for a way to generate more revenue during the off season, I would get a part time job 3-4 days a week during the winter until your carpet business is throwing off enough cash to bankroll your life without doing much during the winter. Then you will not have more money tied up in equipment for all these ancillary services.
 

XTREME1

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Re: Which? Oriental rug cleaning, air duct cleaning, or neit

I would get a part time job 3-4 days a week

I never understood this thought process. Lets say you got an okay hack job for $20 and took home $120 for the day so you earned yourself 1 good residential job in 3 days. Are you guys telling me you can not draw another $360 out of 3 days off? Don't be a sucker work hard at getting work when there isn't much. Besides from what I understand they aren't giving out jobs anymore
 

Desk Jockey

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Re: Which? Oriental rug cleaning, air duct cleaning, or neit

I like Air Duct cleaning, consumers are already aware it needs to be done to improve indoor air quality. You are already in there home cleaning, why not offer air duct cleaning?

I would also agree if you are going to do it do it right, but totally outfitting an air duct truck should only run you $10,000.00-$12,000.00. Not too bad considering the possible return. You can even operate out of a trailer if you don't mind pulling one.

Randy is right, the longer the line extension the bigger the hassle it is to market those services.
 

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