- Apr 1, 2013
- 1,067
- 280
- 83
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- Real Name
- Jim Ellis
- Business Location
- United States
How does an Efficiency thread turn into a: I am so obsessed with carpet that I get angry if I can't spend 4 hours at a 4 bedroom house - carefully vacuuming every corner, edging every crack, mixing up a fresh pre-spray brew, pre-agitating with a 175 (because a power wand leaves the carpet wetter (god forbid)), doing extra dry strokes, boring the customer to death, etc etc etc.
Are you kidding???? Like I said previously if you can average $100 an hour - GREAT - but if you aren't and you are spending time in carpet obsession land then maybe this is your hobby - not business. I time everything I do & my techs do - a clock is going inside my head the moment my van parks near the customers house/biz. The clock runs very fast when it's a coupon deal - even faster when it's volume "turn" and much slower when it's one of my high-end - high paying customers.
The point of starting this thread was not to "cut corners" or to brag about how obsessed somebody is about carpet - the point is efficiency - ways to make a job go faster while maintaining quality expectations. Quality expectations vary by client drastically.
If it's apartment "turn" then it's wet n jet - wham bam thankyou ma'am - that's all they want - they don't want somebody to be slowwwwww and take all day to clean a few apartments.
If it's a coupon customer then you go in and do a solid job. They pre-vac or you charge extra - if the carpet is trashed instead of breaking out the 175 you pull out a power wand (rotovac, powr-flite, etc) and leave the carpet a little wetter but clean.
If it's a high-end customer then you do the pre-vac - you edge the carpet - if you use a power wand you come in after it with your regular wand to improve dry time - etc etc etc
Oh, by the way - you will get repeat customers all day long if you give them what they want - the coupon customer doesn't want you at their house all day long obsessing over their carpet and filtration lines. In fact I believe that some of my repeat customers are glad I'm in in and out pretty fast and don't take up space in their house too long.
So let's keep on focus - This is a business, not a hobby - the bottom line is making $$ - keeping a good rep and getting repeat customers. I think I'm pretty good at the last two considering my google reviews and repeat customers. I'm just always trying to fine tune the time I - or one of my techs - spends doing a job to increase bottom line profits. That's what I'm obsessed about - making $$ - getting carpet clean and removing most stains is pretty easy.
Are you kidding???? Like I said previously if you can average $100 an hour - GREAT - but if you aren't and you are spending time in carpet obsession land then maybe this is your hobby - not business. I time everything I do & my techs do - a clock is going inside my head the moment my van parks near the customers house/biz. The clock runs very fast when it's a coupon deal - even faster when it's volume "turn" and much slower when it's one of my high-end - high paying customers.
The point of starting this thread was not to "cut corners" or to brag about how obsessed somebody is about carpet - the point is efficiency - ways to make a job go faster while maintaining quality expectations. Quality expectations vary by client drastically.
If it's apartment "turn" then it's wet n jet - wham bam thankyou ma'am - that's all they want - they don't want somebody to be slowwwwww and take all day to clean a few apartments.
If it's a coupon customer then you go in and do a solid job. They pre-vac or you charge extra - if the carpet is trashed instead of breaking out the 175 you pull out a power wand (rotovac, powr-flite, etc) and leave the carpet a little wetter but clean.
If it's a high-end customer then you do the pre-vac - you edge the carpet - if you use a power wand you come in after it with your regular wand to improve dry time - etc etc etc
Oh, by the way - you will get repeat customers all day long if you give them what they want - the coupon customer doesn't want you at their house all day long obsessing over their carpet and filtration lines. In fact I believe that some of my repeat customers are glad I'm in in and out pretty fast and don't take up space in their house too long.
So let's keep on focus - This is a business, not a hobby - the bottom line is making $$ - keeping a good rep and getting repeat customers. I think I'm pretty good at the last two considering my google reviews and repeat customers. I'm just always trying to fine tune the time I - or one of my techs - spends doing a job to increase bottom line profits. That's what I'm obsessed about - making $$ - getting carpet clean and removing most stains is pretty easy.
