Mikey P said:
So Steve, why the sudden belated interest in Encapsulation? ... everyone who bought in when the original wave of hype started years ago knows by now it ain't all it's cracked up to be long term.
You know it is never going to be good when you see your name in lights on Mikeysboard when you sit down at your computer at 6 in the morning.
Listen carefully here, Mike. I have ZERO interest in "encapsulation" or frankly any other cleaning technology on its own. I have LOTS of interest in helping carpet cleaners of all types become more successful than they are now. (I don't sell equipment at Jon-Don and honestly don't even know what equipment lines we carry anymore. My "job description" from Nick Paolella when he asked me to develop what has morphed into the
SFS program was, "Help our customers grow and be more successful." That's all anyone at Jon-Don has ever asked me to do for the last 14 years.)
To me encapping is just another method/weapon in a business owner's arsenal. (Mike, how can I say respectfully that your business model is a bit ADD- with your cleaning methods/equipment swinging wildly based on your current flavor of the month? You know, I can't say it nice so I won't.)
NOTE: Larry, when I sold my business I had not yet discovered the Cimex. If I had I would have probably owned 2 or 3. They would have sat right next to the four RX-20's I owned! We did use low moisture pad-type encapsulation on a lot of our institutional accounts like colleges, hospitals, medical offices, hotel lobbies and hallways and other areas with lower traffic counts. We also used it where we needed low noise/fast drying. I think today I would mix and match a lot of my monthly restaurant and definitely retail accounts with a mixture of HW extraction in some areas and encapping in other lighter traffic zones.
So why my new "encap" interest? I find lots of cleaners are "stuck" in the sense that they just don't want to take that first HUGE step from one truck to two. Why not? Let me count the ways. (Feel free to chime in on this list.)
1. Greatly increased overhead. Not just the truck and machine payment. Also the cost of another salary/ withholding/ worker's comp/ bookkeeping, etc. Plus as you grow more you will need a commercial location/office staff/more fixed overhead which adds ...
2. Pressure, lots and lots of pressure. As an owner-op if a big job cancels you slam out the other little job and go home early for some fun time with the missus. But now that you have an employee(s) and work cancels/doesn't book your world caves in. With full time employees you take on a moral obligation to them and their family to work them ... well, full time. But now that you are busting your hump for your "loyal" full time employees many times they will ...
3. Hold you hostage. So lets say you deal with #1 and #2 above. Now you are booked solid for three weeks with two trucks and three employees. Life is stressful but good. But now your employee(s) realize "you need them more than they need you" and start to take "liberties". Whatcha gonna do- fire 'em? You're overbooked with way more work than you personally can do.
4. Playing the "whack-a-mole" game- It never stops with full time people. Family problems, substance abuse issues, money problems and guess who becomes co-dependent right along with them? You do.
Now sure, Mike, once a company hits what I call "Critical Mass" much of this smooths out. Believe it or not a 3 or 4 truck company with 5 or 6 techs is much easier to run than one with one or two employees. Your eggs aren't all in one basket. (See #3 above.)
So I'm always looking for a "transition scheme" to help an owner-operator carpet cleaner grow (if they want to) but without all the immediate financial and emotional stress of a full-blown expansion. Remember to a certain degree I'm driven by our
SFS member reports I get back from the field. I'm finding some cleaners out there are adding substantially to their net profits WITHOUT having to add the fixed and variable overhead I detail above. How?
By building
commercial contract encapsulation "routes". These entrepreneurs are selling commercial contract cleaning and putting all their initial work on just one night (let's say Thursday) per week. (No more than 6 hours.) Then after they get four consecutive Thursdays full they hire a PART TIME employee, give them the filled out Job Profiles, a Cimex and the juice and 25% of the gross. (The employee uses their own vehicle and gets paid a mileage allowance.)
Then you keep selling and fill another 6 hour night. But you don't let your first part time employee do this work. (Even though he will beg to have it!) Instead, you are going to spread your risk and hire a second part time employee. (Folks tell me never give any one employee more than 2-3 nights per week.) Once again, always spread your risk and keep your people hungry for more. (See #3 above.)
The Cimex and encapping really works well in the business model above because it is a) a whole lot cheaper to put an employee on the road with a Cimex instead of a TM (as in a little over 3K versus 40K plus), b) your commissioned employee is going to make really good money for a part time job which is exactly what you want, c) they use their own vehicle, d) with a Cimex you don't have security issues with open doors late at night AND e) the high production level means you can be extremely competitive on bidding and still make a high profit per employee hour.
BTW, Jeff Cutshall (who does almost exclusively commercial carpet cleaning) just recently posted on how encapping with the Cimex has transformed his business:
http://sfs.jondon.com/5378/blog/encapsu ... my-company
Mike, Jeff Cutshall and I are putting the final touches on what I think is going to be a ground-breaking Report on how to implement the above business scenario. When we release Jeff's encapping Report (with the supporting forms and procedures it will run 40 pages or so) I would normally post the link here but then I would raise the ire of your local BB police who are happy with the status quo and feel threatened when anyone or anything threatens to disturb the world as they see it!
Oh well, as I always say "Every individual is as successful as he or she wants and deserves to be." But I always temper that by including, "Never let anyone determine your definition of personal success."
Sorry to drag on, Mike. But you did ask!
Respectfully submitted,
Steve Toburen
http://www.SFS.JonDon.com
PS Mike, I'm delighted you have discovered the joys of rotary extraction. You'll recall I made one of my few comments about methods when I made an impassioned appeal in favor of rotary extraction at
SFS. In my company I INSISTED on using rotary extraction on all open areas of every residential job with padded saxony carpets. (I found that rotary extraction didn't do well for us on low pile, direct glue down. Too hard to get a good "vacuum seal" for extraction plus too much pile distortion that was a bear to remove. But that is just me.)
