Good Formula for the Owner Operator Carpet Cleaner

[Brian R]

If you're a one man show, you can really make this happen.

Image is everything....and these things will help with that. They will also help bring customers to your world.


1. Clean yourself up. Cut your hair, Shower everyday, wash your clothes, tuck in your shirt, wash your van inside and out.

2. Website. Create, touch up, tone down or just simplifiy and organize and make it functional for your customer...NOT you.

3. Search Engines. AFTER you fix your site, sign up for all the local business listings on ALL the big search engines...and complete them 100%

4. Reviews. Get your customers to place your company on all the major sites like Angieslist, Judy'sbook, CitySearch...you name it...and get all the rest to do a raving review about your company on them...helps with search engine placement...the top is good.

5. Get help. Don't answer your own phones.....I don't care who does it but don't do it yourself...it takes away from other things you need to focus on. With Full Circle, you never have to answer your phone again. At the very least it cuts down on stress.

6. Get organized. Use Quickbooks pro, Service Monster .........AND a good accountant to tell you what you're doing wrong and fix it. They will offer tax planning, financial advice etc. All the thing you don't need to deal with on a daily basis or you would be an accountant yourself.

7. Get Personallity. Get into a Letip Group, BNI, Chamber, Toast Masters etc. You can gain business but more importantly you gain the talent to speak to people. No matter how good you think you are...you can always be better.

8. Plan. Figure out where you want to be in 10 years and head in that direction. Do you want to sling the wand or run the show?

9. Health. Eat right, don't drink too much, go to the gym (yes even after a hard day at work). If you feel good about yourself, people know it and respond to it.

10. Get rid of fear. False Emotions Appearing Real. Don't fear success and make excuses for not having it.


Do these things...there are others...and you will be successful even if you live in backwoods bum F Egypt.
All of these 10 things have 100 things to do on top of them and with them. They are just starting points.

This has been a moment with Brian. !gotcha!

 

[Jay D]

Yep!!!! !gotcha!

 

[Ryan]

I agree with everything in your post...

1. Clean yourself up. Cut your hair, Shower everyday, wash your clothes, tuck in your shirt, wash your van inside and out.

:shock:

If your not showering every day and washing your clothes I think you have deeper problems then trying to run your business!! Dress for success!

If you can't keep yourowndamn van clean how can people expect you to clean their house.

 

[Brian R]

That was just part of the whole package.

Image is all people see when they see you.

Every moment of truth needs to be a positive one (Thanks Steve T. and SFS)

Clean truck pulling in, clean tech getting out...I should have mentioned mouth wash...you know the female home owner has the most sensitive nose.
Brush them yeller teefus too. No one wants to see a "Summer Teeth" smile.

 

[Brian R]

Remember the weakest link theory.

Only as stong as your weakest link.


You can bring customers to your website but if it doesn't convert, you're screwed.
You can take the call from a great website but if you miss the call or can close the deal...screwed again.
You can go to your scheduled appointmen but if your image isn't up to par....screwed for the next time.

Start from the beggining and make it to the end....don't do 50% !gotcha! or half ass it.

 

[Ryan]

That was just part of the whole package.

Image is all people see when they see you.

Every moment of truth needs to be a positive one (Thanks Steve T. and SFS)

Clean truck pulling in, clean tech getting out...I should have mentioned mouth wash...you know the female home owner has the most sensitive nose.
Brush them yeller teefus too. No one wants to see a "Summer Teeth" smile.

Brushing alone won't cut it if you drink coffee. Crest white strips are $30.

 

[Brian R]

Remember to clean up your website as well.
Even a simple clean one pager website will do better than some of the train wrecks I've seen.

If you are getting "ton's of hits" but no one is calling. You really need to look at the design of your site.

If you have a site, you need to track how much traffic, is it repeat traffic, where the traffic is coming from and what they are clicking on.

I've heard too many times...."Nobody uses the internet in these parts" Horse Hockey!!

50% !gotcha! of the population of the US is on Facebook. Give me a break. Even Marty S. uses the internet for crying out loud.

It's too easy to blame misfortune (or misguidance) on someone else or something else and write it off as "not in my town".

 

[Jim Williams]

I was at my local distributor awhile back and was amazed at the way most CC dress. No wonder we get a bad rap.

The same thing with most cleaners I run into around town. Some have very nice, clean vans, but as soon as they get out all you see is bums in shirts with cut off sleeves and ragged clothes. I wouldn't want these guys in my house lookin like a bunch of thugs.

 

[tmdry]

I was at my local distributor awhile back and was amazed at the way most CC dress. No wonder we get a bad rap.

The same thing with most cleaners I run into around town. Some have very nice, clean vans, but as soon as they get out all you see is bums in shirts with cut off sleeves and ragged clothes. I wouldn't want these guys in my house lookin like a bunch of thugs.

I agree 100%.

 

[Cleanit]

Thanks, Brain.

Thats the shot in the arm needed.

Great Post!

 

[Brian R]

You're welcome.

I just wanted to list some of the things that worked for me. They continue to work even though there are more things to consider now.

I'll stick with the list for now.


Getting help. No company will expand without help. You just can't do it all yourself. Although some Owner Operators will try, they can only do so much.
Yes, you can have a decent income answering your own phones, scheduling and doing the cleaning but it all depends on how much you want to grow.
Peace of mind is very important and as the phones get busier it becomes very difficult to juggle everything.

I was always a proponent of the Mom and Pop idea of Mom in the office and Pop out in the field. Still can work...but again, you can only grow so much.
I have Full Circle answer my phones because I would never (now) ask my spouse or girlfriend to be tied to the phones all day.
She can be doing her own thing, or helping the business in other ways.

Hiring a service like Full Circle has more benefits than you want to read in one post.

1. Less Stress
2. Great organization ...as in keeping your schedule and customer info in order
3. More likely to answer the phones instead of it going to voicemail (if one girl doesn't pick it up, the next one will)
4. Cost. You can't beat around $500.00 per month verses an employee or even your wife
5. Liability (which also means cost) you don't have to hire or fire or worry about getting sued in the process
6. Dependability. If you have 1 employee or even the wife, you have 100% chance of them getting sick at least for one day.
7. Image. Your company will appear larger than it is...this is not dishonest...we all should appear bigger than we are no matter how big we are.
8. Vacation. How hard is it for an O/O to take a vacation...if the wife is on the phone what are you going to do? Leaver her home? Good luck with that. I've been on vacation or just out of town and not had to worry about my phones being answered or jobs not getting scheduled
9. More than just an answering service....they are a line of defense against pissed customers, pissed technicians and not having the info you need while driving or no where near a computer...like dirt biking in the mountains.
10. Growth....Full Circle allows you to work ON your business instead of FOR your business. You should be able to make so much more money with your "free" time to cover the small cost of having their service that this shouldn't even be an issue.


Just because you or someone else has been doing something the same way for 20 years doesn't mean it is the right way to do it now. Take advantage of the time, money, effort and mind saving benefits of letting others services perform your other services.

 

[Brian R]

Accounting, Scheduling, tracking.

If you want something to grow, you have to track it.

Quickbooks Pro is the best accounting program out there for most, if not all of our companies. Every account is able to work with it and you can email them all the info needed to do your taxes etc.
As long as you log all your income and expenses, you really don't have to worry about the IRS knocking on your door...or at least not too hard.

Service Monster is the best scheduling and customer tracking software program I've ever seen for carpet cleaning.
The fact that it IS specific to our industry should be a no brainer for signing up right now...if you haven't already.
Most of you have heard this before...and a good amount have signed up and benefited from it.

You can (or your answering service can) schedule your incoming calls, track what they have done, create work orders, estimates and invoices etc.
If you (or your answering service...or both) collect any info from your customers, you will have it sitting there the next time they call.
You can see how much your company is making and growing at a glance and it remembers all the things you can't and won't.