How much MONEY are you LOOSING by........

[Kevin. McCreary]

Some of us are smarter than you and still go out and clean every day, and have a well qualified

FEMALE voice answer the phone live every day! I have found that carpet cleaning owners go overboard

on the phone sometimes and offer too much information and talk themselves right out of a sale.

I think the best thing for you may not be the best thing for everyone. Some guys starting out may not

be able to do it any other way. Me personally I can sit in the office and do it if I wanted to. I think I'm

more valuable to my business in the field selling & cleaning and promoting my services to untapped potential

clients. For you maybe no one else can do it better than you! One thing I do agree with is you are pissing away

money if you advertise and don't have a qualified person answer the phone live during normal business hours.

Of course there is always the cocky cleaner too, who thinks if they want ME they will find ME or wait for me.

If you just cater to 200-300 residential customers and referrals and thats all you want to do, I think a cellphone

and a great voice mail is OK.

 

[DevilDog]

I agree that more cleaners should try to get off of the truck and actually have a real business. Your body will not hold up forever to this stuff.

And what happens with a serious illness, a serious injury, or when you want to go on vacation?

I found out the hard way on Valentines Day 2005. Was hit by a van coming home from my distributor. Tore the ligaments and muscles in my neck. For about nine months I could barely work....God...how I wished I had set my business up to run without me!!! That ONE event had the biggest impact on my life of anything that has EVER happened to me....and it was not good.

You never know when you are going to throw your back out and rupture a disk or something like that. You just don't know.

I will disagree with Harper on one thing...carpet cleaning is usually NOT impulse. At least it is not with my clients. Sure there are some people who happen to look down at their carpets and pick up the phone but most people think for a few days or even weeks about having their carpets cleaned.

As far as answering the phone...try hard to answer it when it rings. If you cannot then make sure you get back to the client quickly.

 

[Brian R]

That was my first time thinking serious about getting off the truck when my personal truck got rearended by a bread truck.

Screwed up my back for a while and I had to have others do the work anyway...so there you have it.