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Rick, it’s a thought. My first thought went to services on the door like…
Carpet Cleaning
Upholstery Cleaning
Tile & Grout Cleaning/Sealing
Spot Removers
Fabric ProtectorsThe list could go on and on but, I think it would clutter the van with to much info. The main thing is to get the call, then your job is to explain services offered and whatever detail to go with it. These are my thoughts.
I also like the sheet of paper with a sheet protector that details all our services.(Must look professional) This can be handed to the customer during an estimate or job. Yes, you do take it back when customer is done looking at it. I think this was Jeremy Childs idea.
Any one else… thoughts welcome.I also like the Dri-Mesh shirts. I also miss the pocket however, what I like most, is the way the shirt breezes in warm and extra warm homes. It’s a trade off I can live with. I continue to wear khaki slacks when I clean. It gives the appearance that this old guy still looks professional.
Not to take away from the bigger marketing idea, on a smaller scale, I sold spotters to my local (new) carpet/furniture store. Large spotters: minimum 10 at a time. $7.50 each retailed $15, with life time free refills! Every time they (the customer) called me to clean carpet or upholstery I would refill it free! If they only needed a refill, it was a charge of $7.50. (no sales tax in Oregon) Sold the ten quantity about 4-6 times a year. There was some profit for them and some no cost advertising for me! My whole county is only 23k.
It has been some time since I owned a truck mount system, however, 150 ft of hose (ground floor) of gas gusseling truck mount fuel was equal to the suction of our uph mate.
P.S. If you think the uph mate or ninja is a hassle to handle, think of those truck mounts trying to run hose outside of an apartment building to the third, forth, or more floor…
As far as how far they can go is determined by how much hose they have. However after 200 ft of hose they leave A LOT of water, dirt, and everything else behind. At least my truck mount HWE did.I’ve never used a microwave on the job site. I did pick up an old aluminum coffee pot at a yard sale. I have used it in empty apartments where they have turned off the water heater to save $. I just heated water while vacuuming. After vacuuming it was ready to go!
Note: FHE would make a mean batch of coffee! Clean you right out! Check MSDS for proper dosage! Wah hoo!To clarify, I didn’t higher an employee. I highered an “assistant manager”. He was an assistant manager over “customer relations”. 10% was base pay. Additional 15% was his customer relations pay (ie: mantaining 95% customer satisfaction). Therefore, the total focus of our business was on customer satisfation! Yes, he was one man in the van operator. On larger jobs we did together. He’s percentage was then based off of 50% of the job. (50% of the job, x25%) 10% was a major demotion. If he would have been happy with the 10%, I would know this is not the guy I wanted.
Again, from past post, he wanted the $$$, I wanted satisfied customers. Win/Win!Kim, Great idea.
I would guess this is the modern way to get reccommendations. In the past I’ve perferred the print type company letterhead Logo.As for as asking, I just ask how they felt about my work. With a favorable response, I ask if they would take some time to “write a letter of reccommendation” for my reference book. Some would respond and say they don’t have time… but for the most part, they came through. Some would even ask if there was any thing in it I would like to be included. It gets easier each time you ask.
In my “Reference Book”, the first section is letters of Reccommendation. The second section is evaluation cards, and the third section is before and after pictures. The last section is information on insurance, cleaner & protector MSDS sheets, certificates etc.
The book seems well recieved. I used it with all estimates and property management solicitations.
(sorry for misspelling, I had to hurry through this, I need to be some where else)Okay, here’s the deal…
I had a large job going most of the day. The laundry mat could do the 4 loads, my home could only do one at a time. As I was picking up the cleaned pads, a HWE cleaner was doing his own laundry and said… “Oh, your just a surface cleaner.” I could have blew up on the guy but instead took the time to educate him. I said politely “If you think I’m a surface cleaner, you must admit to being a swamp cleaner.” He didn’t know how to respond to that so I help him out some and said “If your truck mount is so powerful, tell me, how can you remove the dirt and leave so much water?” By now he wished he had never met me so I made the following statement…
“Look I’ve been in the cleaning business for over 20 years. When I started out, I also did HWE, and they said the same (shoot from the holster) thing back then. I’ve been trained to do HWE and low moisture cleaning, Owned my own truck mount. There’s a lot of reasons I do low moisture cleaning.”
It’s great to be Heaven’s Best!1. Run in the “food section”, never run an ad in the “sports section” (waste of money).
2. Tuesday worked very well for me because it was the day the grocery inserts were added to the paper. Many of the larger markets work well for Sunday paper, however there’s a lot paper to get lost in.
3. I ran a 3×3 colum inch ad every Tuesday except the fifth Tuesday. People commented they seem me in there all the time. (I run these ads my first few years.)Greg,
Good questions. On the first day of the month, I would block out the morning on the calender, do my monthly report, then look at my reminder cards. I would review 6 & 12 months records to determine who I would send them to. Some of my list would have already been complied from customers comments. I will only send out no more than twenty a day. The reason for that is, if they never called to set an appointment, I called them after three days. Most say “I’ve been thinking about calling you”, Then you get your appointment, or a time later to send out another reminder card. If you call them after three days with a follow up call, you will book three times as many appointments! This is one of those cases where follow through is worth the effort. (I used the HB reminder cards)This is more about phone skills then hardwood cleaning, but the before posts have triggered this memory…
Also when they say they have —sq ft, many times that’s the outside of home measurement sq ft of the home. Once when a person was moving out, they said they needed the carpets cleaned, For scheduling purposes, I asked for their square footage. You guessed it, they gave me the square footage of the whole house. When I got there, there was only carpet in the living room. I then had about four hours to kill. They only asked for cost per square foot. Live and learn.Wow! Forget the bite. The bark alone without the huff and puff will blow the house down. I’m impressed. We all get ticked when someone takes advantage of us, especally when it is intentional. Good job Brian. It says a lot of you to get the others paid too. Just one more reason your called “Heaven’s Best!”
