If you could go back in time and tell yourself...

[Mikey P]

Something that would have prevented years of agony in your business, when and what would that be?

Did you buy the wrong piece of equipment, did you hire the wrong person, did you go multi truck with regrets, did you stay single truck too long, did you go after the wrong market share, did you use the wrong form of marketing, were you not patient enough with the natural progression that it takes for a owner operator business to develop, did you not embrace a certain service quickly enough, did you go after a service not fitting to your personality etc etc


Will be doing this live in person in Indianapolis if you'd like to share in person..

 

[Kenny Hayes]

Let my wife partner stay on the truck way too long! Even though she didn’t clean carpet with me much, she helped me strip a wax or refinish floors. 29 yrs. We did a lot. Even after we had crews, she’d still be out there rocking and rolling, and managed people. Some called her the “straw boss”. UM no, that’s the junior boss!

 

[KevinD]

No regrets but I often wonder where I would be if I didn't answer that "Carpet Cleaner Wanted" ad in the paper back in 1978.

 

[Doug Cox]

Not raising my prices early enough. Not letting my wife take over the bill paying. I never paid myself a paycheck up until maybe 5 years ago. I just paid everything from the business checking. Now, I seldom need to go into my office. The only thing I do is invoicing, and I can do that on my phone.

 

[hogjowl]

Not keeping up with my business metrics soon enough. When you compare your actual metrics with bulletin board information, you get a somewhat different view of what you should be doing.

 

[Cleanworks]

If I knew back then what I know now, I would have never gotten into residential carpet cleaning. For today's market, I feel commercial is the way to go, as long as you have enough commercial prospects in your area. I make far more per hour on commercial with far less expenses.

 

[Kenny Hayes]

Since I didn’t have experience with a Coits or similar, I didn’t think or wasn’t smart enough to write pre-letters. It seemed most just thought I was there to kick their shiate out of the way. Didn’t take long to decide that wasn’t my m o.

 

[sassyotto]

Sometimes to be told something is different than experiencing it. So to tell myself to do or not to do something probably would not have worked.

Actually I did a lot of things that I should not have done, BUT over time I realized that there was a better way to do things. I think thats the best way to learn and change.

But as stated above, I should have raised my prices more often.

And if there was a second, I should have joined the Mack Clarks organization sooner.

 

[AlienAgent]

If I could go back in time…

I would’ve done zero residential.

No truckmounts, VLM only. Maybe have a Ninja around, just in case.

Bought a Cimex with a zero percent interest credit card my first year.

Stopped running old junk vans and bought a nice one waaay earlier.

Raised my prices sooner and more frequently.

Focused less on performing the cleanest clean that was ever cleaned and more on turning the business into a profit monster that literally prints money with ease.

Stopped the strip and wax nonsense way earlier, even though I still do a little of that here and there.

 

[Kenny Hayes]

Of course you know my thoughts on residential. I would’ve probably hated refinishing floors if my Babe wasn’t by my side. She was so good at it, I never dreaded it. We got our first school early in our career, and we set sail. God we did lots of floors!

 

[Jim Pemberton]

I have given this a lot of thought.

My situation is of course different than everyone else's here, as I'm a trainer/supplier, and haven't had a cleaning company name on my paycheck since 1976.

In my case, perhaps my father should have developed a franchise/licensee type of offering back when we started in supply and training in 1973. By 1975 he had a big enough following already, and back then the cost of starting a franchise was comparatively low.

I know we would have done far better financially had we made that move, rather than to be a training/supply company.

But....

The reason my father started doing what we do is because of the very poor treatment he received from Servicemaster when he was a franchisee of theirs, and he vowed to create a company that would train, supply, and advise cleaning companies so that they WOULDN'T have to buy a franchise.

So it would have been completely against he core values to do that.

There were several times we were approached by others to do it over the years since, and he never would consider it.

So there it is.

 

[Mikey P]

I have given this a lot of thought.

My situation is of course different than everyone else's here, as I'm a trainer/supplier, and haven't had a cleaning company name on my paycheck since 1976.

In my case, perhaps my father should have developed a franchise/licensee type of offering back when we started in supply and training in 1973. By 1975 he had a big enough following already, and back then the cost of starting a franchise was comparatively low.

I know we would have done far better financially had we made that move, rather than to be a training/supply company.

But....

The reason my father started doing what we do is because of the very poor treatment he received from Servicemaster when he was a franchisee of theirs, and he vowed to create a company that would train, supply, and advise cleaning companies so that they WOULDN'T have to buy a franchise.

So it would have been completely against he core values to do that.

There were several times we were approached by others to do it over the years since, and he never would consider it.

So there it is.

Speaking of franchises, look for a big announcement from Chem Who soon...