carpet cleaners dropping like flys

I think marginal operations are going to more and more disappear. When we started business in one of our markets, there were 14 carpet cleaners. There are now 3.

We increase our prices every year and sometimes twice per year. Growth seems to get better all the time. Dave, increases are part of business. You shouldn’t have to eat all the increases that come your way. I’ve always felt that if we do a little at a time, it’s less noticable to the customer. If we wait too long, the increases need to be larger and the customers will notice that more. Every other business passes their overhead increases on to the consumer. Carpet cleaners should be no different. Just my 2 cents for what it’s worth.

When we started here in South Texas, there were around 80 or so carpet cleaners. Now there are 63. My county consits of just over a million people. The county next to us is around a million as well. Most of the 63 mentioned above are in my county (Hidalgo County). There are two chem drys in my county and one has shut down, the other is on his way out. It comes down to a lot of things. Rough economy obviously but other factors such as people telling us they don’t want steam cleaning, they want good customer service and a job well done. Carpet cleaners will come and go as you guys know. But there is plenty of commercial work to go around as well as upper class residential. We are still alive and making it through with our repeat customers and their word of mouth. I picked up most of my hotels from the chem dry that is on it’s way out. I was told they just didn’t do a good job, wouldn’t show up, etc… That will put you out in a heart beat. The phone has been slow for us the last couple of weeks but my repeats are still calling and cleaning. The commercial side of things helps with the slow times. Our slow time of year is coming up here in July. That’s where those apartments come in handy. Although the econonmy is rough right now, people will still clean and commercial accounts NEED cleaning on a regular basis.

We have raised our prices yearly. This year we have done it twice already. When we started, we did 3 rooms, no size limit for $79.99 and today we charge 3 rooms, no size limit for $145.00. I have listened to my customers. Some of them have told me that for the great work, products and service we provide, that we should charge more. We are THE name brand in carpet cleaning. You guys are still in business because you provide great service to your customers. Hang in there, pray, be positive. Look how far you guys have come, or I should say the majority of us, through all this hard economy stuff dating back to 9-11-2001. Your still making it, or at least I pray that you are and will. I pray for all of us daily. I pray for my customers as well. Hope you are all doing well. God Bless.

Jeff,
Hope to see you this weekend at the seminar.

Mike Nowlin

A few things here that I would like to add. One is a newer franchise carpet cleaning company call Zero Res or something like that lasted only a year in my area. They have a patten process and supposedly can heat the water to some ridiculous temp. way above boiling. Anyway there big advertising pitch was that they don’t leave residue on the carpet. I recently cleaned for a customer of theirs that helped them with some advertising. He said that the owner of zero res said the market was too competitive. Another CC that isn’t a franchise charges $.35 per sq.ft. but he only does one house a day. I did talk to him and he said that it cost him $.15-$.16 per sq. ft. to clean OUCH. He also pulled up in a ford explore with a trailer attached. He was dressed in a company t-shirt that had a hole in it about the size of a dime and you could see his hairy stomach. He also would take a smoke break every 30 minutes it seemed like. He cleaned my neighbors house and I went to talk to him as well. The carpet was clean, but it better be if you spend all day on it. The house was only 1300 sq. ft. I am not worried about this guy take any business away from me. There have been some other small guys that went out of business or got to old to clean carper or whatever. There are a lot of things that make us different other than great service and great prices everybody says they have that. We to have raised our prices we started out at 22 cent raised it to 24 cents and now we are 25 cents because of gas maybe 26 if it continues to increase.