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I think that you really need to break down the numbers to figure it out. I would take the total amount that you pay him for a month. How much it cost in product, cell phone, insurance and any other costs. At that point find out what you are really making in profit. I know that for every employee that we hire my profit margin goes down. But if I only make $2500 more profit per employee a month I am happy. We have four full time employees now. In the beginning when I only had one employee my profit margin was down to about $500 a month, but my quality of life went up. I could do more things and build my business. I ask a lot of my employees, and they give me a lot back.
Laura I was just wondering how much referrals you get back from your local carpet company. I might be wrong but I imagine that you more than make up the difference in jobs you sub out. I do all most all of my repairs myself but every once in a while I send out a job. I do this because they send me a lot of work themselves. Its great to net work with other industries.
Dave I joined about two moths ago. The biggest benefit is the voice we have in a stem cleaning industry. There are many great benefits to being a member on an individual basis. Its kinda like having a gym membership It only helps if you actually use it and are proactive. I my self have belonged to a gym for 10 years now. I think they named the new add on in my name. To bad I have not seen it in quite some time now. The point is you should not just pay the money and forget about it. They have many programs like scholarships/grants for taking IICRC classes for half price. I have paid ten times my fee just for one class alone in the past. It is a great voice for all of us.
It has a lot to do with the kind of business that the operator does. I think that you are right with the 1500-2000 mark. There can be some things that make the numbers change like commercial vs. residential, and tile or repairs. For my own business it is up around $2200 but that is because we do so many repairs and floods. I think we average about $50,000 a year in extra work from it. I would suggest asking about the type of jobs and the mixing ratio. I talked with an operator a few years back and he was only using half the amount of 101 in his solution. He no longer is in the company go figure…
Thanks Ron, I agree that the cost is high. I think that we spent around $1000 for the meeting but also missed two days of work which was about the same. It is very important to have the meetings and share ideas and thoughts in a real face to face enviorment. There are a lot of things that can be taken care of and discussed right here and the cost is $0. This will never happen if we do not get the participation of all the other state owners.
It was great to meet all of you at the SO meeting. Since it was our first I have nothing to compare it to. We were able to get a lot of valuable information out of it. I agree with Ammon that there were some big areas that were left out. I felt that it was not for a lack of trying but rather time. I walked in to it thinking how could this meeting be two whole days. I left wondering what happened to the last two days it was not enough. I tell all of my new employees that here at Heavens best the clock works faster. You never look at the clock and say man we have three more hours until we go home. Instead you look and say is it already 2:00 what happened to the time.
Instead of waiting until San Diego why don’t we meet up on the board and ask the questions in the mean time. Lets start with what we ran out of time at the meeting. What is the commercial and when? What about the Internet web site do we think it needs? What is the status of the advertising fund? I would like to see each one of these and any other state owners Questions separated in to new topics.
I like the Subcommittee Idea that Ron has. Put people in the areas that they are best at. Dan gave some great insight on how to sell I think we can learn a lot from him. It sounds like Ron has some insight on working with each operator. Laura’s presentation was very helpful. She could teach us a lot about customer service. We have already ordered the boxes and bags to fill. It was helpful for my own franchise, and I will be sending them to all my operators in Arizona as well.
Once again Kim and I came back feeling very welcomed in to this new group of friends and I hope that we can be as big of an asset to you as you are to us.
I always love it when people say that they want to own there own business so that they can be there own boss. Nothing could be farther from the truth. My employees only have one boss, but I have everyone else. That is why we have to do things like take the blame and apologize for things that we do not do.
You never said what the end result was. Did she call someone else or are you going to still get the job. If so I might suggest offering a FREE Spotter bottle for the misunderstanding. This way she will be sure to remember the company that came and made things right.
We service a lot of apartments in our area. They are famous for this same thing. They will call and say that they need it done on the tenth and on the ninth call asking when we are going to show up. I have taken the bullet many times and apologized for the misunderstanding. I try to accommodate them the best we can. The true story is that we all make mistakes even me as I know that I have put down the wrong date or time before. The true test is how you handle it after. I think you did a great job to try to accommodate the customer. I would not put her on the list just yet though. Sometimes it is how you handle it after the misunderstanding that sets us apart. Remember that she in her mind is right and that your staff(wife) made the error. She thought that she told you the correct day. Even though it was her mistake it is also her money and referrals that help keep us in business. I hope that things work out for you, but you definitely are not alone in this.
One thing that I would like to ask is has there ever been a time where you have thought that you were right, but later found out that it was your mistake. I just had something like this happen to me. I needed to send some documents FedEx and it never showed up. I started to blame FEDEX and was looking for the tracking number to find out how they could have done this to me. These are some of the most important documents that I ever sent. As I was searching for the tracking number I ran across a FedEx envelope sitting on the counter. It turned out that this was not a FedEx issue, but rather it was ME. I would have swore and did swear that this was sent out last week. Some times even when you think that you are 100% right you are dead wrong.
I do two things. I go to the corperate office, and the onsite manager. I give them it in person so that they have a face behind the name. I always leave a small spotter at every stop. I like to call a week later and try to set up a time to meet with the manager or reginal. By this time they have had a chance to try out the spot remover.
You might find it easier to look up an apartment association in your area. It is well worth joining. I belong to the RHA in sacramento. In san Antonio it is the SAAA (San Antonio Apartment Association) They will usually have a trade show and other oppertunities to get your info out to the masses. I can do more marketing in the RHA EXPO in one day then I can all year long. The nice part is that they come to me for info at the trade show.
It has been awhile since I gave an update. We are still going strong with the program. I hope that some of the other operators are starting to get calls from the promotion. I just met with a company today that said that they are going to pick up Heavens Best in other locations. It has been an easy way to get our foot in the door of many management companies. I have found that it does take a couple of follow up trips to close the deal. As of right now we picked up a solid ten accounts from this.
Sorry, for us I always use a damp towel. The more steam the better. We still use the cheap plug in irons from the old days. I sometimes have two or three going on at the same time. I just make sure that I am paying attention. I also use a damp towel on taking out wax.
Ron what are you using. The upholstry mate is good for small floods or treating urine. If it is a bit bigger than the ninja is a work horse. I still have my original from seven years ago and it does a bang up job on the floods with the water claw. We only use the larger water claw and it has a great amont of suction. The dumping is easy in to a toilet and it holdes around 9-12 gallons in the tank. I have extracted up to 550 gallons in a single flood with this machine. Yes I have to dump it alot, but I make up for it on the invoice.
I have been in the same boat as most. I have never taken credit cards in the past and always explained that we just did not except them. We have never lost a job yet. The only question is how many jobs could I have gained by offering credit cards. How much add on upholstery did I not clean because we cleaned at the end of a pay period. We have been looking into the credit card for the past month. I finally picked a company that gave the best rates and service. We are going with a machine that has the capability to swipe on site and then we down load at the end of the day. I believe it is called swipe and go. The advantage is lower rates and no service charges for wireless. The company is http://www.bestmerchantrates.com. We are doing this now because all of our yellow page profs are due. We are going to advertise that we take credit cards. I wont know if we will get more jobs for some time.
Just as a side note when I dont have cash on hand and need to buy something on credit I always look for the visa logo in the window before I go in.
Dave we run 2 vans full time and a third part time. I have three full time and one part time carpet cleaning emplyees. Also I have one office emplyee to answer phones and run the office. This does not include myself. I am right now looking to add two more full time positions.
Appartment management companies almost always look at the price first. With this said I give them what they want to hear. Our prices are very competitive with the cheap carpet cleaners that you are speaking of. This is where it becomes important to know how the game is played. My price list for a 1 bedroom arpartment is $55, a 2 bed $60, 3 bed is $70, townhome 2 bed is $80, townhome 3 bed $90. Sounds real cheap I am sure, ths is a standard price for all apartments no matter sq feet. Where I make up for it as well as all cleaners is the add ons. I charge for red stains, wax, gum, and any repairs. It is not uncommon to have invoices ranging in the $120-200 range also pet damage. It is a numbers game. We do anywhere from 12-22 apartments a day.
The lease renewal is different. I am still charging the same rate as before, but with no add on services and I am giving a small spotter away. THis is a great way to get your foot in the door. Tell them that it is ok to have you only do the leases renewals. Sell them on the spotter bottle, customer service, Dry in one hour, uniformed emplyees, and deodorizer. This is something that they can not get any where else. A lease renewal should not take more than a half hour. It is a once over clean only. I try to have them book multiple jobs at the same time. The comment cards really work well also. Even at $60 a day if you do 6 jobs a day it comes out to $360. That is $7200 a month or $86400 a year. Alll this and it takes three to four easy hours a day and less than six dollars a day in spotters.
I hope this helps if not I can send a copy of our entire packat by fax that might help.
Greg Miller
