Officially a Full Time Cleaner

BIG WOOD

MLPW
Joined
Feb 4, 2016
Messages
13,158
Location
Georgia
Name
Matt w.
Not enough. My website is still pretty new. I was told that it's going to be really hard for me to rank very high for St. George due to my physical location being in a different city, about 10 minutes away.
I surfed your website and noticed the picture of your van also. It's a clean professional van, but the soccer moms and grannies don't care about your van. They want to know you're not a creep. So a good picture of you with your family or you presenting an example of your services (if you don't have a family yet) would be much better
 

Jim Williams

Member
Joined
Oct 8, 2006
Messages
1,462
Location
Bynum N.C.
Name
Jim Williams
I surfed your website and noticed the picture of your van also. It's a clean professional van, but the soccer moms and grannies don't care about your van. They want to know you're not a creep. So a good picture of you with your family or you presenting an example of your services (if you don't have a family yet) would be much better
Unless you're butt ugly or look like a serial killer. That's why half these jokers don't have their picture on their website.
 

Mikey P

Administrator
Joined
Oct 6, 2006
Messages
112,308
Location
The High Chapperal
I surfed your website and noticed the picture of your van also. It's a clean professional van, but the soccer moms and grannies don't care about your van. They want to know you're not a creep. So a good picture of you with your family or you presenting an example of your services (if you don't have a family yet) would be much better


I can't believe you dont have this on your site..

 
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BIG WOOD

MLPW
Joined
Feb 4, 2016
Messages
13,158
Location
Georgia
Name
Matt w.
I thought this page was good enough

 

Old Coastie

Supportive Member
Joined
Jun 29, 2015
Messages
7,504
Location
Heart of Dixie
Name
Stephen
I thought this page was good enough


“We strive to get it right the first time and will access your carpet-related concerns before we start cleaning.”

Change “access” to “assess.”
Make sure you end with the double s, or they will think you are describing Mikey’s Board...
 
Joined
Aug 3, 2016
Messages
187
Location
Salt Lake City, UT
Name
Eric
I'm a tremendous judge of character.

If you give a hoot on my opinion of how you will do with the Tennis Club set, let me see you talk...

If you want to be a successful Owner Operator in the truest sense of the word, you have to set your sites on rich middle aged ladies who put a huge value on how trustworthy and likable you are. Your cleaning equipment, skills and outcome play a distant 3rd and 4th. If and when you start landing these sort of clients you MUST make it your goal to get in with her friends.

It won't be a cake walk because one, she'll fear that sharing you will lead to her not getting her appointments easily set because you'll be too busy and two, you may be dealing with a house manager most of the time who can't afford you personally so she won't be spreading the word, BUT she may tell other house managers if you are easy to work with and make her life easy.

Your goal should be to shoot for a $400 plus job average. Can you do ok with a 250 average? sure but this shit is too hard for just an OK income. Easier to just get or keep your current job. The Entrepreneur dream is to make bank not bucks

How do you get to a $400 plus job average? Clean lots of tile and stone, expensive furniture and rugs in the home. Unless you aim to hire and buy buildings, forget the rug fag dream, you'll be up all night and working weekends washing rugs for $4.00 a foot when you could have gotten $2.00 to knock em out in the home. It's the newage rug reality.

Don't try and get your average up by selling deodorizer and protector services with customers who you want to service over and over again. That bullshit is for once and done advertiser driven customers.

Take the Stone Pro class, Take Jim's fine fabric class, come to Mikey's Feest in November

Keep your overhead low, answer all your calls asap in the beginning (they'll wait for a return call the next time) and run out of your house if at all possible. Stash and invest cash like crazy as your "Business" will be virtually worthless when you call it quits.

Don't get injured.



and for gawd's sake, if you must run Mytee crap, have a back up.

I’m not the most sophisticated person but I do a good job of coming across trustworthy and going the extra steps to protect their homes. Two of the richest neighborhoods in Southern Utah are 5 minutes from my house and I’ve done quite a few jobs in those neighborhoods lately, mostly from referrals. The last house I did in there was a $1,000,000 home and she left me the key code and left the check on the counter, I never met her.
I need to take Pemberton’s class for sure. I also only know of one person in my area that does stone. They’re on my to do list.
 
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Joined
Aug 3, 2016
Messages
187
Location
Salt Lake City, UT
Name
Eric
Don’t
I hope you're an older guy who wears suspenders, use a pocket protector and has a twinkle in his eye.

You'll need all that to pull off the old Leema Bean van nowadays..

View attachment 92257
Don’t worry, I’ve upgraded. Lol.
It’s clean and organized and works for now.

21F9B0E8-50C5-48F7-84DC-8C80136A1EA0.jpeg
 
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Joined
Aug 3, 2016
Messages
187
Location
Salt Lake City, UT
Name
Eric
I surfed your website and noticed the picture of your van also. It's a clean professional van, but the soccer moms and grannies don't care about your van. They want to know you're not a creep. So a good picture of you with your family or you presenting an example of your services (if you don't have a family yet) would be much better
That’s a great idea. I’ll get a family photo up. Thanks!
 

susclean

Member
Joined
Mar 21, 2015
Messages
36
Location
york pa
Name
alejandro c
what are you doing for advertising?

I have been cleaning for about four years, started part time, and still am although have a full time tech now. when he came on full time im April, i upped my advertising budget to between 400-500 per month, between adwords and facebook. That made all the difference in the world in call volume

i had been spending like $100 a month before that. the prior 3 years i was figuring out what worked for ads so i think that may have helped the immediate return

do you know how much you need to sell in cleaning per week to meet your business and household budget needs?

be realistic- if it’s going to be hard to meet them, get a part time job to help make ends meet.

good luck!
 
Joined
Aug 3, 2016
Messages
187
Location
Salt Lake City, UT
Name
Eric
what are you doing for advertising?

I have been cleaning for about four years, started part time, and still am although have a full time tech now. when he came on full time im April, i upped my advertising budget to between 400-500 per month, between adwords and facebook. That made all the difference in the world in call volume

i had been spending like $100 a month before that. the prior 3 years i was figuring out what worked for ads so i think that may have helped the immediate return

do you know how much you need to sell in cleaning per week to meet your business and household budget needs?

be realistic- if it’s going to be hard to meet them, get a part time job to help make ends meet.

good luck!
Great advice, thanks!
I’m currently advertising on Facebook and am getting AdWords set up. My current Facebook ad is doing great. I will probably raise the budget for the rest of the month.
 
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Cleanworks

Moderator
Joined
Oct 22, 2012
Messages
26,929
Location
New Westminster,BC
Name
Ron Marriott
One of my old employers heard I’d been laid off and offered me a job with slightly better pay than my recent job. I turned it down. I’ve been standing at the edge of the pool thinking about jumping for a long time and now that I’ve been pushed I’d be disappointed in myself if I climbed back out too fast.
That's always a tough decision. Good pay and benefits go a long way. Making it on your own is very satisfying but riskier.
 
Joined
Aug 3, 2016
Messages
187
Location
Salt Lake City, UT
Name
Eric
That's always a tough decision. Good pay and benefits go a long way. Making it on your own is very satisfying but riskier.
It is tough and maybe not the smartest decision. I’ve been making ok money, enough to get by pretty comfortably but not enough to get very far ahead or to afford some of the things I’d like for our family. If I take the job it’ll just be more of the same plus I hate the work and have for a few years now.
 

Jim Williams

Member
Joined
Oct 8, 2006
Messages
1,462
Location
Bynum N.C.
Name
Jim Williams
One thing that will really help your business take off more than anything is when customers start recommending you on Nextdoor.com and on their neighborhood list serve.

You might could politely ask for reviews,,,or beg. I know one guy that offers incentive for customers to do that. If you get 8 or 9 Nextdoor recommendations you will quickly come to be the star carpet cleaner in those areas and your business will spread like wildfire.

Good luck in your new venture!
 

icleancarpetz

Member
Joined
Mar 7, 2015
Messages
1,356
Location
19734
Name
Rafael Samson
One of my old employers heard I’d been laid off and offered me a job with slightly better pay than my recent job. I turned it down. I’ve been standing at the edge of the pool thinking about jumping for a long time and now that I’ve been pushed I’d be disappointed in myself if I climbed back out too fast.
I’d think it over long and hard. Pray about it before making a final decision. You can always hump carpets on the weekend.
Health insurance is a huge asset. Being able to get by while recovering from any type of injury or illness is where being employed kicks in. At least you covered...not to total satisfaction but at least covered. Carpet cleaning full time and no benefits for you and family is detrimental.
 
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Joined
Aug 3, 2016
Messages
187
Location
Salt Lake City, UT
Name
Eric
One thing that will really help your business take off more than anything is when customers start recommending you on Nextdoor.com and on their neighborhood list serve.

You might could politely ask for reviews,,,or beg. I know one guy that offers incentive for customers to do that. If you get 8 or 9 Nextdoor recommendations you will quickly come to be the star carpet cleaner in those areas and your business will spread like wildfire.

Good luck in your new venture!
I’ve been recommended on Nextdoor a few times and got all of those jobs. People rarely ask for carpet cleaners on Nextdoor here though. I wish more would!
 
Joined
Aug 3, 2016
Messages
187
Location
Salt Lake City, UT
Name
Eric
I’d think it over long and hard. Pray about it before making a final decision. You can always hump carpets on the weekend.
I’ve been working full time and doing 6-10 carpet jobs in the evenings and weekends for over 3 years now. I’m exhausted and doing both has been too taxing on me and my family. It’s one or the other at this point. Luckily we have heath insurance from outside of my full time job and we’ll still be insured either way.
 
Joined
Aug 3, 2016
Messages
187
Location
Salt Lake City, UT
Name
Eric
that pretty much is the best thing you wrote. If you like what you do, thats whats important. The rest will follow.

I know. After over 30 years I still love cleaning but at some point I will not be physically able to do it.
I agree! My full time job has been draining me for awhile. Carpet cleaning is much more enjoyable.
 
Joined
Aug 3, 2016
Messages
187
Location
Salt Lake City, UT
Name
Eric
if you don't mind sharing, Eric, what did you do?

another question...does your wife work and have family health ins?


..L.T.A.
I was a mortgage underwriter full time. I worked from home and left to do carpet jobs during the day and made up the hours at night. Not very fulfilling work and was always getting yelled at by the sales guys no matter how hard or fast we worked. Most of my coworkers are in their late 40’s and 50’s and miserable. Not what I want to do to myself and family.
We get health insurance through my wife’s work. If it was through my work it would be a much tougher decision.
 
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Cleanworks

Moderator
Joined
Oct 22, 2012
Messages
26,929
Location
New Westminster,BC
Name
Ron Marriott
I’ve been working full time and doing 6-10 carpet jobs in the evenings and weekends for over 3 years now. I’m exhausted and doing both has been too taxing on me and my family. It’s one or the other at this point. Luckily we have heath insurance from outside of my full time job and we’ll still be insured either way.
If you are doing 6-10 a day, you're either the hardest working carpet cleaner in the world or your prices are too low. What have you been charging?
 

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