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...

 

[Living The Dream]

I wish that we would have been more serious about our numbers. In the beginning I was only worried about revenue, but as we grew it became revenue - expenses = profit. But in reality I should have been keeping track of all our metrics and quantifying everything.

I see all these guys worrying about leads and calls, but the fact is that there are a lot of people out there working at a loss. So more calls might just be digging that hole and little deeper.

I once heard that "Math is the path" and it couldn't be more true.

I still suck at all the things I mentioned, but I know that's the route I have to go.

 

[Mikey P]

Thanks everyone for sharing!

 

[BIG WOOD]

I think I should’ve kept the janitorial/custodian services and never dropped it

I had a couple jobs back on 04-05 and got very frustrated after trying to hire a part time empliyee

My business was slow and I should’ve just kept cleaning it myself until the right employee came along

That would’ve provided more cash flow and would’ve helped my business grow where I might not be doing so much labor myself. I don’t know

I just know that custodial contracts are part of the 3 legs of a successful business chair (carpet clean, water damage, janitorial)

 

[Dr. Kleen]

I think I should’ve kept the janitorial/custodian services and never dropped it

I had a couple jobs back on 04-05 and got very frustrated after trying to hire a part time empliyee

My business was slow and I should’ve just kept cleaning it myself until the right employee came along

That would’ve provided more cash flow and would’ve helped my business grow where I might not be doing so much labor myself. I don’t know

I just know that custodial contracts are part of the 3 legs of a successful business chair (carpet clean, water damage, janitorial)

I did just what you said you should’ve done and… while I’ve had great cash flow because of janitorial work but it keeps me from growing my carpet/floor cleaning side. I’ve had to baby sit employees for years and years. Then eventually just wind up trying to do it all myself or just let things go. I do not regret the choice I made yet I do loathe janitorial cleaning as a whole. I remember in high school working for someone doing janitorial and swore I would never do this crap. Well look at me now; I’m about 75% janitorial going into year 28 of my own. Actually I am about to sign up for another account soon! After all those years I do have about 3 part timers that are great and can take care of things when I need some time off but I always have to be around to ensure things are getting done.

 

[Kenny Hayes]

It’s really hard to serve two masters. I had a pretty large hard floor care business outside my janitorial. Both brought the carpet cleaning in. But, as the janitorial grew so big,
I lost the desire to travel around doing floors.
I thought I wanted just do floors and carpets, but I’m glad it didn’t work out that way. It’s turned into a a good little business for my girls.

 

[Dr. Kleen]

I am at that point right now… so hard to try and juggle both sides. Trying to get my kids involved but they really don’t want anything to do with it. Sad, because I currently have it set up pretty good so they could just roll in and keep it going… easy money in my mind at least.

 

[Kenny Hayes]

As I’ve said, they’ve grown up in it. It was an easy transition for them to slide into the management roles. Isn’t wasn’t like they were new. We recently took on a new facility, they reached out to my girls. Lordy, I’m blessed!!! I’m the delivery boy.

 

[Kenny Hayes]

My girls did outside jobs and were successful, but just like farm kids, they made their way back to the farm.