Handed them their asses....now they are on the war path.

[Willy P]

you have a no competition contract with your lead guy?

They aren't worth jack schitt. Everyone has the freedom to work where they choose.
And to the Swiss- I get lots of referrals from a few different suppliers because they know the job is done to higher standards. I did over 6k in June on new and repeat supplier referrals with no kickbacks before that grenade gets tossed.

 

[bob vawter]

if i've had ever shive that been stuck in my back by a low down snake in the grass PM.....well
i'd have a LOT of shives.......YOU CAN'T TRUST THEM WORTH SPIT!!!

 

[Old Coastie]

...doing a restorative cleaning as well as you can is probably not the other companies strong suit. if they can't do a good maintaince cleaning now it's doubtful they can do a super good cleaning later. being a company that can fix other company's problems one time sets you apart from the cheaper competition and may eventually get you the maintain contract to really good jobs. you had a inside track to do the job once for sure, make that a positive. you showed what you guys can do and now sit back and wait to see what happens next. I think this is a good lesson for everyone to show that if you do go in to fix another company's bad results, then charge as much as possible, do a great job, and treat it as a one time deal. if anything more happens then that is just extra on top of the original job

I think you are right.
"Setting the dials back to zero for you" is an attitude that works very well for us. It does not require a committment risk from the business owner, but once they see a better value, they are often eager to switch. Others are saying that too, but in a negative way (tbey'll dump you for a better price). I say, turn it into a positive!

But if you get dumped, be gracious. That wheel will turn, too. Lowballers tend to get comfortable or slack. Either way, that job will be yours again, just in time!

 

[bob vawter]

Sounds scandalous and a bit kinky.....meeee owwww!

i HAVE been called both......

 

[AshleyMckendree]

I wouldn't have told the company I did the work for what the process was called. Just that I was going to attempt my own "Methods and procedures" to see if they were superior to what was currently being used.

Problem averted.

 

[Spurlington]

Your amazing results came from your detailed system which is proprietary information which cannot be shared in fear of being duplicated. You want me or not?

 

[steve_64]

You had a good payday. Be happy and move on. Dont worry about the other companies. Just keep doing your thing.

 

[Jimmy L]

Paint over the name of any machine you use so they can't...................buy one just like it.

 

[John Olson]

They aren't worth jack schitt. Everyone has the freedom to work where they choose.
And to the Swiss- I get lots of referrals from a few different suppliers because they know the job is done to higher standards. I did over 6k in June on new and repeat supplier referrals with no kickbacks before that grenade gets tossed.

I didn't say I didn't refer companies when we get called. I get about a dozen calls a week asking if we clean carpets. I tell them who we are and what we do and then give them 3 names to call. I have about 15-16 companies that all their techs are certified and know I could hand them my keys and alarm code and trust nothing would be missing that I rotate through.

 

[Bob Savage]

It's not about how great the carpet looked after you cleaned it, it's about money. Upper management only cares about money, and letting work out to people that they know.

You did all you could, move on, it's not worth the woulda, coulda, shoulda.

 

[Wing It]

Just don't burn any bridges (not that I think you would). A couple of times I have lost big clients and I wanted to tell them how idiotic they were. Nearly everyone of them at some point has eventually come crawling back willing to pay my new higher price.

 

[Willy P]

If you love something, let it go. If it comes back to you, its yours forever. If it doesn’t, then it was never meant to be.

Shit happens, customers come, customers go. Sometimes they come back, sometimes it's a one shot payday. I lost a shitload of jobs when a janitorial company I was subbing the carpets for hired my best guy and bought some gear. I found new customers and a new tech.

 

[cu]

Hey Meg. I don't post here much. But this is in my wheelhouse. As iv been down this road a lot of times over the years. And I still have all the accounts I want to keep.
So first off . How you did the work doesn't matter. What is important is how happy everybody was with the results. That's a big plus for your friend " the manager"
Even if the other company hired your tech . He won't do the same job the next time round , because he will be put under pressure from the other company ..which will piss him off ..so he will under preform.

2nd
I would not approach the head office as this WILL put your friend the manager in a bad light because she is telling tales out of school ..and her boss won't like that.
And when your friend moves on to her next job she will know you can make her look good to her bosses. Which is why she called you in in the first place.

3rd
your friend the manager. Her boss at head office has to put pressure on the other company to do a better job ..that's her job.

But the next time your friend says I need to hire Mag to do a job . It won't be a problem. And her boss will trust you. And your friends judgement. That's very important .


I know this because iv seen off every major company in the Bay Area that has tried to take my work. . Iv had manager,s cry because they thought I was going away, and others tell their bosses they will leave if that can't use me.

It really is just a part of the P.M game.

 

[FFA]

We landed a large commercial account. Apartment complex. We had an in with the property manager and she was able to get us in to clean the common areas/halls for 8 floors in two buildings. They have a company that they are "required" to use (this is a corporate site and they have a relationship with a large property maintenance company), but she has been unhappy with the lack of results they get. Both for common areas and cleaning units between tenants. Since she is a top performer and turned around the property she is at, they granted her budget request to have us do the cleaning. The whole thing getting in there was a 6 month or more process.

We did the cleaning (encapsulation). It turned out fabulous. She got lots of calls from the residents saying how great it looked. She sent an email to the Senior Vice President of Facility Operations telling him about our work to try to get him to use us for their other properties.

Hi Jeff and Steve,

I hope you are both well!

I wanted to forward you both images from the carpet cleaning and encapsulation process I had done at Txxxxx, in our common areas, a few weeks ago. The entire process went better than expected and I think our common area carpets have a brand new feel and look to them. In previous years, we used Vxxxx or Cxxxxx Cxxxx to only shampoo and the carpets never looked that great after. Burdicks was the company who performed this new process and they are a smaller company who is a bit more expensive but worth it! They really spent the time with me going over processes and even made a stop recently to check on the progress of the encap process. Our carpets have not looked this good in a long time and I think many other sites could utilize these types of processes to help extend the life of common area carpets.

If you have any questions, or would like a meeting with the owner, I can help coordinate that. If you would like to contact the salesman directly (Brian), he can be reached at xxx-xxx-xxxx.

Thank you both!

Now we find out that the property maintenance company has contacted our lead tech, asking him to come work for them and teach them how to do encapsulation. Turns out word got back to them about how good of a job we did, and the property maintenance company is getting pressure from the corporate property owners as to why they (a large company that is supposed to specialize in this) can't get the results that our little company and 3 guys did.

We know the property maintenance company uses the same distributor as us (trucks have been there when we go). We are certain they are going to start offering encapsulation, at a much lower price, to try to save the carpet cleaning accounts for all the properties.

This is so frustrating! Usually we don't sweat this kind of stuff, but encapsulation isn't that difficult to do, and I know it can be done for a lot cheaper than we did, so I fear we could loose this account.

Anyone else ever been in this situation? What did you do? Sit it out and let them "try" and not succeed and be there to pick up the pieces? Be proactive and contact the property directly to reinforce our value? (problem is, we aren't supposed to know any of this. We received some inside info)

Thoughts.....?

Congrats on your recent aquisition. Maybe try to lock them in for a year or two,with a lower price if you are afraid to lose them. You impressed them with your cleaning and charm and i am sure that will leave a good impression. Nevertheless dont depend on them to be there for your business, keep moving forward and looking for more.

Which distributor do you use, ive been looking for one in our area..

 

[Mikey P]

So what did you learn here Meg?


Any changes planned for future work of this type?

 

[idreadnought]

my opinion is that you got greedy. If they were performing hwe and you did encap then your time and costs involved should of been way less. If you charged the same as them then you would of still profited more. However you wanted to sell your better service at a higher price scenario and it backfired.

If this had happened to me, a competitor using a process that returned better results I wouldn't of headhunted your tech, but I sure would of learned the process and fought back just like they did. Now they will be able to perform the service at the same price using encap at a price that is lower than yours. This little experiment just added profit to your competitor

 

[Desk Jockey]

We did this job at .12 cents a sq. ft. Spent 2 days there (day a building/8 floors per building, 2 machines, 3 guys).

Sounds like they priced it ok. Not what I would call greedy.

 

[Zee]

Would have or would've

Could have or could've

Should have or should've

There is no such thing in English as Would of... Could of.... Should of
Same applies to when its with "No" included: Wouldn't of etcetera




Yes....yes.....I'm horrible for pointing it out.

 

[Desk Jockey]

Whutt? There ain't?

 

[idreadnought]

I don't know how much carpet he cleaned and hour but I will use the bare minimum of 1000 sq ft an hour.

2 days two machines at 8 hours a day is 32,000 ft of carpet at .12 per foot. This is $3,840 job.

At $20 per guy plus $5 for company paid taxes and workers comp times this is $25 per hour times 16 hours multiplied by 3 guys for a total of $1,200 in wages.

Encap cleaner costs would be a couple hundred.

$1,400 in wages and supplies leaves a profit before day to day costs of $2,440 in two days. That is a lot of profit and that is based on bare minimum production numbers and probably exaggerated employee costs.

 

[Desk Jockey]

32K for $3840.00 sounds about right to me. If you're willing to work cheaper, I'll let you have it for less.

So if it were HWE with a Zipper at 1000sq/ft its ok?

Is $1220.00 too much profit per day in general?

I'm confused...and evidently high priced.

 

[idreadnought]

$1,200 profit per day is totally ok with me. My aspirations are much higher than that actually. However profiting $400 per day per employee will be a tough feat to accomplish on a regular basis. If you scaled that a little bit to 10 employees that would be a million dollars a year in profit in a very low tech industry.

I realize that is core costs without figuring in equipment and overhead. Even if you figured in $200,000 per year in office, vans machines and other overhead you would still net $800,000 per year in true profit. If you can do it my hats off to you, however don't get upset if someone else is ok with only a half million in profit a year.

 

[idreadnought]

Hwe with a zipper or any other extraction tool would be different. Being that the property is a high rise the accessibility of using a truck mount would be a big concern.

However the opportunity for additional buildings and additional work would entice me to be much more competitive while still turning a good profit.

 

[Desk Jockey]

for us those "plums" are few but we are fortunate to have a few of them. Also fortunate that they don't care how we clean it as long as it stays clean between visits.

 

[Willy P]

Some days I bust ass to do 400. Some days I hit a k and get done in time to have a nap and cook supper. It all evens out in the end.

 

[Steve Lawrence]

Holy shit, what a thread!

This place is worth way more than the price of admission. Great info, thanks, all!

Ha ha, it's free!

 

[Lee K]

ur price is on target with mine! i do alternate hwe, every other time. customers come and go! some will appreciate you, and the others! well carma will bite them!

 

[PrimaDonna]

So what did you learn here Meg?
Any changes planned for future work of this type?

Be careful when your tech is co-habitating with the property manager....(I held back that little detail on purpose. Wanted to see where this thread would go and I wasn't disappointed with the replies). She knew more about the process because he loves his job and would go home and tell her about all the stuff he was learning. This wouldn't typically happen with a regular property manager/business relationship and they wouldn't know so much about our process.

Other than that, no not much we would do differently. We knew there unhappiness with the in house company and looked at this as a huge possibility to get in to other properties owned by this company. We are pleased with how it turned out and all the feedback we have gotten from the client. This most definitely isn't over. Just gonna sit back and watch it play out. If we don't get any more work from them, so be it. We have plenty to keep us busy. While we'd like to continue a relationship with them, it's not critical to our business survival if we don't.

one thing is to figure out why she sent out an email with brian the salesman instead of meg the owner. it made it look like your tech was in charge instead of you or your husband. I would get that straitened out so it never happens again.

She listed his name in the email to her VP of operations because he get's a % of any new contracts we land that he brings in. She wanted him to get commission...after all he is (well, at this point, WAS) her boyfriend.

my opinion is that you got greedy. If they were performing hwe and you did encap then your time and costs involved should of been way less. If you charged the same as them then you would of still profited more. However you wanted to sell your better service at a higher price scenario and it backfired.

Greedy at .12 cents per sq. ft? What would you charge. This was a 6 month sales process. Detailed measurements and various estimates giving them multiple options. We had a lot of time in to it besides just the production hours. Travel of an hour each way for both days too. Had we charged our "normal" rate, this job would have been over $10k. We scaled it back more than 50%. We understand that if we want to be a player in the "commercial" game, we need to scale back and can't follow the same model we do for our residential sector. We'd never get a commercial job then.

"if you charged the same as them....." We have no idea what they charge. And frankly don't care. Never have played the price match game or based our prices off what the other guys were doing. That would be suicide to our business. The profit margin on this job was small compared to what we can do with only 2 guys and one truck in less hours doing residential. But it was a solid commercial job for us....and if we get them on a maintenance program and other properties on board too, then it's worth it to us for cash flow, especially in the slower months. Disagree with you that it backfired.....I'd price it the same, if not higher if we had to do it all over again.

 

[FFA]

Be careful when your tech is co-habitating with the property manager....(I held back that little detail on purpose. Wanted to see where this thread would go and I wasn't disappointed with the replies). She knew more about the process because he loves his job and would go home and tell her about all the stuff he was learning. This wouldn't typically happen with a regular property manager/business relationship and they wouldn't know so much about our process.

Other than that, no not much we would do differently. We knew there unhappiness with the in house company and looked at this as a huge possibility to get in to other properties owned by this company. We are pleased with how it turned out and all the feedback we have gotten from the client. This most definitely isn't over. Just gonna sit back and watch it play out. If we don't get any more work from them, so be it. We have plenty to keep us busy. While we'd like to continue a relationship with them, it's not critical to our business survival if we don't.



She listed his name in the email to her VP of operations because he get's a % of any new contracts we land that he brings in. She wanted him to get commission...after all he is (well, at this point, WAS) her boyfriend.



Greedy at .12 cents per sq. ft? What would you charge. This was a 6 month sales process. Detailed measurements and various estimates giving them multiple options. We had a lot of time in to it besides just the production hours. Travel of an hour each way for both days too. Had we charged our "normal" rate, this job would have been over $10k. We scaled it back more than 50%. We understand that if we want to be a player in the "commercial" game, we need to scale back and can't follow the same model we do for our residential sector. We'd never get a commercial job then.

"if you charged the same as them....." We have no idea what they charge. And frankly don't care. Never have played the price match game or based our prices off what the other guys were doing. That would be suicide to our business. The profit margin on this job was small compared to what we can do with only 2 guys and one truck in less hours doing residential. But it was a solid commercial job for us....and if we get them on a maintenance program and other properties on board too, then it's worth it to us for cash flow, especially in the slower months. Disagree with you that it backfired.....I'd price it the same, if not higher if we had to do it all over again.

Can you point me in the direction of a good distributor in our area?

 

[idreadnought]

"if you charged the same as them....." We have no idea what they charge. And frankly don't care. Never have played the price match game or based our prices off what the other guys were doing. That would be suicide to our business. The profit margin on this job was small compared to what we can do with only 2 guys and one truck in less hours doing residential.

$1,200 per day profit margin is small?

I need to learn from you if you can make $800 a day in profit after wages, gas, and chemicals off one truck your not in. This is before other operating costs but still amazing if you can do that regularly.