How did you start, what equipment did you purchase?

[daniel@procarpet]

[quote="Mikey P":dxaa247f]Miller's Carpet Care

2 rooms and hall $12.50
5 rooms and hall $24.95

Uncle Sam porty and a 175 in the back of a Datsun B210 Hatchback.

You didnt get a servasteam??? 2 three stage vacs and a 100 psi pump went with 2 2 stage vacs?

I was 11 when my dad and his bros started thier business sat behind a desk for 20 years or so cleaning here and there with a porty.

bought a shop from my dad in 1990 ran 10 crews and got a steam genie on a trailer had my wife answer phones and went out and cleaned for a year and thats where I got the cleaning bug! 92 went back behind a desk for my Dad sold steam genie.

In 2000 left Millers bought a ford van with a used prochem 150a for $10k best deciscion I ever made! got 2 new vans and a couple 405's now! Pays the bills! second best thing was going from 20 per room to 30 I know its not enough but it helps![/quote:dxaa247f]

So you went from 10 crews to being an owner op with truckmount!

Cool. Your pricing is very modest. What do you like best about this new business model?

Do you make as much or close to it with less stress and work?

 

[Bucey]

Got laid off. (most call it fired) Father in law (GM at a chevy dealer), knew a friend who had a 07 van with a boxxer 421 800 hrs at his dealership. Brother in law owns a CC business. Kept talking to me about starting one. A month after losing my job bought the Boxxer for 18K, Dealer told me if it didn't work out he would buy it back, so I took it and ran. Found Mikey's board about a week later. Learned a lot from all who would answer questions. Extremely blessed, Had a lot of motivational talks from my father in law (I married his daughter, cared more about me taking care of her than really me making it). Really grateful for the talks now, hated them then. The van had the following

150 ft vac and solution hose.
tile wand
AW29 wand
drimaster uph tool
chem shelves
live hose reel
120 gal fresh water tank
70 recovery tank

Van had 20k on it.

 

[Chris A]

you got a hell of a deal.

 

[sam miller]

[quote="Mikey P":15o2z840]Miller's Carpet Care

2 rooms and hall $12.50
5 rooms and hall $24.95

Uncle Sam porty and a 175 in the back of a Datsun B210 Hatchback.

You didnt get a servasteam??? 2 three stage vacs and a 100 psi pump went with 2 2 stage vacs?

I was 11 when my dad and his bros started thier business sat behind a desk for 20 years or so cleaning here and there with a porty.

bought a shop from my dad in 1990 ran 10 crews and got a steam genie on a trailer had my wife answer phones and went out and cleaned for a year and thats where I got the cleaning bug! 92 went back behind a desk for my Dad sold steam genie.

In 2000 left Millers bought a ford van with a used prochem 150a for $10k best deciscion I ever made! got 2 new vans and a couple 405's now! Pays the bills! second best thing was going from 20 per room to 30 I know its not enough but it helps!

So you went from 10 crews to being an owner op with truckmount!

Cool. Your pricing is very modest. What do you like best about this new business model?

Do you make as much or close to it with less stress and work?[/quote:15o2z840]

Well I'm resposible for the out come, but I have 2 helpers now and am looking forward working a little less.

I was in middle management for years working for my Dad running up to 20 techs with a low ball coupon, everybody yells at You. between the boss the customer and the techs You cant please everyone!

And I'm not big on sales and a flat rate works well for me! Still do I envy a guy going out and getting 60 cents a foot? sure! the sq footage I do everyweek! I would be rich at .30 cents a foot

Today we did 3 stops, my son and I. $540 on the first job. a kitchen bath laundry room tile clean and seal approx 250 sq ft we charged $250. 00 2 sofa recliner microfiber $120.00 and 5 room walkin closet $160.00 $10.00 for pet treatment small doggy.

another 5 rooms and hall plus 13 steps $186.00 and 4 bedrooms $120.00 for $846 on the day but thats a really good day! for me.
But I quote over the phone and rarely make 2 trips to a home, I average 4 to 5 stops a day 6 days a week!

 

[sam miller]

I make more now with alot less stress! :shock:

 

[dealtimeman]

First of all if you are happy doing what you are doIng, that is a big part Of th puzzle.

Second would be how much Of 846 do you get to keep.

 

[idreadnought]

So with $500 in my pocket and some second hand information about all this money you can make cleaning carpets I wanted to do it.

The second hand information came from a guy that I met at a bowling alley playing video games. I was 18 at the time. He told me of these stories about how he worked for a guy and they would go into a house and leave a couple hours later with a couple hundred bucks. Holy crap I though, that is more than I make all week working part time. Minimum wage was $4.25 back then. (Turns out it was a bait and switch company with very very low morals.) But thats another story.

So I have this $500 to my name and I need a machine. Not much money to buy a machine in those days. So I get out the phone book and call every carpet cleaning company or janitorial company withing 100 miles of me. I cant find anything for that price that isn't a pos.

Call this company in Sacramento called Carpet Technologies International. Spoke to some guy named Clint Townsend. He had this advance carpet cleaning machine that he would sell for $500 that came with an upholstery tool. Cool looking machine in its day. Looked like a robot with the waste tank in the middle round and the solution tank sorounding it. I really wanted to talk him down in price a little because I only had money for gas and $500 and no money for lunch. That is when he had just started making chemicals so he gave me some to start and I felt bad for asking for a lower price and just went hungry.

Some of you know clint townsend. He is the founder of Pro's Choice. I still remember back then seeing a cement mixer making chemicals running in the background.

So I was another guy cleaning carpets out of a car. 1982 Mazda GLC hatchback. Passed out flyers on cars. Then started telemarketing. "good evening THis is richard with modern carpet cleaning, we are having a summer special. we will clean a living room and a hallway for only $29.00"

Got this job once with this strange guy. Kept asking me all these questions. After the job he wanted to show me something. Took me to the back of his house and he had this old truckmount in a trailer. It hadn't been used for a lot of years. I didn't have the money to buy it so I thanked him and left.

Couple months later I bought a beat up ford van to work out of. I mean beat up. the roof was caved in from some contractor hauling stuff in it and I used wood to prop it up.

So some lady calls on a weekday that winter, I was very broke. Had a dog track poop through her house and needed someone right away. I was like yes. I needed the money badly. Then the question came.... How many horsepower is your machine. Didn't get the job and I was pissed.

Went over to that guys house with the old truckmount and got a cash advance on a credit card. Gave him $1500 for it. Needed a new waste tank and all new hoses. I used a 55 gallon drum for a waste tank.

Got pretty lucky actually. Was a really good machine. Had a 23hp kohler propane engine on it and a roots 45 blower. Custom for the machine propane heater.

Thats my story, looking back I always so wow, how did I ever make it.

 

[kiwi]

I started 19 years ago as a sub contractor and rented a crappy 100 psi box extractor off the owner
for $100 a month. I put the extractor in the trunk of my $300 Toyota Tercel.
Drove around Oahu, Hawaii, working for 25% commission on $14.95/room deals doing up to
10 small Apartments per day.
After about 6 months or so I took out a $1000 loan and got a used NInja extractor and continued with the sub contracting plus got some of my own jobs. !00% was way better than 25%!
After a year or so I got enough accounts with property managers that I was able to go solo.
Life's a lot easier these days!

 

[bigchuckie]

I wanted to at first add a nice steady pt income. I cant build anything or fix anything. I am reeally good at breaking things.
I was always good at cleaning things I figured why not give CC'ing a try

 

[Greg Cole]

rented machine for $8 a day from a $5.95 a room company. Worked on a sliding scale of 25% - 35%
Had a sales talent I had never realized before. First day did $2500 in sales. Made a little over $800 for my cut.
Next day made $500, day after that $1100. Worked full time, went to school full time (early and late classes). Finished my degree, got a job in the computer industry in middle management. Quit shortly thereafter and launched my company on December 23rd 1993.

 

[daniel@procarpet]

rented machine for $8 a day from a $5.95 a room company. Worked on a sliding scale of 25% - 35%
Had a sales talent I had never realized before. First day did $2500 in sales. Made a little over $800 for my cut.
Next day made $500, day after that $1100. Worked full time, went to school full time (early and late classes). Finished my degree, got a job in the computer industry in middle management. Quit shortly thereafter and launched my company on December 23rd 1993.

So you have this special talent of ripping people off expecting 5.95 per room only to open a coupon business that you insist is not bait and switch.

Good one Greg.

 

[XTREME1]

My oldest son seemed a little slow on the fastball and I was worried about how uneducated people get treated in the work force, so I bought a dual 3 stage diamondback, rotovac, wand, Val pak and a #3 little giant propane heater. Started building a small base part time while I sold off my shares of the restaurants. I took a job with a healthcare company and had a little more time so I bought a TM and a box truck.

my wife asked me to quit so she could take a promotion and travel and my oldest was on the college track at that point so I left and went full time almost 3 yrs ago bought a couple more vans. Now I am the carpet cleaner and my son is going to school to be a draftsman. Just bought 2 more vans this week both with over 100,000 miles and previously handicap transports ($1,750 for both)but I like the height and will start putting them together over the course of the year

 

[Loren Egland]

I was 20 in 1970 and was looking for something to do. I was approached about starting a carpet cleaning business with one of these new fangled steam cleaners (a new process at the time that only one other cleaner in town had, but he later moved away), in this case a $5000 Steam Way 400 portable (the van I put it in was a 4 year old 1966 Chevy purchased for $800 that gives you an idea of money value back then) that I think was 175 pounds. Very noisey with a positive displacement blower. Had an electric water heater. I used the 4 jet drag wand it came with. You can see it here: http://www.northlandakitas.com/delta/rochester.htm .

After selling out in Minnesota after 14 years, I moved to California and started over with a Steam Way Powermatic truck mount with only 100 hours that I bought from Rug Doctor in Fresno. I put that in a used Ford van.

I always had an edge in cleaning performance and I would let people know it too. Helped me be sucessful.

 

[Greg Cole]

rented machine for $8 a day from a $5.95 a room company. Worked on a sliding scale of 25% - 35%
Had a sales talent I had never realized before. First day did $2500 in sales. Made a little over $800 for my cut.
Next day made $500, day after that $1100. Worked full time, went to school full time (early and late classes). Finished my degree, got a job in the computer industry in middle management. Quit shortly thereafter and launched my company on December 23rd 1993.

So you have this special talent of ripping people off expecting 5.95 per room only to open a coupon business that you insist is not bait and switch.

Good one Greg.

If youd ever read my bio on my website - you know the rest of the story....
Having the skills to get people to buy a bunch of crap is NOT a crime. Baiting and Switching is.
I made most of my money by picking up furniture while in the home to clean the carpets. I quoted obscene prices for the upholstery, added a bunch of salesmanship and made a ton of money. I also learned that Bait & Switch was evil shit and vowed when i launched my company to NEVER allow such tactics to be used in my company. If contractors do it- they are gone.....

 

[Derek]

nice pic's Loren!



i guess my bain and recoil days could have been a lot worse :shock:

 

[Ron Werner]

when I started in 94, I charged $20/room, $10/hall, $2/stair, 90-70-50 sofa loveseat chair
I still see those prices almost 20yrs later

Greg, you see the bad in bait and switch but you "sold" people on outrageous prices for cleaning furniture. There's a fine line there.
Why didn't you continue and train your guys to upsell like that or even now you could train people in their own busn to upsell, like Joe and Howie?

 

[Derek]

i bet those outrageous prices are the norm for some here who bash him :shock: :mrgreen:

 

[Loren Egland]

Ron brought up an interesting point. I started out at 15 cents per square foot, though I later dropped that to 12-13 cents. I would charge 10 cents for commercial. How many are still charging that over 40 years later? Mind boggling, even if our more expensive equipment cleans faster.

 

[Ron Werner]

i bet those outrageous prices are the norm for some here who bash him :shock: :mrgreen:

I charge $20-25/lin ft for uph now, and 55 cents/sf for carpet
It would take a LOT of carpet and uph WITH protectant to hit $2500, let alone clean it all in one day.

 

[sam miller]

i bet those outrageous prices are the norm for some here who bash him :shock: :mrgreen:

I charge $20-25/lin ft for uph now, and 55 cents/sf for carpet
It would take a LOT of carpet and uph WITH protectant to hit $2500, let alone clean it all in one day.

Dont You only do one job a day??? Thats a good gig!

 

[Al]

I was a partner at a Hartford Club Sport Center, a hunting and fishing store and was getting screwed out of my share insted of becoming the owner as planned. It was 1998

One of my customers sold electrolux vacuums and shampoo machines, he said he shampooed rooms on the side at 20 bucks a pop.
He let me borrow one and I did my house and liked it, so I put an ad in the paper 14.95 per rm.

A person called and I did his carpets, then went home scared to death that they didn't come out good.
(i had no idea of truck mounts or distributors just my electrolux)
Lucky for me the guy called the next day and raved about how nice his carpets came out!!!

My son Shawn was 8 and he and I cleaned a 10,000 sf publishing company with the electrolux, in exchange for tons of ads in church bullitins, 4000. worth.
I still have a letter saying we did a better job then Stanley S.!!!!!!!

After a while my own carpets browned out from shampoo :shock: I looked in a phone book and found a company called Jon Don and a rep told me I may need to rince the carpet.

So I rented a portable and did just that, eventually I fixed it but I also invented a process on my own I thought, It was to scrub with the electrolux then rince with a rented portable!!

Long story short, I now own a small fleet of trucks a ton of equipment a shop with a rug salon, just did my first big wd at a library that I owned all the equipment for, even had to generate my own power. 26,000. in 5 days. shiteatinggrin , I'm a master cleaner and the only 2 time winner of worlds champion spot removal contest held at SF each year.


All from the truck of my car baby!

I have that little employee issue, that I'm working on. I fired my techs, then went through 7 potentials :shock: They served a purpose but were not what I wanted long term. I did the library with 3 of them and myself. Lot's of idiots looking for work, I'm learning quick and just hired a normal person, who continues to impress me daily.

We have to finish 2 wd's and cc a school 8 stories tall and paint a fire truck before the 1st. We get paid very well by a rich neighbor who collects antique fire and police cars, to do stuff at his garage, work on his boats and fire trucks

Happy New Year!
8)

 

[Connor]

I have that little employee issue, that I'm working on. I fired my techs, then went through 7 potentials :shock: They served a purpose but were not what I wanted long term. I did the library with 3 of them and myself. Lot's of idiots looking for work,

Lot's of idiots looking for a paycheck, I ain't too sure they're looking for work.

 

[J Scott W]

At age 15 (1967) I was cleaning windows for my father's company. Many of our customers would ask us to clean tile floors, carpets, rest rooms and do janitorial. All my dad wanted was window cleaning business. The next year I got a driver's license and began doing some of the extra requests as side jobs after school. Cleaned my first carpet in August of 1968.

For the next few years I managed a pizza restaurant and worked with computers and research, but still kept some of the janitorial. In the late 1970's I needed to support myself full time with cleaning. From 1978 to 1983, it was janitorial but included carpets, tile, windows, etc. Had a portable I got from SunBelt in Raleigh and also had an Argonaut oscillating pad machine.

One of my major janitorial accounts owned 3 restaurants. He told me I could have all the carpet cleaning business also if I got one of those truckmounted cleaners like he had seen in Chicago. TMs were very rare in Tennessee at that time. Bought a used Judson that year and really began to focus on carpet cleaning.

 

[Greg Cole]

when I started in 94, I charged $20/room, $10/hall, $2/stair, 90-70-50 sofa loveseat chair
I still see those prices almost 20yrs later

Greg, you see the bad in bait and switch but you "sold" people on outrageous prices for cleaning furniture. There's a fine line there.
Why didn't you continue and train your guys to upsell like that or even now you could train people in their own busn to upsell, like Joe and Howie?

A fine line, but there was a line. back in the day few people knew how to clean haiitain cotton upholstery but tons of customers had it. I would charge $700-$1k to clean it and another $400 to put 4 coats of Dynachem's ULTRSEAL on it.

I don't train our contractors because if i did that would puncture the contractor relationship. We recommend tey go to JON DON for their training.

It is easy to train people how to sell ( i've mentored several people over the years). Sales is interchangeable. I've traded my skill set in marketing and sales in exchange for %'s of peoples businesses. Currently own pieces of 3 HVAC companies, 2 plumbing companies, a chimney sweep, a low-voltage installation company, and a 1 man IT company.

What joe and howard and Steve Toburen teach are systems for marketing and sustaning a business in the carpet cleaning industry. I learned from my grandfather years ago that you shouldn't shit where you eat. I have no desire to create my own competition.

Regarding involvement in our industry: Someone is welcome to pay me a pile of $ to teach sales to them or their people , but i wouldn't do it in my own markets.

 

[Bob Foster]

... Someone is welcome to pay me a pile of $ to teach sales to them or their people...

That would be like hiring Gordon Gekko to teach how to sell bronze caskets at a crematorium.....

 

[ascrubabove]

Retired from Marine Corps in 05 and started turning wrenches in the realworld, wife got a job at same company helping keep the books, after 3 years it started getting wierd working for friends, and the wife said she was going to start a cleaning biz, so I said I'll clean carpet! Purchased a new Sanitare drag stile machine, and away we went, made enough for a down payment on van, then down payment on a loaded TNT. TM will be paid off in Feb!!!!!