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Employees are scary but necessary if you want a business and not a job. I don’t want to have a job in 5 years. Where would the head office be without employees. The profit margin does go down because lets face it no one is a good has the owner. A low hourly rate is good plus commission so they get a little for doing stuff that does needs to be done but doesn’t make you money. I paid 31k in employees in 07 and it was worth it by myself I could’ve of come close to the 100k. I am in the middle of tracking all of these numbers and will report when I feel that they are accurate.
Ok here’s the last and final update on the job that I took on. I had about 10 man hours in it plus about $350 of product in it. I am charging around $1500 I trying to stay close to what I had told them it would be. I think it was easier than I had anticipated. The real estate agent is happy the handy man is happy and they both answer to the owner who is in California. I took about a week with multiple visits as much as twice a day. The good thing was that it was less than ten minutes away from my house. I had key and could come and go when I pleased. Things that I learned: 1. I could’ve of and should have charged more. 2. Two coats of killz is better than one. 3. When you think you are done deodorizing deodorize some more. 4. I am liking the extra money during the winter. Truthfully I wonder if a dog or cat can still smell the urine. I can’t smell it but I still wonder. I hope all this helps each of you. I like having the guaranteed because there’s nobody else that I have talked here in my area that guarantees it. I also saved this guy about $3000. That’s gotta make you feel good.
I have the xv6800 smart phone from verizon wireless I have had it since the end of December of 07. I do love it. I got ride of my paper appointment book and currently keep two different calendars on it for the two vans. I then can link the calendar to outlook and print to schedule for my techs then it is back up. I do have to link the phone to it everyday. Which it a little bummer. It takes about 5 minutes to do. I can listen to music that goes through my blue tooth and customers don’t even know. That’s just an added perk. The only problem that I have had with it is the cord that I used to link up the info to my computer went bad some how.
This is what we have put together:
Name:________________________________Date:______________
Address:________________________________________________Heaven’s Best Written Guarantees
Spot Removal Guarantee:
At Heaven’s Best Carpet Cleaning our goal is to please YOU, our
valued customer. WE PROMISE if spots (other than pet stains or
permanent stains) come back so do we, for up to 10 days!Pet Odor Removal Guarantee:
Our Promise to you is plain and simple. We will permanently remove
pet odor from your home GUARANTEED! If you no longer have a pet
in your home and follow our simple procedures, if the smell comes
back then so do we!This next part is our check list for the techs I get one copy and the customer get the other. They are supposed to have boxes that get checked
Talked with customer(s) about concern spots
Vacuumed and edged corners
Pre-spotted where necessary
Raked all carpet
Tested areas to see if there is more dirt
Asked about protector
Applied protector
Refill spotter bottle when applicable
Walked through when finished with customer
Customer email address ____________________
Months 3 6 9 12 Customer reminder card
Evaluation card
Business card(s)
Then has our phone number and also with the logo her at the bottom on a half sheet of paper.Here is an update on the job i did get it and spent about 2 hours just on pet enzyme. Here is a list of the cost if things I am keep track of everything that I do on this job. These prices are also coming from memory
3 bottles of pet enzyme $90
clean 3 bedrooms and living room with orange deo. $ 10
2 bottles of fresh scent $30
1 gallon of kilz $14
new pad $130
2.5 hours of two employees $55 total. I am thinking it will be about $1500. I’ll give one last update on or after Friday the 8thThe pet odor guarantee states this: “Our Promise to you is plain and simple. We will permanently remove pet odor from your home GUARANTEED! If you no longer have a pet in you home and follow our simple procedures, if the smell comes back then so do we!” I might be getting a go tester starting on Monday. The carpet is a year old all the same color and the condition is good but the smell is bad. It will take about a week and I have to pull up the carpet in two areas. I have told the owner it will be about $1000- $1500 depending on how many time I have treat the carpet. He didn’t even ask about any guarantee Each visit won’t take too long. Just needs time to dry after each step. I will report back when I’m done.
This is the written guarantee that I am almost positive that we are going to use: “At Heaven’s Best Carpet Cleaning our goal is to please YOU, our valued customer. WE PROMISE if spots (other than pet stains or permanent stains) come back so do we, for up to 10 days!” It’s simple and you can put the number of days that you want. Laura Buckhard and I have talked and she is thinking about 14 days. I have heard of other operators doing 30 days. I hope that was okay to share Laura. Yes people might take advantage of this. But the gain will spectacular is the hope and I don’t see why it won’t be.
This maybe a good idea don’t have the written guarantee unless they have protector applied. Another plus on having the protector applied. I think we need to have certain number of day limit. The question then would be how many days. In my experience if spots come back it is a day or two later, most of the time anyway. I have been advised seven days I was thinking 10 days. What do you all think?
You of course have to go down as far as the stain goes. I have pulled up carpet and cut out pad where some vegetable oil spilled at got left. When I took out that pad I could squeeze out some oil out of the pad. That would of course kept on coming back until the pad was replaced. Then I put it all back down. Spots coming back is a concern for a lot of people. I want to have niches, things that put us apart from the competition, hopefully to give a better service and put peoples mind at ease about having a carpet cleaners come in there home.
Thanks Mike I will let people know what I decide to do. I am leaning towards it, but will let everyone know how it goes if I choose to do this written guarantee
This isn’t a one stop job. It will take several stops and I would not do the job in the sticks unless they wanted to pay for each trip. Yes the pet would have to no longer be there. There is no way I would guarantee that. I am really trying to do and advertise things that make us different and I haven’t found anybody that guarantee the odor removal. I have work on a number of pet odors as we all have. I really feel that I guarantee this it will be expensive and it will be worth my while and won’t give know how much to charge exactly until I’m done. I don’t know if I can get 100% of it out but I feel confident that I can get the smell out to where us as humans can’t smell it. I am wiling to find out. Thanks for the feed back.
So this is what I think I feel safe with putting in a guarantee. Most spots that come back come back a day or two later. I think that it would be safe to put together a written guarantee that says will come back if a spot does but putting a 10 day max to it. I would give a copy of the guarantee to every customer so they now about the 10 max and the guarantee would also have check list of everything the techs are suppose to do. All this is suppose to make the customer feel more comfortable and hopefully have more reason to call us back. This is different than other carpet cleaners and that’s what I want. Please let me know what you think.
This person sole responsibility would be to sell and get us business her could work if he or she wanted to, but the idea would be that he could cover more areas that just my own. Of course with the help and agreements of other operators. I would like to see us as neighboring operators work more or better together. I think this is something that could really work well with little effort. I’m not good at walking into a business and saying can I be you carpet cleaner. I would rather hire it out and it seems that one person would have better success in multiple areas. It would be mainly focused on businesses some good steady work for the winter.
The good thing is that you write the guarantee so you can alter it whenever you want. I really want to do this just don’t know exactly how to word it or what to put in it. I’ll post something when I come up with an one and would like some more feed back and if any wants to have a copy there more than welcome. I’ll be in touch.
I have been doing minor repairs for a while now. My father in law taught me how to do repairs and stretch carpet. Really pretty simple. I took about $1000 of investing and it is very easy to market. Hey I can fix those ripples!!!! We do use a power stretcher so it is done right. I do all of the stretching and repairs. My techs will do the most of the cleaning.
