SFS, HP, or JP or ??

[Ron Werner]

I've been to Joe Polish's bootcamps and seminars, been to a couple of Howard's talks but never to a round table, been hearing about Strategies for Success.

What are the procs/cons/benefits?
Recommendations?
Any other program out there?

 

[Doug D]

comparing SFS with JP or HP is like comparing apples to oranges. SFS will teaching you the numbers of running your business, marketing, and how to make customer cheerleaders. They also give you the tools to run your business. The policies and procedures manual is loaded with material to help you run your business.

Have not been to a JP or HP conference, but have HP's stuff. They are more toward marketing your business.

SFS is the way I would go. 8) Then later the other.

 

[-JB-]

What's your favorite pre-spray?

 

[Mikey P]

Ron, I'll be blunt here.


Not a single Guru is going to help you get more work.


Get your weird, anally compulsive ass OFF THE TRUCK and hire some normal hard working white kids to run the suck mop and you may stand a chance.

People dont want you, or any carpet cleaner in the home for 4 hours cleaning what all the others can do in 1.

Sure you may find a like minded RainMan or woman who gets off on the whole excessive vacuum thing for a few jobs a week but if you want to grow your company you're gonna have to let it go.


Start training a kid tomorrow so he can clean resi work at 400 to500 sq ft per hour on average and let Mrs Piftleton see and experience less of you.


Service Monster, Full Circle and see if you can spend some time with the My Flooring warranty guy to see how he grew his biz so fast.

Howard and Joe have nothing for you you have not seen here.

Once you've taken my advice and hire a office girl or manager than go to SFS.


Or be content being the Joe Bristor of owner Ops and start thinking about moving into a nicely furnished late model Sprinter conversion because your current business practices have ruined your reputation amongst normal home owning women in the 40 to 60 demographic


and ditch the hat and your goofy ass partner :!:


Love ya Ron, just hate seeing you struggle cause you dont see what Mrs Pift does.

 

[-JB-]

s]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I71cY9Ysy5Us]

 

[cucu]

Love Hurts, Love Burns ..........and marks......










Or you could become a iicrc instructor

 

[Mikey P]

Sure JB.


You know how many broke dick freaks Ive seen blow their mattress funds at the Round Tables ?




sure I'll keep quite.



FU!

 

[-JB-]

sniff.

 

[Mikey P]

take my wife for a walk, you'll cheer up..

 

[ruff]

Ron,
Mike's brutal answer has quite a few grains of truth.

You can benefit from all and you can get most of it from this board.

What model of business do you want to follow?

Stay small (no employees head aches) you know that you will need a market large enough to support that and charge accordingly. Steve marsh may be the right one for you.

Do you want to have employees?
Multi trucks?

All the others may help.

If you think for yourself and apply what is right for you, they can all help. Their advantage may be in saving you time.
The actual knowledge is all out there for free.

 

[Ron Werner]

I have the work, have the clients, if anything I need to focus more and learn more of the busn side.
Its not so much a question for me but a friend is interested in more information.
I'm just asking.



So are you're suggesting I drop my price, leave soil in the carpet, do faster "average" work just like everyone else, just to do more jobs in a day?
From what I've seen in this industry, any idiot can make a carpet look clean, and does. Even the bait and switch guys can do that.
What separates you from the idiots that just do an average job that it looks clean enough to Mrs Pift? Are you in and out faster? leave the carpet drier? does itlook just a little cleaner than the other guys? you spend 10 min more to make sure some spots don't reoccur? you send out thankyous and reminders? Hec,

Snow's boys just do average adequate jobs from the sound of it, even Big Mikes. Is that what it takes to have a "successful busn"??


Oh, I don't like ballcaps, too average.
And who's my goofy ass partner??
I do appreciate the advice, I really do, but do a few postcards and some average work really separate the best from the banal?

 

[Mikey P]

Ron


How many jobs are you completing in a week?

 

[rhyde]

Ron, I'll be blunt here.
Not a single Guru is going to help you get more work.
Get your weird, anally compulsive ass OFF THE TRUCK and hire some normal hard working white kids to run the suck mop and you may stand a chance.

Ouch! and I though I was blunt and to the point

 

[Ron Werner]

not as many as you,
I do 1 to 2 a day


what makes you different from the other guys?

 

[Mikey P]

How many per year for the last 5?

 

[Ron Werner]

I already told you I need to focus more Mike. I'm not holding my "busn" up as the "best".
I have clients that call me because I DO clean different.

I'm asking YOU, what do you say to people when you tell them your price and its twice what the "other" cleaner would charge, that decent cleaner down the road that will make the carpet look just as clean as you?

 

[Mikey P]

Ron my repeats already know we do a very good job and the 3 of us are very pleasant to have in the home.

We dont overwhelm them with technical jargon, we dont stare at their tits when we talk pricing or teflon, we don't spend 4 hours cleaning 400 sq ft, we dont wear leather cowboys hats and we dont have a logo that scares children and kittens.


and our website is not a huge clusterfuck of pointless pictures.


Ron, I've spent enough time with you to know what your customers are experiencing.

Get off the truck.



and you'll see biz go way up.


1 to 2 jobs a day in the busy season after as many years you've been at it should be your first clue.

You have the skills to run/manage a great carpet cleaning bushiness.

 

[floorguy]

but do a few postcards and some above average work really separate the best from the banal?

Not Avg, not below and not, well Like you.....

Compartmentalize.....do what you need to do for WHO you need to do it for....

The masses dont want, nor will pay for what YOU want to offer...you have to learn when and where to do it...

Ill use myself as an example...on how i use to strip and maintain floors....

I was just like you on carpet....change my shoes to wax (still do but not as anal) use the walk off mats, etc. etc.

Then I picked up a Large contract....and found in order to be PROFITABLE I had to change my strat.....Then I remember the words of my Ceramics teacher

"Production work OR Precision work? Cant have or do both."

The large contract taught me how to do PRODUCTION work.....not hackish, but production...

Just in the last few weeks, work within a mile radius has gone crazy for me, and RES carpets in General has picked up quiet a bit....I ask them to vac before I get there, and if not then I vac......We had this discussion about running into some doozy jobs, that i didnt prequailfy and as such i chose not to charge them for it.....BUT I have picked up walk ups (HI JIM 8) 8) 8) ) AND crazy referals...

I dont go booty nuts, or vac nuts, or anything nuts....I give them an honest service for a decent price.....sometimes the same size jobs, 1 takes 4 hrs and 1 takes 2....yet i charge the same.....

I have other custys i been clean once a year for 6 years....

and as i just read from mikeys post...its kinda the same thing for me....

 

[Bob Foster]

I already told you I need to focus more Mike. I'm not holding my "busn" up as the "best".
I have clients that call me because I DO clean different.

I'm asking YOU, what do you say to people when you tell them your price and its twice what the "other" cleaner would charge, that decent cleaner down the road that will make the carpet look just as clean as you?

Mike just smiles at Mrs. Pift and points to his big unit....

 

[sam miller]

Its hard to give up the wand even though it hurts to swing it. I know I have to back off soon but its hard to say clean like this and when they dont take the wand out of thier hand and bitch how they should go play Gears of War! or something!

 

[floorguy]

ohhh on a side note.....depending on what happens in the next few weeks....... I may need to venture into multitruck land :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock:


Lets just say its fun when your right, and you let someone else do the hard part....

 

[sam miller]

Ron dont feel to bad I had an uncle who would clean for .85 cents a square foot with a portable 2 3 stage vacs a 100 psi pump and get on his hands and knees and clean with a closed stair tool with a number 8 jet. He would spend all day at one job but if he made 6 7 or 8 hundred a day He was happy!

I guarantee he would think he out cleaned anyone here with his method.

He only worked Laguna Beach, San Jaun Capistrano Area

 

[Ron Werner]

I know my website is a mess, had a guy design it for me, I'm redoing it in html and organizing things better. Yeah, right now I agree, it is a clusterfuck.

My repeats know I do a very good job too and they appreciate the extra time I put in having had the cheaper guys that are in and out in a blink. The 1-2/day is what I am "able" to do in a day. I work alone and don't want to kill myself doing 5 a day. I've a $300+average and do about 300jobs per year for the past 5 years. If I was as focused and busnminded like you I would have a higher job ave and maybe an extra 100 jobs/year and maybe an extra truck or two.
As it is I've a referral, whole house and sectional job, $1000, , she really didn't blink, but that's the only job I'll do that day. I also get some people that balk at $200 for 3rooms/hall/stairs ($30/rm, $5.50/stair, taxes) I'm not over charging by any means, everyone else is undercharging. Its not the US here, that 300K house that is now 100K or less is probably 350K+ here. But work this year has been slower, sporadic, not just for me either.

If anything I need more focus/skills to manage the busn I have.
My goal is to make about 600+/day, just want to do that more consistently.








bTW its a fedora, not a cowboy hat. Keeps my head warm and the rain off my glasses.

 

[Desk Jockey]

Go SFS first as Doug mentioned.


All have something worth going for but as far as overall business I'd start with SFS as your foundation. Then if you feel the need for more marketing JP and Howard.

The best thing about SFS is they are trying to help more than they are trying to pull more money out of your pocket.

Those other programs are going to help you too but at a price and not a cheap price. It does mean there isn't some value there, they undoubtedly is or these guys would be around as long as they have been at it. However expect to pay for the oportunity to pay more. Not necessarily a bad thing but it's nothing like SFS.


Ron there are many ways to skin a cat, you don't have to chose someone elses model to be successful. If you have enough work hire and train a guy to Wernerize and have him on the main truck then that allows you the time to sell cleaning and catch the overflow.

 

[Royal Man]

As Richard said.

There are many ways to skin a cat.

Do you want to go less jobs per day and a low overhead ?

Or do more jobs per day with multiple teams at a lower price per job and higher overhead?

It seems from my experience that clients are still willing to pay more, if you make them aware of what makes your company unique.

If you don't. Then cleaning just becomes a commodity that goes to the lowest bidder.

Market Wernerizing and get a helper that can become the new "Wernerer" some day.

You can have magnets and leave behind material that says, "My carpets have been Wernerized!."

 

[Jimmy L]

Ron I observed several perfectionists over the years.
And the underlying reason they are what they are is that they are afraid to move on.
Afraid to make mistakes and an example is painting a picture and never finishing it or taking too long adding more details.

To break out of it I suggest getting a large commercial job or account.
This will force you to adapt and move on instead of going over and over the same area multiple times. And if you don't break this bad habit you will be forever in the twilight Zone.

Just like the guy who cleans a carpet with a hand tool. Recognize this and fix it and be more productive.

 

[Desk Jockey]

My brother Dan is like that, he used to do our rugs. No matter what we charged Dan could make it unprofitable. Those rugs were clean though. :roll:

He always said "No rug will leave before it's time", we always told him "No rug will leave on time!" :mrgreen:

Being a perfectionist is a great quality unless you let it get out of control.

We replaced Dan with his son and fortunately he is a prefectionist too but with an eye on production and profit margin. 8)

 

[hogjowl]

While Mikey takes pleasure in hurting folks as much as possible, I have to agree with his advice on this one. Chavez and Jimmy put it to you a lot more nicely, and I would love to see you pay attention to what they have told you.

As for SFS ... almost everyone disagrees with me, but it is my opinion that you don't learn practical things regarding marketing at SFS, just more theory. If you need to waste your money on a marketing guru, then go with one of the others ... if you want to learn how to financially manage your business, then go to SFS.

Personally, my suggestion is you re-read Satans post and put all of it into practice and after a couple of years, THEN go to SFS.

 

[Jimmy L]

I'm wondering that as a child you were given a toy vacuum for xmas. Then hearing the positive reactions from parents and visitors in your home you were then given a real vacuum.

Again positive remarks building your self esteem until you hit puberty.
Then you found masterbation as a new feel good thing to do and dropped vacuuming as your new hobby, dominated all of your free time.

Then when your family noticed you weren't vacuuming anymore it led to snarky comments and affected your self esteem negatively.

So in later years as you are in now you are again seeking that approval that you had in childhood.

Not saying I'm right or wrong But I have cured Chavez and Harold Hides of personal issues also.

 

[hogjowl]

Uh, nevermind what I previously said ... just pay attention to Satan and Chavez. :shock: