I don't get it!!!!

[sweendogg]

It was all I could do to not fall over laughing...

Ok the story:

The girlfriend been kinda of sick, needed a note for school. Went to the doc in box only to be told her "sympton's" require testing at the ER down the way.. (well damn!... I know she needed it checked out properly but 1 hour to 5 hours.. ugg.) Anyways, she checks out fine.. phewww. We are walking out to my pickup and low and behold a newer(like in 07 to 09) GMC 3/4 Ton Crew Cab 4wd with plow mounts for a nice Western Plow. With a small portable extractor thrown in the back, a cardboard box of hose and a single graphic in the back window saying professional carpet cleaning!

I guess I don't get it! And what irks me is the consuming public prolly lets this guy into their homes on a daily basis and these are prolly the same folks who bad mouth not only the CC industry but say carpet doesn't perform as well!

I wish the guy hadn't just parked the truck. I really wanted to confront him just to pick his brain!

Speaking of which has anyone planted themselves outside of the vacuum isle at walmart or other store and watched people buy the "steam cleaners," trying hard to bite your tongue at some of the idiodic things they say?

Or ever went to lowes/HD/boxstore and put a salesmen in their place about their own products? These would make some great board reads!!

Anyone up for a little April 1 Breaking the Norms?

 

[Chris A]

That guy probably says the same thing about you plowing with that half ton o' yours...

 

[sweendogg]

sure poke fun fine

 

[The Preacher]

yore just a glorified janitor anyway, so quick yore bitch'n!!!

 

[-JB-]

GMC 3/4 Ton Crew Cab 4wd with plow mounts for a nice Western Plow. With a small portable extractor thrown in the back, a cardboard box of hose and a single graphic in the back window saying professional carpet cleaning!

That's better than how i started, talk about a stain on the industry's underwear; a 74' retired GE van ($400), lime green Chevy, rust holes so big you could toss a football through, four studded snows all year, leaked oil, rented Ninga porty, one gallon of chem, no measure cups no spotter, and NO BOOTIES! No formal training, no insurance, no certs, and $10 a room!

 

[Brian R]

Yeah, cause that guy could Neeever do a good job cleaning carpets. :roll:
Get off your high horse.

 

[cu]

That's better than how i started, talk about a stain on the industry's underwear; a 74' retired GE van ($400), lime green Chevy, rust holes so big you could toss a football through, four studded snows all year, leaked oil, rented Ninga porty, one gallon of chem, no measure cups no spotter, and NO BOOTIES! No formal training, no insurance, no certs, and $10 a room!

and your still the same today

 

[-JB-]

frankly, I'll take that as a compliment!

Thanks! :wink:

 

[bob vawter]

GMC 3/4 Ton Crew Cab 4wd with plow mounts for a nice Western Plow. With a small portable extractor thrown in the back, a cardboard box of hose and a single graphic in the back window saying professional carpet cleaning!

That's better than how i started, talk about a stain on the industry's underwear; a 74' retired GE van ($400), lime green Chevy, rust holes so big you could toss a football through, four studded snows all year, leaked oil, rented Ninga porty, one gallon of chem, no measure cups no spotter, and NO BOOTIES! No formal training, no insurance, no certs, and $10 a room!

NO BOOTIES???
I KNEW yous was a bootie boy!

remember me??

 

[rotovacguy]

Come on guys. Basically you're saying that ANYONE using a porty is a hack.


I'm currently a POG, and I KNOW I would perform as well as ANY of you guys with your TM's, it will just take me longer. Heck, I can't count the amount of times I've been complimented on my work. Custy's telling me that I do far better work then the last guy they used, and he had a big TM. While I don't NEED the custy to tell me that, I DO appreciate it, and the fact that they notice the difference, too. Just because you have a TM, or a patch on your sleeve, doesn't make you gods gift to CCing, it's not f*cking rocket science.


Now, does it "look" hackish to throw it in the back of your vehicle, and unpack the goods on site? Sure, been there, done that. My stuff is all in a trailer now, but back when I did that, I NEVER had a custy say anything to me about it. Were they thinking to themselves, "oh shit, what did I get myself into now", as they saw me pulling out the pieces of equipment from the back of my truck? Perhaps, but any of those thoughts were quickly washed away when they saw the end result....which is WHAT I WAS THERE FOR, AND WHAT THEY PAID FOR!!


Having said that, I also understand the limits of my current set up. TM's will absolutely obliterate my production time, I know this. But at present I do CC part time, wanting to be ONLY residential, so my pimped out Mytee (which has as much balls as a smaller TM, I'll guarantee you!), is working just fine right now. The rest of my time is spent doing air duct cleanings (commercial and residential), which will pull in WAY more $$$ than CC alone will, at least in these parts it will.

Now Sweeney, I absolutely agree with you about watching people picking up a Bissell steam vac at Wal Fart, Target, etc. That's the very reason why I got into air duct cleaning years ago (with the help of my bro, who is an HVAC tech), because most people are fine with the cheap ass job a Bissell will do, and don't want to pay for a quality job. That's the problem with CCing alone, equipment can be purchased at the local big box store for the do it yourselfer. And it can be picked up on fairly quick, too. The end result is shit, but it never surprises me how many people are happy with shit, and even live in it!.. :shock: ... Now take a look at HVAC work, and air duct cleanings. How many people do you know doing that themselves? I can't think of too many. It's more of a specialized trade than carpet cleaning, and the price you command will reflect that. I can routinely pull in $300-400 per house, and that's for an average size ranch house. And if it's a combined service with my brother doing an HVAC install, it will go up WAY past that. Try doing that with carpet cleaning. I have a few custys that pay that for CC alone, but in this area, they are the exception, NOT the rule, and those are not small ranch houses. :mrgreen: The key for me has been upselling my services, turning a $300 duct cleaning into a $500+ duct / carpet cleaning job. I can get the work done, during daylight... ... in less than 8 hours easily, and don't have to be a f*cking night owl doing cheap paying commercial work. Oh yeah, and I get paid immediately, not 3-4 weeks, or more, like with those commercial accounts.


Do I want a TM? Yes, someday I will get one, when business levels, and $$$ allow!..

But for the time being, I'm fine being a porty "hack". :roll:

 

[Nate The Great]

It was all I could do to not fall over laughing...

Ok the story:

The girlfriend been kinda of sick, needed a note for school. Went to the doc in box only to be told her "sympton's" require testing at the ER down the way.. (well damn!... I know she needed it checked out properly but 1 hour to 5 hours.. ugg.) Anyways, she checks out fine.. phewww. We are walking out to my pickup and low and behold a newer(like in 07 to 09) GMC 3/4 Ton Crew Cab 4wd with plow mounts for a nice Western Plow. With a small portable extractor thrown in the back, a cardboard box of hose and a single graphic in the back window saying professional carpet cleaning!

I guess I don't get it! And what irks me is the consuming public prolly lets this guy into their homes on a daily basis and these are prolly the same folks who bad mouth not only the CC industry but say carpet doesn't perform as well!

I wish the guy hadn't just parked the truck. I really wanted to confront him just to pick his brain!

Speaking of which has anyone planted themselves outside of the vacuum isle at walmart or other store and watched people buy the "steam cleaners," trying hard to bite your tongue at some of the idiodic things they say?

Or ever went to lowes/HD/boxstore and put a salesmen in their place about their own products? These would make some great board reads!!

Anyone up for a little April 1 Breaking the Norms?

No, can't say that I have. I don't like to waste my time on things that are inevitable. Now, I've seen close to the same thing with a portable in the back of a truck with the surfboard next to it. On the side says carpet cleaning call #. I just smile, that's all. I have better things to do with my time on earth, like reading MB. Remember, everyday is 1 step closer to the grave. Make the best of it.

 

[sweendogg]

Hey guys, I'm not dissing portable only guys. You do the best with what you got.. but my point being that the guy has a $40,000 dollar plus truck a $4000.00 dollar plus plow and he's toting a small Samuri type extractor that goes for all of $1000.00. He probably works full time at Statefarm pulling $65000 plus (kind of the starting figure here), and knocks over houses at night or on weekends for $70.00 bucks whole house.

And while ther ARE guys who can do a good job.. (remember alot of you on here are the exception to the rule.) These are the guys who are devaluing our market and turning customers off to professional cleaning. I can't count how many times we've installed new carpet and mentioned about cleaning and they said we'd rather replace it than have any one try to Clean it again. The last guy.. bla bla bal,, $70.00 whole house bla bla and they left it wet for days!

I'm not waiving my hand in the air, but unfortunately in many markets there are guys who just don't give a shit about their customers as long as they make they take a check home. And while that may be fine and dandy in a bigger non service type company. When you represent a service industry, how we interact with out customers sets the perception and thus the value placed on our service.

Danny you want to be a glorified Janitor be my guess, but even a janitor can take pride in his work.

 

[rotovacguy]

Gotcha, David. :wink:



I agree on the amount of "cleaners" that are devaluing the work we do. But it sounds to me like you offer several services, installing carpet, hardwood, etc....just like me offering air duct cleaning, and HVAC installs. You're not too far from me, so I'm sure it's pretty similar down there in Bloomington as far as the carpet cleaning goes. That's a big part of why I also offer services that the average homeowner either can't, or won't tackle on their own. I hear some guys here on MB touting what they make just cleaning carpet and I have to think it's complete bullshit. Cause up here in my area, it's mostly blue collar, with some rich ass, yuppy scum mixed in... :mrgreen: ....The blue collar folk will NOT pay (or should I say CAN'T pay, in part due to our lovely 20% unemployment rate we have in my area) that much for carpet cleaning. If you can get .20 per square for residentials by me you're doing darn good. I don't f*ck around with commercial CCing (except for the health club I'm a member at....free membership in trade for quarterly cleanings), so I can't say how that goes. But my guess would be shit. So maybe if you happen to live in a fairly wealthy, white collar area, you'd probably do great on resi work, but not in a blue collar area like where I live. Heck, I was just at the local Farm and Fleet today and saw two, yes two, people walking out with Bissell steamers, and I wasn't there too long. Maybe they were on clearance sale...idk. I'm sure they know it's a total POS, and will not do the same job as a pimped porty, or TM, but at the same time, will be fine with carpets that look just OK, which is all you'll get with those throw away hunks of shit.


I guess what it comes down to is in these times, most people have been forced to cut back on their spending habits. Up here in the land of beer, cheese, and sausage it's no different. These people up here by me absolutely will not cut THAT stuff out of their budget. So what does get cut? Well, clean carpets are NOT a priority, so they will either just hack it out themselves, or get the cheapest "cleaner" when the need arises. And while some might take offense to Danny calling us glorified janitors, truth be told, I'm sure the majority of the general public see us as just that.


Case in point. In my 8 years of doing this, I can count the amount of times on one hand I've been asked about what kind of equipment I use, literally, versus the age old question of "how much to clean my living room". And even after you tell them about the differences, it STILL comes down to price, usually getting the classic line, "I need to discuss it with my husband"...In other words you just got passed over for the budget hack.

 

[sweendogg]

Yup, there are alot of people cutting back and while we have a good mix of blue collar and white collar. We have two universities and of course State Farm and Country Financial. State Farm trains its employees to always look at the bottom line and often they end up wanting cheap cheap cheap. And while we do alot of work for professors, we get just as many that think renting a rug doctor will do just as good of job. (I guess certain pH'des distory reality. )