Mikey, how do you clean $1,700 of carpet in one day?

[Moser Bros.]

Do you dual wand every job, even if there under 1,000 sqft?

Do you have 2 guys wanding and one hose puller?

Do you rotary scrub carpets?

I work alone most of the time and can usually only clean 3 jobs per day and rarely break $1,000. I Cimex most jobs, wand and speed dry with the AP. I'm targeting commercial account cause I'd rather clean one $1,700 job with one helper in less than 8 hours, then spend half my day driving and another 2 hours measuring, selling, and talking to new customers. I will buy a Vortex or another dual wanding machine, but can't ever see myself being ever able to do that in residential in Sacramento, even with only word of mouth, I still have price resistance, time wasted with pre-estamates, driving to the other end of town for a job under $150, dealing with the slow economy, where my high end carpet cleaning friends are slow like me, even the one who've been in business for 20 years!

Is half of your business commercial?

What's your minunium?

How much a sqft do you charge, for residential, and for commercial?

How many sqft hr do you clean, and how much an hr do you bring in while at the job?

 

[Mikey P]

Do you dual wand every job, even if there under 1,000 sqft? anything more then 300 feet we split in two.

Do you have 2 guys wanding and one hose puller? just two of us on all but the biggest jobs, maybe twice a year I'll bring 3.

Do you rotary scrub carpets? I would say 3 out of 4 gets rotary scrubbed

I work alone most of the time and can usually only clean 3 jobs per day and rarely break $1,000. I Cimex most jobs, wand and speed dry with the AP. I'm targeting commercial account cause I'd rather clean one $1,700 job with one helper in less than 8 hours, then spend half my day driving and another 2 hours measuring, selling, and talking to new customers. I will buy a Vortex or another dual wanding machine, but can't ever see myself being ever able to do that in residential in Sacramento, even with only word of mouth, I still have price resistance, time wasted with pre-estamates, driving to the other end of town for a job under $150, dealing with the slow economy, where my high end carpet cleaning friends are slow like me, even the one who've been in business for 20 years!

Is half of your business commercial? not even, maybe 10%

What's your minunium? $150 within 5 miles then it goes up in $15 increments.

How much a sqft do you charge, for residential, and for commercial? we start at .50 for resi carpets that dont need 175 work. Scrubbing is.5 post padding is another.5. We dont do large comm workl so we start at.30 for vlm and .40 for hwe

How many sqft hr do you clean, and how much an hr do you bring in while at the job? on average we can each clean 500 to 600 and hour. When it's all said and done, we average 250 to 350 an hour while the truck is running.

 

[Nate The Great]

Do you dual wand every job, even if there under 1,000 sqft? anything more then 300 feet we split in two.

Do you have 2 guys wanding and one hose puller? just two of us on all but the biggest jobs, maybe twice a year I'll bring 3.

Do you rotary scrub carpets? I would say 3 out of 4 gets rotary scrubbed

I work alone most of the time and can usually only clean 3 jobs per day and rarely break $1,000. I Cimex most jobs, wand and speed dry with the AP. I'm targeting commercial account cause I'd rather clean one $1,700 job with one helper in less than 8 hours, then spend half my day driving and another 2 hours measuring, selling, and talking to new customers. I will buy a Vortex or another dual wanding machine, but can't ever see myself being ever able to do that in residential in Sacramento, even with only word of mouth, I still have price resistance, time wasted with pre-estamates, driving to the other end of town for a job under $150, dealing with the slow economy, where my high end carpet cleaning friends are slow like me, even the one who've been in business for 20 years!

Is half of your business commercial? not even, maybe 10%

What's your minunium? $150 within 5 miles then it goes up in $15 increments.

How much a sqft do you charge, for residential, and for commercial? we start at .50 for resi carpets that dont need 175 work. Scrubbing is.5 post padding is another.5. We dont do large comm workl so we start at.30 for vlm and .40 for hwe

How many sqft hr do you clean, and how much an hr do you bring in while at the job? on average we can each clean 500 to 600 and hour. When it's all said and done, we average 250 to 350 an hour while the truck is running.

Damn, I like those prices. :mrgreen:

 

[Mikey P]

In Hawaii you should be able to get the same if not more.

 

[Nate The Great]

In Hawaii you should be able to get the same if not more.

lol, we get more than the going rate. Carpet cleaning for us is on a back burner. Rug cleaning is pretty big for us. 80-90% is referrals and previous customers. alot since 1986.

 

[Mikey P]

Yeah, I bet rugs can keep a guy going all year long out there.


What about stone floors?

 

[Nate The Great]

There are alot of hard surfaces out there and I see the potential of the profit in it, however I personally rather be a master of one, then the jack of all trades. I'm persuing rug care first, then some others.

 

[Mikey P]

Too bad you're not on the Big Island or Kauai.

I'd love to come visit your shop and call my next trip out a write off.

 

[Nate The Great]

My mom is from and has land on the Big Island. BI and Kauai are boring. Your more then welcomed to the shop. Hopefully I'll have everything situated soon. We've been reorganizing everything. :mrgreen:

 

[Moser Bros.]

So how do you get so many referrals?

How do you have time for estimates and still make over $200 an hr?

If you could give me one way to build my business fast, what would it be?

The only reason I'm able to stay afloat if because, 35% repeat customers from previous business owner, 40% from retired carpet cleaning friend, 10% from the dry cleaner, and 20% from my LeTip group. I've had my business for less than two years and most of my jobs lately are last minute, I didn't even have any jobs scheduled this week until several last minute calls this week.

 

[Stevea]

Moser Bro,

I would suggest looking at some add on services you may not be doing now. While I have no idea what services you now provide, there are usually many other things we can provide for our customers. While I have a small service company and all of my work is referral, I try to maximize each customer I work for. Instead of just cleaning carpet, I look for the following:

1. possible repairs to be made - pulled rows in berber carpet; frayed edges at
transitions; SAD Spots; wrinkles, burns and on & on (you can get some
excellent help and ideas in the Tool Room from John and Harry; some great
information is just starting with leather from Roger and Tony - great people
with great information)
2. Items that one may not always think of cleaning such as deer heads;
chandeliers; high beams, many things we may not always think of first. I
even had one of my customers ask about cleaning all of their Brass in front of
the fireplace, the screen, candle holders, large urns and it turned into an 800
cleaning job that only took two hours to do ( while I do not do this everyday
these little add ons once in awhile really help the bottom line)
3. window cleaning, especially 'High and Hard to Reach Windows' that others
may not always want to or may not be able to clean (this is a great way
to open doors to new work also; and many people want this done every
year)

There is always a lot of work we may not even think about asking or informing our customers we do. These things can really add on to a ticket total.

Just some suggestions for thought. I live in a very rural area in the NC mountains and it works here, I would imagine in your area with the population you have, it would work fantastic. Of course, the focus of who you clean for is very important or who you target to clean for.

Cleanfax had an article in Feb of '08 entitled 'Back Door Marketing' that talked about some of this and how to use a different approach to open doors we may not always be able to get into. It may give you some ideas.

In these economic times it does not hurt to have more to offer, assuming we can also perform the work. I just cleaned some gutters for a long time customer of mine and while I do not like that work and I usually turn it down or try to find someone else to do it, it was a job that averaged over 300 per hour of the working time involved. Nice thing, no chemicals, no expensive equipment to operate on some of these jobs.

I just thought this might help a little or give some ideas, if you do all of this or more, then I hope I did not waste your time in any way.

SA

 

[Ron Lippold]

Hard surfaces the only way to go 3200 sqft clean and seal and 2 bath rooms clean and seal yes it was a Vortex kinds day. She is a production machine had to drain the tank 6-7 times.

 

[Mikey P]

Carpet retailers have been a blessing to us.
It takes time and persistence to earn their trust but if you show up in a nice clean truck, present yourself well, really know your stuff, assure them that you will NEVER embarrass them and bring them work as well, chances are you can get them to stop referring the current guy (who probably only archives ONE of those mentioned, but thats one more then the last schlep the referred)
Create an excuse to go into their shops every few weeks so you become a familiar face. Bring a relative or freind in and pretend you are helping her pick out new carpet for a future project, let them hear you use lots of correct carper lingo (dont be a dork and shout it out but come to them with a couple of questions), buy some pad or tackless for a imaginary water damage you're working on, bring in a small chunk of carpet and ask if they happen to have the same stuff, explain that your trying to patch it for someone.
On the third or forth visit offer to clean their floors at the shop or the owners home. Make damn sure you do a fresh soft water rinse so they can feel the difference from the last soap king. Groom it too. Use a Air Path if you have one, If you dont, then by all means hop right on that. Every PRO NEEDS one, you can't believe the impact that leaving a dry carpet can have on a good referral source. You better be using a Glided 2" wand too.


Now pull off this same routine with all the good retailers in your area (dont' bother with the discounted warehouse direct chumps, they will only bring you price shoppers) and be persistent with out being phony or annoying.

Make sure you send them all work equally, even if it's just sending in a lady to get some Nomuv for under her rug, and have them mention your name.

Do you do tile/stone?
Do the same at the local tile stores. It's a lot easier to find reasons to come in, sealer, grout, grout applicators, spare tiles etc..


Good luck and dont forget to brush your teeth.

 

[Wandslinger]

JP, HP and now we have MP>>>

 

[rhyde]

Reminds me i got this E-mail the other day ...Oh, Odin! :roll:


http://www.richcleaner.com/rugwarrior/



rug warrior..LOL

 

[Mikey P]

JP, HP and now we have MP>>>

Notice the use of fruit baskets and doughnut bribes have been omitted for trade mark purposes..