I worked for them for 7 years. I started off as an assistant and moved up to running dispatch and ended my time with them as a full time commercial sales rep doing about 600-800k of commercial cleaning and water restoration. Some jobs we charged an arm and leg and other jobs we didn't but I was always honest and up front with our pricing and expectations.

I think you guys have pretty well grossly exaggerated how they run things. Never once and I mean never once have I seen any one in management including myself preach or plan the premise of bait and switch. The 99 dollar special is typically a 4 room clean only. Prespray, pretreat attention to detail was always included. They don't price things by the sq.ft like most of you guys do. They price per room with a limit of 300 sq.ft per room. The pricing is probably more down the middle or average than you think.

Everyone "upsells" you do it we did it and its how you make money. It was always about educating the customer on protection and so forth never about cheating anyone out of their hard earned money. We all want to do a 140 dollar job and add on enough extra work or spray on's to get up to 300 bucks. Just like you guys we gave up front pricing before anything additional was cleaned or protected...

"maim (scotchgard sales pitch) it'll be 25 a room and we can do that right now". If you were ever found to have added to a ticket without the customers approval you'd have been pulled off a truck in no time. A full time guy running a truck can make up to 16% if he consistently adds on protection, deo or furniture yada yada.

We did a ton of volume. 40-60 jobs a day and sometimes as much as 100 a day. Divided up between 10-16 trucks. Quality, despite what you guys think, was a huge issue. You cannot have a customer call back rate or "redo" rate above 3% or you're back down to an assistant.

As far as advertising goes its not a third of what you guys think it its. Nationally they do TV which is nice but thats the larger extent of what they do. The largest branch I worked for which was Dallas, didn't advertise over 2k a month total above that national TV advert. Once they cross promoted with the Cowboys but that only lasted one year.

We cleaned tile and grout with the same bonnet and gecko as you guys use. Most of us took the same IICRC water restoration and structural drying classes as you guys did.

At 35k a year with full health insurance and paid vacation you don't end up with that many bad seeds. Usually there are a good solid 10 or so guys who make up and above 35k a year and they do decent work. Then there is a revolving door of another 10 or so guys who just don't get it but thats a result of having a big business not how management runs things. The bigger you are the bigger your revolving door is but the longer you stayed the more money you would make on requests. Being requested by name is something they really concentrated on.

One of the real advantages you guys have is the diversity in chemicals and how you tackle a job. We were always limited in what we could do or offer because the size of the company was always a legal liability.

Originally Posted by Bobby

I also doubt if there is a franchise owner who bought one so he could clean carpets himself. I would imagine it is like buying a McDonalds you probably learn to flip burgers but theat isn't what the owners job is. Just like MDs sells a $1.00 dbl cheeseburger and they sell a ton of them but there are always lines out the door of the mom & pop place that has a great product with a loyal customer base even though they charge 3 or 4 times that for their burgers.

Just FYI over 60% of their franchise owners started off at techs in their regular branches.

BTW I'm not trying to sound like a Stanley Steemer apologist but its not as bad as organization as some make it out to be. They've helped the industry more than they've hurt it.

I love that SS cleans tile and grout. I picked up 4 new customers this week because SS cleaned their neighbor's house and they didn't want the same results their neighbor's received. I am making good money off of their advertising. I just hope they keep advertising T&G in my area...

I live at the hub of Stanley. I never bash them to my clients because just like anywhere else, they have good techs and they have bad ones. Being here I can tell you I probably get more business because of some of their practices. They seem to send a lot of salesmen instead of well trained techs. Im glad they are here.

Originally Posted by locko-fabara

Hey guys,

I have a copy of stanley steamer's bill (year 2007)for a residential job for over $2200, and I also have a copy of the bill from other guy (same job) it was a little bit over $1000 (this bill was from last month), SS were charging for cleaning, deodorize, protecting, area rug, landings, I do not even remember what else, but they were trying to get money from everything, and that is why I think If they can take advantage of you, they will do it.

Sometimes I am tempted to show the clients the SS's bill to show them that I can do same job but for a lot less.

BTW, Sears is almost same thing. One room 14x16, the bill was $170, they pre sprayed, extracted with a portable, 20 minutes (total time) and bye. The person who told me this also told me they did a terrible job.

Locko-Fabara

Jaime,

Sears is pretty big here in Houston as well. I had no clue they were even in the cleaning business until I started seeing their trucks. I don't know if this is just a Houston thing or if they're going full-bore across the U.S. They already have name recognition, so I see no reason why they wouldn't successful.


Kind Regards,

Jose

Originally Posted by TheEyeball

I don't have any figures, I just know that an awful lot of my customers call me because Stanley Reemer couldn't do a good enough job. Oh, and there is absolutely no way their techs are making $40k to $70k a year. We aren't dummies here, just so you know.

I can honestly say.. I worked for chemdry. I operated two franchises by myself jackson and josephine counties. One van two differant sets of invoices. I worked an average of 14 to 16 hours a day 6 days a week for many years.. I pulled in average of 48k a year some weeks I made $1800. others as low as $700. and right before major holidays I would pull in $2900-$3600 in one week.. I thought I was rich for the state of oregon... I was making more than 80% of the entire job market median. But.. I always did an awesome job and increased his business by over 42% in the first year. becuase word of mouth. I still have most of those customers to this very day.