Release your inner Clean Freak contest!

Mikey P

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Bob Pruitt

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Robert Pruitt
My entry is my MF Talk. Only a portion of it was presented in Phoenix but there are business tales of determination in there so this is my entry.

Mikey Fest 2019 Talk and Q and A

I was trying to figure out what to talk about my wife told me I was indecisive.
But now I’m not sure…

Mike said what I was going to speak about was minty fresh breath.
I take that to mean self awareness. Very few of us are self aware.

So my short presentation will be a little about my journey in this industry and a few things I’ve learned along the way.

There is a saying I’ve heard-
Experience is something you don’t get until after you need it.

The short version of my carpet cleaning history.
I was married at 23 and had an infant boy at age 24.
I had been a licensed general contractor for a year when the Jimmy Carter recession happened in the construction industry. 1979. Big contractors were going under and small guys like me for scrambling for anything.

Someone I knew from Los Angeles had moved to Utah and asked if I could frame their new home. It was a very large home and would keep me busy for a while so I accepted the job. When the work ran out …we were considering staying in Utah…I took the first job I could get. My first job was for a W Brothers Carpet Care. Bait and switch business model…it turned out. I call them W Brother instead of their real name but apparently that business model continues to work as they are still in business…so what do I know. In any case, I quit after a week because that type of business model didn’t feel comfortable for me. Not the work. I liked the work.

I told my wife I think carpet cleaning is a good business and that I think I would get work even being honest about the price. I bought a used rental Rug Doctor …very different machines than their rental machines today…and sat my wife down at a desk with a phone and had her read a short script. These were small town phone books and you could call everyone in a small town in a day about our 2 room and hall special.

We were making money. It seemed like great money in 1979. Working 10 or 12 hours a day with that little portable I made 150$ or 200 a day but that would be more like 3 to 4 hundred in todays dollars and we thought we were rich!

One Utah winter was all I could take though and we moved back to Santa Barbara California where I bought my first and second commercial portable. Also made by Rug Doctor but it was a true commercial portable.
2 vac motors and a low pressure pump that sprayed water beneath a 16 inch 40 pound drag tool with oscillating brush…they called it a vibrating brush thus the name Vibra Vac. Still the best portable I ever used. I have a smaller version in my garage that I will grab if I know I have a single room in a high rise. Like a CRB and a cleaning drag tool had a baby. The machine was built on a dolly and had big wheels so getting it up and down stairs was relatively easy. There is really no portable as good being manufactured today. It’s still being manufactured in China.

The early 80’s was nylon carpet with jute backing.
Pad was some kind of thick horsehair felt.
Lots of wool in nicer homes. Cleaning white wool became my specialty.

I was in Santa Barbara so lots of wealthy people and celebrities. They live in areas around Santa Barbara in places like Montecito and Hope Ranch. They loved white wool. White wool had a status because it was expensive.
White wool and cleaning rugs on location became the reason I did so many celebrities homes. My oriental rug secret was testing for color fastness and put a fan on it to dry quickly. I was a kid, I didn’t really know anything…except how to stay out of trouble. Testing. I used my upholstery tool on many of the rugs I cleaned. A rug hack not a rug fag. Like today the choice is the customers.

I also had very large accounts around UCSB. All private Student Housing. There is a one square mile town called Isla Vista that was almost solid student apartments. We would hack out hundreds or so of them every year.

One memorable property we did yearly was 2 - 10 story towers called Francisco Torres. The first year we did it with portables. We had a deadline of 7 days and we finished it in 5. I slept in the building and ran that portable 20 hours a day. The other portable was operated by 2 other guys.
Francisco Torres Corporate liked the work and were impressed we finished in their timeline. We did that account every year until the building sold to the Japanese.
Shortly after the first time I cleaned that big property for the first time, I was working in Montecito for an Elderly former Movie Actress, she had been beautiful and a movie Star when movies were silent. There were panels with bottoms to call for the driver, kitchen, maids quarters etc. 1920 luxury. She was living out the end of her life in a beautiful mansion with nurses 24/7 keeping her comfortable.

My construction background had made me dry strong but apparently not that smart.
I would grab a couch and flip it back with one hand to clean behind. I did this at her house and the couch didn’t move. It was a cast iron hide a bed, Old and crazy heavy. It didn’t move but my back did. I finished the job and went to the next…and empty apartment. I pulled the portable out and had to pay a student walking by to load the portable back into the van. That was it for portables. I went home and ordered a Bobcat truck mount. I didn’t keep it very long because it was just too small for what I was doing.

The next year I had purchased 2 vans and put truck mounts that were built by a guy that left HydraMaster and started his own company called TurboTech. He later ran away with their housekeeper and divorced. That put him out of business. Were a good machines though. The equipment was great, large blowers and made us more efficient and more dangerous. Hanging hoses out windows that I would duck tape the ends to make sure they stayed together and then bungled every other floor to prevent disaster and death to anyone below if a hose came apart and fell.
We were only given 5 or 6 days to finish these to properties. I ran that equipment 24 hours a day…only stopping to pour gas in the van gas tanks and change filters. I was paid 25 thousand to do the carpet cleaning.

One year the head of house keeping came up to me and asked if I cleaned windows. I asked what was up. She said the company that had been the low bid wasn’t going to make it. They had cheerleader camps in over the summer and this was the only time they had to clean the windows before the students return. So I asked her what was their bid? She said 30 thousand.

YES we clean windows…YOU Bet! That was a 55 thousand dollar week…late 80’s.

We were also very early in the Water Damage business. The only commercial blowers and dehumidifiers when I started were made by a guy named Loyd Weaver. Copied from air conditioner air handlers, All metal…not roto-molded until a few years later. DriEase was the first to do that. Lloyd followed but was too far behind and DriEase was in every dealership.

That was a very good business for us. We took care of the Santa Barbara area for State Farm and Farmers Insurance…as well all that student housing. So very big paydays came from that and we were a 4 van business. Sometimes I would work with the guys and sometimes I would drive around and stop at their jobs. Check the Customer was happy and crew was doing what they were trained to do. Every employee had spent a month or so with me before becoming part of a 2 man crew. I was very young.

- Life happens and sometimes it’s a punch in the gut. It’s a long story but my Son came home from school with spinal meningitis and even though I had overlapped our new Health Insurance policy 30 days as my Agent suggested the small print said illnesses were not covered for 60 days. 45 days into the new policy and even though I had paid 2 premiums the month before…not covered. Intensive care, several days in the hospital and the good news is his life was saved. The bad news was after paying the bill out of pocket, the money I had saved for a down payment on a house … in Santa Barbara - it was a lot of money was now all gone.
Took the wind out of my sails and took the fun out of running multiple vans and dealing with employees. Sold the business in Santa Barbara.

I eventually moved my family to Washington State. Re-started Pruitt Carpet Care and for 5 years was there. Bought a little house, then another property and a 5 acre lot. The real estate investment there was helpful later.
I still get wrong number phone calls from people in Washington or Oregon looking for Pruitt Carpet Care to clean their carpets.

Next was Florida. After 5 years of daily rain and cold winters, I visited a Brother in Law in Florida in Winter. I couldn’t believe it. Green and beautiful…flowers, water, palm trees. Sold Washington business and we moved there.

Florida- It was 1996. The Commercial Internet was exciting and booming. Amazon only sold books. I thought I should do something online so started a website called InfoHorse.com. The idea was to make enough money for my wife to pay her horse expenses. It is a cross between a phone book and a magazine. I went off and cleaned carpets.
Very quickly we were getting requests to advertise on InfoHorse and that is a major stream of income for me today.

In Florida, I had some very wealthy Clients on Sanibel and in Naples. I was a one man show and liked it because there was so little stress. I like cleaning for wealthy people because they take care of their stuff. They clean it before it needs it. But they can be eccentric. They can have problems but money isn’t one of them. If they don’t have any problems sometimes they need to create them.
When 9/11 2001 happened we decided to move back to California to be close to family there. Sold the business again with the equipment.

Bought a used truck mount on eBay and called myself Captain Steamer since my old business Pruitt Carpet Care was still around in Santa Barbara. I was 30 minutes south in Ventura this time and in a house I liked. Worked more or less part time. The website was doing very well and I worked building that as well as doing the cleaning business. 5 years later my daughter wants us to move to Texas and for some reason it seemed like a good idea.
In Texas I was retired from the Cleaning business.

I was doing 300k from the website. I got all 3 of my kids started in their first homes. My daughters are still in Texas and I visit them often. I was just with them for Halloween and golfed with my Son in Laws.

I didn’t love it in Texas mostly because my Sons marriage was falling apart and there was way too much drama from my wife’s side of the family. My Son is happy now with an awesome wife and living in Thailand. He owns a couple nail shops and an ice cream / food shop there. He’s finally happy. Anyway in Texas I married off both my daughters to a couple of the best men I know. Very lucky and blessed. So I moved.

Back to Florida and this part of the story will bring up to date.
Sitting on my ass all day doing the web work wasn’t doing my health any good. Next punch in the gut was the real estate crash and all that came along with it.

I had discovered Mark Saiger on Youtube and that led me to the Mikey Board and that led me to the first Fort Lauderdale Mikey Fest where we cleaned Ronald McDonald Houses.

The number 1 reason I attended the fest was I had been trying to decide if I wanted to get back into cleaning. I’m no kid. Lots to consider.

I was excited to help with the RMH cleaning and found myself at the area where all the furniture and rugs were being cleaned. I watched for a minute and then asked- What pre-spray are you using there? It was a blue chair so I took a white terry cloth towel and whipped the pre-spray area and held the towel up for the person to see. What color do you see on the towel?
Blue. Yep blue. We need a different pre-spray.

I saw Bill Yeadon walking by …
I already knew all the old guys…and asked if we had pre-spray for upholstery and he did. He suggested I keep and eye on the upholstery area and help the people who had volunteered there to learn upholstery cleaning…as he was heading upstairs to demonstrate dry foam cleaning.
So I started cleaning upholstery and teaching people how to clean upholstery and the thought came into my mind … yep, I can still do this.
I worked all day like I had never been away from it.

The next day was classes and presentations. I remember a slide from Jim’s FPA presentation that was this older wealthy, eccentric looking couple in front of a very upscale home. Then it clicked. They are my Customer. I told my wife we were going back in the cleaning business and she said good. We are suppose to have a van parked in our drive way.

So I had her support and Mikey Board friends like Saiger…and I had made friends at the Fest…and most of all…
I knew who my Customer was. I don’t have to compete in that space.
I am the poster boy for minty fresh breath! Rich eccentric people love me!

Peter Drucker was the most famous Marketing Guru of all time and as a management consultant, educator, and author, his writings contributed to the philosophical and practical foundations of the modern business corporation. Wikipedia

He said things like-

The best way to predict the future is to create it. A
nd one of my favorites_
There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.

One of the things he said it took me a long time to understand and is the reason why the current incarnation of my business looks the way it does was this quote-
“Marketing begins with who is the customer, not what do we have to sell.”
This was the question I kept asking myself. I won’t be able to compete with the Big Companies…even though I once did and dominated them when I was in Santa Barbara and much younger.
I won’t be able to compete with ServPro or other big National franchise in water damage…even though I once did and owned all the Farmers Insurance and State Farm Insurance work in Santa Barbara and surrounding areas…I was much younger.

So…who is my Customer?
In Santa Barbara and Florida I have cleaned for some of the wealthiest people on earth. Oprah, Johnathan Winters, Kirk Douglas, Paul Newman, Mrs. Colt, Mrs Kellogg, Kenmores, many people who had Oscar statues in their homes…not just actors, Cult Leaders, Professional Athletes… and just wealthy like Mrs Smith married and divorced rich guys enough to be wealthy herself…on and on.

So for me at age 64 the answer to the question Who is my Customer is wealthy and the housing that serves them… like high end… 5 to 20k a week vacation rentals that I do on Marco Island. They will not let anyone else touch their properties. I am not busy all year. I have discovered I really like golf and play often.
I am very busy during season…Now until the beginning of Summer. Sort of the opposite of everyone else living in other places.
I do local work as well that is high end type work for my area. And occasionally I get some really bad ones too. Love the challenge...occasionally.

“Marketing begins with who is the customer, not what do we have to sell.”
That is a short sentence that is difficult to understand. We all are selling Cleaning right? Isn’t our Customer anyone who has something that we are able to clean?

Here is an example-
If you are Rolex you aren’t sponsoring Boxing or Hockey or baseball.
You are sponsoring Golf, Tennis and European Equestrian events. Formula One but not Nascar.
They know who their customer is. They aren’t trying to reach everyone.
If they were they would be Casio G-Shock or Citizen Eco Drive.
All these watches tell time and maybe the cheaper watches are even a little more accurate. Why pay more for the Rolex then?
Because some people identify with Formula One and not Nascar. Publix but not Walmart, It’s their identity that is making the decision of which watch to buy or grocery store to walk into. Or cleaner to call.
Not about price…it’s about Who’s is the Customer and what brand do they identify with.

Your company is your brand. It’s the reason you are chosen...or not.
Who is your customer? There is no wrong answer. You build your company to service the Client base you identify with and are most comfortable serving. This is one of the beautiful things about our Industry. Your professional business brand will have people who can identify with it.
How far can you go?
ABM is a fortune 500 company. American Building Maintenance. This company was started by a guy who washed windows when he started.
Who ever you serve, run your business like a business.
We are business men and women.
That needs to be our identity…business person.
So a window washer changed how he self identified and his company a Fortune 500 stock.
How do you identify and how far can that take you?


GURU Marketing does not reach my Customer. Facebook ads and google ad words…post cards, flyers…awesome graphics…don’t reach my customer. They talk to each other, they go to the same schools and golf clubs, tennis clubs… and they ask each other who do you use to clean your carpet and tile? The thing the high end Vacation Rental people ask me is… What is it about you? Is it because you are so good or everyone else is so bad. I laugh.

The truth is neither. It’s not that I’m so good or others are so bad. It’s that they are my Customer and my business is built around serving them.
It’s not about the money. I will spend an hour talking with them before I ever bring a vacuum into their home if they need that. I will take my little Hoover Portapower… a separate vacuum… to edge vacuum the carpet. I don’t leave little triangles all over their carpet…I am not finished until it’s groomed. I do far fewer jobs than Carpet Cleaners that serve a different Customer than I do. It takes longer and I make more per job… but the average week is probably similar to yours.
I’m 64 and this is the Customer and business model that suits me.
The freedom of this business is you get to do it your way and there are Customers that like what you do. Awesome!
However you do it be a business man. That needs to be your identity … not cleaner. Cleaners clean and businessmen make money and do smart things with it.

Figure out your total costs including wear and tear, depreciation on equipment that will need to be replaced every 4 or 5 years, taxes, insurance, add profit plus a little that is invested… the future comes ready or not…make the habit of taking some of what you make and putting it where it will grow until you need it. Make sure you are charging enough to operate.
You deserve success. Get a hair cut, get to the gym and keep that breath clean and minty.

END
 

DAT

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Apr 3, 2017
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Nevada
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Bill Cheryl
Good info. Made me think think a lot. Now I don't want to work for steemer stan...
 

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