Additional services to offer!!!

If it's carpet I do it, short of installing: Cleaning, dyeing, stretching, seaming, patching, and anything else you can think of.

Pest control? I don't do that. I don't think I could even if I wanted to. Bugs creep me out. But carpet, upholstery, tile & grout, drapes and rugs I can handle.

Suprarob, you should start doing it yourself! Every time you pass on a repair and refer your friend it's like leaving $20 bills laying all over the floor.

I don't know why, but homeowners are terrified of carpet. If you can fix a problem they will think you are some sort of a super hero. I charge reasonable but profitable rates for repairs and they seem happy to pay. If I can do just one or two a day it's like getting a free tank of fuel for that day.

Practice. I'd get a book or look online for basic techniques, then get some old carpet out of a dumpster or some remnants from a carpet store and go nuts. You will have to buy the basic tools (seam iron, glue gun, seam tape, kicker, carpet tractor, etc), but it's a lot easier than you might think.

Carpet is very forgiving so you can hide a lot. And when I do repairs, I remind the customer it is a REPAIR. The idea is you don't want it to draw the eye. Perfection is not necessary.

I might clean five apartments at a complex where I have a contract, and that cleaning is worth about $200. But after repairs their invoice total might be $500. So doing repairs I can more than double my net income based on what the customer originally called in.

It's kind of like a gas station that sells thousands of dollars of fuel every day. They don't make any money on gas, they make their money on cigarettes and lottery tickets (neither of which I purchase, by the way). Or a band that sells a million cd's--they make their money on concert tickets and t-shirts.