So until the Zombies show up, I have to say..

[Mikey P]

The great Recession has been good for business so far. :shock:

2010 was our best yet as was this January, thanks to our web presence, running a 2nd truck instead of giving/turning away jobs AND the fact folks cant afford to replace.
Yelp reviews have been HUGE, HUGE in getting us quality, non price shoppers.
The Full Circle Girls getting to calls right away is also a big factor.
Not to mention Service Monster's Fill My Waste Tank program.

The fact that I never went after apartment/prop management work and other low end/ low profit has shown to be good for this 1.5 truck broke dick operation.



For those of you who have weathered this mess out well, what can you give credit too?



and the key question...


Do you see things getting better or do you fear that the folks of Mayberry will be turning over national guard tanks soon with the collapse of the dollar?

 

[ascrubabove]

The one and only reason I made it through is the fine men and woman of our armed forces! I am so glad I am near a military town. When they get orders for thier new duty station they gotta pack-up and go, and all thier carpet needs cleaned!

 

[Brian R]

Diversity
Quality
Persistence
Creativity
Knowledge
Wit


And not giving 2 shits what other people say about the "economy"

 

[bob vawter]

finding some poor smuck that didn't know no better to buy my business.......

 

[Doug Cox]

You know what Mikey, I was encouraged at the beginning of this month and it has been quite good for January. Much better than I usually have. Right now I'm on a 3 day vacation for body work from sliding into a rock in my van, but hopefully will be back at it on Wednesday. I think the poor economy has alot to do with the increase in business. We have a quite conservative privately owned bank who has a number of repo's we've done, so the downturn is definitely helping. We also service the upscale consumer who are less affected by the economy.

 

[bob vawter]

Go to the ghetto...that's where the steady income is............

i'm tellink ya.....!

 

[handdi]

what happened too all the doom and gloom

 

[Mike Draper]

what happened too all the doom and gloom

It's just around the corner. !gotcha!

 

[steve frasier]

when we first bought the V the goal was to double business, business has grown each year and we almost hit the goal this year, a little over 3 years into ownership

January was real slow but booked a few jobs today, for some reason part of my customer base runs on an 18 month cycle. Every other January & February have been slow for years

 

[everfresh1]

January sucked as usual, just started to pick up a little now we've got 12 inches of snow coming that'll kill that. :x

 

[rhyde]

Really good January.


I'm going to start a puppy mill like Mikey..thats where the big money is !

 

[NobleCarpetCleaners]

Well, I had an unbelievable 1st 3 weeks of January. I was pinching myself. Then I spun out and fell off a cliff. My hand written cards are huge return over time. They predictable incubate and come back to me.

My referrals a gold, just need a shit load more of them. My web site trickles in nicely.

I'm sceptical of Yelp but I'm certainly glad it works for some; Mikey's testimonial goes a long way with me and has me thinking.

There are 3 Real Estate offices I need to get to on a regular basis and I don't. They have pulled for me in the past and I've simple got to stay in front of them. Being a single truck operation (no additional help with anything) is a freaking challenge. Everywhere around us the marketers and gurus are spouting about strategies that point down the road of multi-truck operations. Can't afford to have Steve Marsh hold my hand and he's about the only one out there that is a close to single truck as they get. And even he had his wife behind the scene managing.

So I'm hitting the bricks with b to b sales and networking to find business partners to steer work my way. Then I've got to get my shit together with service monster to rely on them more for my retention.

 

[renegade_cowboy]

We work in the service inustry a growing industry since the 50's, so during any recession we will fair far better than most industries. My 2010 was great and 2011 is looking better. I too never went after the apts/property managers despite being told I was crazy not to. I stuck with the large houses and really thats all I want to do. Not even that interested in growing my commercial side as much. After my business make over, I am raising my prices to become more of a boutique service.

Do you see things getting better or do you fear that the folks of Mayberry will be turning over national guard tanks soon with the collapse of the dollar?

It really depends on what economist you ask if things will get better or not. One thing I do know is that the world is changing on so many levels, we are connected in a way like never before. If anyone knows anything about the dollar, its days are numbered...when will that be, no one can say. I will spare you the boring rhetoric of how the dollar is currently being discussed about dropping the dollar that would cause the greatest constriction of money the world has ever seen. The Fed is already doing this.

Since we are so connected as a world, the intregity of our country is very important to the success of other countries. IMO the only way we head towards a military dicatatorship is if the government feels threaten by the people, which in 2005 the Department of Homeland Security said Americans are the biggest threat to the United States and NOT the talyband. One of the first steps in that direction is that they will want your guns, make it almost impossible to own one. Once we go down that road expect a revolution that will dwarf what you seen in Egypt.

Its best to stay aware but dont let it effect what you do on a day to day level, because no one knows the future.

 

[Ron Werner]

My Jan turned out great. I was a little worried the first 2 weeks, then the phone started ringing. Should be another great year, esp if I can get more focused on my marketing.

 

[everfresh1]

Generally I don't think you can compare, if you're in a cold weather climate Jan and Feb are going to suck. The weather as been so bad here this year I'm way down. thathurts

 

[Blue Monarch]

I was up just a tad this year.

I attribute it to dumb luck. I didn't do nearly enough to attract new clients.

 

[renegade_cowboy]

You know this job we choosen really comes down to one thing if a company grows and is successful or not...and thats the owner.

You get out of this..what you put into it. Your numbers are low, go do something about it. If the weather is effecting your business that much, go find commercial work.

We work in the service industry which is always growing and work in an industry that will always have clients...

"The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will."

Vince Lombardi

 

[sweendogg]

Generally I don't think you can compare, if you're in a cold weather climate Jan and Feb are going to suck. The weather as been so bad here this year I'm way down. thathurts

Brent if you are burried in snow.. no one wants to clean.. lol... not even the commercial buildings. Its been a slow start to the year for us. Our install would have been great, but snow storms and late contractors have pushed our installs back a few weeks.

But I'm off to a great start on the updating of our website!

 

[Cameron1]

Weird year for us........one month down the next up.

Overall we were up for the year again after nine straight years

The increase is from water and mold.

 

[renegade_cowboy]

Generally I don't think you can compare, if you're in a cold weather climate Jan and Feb are going to suck. The weather as been so bad here this year I'm way down. thathurts

Brent if you are burried in snow.. no one wants to clean.. lol... not even the commercial buildings. Its been a slow start to the year for us. Our install would have been great, but snow storms and late contractors have pushed our installs back a few weeks.

But I'm off to a great start on the updating of our website!

I would agree that work goes down during the snow storms, but I have worked for a carpet cleaning business years ago that stayed busy year around mainly because they have commercial work, this was in eastern washington where it dumps snow. My comment was to stay postive and that even in snow conditions you can still be busy but it takes the motivation and will power to do it.

Updating your website is great I am doing the same thing.

 

[Ryan]

I agree Mikey, business is going great here. I feel like I've finally stopped reading about things and started implementing them.

BTW the dollar isn't going to crash, all these nuts buying gold are crazy. You should have been buying it a few years ago at $500 an ounce and selling now, not buying now. Same thing happened to the housing market, they went up up and up and soon everyone was flipping them. Then boom, huge crazy. This Gold bubble is going to have to pop sooner or later.