Family Gatherings and What to Do in Winter

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Family gatherings can get boring after everyone has visited for a little bit. Here are a few suggestions to keep things lively.

  • Tell everyone to bring warm clothing and plan a few outdoor activities such as sledding, ice skating, snowman building or a nice walk around the neighborhood.
  • Provide paper and scissors and have a paper snowflake making contest. Each person will need a pair of scissors so ask your friends to bring some along. Precut some paper into squares or circles and fold them for the younger ones as they seem to have the most trouble with the folding part. After everyone is done making a few snowflakes you can hang them up in the windows and vote who has the best snowflake.
  • Mingle amongst your guests and introduce them to each other mentioning a little about what they may have in common. Get the conversation started and then excuse yourself to the next person who looks bored. Continue introducing people and starting conversation until everyone is busy socializing.
  • Provide a few games in the gathering area where people can see them. Games like cards, checkers, chess and board games are old time favorites. You can also have group games like Pictionary, charades, Cranium, Buzz word, Apples to Apples and knowledge-based games.
  • Plan a few interactive games such as Wordball to get everyone involved and excited.
  • Write a list of general topics to discuss and questions to ask before the party so when things slow down you can spark a lively conversation.

You can come up with your own activities too. The key is to watch your guests and when boredom strikes start and activity and get people involved.

Boot Trays Help Save Carpet

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Guests who enter your home know that they should be taking off their boots or shoes before entering your home. You can help keep the melted snow and ice melt chemicals from soaking into your carpet by using door mats and runners, but in an active home this may not be enough.

When you get a few pairs of shoes or boots on a runner or mat and the snow melts, the puddle still dribbles over on your carpet.

Here’s a solution: A boot tray with a high lip or edge can trap the melting snow, sand and chemicals and keep them from getting on your carpet. Remember to empty the tray often before the melting snow and sludge overflow the tray.

Party Survival Plan for Carpeting

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If you are planning a party and you’re worried about your new carpet, one of the best protections is to have a plan.

Let’s face it, people spill things when you serve food or beverages at a party so the best solution is to be ready if a spill happens.

Here are some ideas to plan for in you Spill Recovery Plan:

  • Prevent messier food spills by serving foods that are lighter and non staining
  • Prevent spills by using thicker plates so they do not bend
  • Provide sit down seating near food buffet to encourage people to sit down and eat
  • Place rugs and runners near high-spill areas such as tables
  • Use clear or lighter colored beverages for children
  • If you use candles make sure they are placed on a stable surface
  • Have a spray bottle of water and some rags handy in case there is a spill and tackle it quickly

By developing a plan for your party you can enjoy your party even more because it takes the worry off your mind.

Holiday Parties, sigh…Holiday Spills

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Inviting family and friends to visit over the holidays can be lots of fun. It’s a great time to get together and share family memories. Holiday gatherings usually include great food and beverages and enjoyable conversation.

Unfortunately, holiday celebrations can get a bit messy when people are walking around with food. Spills happen but there are ways you can prevents those spills from becoming stains on your carpet.

Foods that leave the worst stains contain grease and food dyes so try not to serve BBQ wings or foods that have drippy red sauces. Red wine is another spill that is common during the holidays. If you have children at your celebration try to serve clear beverages instead of heavily colored fruit drinks.

Another trick to prevent spills from becoming stains is to keep a bottle of water with a little liquid soap and a few rags handy. When a spill occurs try to absorb as much liquid from the spill in a paper towel or other absorbent cloth then rinse the area with water and blot the spill to remove any liquid. Change the rags or paper towels when they get wet and keep blotting until all the liquid is absorbed.

Holidazzle Parade in Minneapolis Minnesota

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The Holidazzle parade in downtown Minneapolis started November 25th and continues every Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday until December 18th. The parade starts at 6:30pm but you’ll want to get there early to get a good viewing spot. The parade lasts about 30 minutes so dress warm and remember to bring your camera.

For directions and parking visit the Holidazzle website.

You can also find information on the Holidazzle Facebook Page.

Dents in Carpet Under Furniture

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If you’ve just moved your furniture you will notice dents in the carpet where heavy furniture legs compressed the fibers. You can fluff up the dents in carpets by using a steam iron or a steam cleaner. If you are using an iron don’t touch the carpet with the iron, simply hold the iron so the steam penetrates into your carpet. Fluff up the wet carpet with your fingers. If you place furniture back on wet carpet it may leave a stain of rust from the furniture leg. Remember to let carpet dry before placing any furniture back onto the carpet.

The best trick for removing dents in carpet is to place a small ice cube in each dent and let it melt overnight. Of course, too much moisture wicking deep into your carpet may result in ideal conditions for mold growth, so don’t do this with larger dents.

Of course, you could also simply schedule your next carpet cleaning with Commercial Steam Team by calling us at 952-224-7222 and let us take care of smoothing and cleaning your carpet at the same time!

Commercial Steam Team uses steam cleaning to clean carpets and places leg protectors under your furniture until the carpet is dry.

Kitchen Carpet Solution

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Most people do not put carpeting in the kitchen because of spills. Kitchens have airborne grease and cooking smells that absorb in the carpet. Most things like spilled milk, broken eggs, grease, sauces, condiments and beverages are hard to get out of carpet and in some cases can actually destroy part of the carpet.

There are alternatives for people who still would like carpet in their kitchen.

Traditionally carpet is installed in one big piece so, when you have a stain it’s with you until you replace the carpet. A better option may be to use modular carpet tiles which are 18” to 24” square. If you get a stain in your kitchen carpet just replace a small section.  Square carpet tiles are easy to install and the edges blend in seamlessly. The smaller tiles are easier to transport in your car and to keep in storage until you need them.  Remember to buy extra tiles and store them so you have them whenever you need to replace a small section of carpet.

Carpet Spills in the Office

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In all the years we’ve been cleaning carpet we have seen some very interesting spills on office carpet that could have been prevented.

Cleaning a spill as soon as it happens helps prevent the spill from soaking in and staining. Facilitate quick clean up by placing a bottle of multipurpose cleaner and an instruction sign on the counter of your break room where spills happen all the time and behind the front counter in your common or reception area. Put a smiley face or other goofy picture on the outside of the bottle to create interest and most people will read and use the bottle.

You will also want to make sure you include instructions on the bottle on how to clean up carpet spills.

 

To prevent spills from setting in:

  • Use paper towels to sop up spill
  • Blot up spill with clean paper towel, Do not rub
  • Keep changing paper towels and blotting until no more liquid is absorbed
  • Use cleaner from the bottle to lightly spray down surface
  • Blot and redo until any color from spill is removed

Winter Carpet Defense For Commercial Buildings

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Fall is the perfect time to do a walkthrough of your building and evaluate your carpets’ high traffic areas. Inspect around your doors and make sure that your runners are properly placed. Fall is when leaves and plant matter get tracked on to your carpet.

 

By placing special debris-collecting runners in the entryway of your building you can trap leaves, dirt, salt and ice melting chemicals and prevent them from being tracked into the building.

Carpet runners also help collect the wet snow and ice which melts into the mat instead of your carpet at the entryway.

The best kind of carpet runner or Industrial mats is the one that has protruding scraping fingers that remove dirt and debris. For outdoor use, choose rubber mats that have a ribbed backing so that it is slip resistant.

Mats and runners will keep your carpet cleaner in between cleanings and extend the life of your carpet.

Do you know what is living in your carpet?

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Children using a notebook while their parents are watching

The causes and effects of allergies have long been known and can be a serious health threat. Allergies are a menace to the immune system, resulting in inflammation of the eyes, nose (rhinitis), lungs (asthma), and skin (eczema).  It is estimated that allergies affect some 50% of the population.  One controllable culprit in the battle with allergens is the dust mite, a microscopic insect which is found in our indoor environment. We shed skin scales, which in turn, feed the dust mites.  Rooms that are used most in the home, for example, your bedroom, are ideal breeding grounds for the dust mite.

Steam cleaning your carpet is an excellent way to kill and remove dust mites from your carpet and upholstery is to have Commercial Steam Team steam clean your home or office. Call us today at 952-224-7222 to see how we can help keep your home healthier!

Sand and Salt: Safe for Minnesota Roads, Harsh on Minnesota Carpets

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If you live and work in the Twin Cities Area of Minnesota like I do, you are aware that MNDOT, part of the Minnesota Government that is responsible for the roads, is plenty liberal with sand and salt on our streets and highways.  This is good for safety on our roads, however, sand and salt damage carpet.  This debris is both sharp and abrasive.  The sharp corners of the dirt and salt latch onto the bottom of our shoes and turn them into walking sand paper, sawing right through the tiny carpet fibers.  This causes discoloration when light tries to reflect off of the carpet in these worn out areas.  Should this damage occur, the area can be clean as a whistle, but still appear discolored.  Because of these harsh conditions, it is very important to have your carpets professionally cleaned and protected at least once a year.  Between professional carpet cleanings, it is important to vacuum your carpet on a schedule appropriate for the amount of traffic your carpet receives (anywhere from once a week to once a day).

Carpet Cleaners And Good Choices

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Everyone has seen the cartoons where the angel sits on one shoulder and the devil sits on the other fighting over the conscience of a wishy washy mind.  Carpet cleaners, like everyone else, are not immune to temptation.  I own a commercial carpet cleaning company in the Twin Cities Area (Minneapolis, St. Paul and surrounding areas) of Minnesota.  My crews and I can be spotted cleaning bowling alleys and bars until 5 or 6 in the morning.  It is so tempting for carpet cleaners who are out that late cleaning to cut corners and not do a quality job.  How do I prevent my crews from taking the easy way out at 4am?

  • I start by hiring idealists.  Idealists, by my definition, are the kind of professionals who would do a great job whether anyone is looking or not.
  • Next, I make sure to pay well enough that my employees value their jobs and don’t want to risk losing them.  (employees that are paid poorly don’t want to lose their jobs but won’t go out of their way to make sure they keep them either)
  • Bonuses should be won and lost based on customer satisfaction.  The rewards and penalties should be big enough to be a big deal to the technicians.
  • I give 10% of our profits to my employees at the end of every year.  This ensures that my technicians take every client seriously for the sake of ongoing business and referrals.
  • Lastly, these professionals should know that if they cut a corner today, they will be back to correct it soon after.  They will not get out of work, instead they are creating more work and inconvenience for themselves

Temptation is a fact of life for everyone.  I don’t believe life is about avoiding temptation or shielding people from it.  I believe it is about understanding the temptations and making that temptation unappealing.  These policies have really worked well for my company and also protected my employees from making decisions that could cause us no choice but to lose a good employee.

Which Carpeted Areas Are Most Susceptible To Damage

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What areas of a home are the most important to clean in a home?  As a carpet cleaning expert here in the Twin Cities, I recommend cleaning all carpet at least once a year.  However, some areas may need more attention.  These areas include:

  • Stairs
    • Stairs take a heavy beating because we slide our feet over the nose of the stairs as we walk down and kick them as we walk up.
  • Halls
  • Halls wear out quickly because we have only a narrow width on which our feet can walk, forcing us to concentrate all of our steps on a single stretch of carpet.  Also, we make turns at the same specific points as we pivot to enter rooms.
  • Path from main living space to kitchen or bathroom.
    • Because we travel to the kitchen and bathroom every single day, this path becomes routine.
  • Entrances
    • Especially if you live in a climate that requires sand and salt to be spread on the roads, areas where people enter your home can be one of the most soiled areas of all.  I recommend taking your shoes off at the door.  Even so, these areas tend to receive the most soil.
  • Around beds and in front of sofas
    • Any time I move a bed or sofa, I see a matted area of carpet that is worn out from people getting up and down off of the furniture.

If you can’t afford to clean all of your carpet, make sure these areas are cleaned and protected at least once a year.  Said areas might require more than once a year, depending on the number of residents and guests you have in your home.

Horse Power in Carpet Cleaning

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Wouldn’t it be great if carpet cleaning equipment was powered by actual horses?  This might not be the best thing for the horses, but at least you could actually see the difference in power between the different companies based on how many horses pulled up in front of your home or business.  My family owns a commercial carpet cleaning company in the Minneapolis/ St. Paul area of Minnesota.  One of the difficult tasks we have is educating prospective clients as to why we are the best choice in carpet cleaning.  While our track record speaks for itself when it comes to equipment, the general public doesn’t know the difference between one cleaning unit and the next.

The honest truth is that almost every single carpet cleaner, no matter how it sounds in their advertisement, uses hot water extraction.  They might spout magic water, or low moisture, but that’s all fancy ways of saying hot water extraction.  It’s the oldest and most effective method.  The jargon is simply what the radio stations marketing team says to make the equipment seem to be something new, even when it’s not.  The process is the same from one machine to the next, but there are two areas that they differ:

The first is maintenance.  This is determined by how easy it is to maintain the equipment and how often will it break down.  This part only affects the odds that something might go wrong during or before a job, not necessarily the quality.

Secondly, and most important to the consumer, is the power source that the equipment runs on.  Portables almost all run on electricity.  The issue with electricity is that they run on circuit breakers that would trip if you draw too much power.  Next, is the Kubota style cleaning units, these are a 4 cylinder engine separate from the trucks engine.  This is far more powerful than the portable.  Finally, is the direct drive carpet cleaning unit.  Direct drive means that the carpet cleaning unit is powered by the actual engine of the vehicle that houses the equipment.  These are almost always vans with V8 engines in them.  These direct drive carpet cleaning units are the most powerful and effective units on the market because V8 engines have 8 cylinders, which create far more horse power than 4 cylinder engines.  Horse power translates directly to vacuum strength for drying time, solution pressure for rinsing, and heat for releasing tough stains and stripping away grease and oil.

I recommend always asking if your carpet cleaner uses a direct drive carpet cleaning system that runs on an 8 cylinder engine.  This is also important because companies may have several different types and you may not know which one will show up for the actual cleaning.

Vacuuming Carpet is Important

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Vacuuming carpet is essential for several reasons, but not everyone does this.  Whether they are too busy, lazy, or think it is unnecessary, many people neglect the maintenance of their carpet.  Vacuuming is important for multiple reasons;

  • Allergens reside in the carpet and vacuuming greatly decreases their volume.
  • Dirt and dust are sharp particles and saw through the carpet fibers as people walk across them.  The greater the volume of these sharp materials, the faster this fiber damage will occur and the traffic areas become discolored.
  • Dust recycling through the furnace can filter through the carpet fibers and cause permanent discoloration around furniture, bedspreads, underneath doors, and especially along baseboards.

Vacuuming the carpet removes these dusts, allergens, and abrasive dirt from the carpet.  Here are a few tips to help maximize your effort:

  • At least once a week, be sure to vacuum the areas where people walk.
  • Vacuum along walls and under furniture as needed.  In dusty homes, this means once a month.  You can get away with only quarterly or less in homes that don’t get very dusty.
  • Clean out your vacuum filter whenever it gets full, as it not only loses suction, but can actually begin dispersing the dust throughout the air.
  • Clean or replace your furnace filter once a month or as needed.  This filter cuts down on the amount of airborne dust and allergens that cycle through the house as the furnace runs.
  • Run your furnace fan in the “on” position.  The furnace filter can only do its job when the fan is running.

As a carpet cleaner in the Twin Cities Area of Minneapolis and St. Paul, I have cleaned all kinds of properties.  Those that vacuum and follow these steps tend to remain in much better condition than those that don’t.

Ryan Zakariasen of the Commercial Steam Team Joins BNI Minnesota

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As a company that has always relied heavily on referrals, my family and I decided to join the Business Networkers International (BNI) Minnesota and Northern Wisconsin Chapter.  My father, brother, and I own the Commercial Steam Team carpet cleaning company.  Our reason for joining BNI was simple; Anyone who experiences our technicians, customer service, and sees their results, refers us to all of their friends.  BNI is a community where word of exceptional work spreads very fast.

I have been attending the BNI South Metro chapter in Edina Minnesota for a few months now and as the members told me when I joined, “BNI works.”  Our technicians have already cleaned for several of the BNI members and their testimonials continue to encourage even more people to use our service.

What I like most about BNI is that everyone in the group knows they are accountable for the service they provide to their fellow members and their referrals.  I feel confident that I can use and refer their services to my friends, family and colleagues.

I definitely recommend BNI to any and all small business owners that provide excellent service because in BNI, great work does not go unnoticed.

Reliability in Carpet Cleaning

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I own a carpet cleaning company in Dakota County, Minnesota.  The other day, the head of public works for the city of Hopkins informed me that the last company he hired to clean the carpets stood him up.  This was a job large enough to send two vans out.  Neither van showed up.  He was surprised because he hears their commercials on the radio several times a day and they claim to be the best in the industry.  City accounts are very large and lucrative accounts.  I don’t understand how any company, no matter how large or how fast they grew, could overlook any account, let alone one as large as a city government.

The problem with standing up a client is not as simple as just losing that account.  Everyone he speaks to about carpet cleaning now will hear about his negative experience.

There needs to be checks and balances to make sure that no account gets overlooked.  Phone calls should be made at the earliest sign that crews might be late to a job, even if only by a few minutes.  Waiting and wondering if a vendor will show up on time, or at all, is not a comforting feeling.  This anxiety leaves a bad taste in the mouth of the client, even if the job does end up being completed in the end, and the carpet cleaning turns out well.

At the very least, being late or standing up a client removes any chance for referrals, though usually the account is also lost forever.  To large franchises that advertise to get their business, this may appear less important, however, to any growing business referrals and satisfaction is a matter of survival.

Gum Removal From Carpet

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If you were to search the internet for ways to remove gum from carpet, and maybe you are, you will find countless remedies.  This is because there truly are countless ways to remove gum from carpet.  You can freeze it and smash the gum.  You can use lemons, peanut butter, and any number of chemical concoctions.  You can scrape, poke, prod, pinch, and pull.  The truth is that when removing them yourself, any number of these will work.  However some of these methods have a risk involved; Using utensils, brushes, and rags can all wear out the carpet around and under the carpet fraying the fibers.   Any method using natural or unnatural chemicals can bleed, bleach, or leave an oily residue that will attract dirt.  Pulling on gum can pull fibers out of the carpet leaving a hole or fibers that stick out higher than the rest of the pile.

The best method of course is to have a respected professional carpet cleaner with a direct drive truck mounted carpet cleaning unit remove the gum.  These professionals will use citric acid on the gum to loosen the bond of the gum or “emulsify” it.  After emulsifying, this professional will use the heat and pressure from their cleaning solution to strip away the gum and also rinse any potential residue away.  This cleaner should rinse thoroughly and use extra vacuum strokes to dry the carpet as much as possible.

In extreme cases, due to the type of carpet, volume of carpet, type of gum, or a combination of the three, the complete removal may be not feasible.

Who Starts Carpet Cleaning Companies?

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To understand the carpet cleaning industry in Minnesota, it is important to understand the different types of people who start carpet cleaning companies.

  • The first is the most common type of carpet cleaning company owner.  This is an easy industry to get started in.  For as little as a few thousand dollars, anyone can buy a small portable carpet cleaning unit and start charging their friends, family, and acquaintances to clean their carpets.  These are often people who have either been laid-off or have quit their jobs, and want to be their own boss.  Despite the best of intentions, carpet cleaning is easy to get into but very hard to succeed at.  The term, “fly-by-night” is used quite often in this industry for this reason.  Sometimes the very qualities that made them want to be their own boss, are the same qualities that keep them from succeeding on their own.
  • Second is the investor.  Investors have the money to start a carpet cleaning company.  They might be a lawyer, dentist, real estate mogul, etc.  They intend on starting a company, watching it grow through mass-advertising, and then selling it off.  This can be successful for the purpose of profit, but causes very poor quality-control since they don’t intend on being around when the complaints start coming in.  It then becomes the next owner’s job to try to fix the problems caused by the original owners.
  • Third are the franchises.  Someone who invests in a company with the pure intention of having a successful business.  The franchise, however, takes their cut whenever they can, leaving the owners of the franchise the need to find profits where they can.  These tend to be heavy marketing companies that stress sales at all cost.  It is very common to see the crew chief go an entire day without touching a carpet cleaning wand because he is too busy selling to the customer, while his assistant does the cleaning.  These companies would classify as sales and marketing businesses more than carpet cleaning companies.
  • Finally, is the independent, specialized, carpet cleaning company.  This company is started by someone who has experience in the industry, found their niche, and for some reason or another decided to break out on their own doing what they believe they do best.  This can be anything from upholstery specialists to commercial carpet cleaning specialists.  As with all companies, the goal is to be profitable.  However, without the franchise’s hand in their pocket, it is possible to turn a profit without cutting costs or high pressure sales.  While not all of these companies live up to their potential however, this is the most likely business owner to find his company both profitable and respected in their field.

One thing I recommend asking when hiring a carpet cleaning company is whether or not the company shares its profits with its employees.  This says a lot about the owners of the company.  I believe it is both a smart move in motivation and what every business owner should do to be responsible in the community.

Tips for Reducing Minnesota Allergy Symptoms

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Allergens are everywhere in the Twin Cities Area of Minnesota. These Allergens can be nearly impossible to avoid on a daily basis.  However, you can greatly reduce the volume of allergens you breathe in within your home.  The majority of allergens that we breathe every day reside in the carpet and upholstery in our homes.

Tip 1:  Clean your furnace filter regularly.

Tip 2:  Run your furnace fan on the “on” setting instead of “auto”.

Tip 3:  Hire a professional carpet cleaning company to clean and deodorize the carpet.

Tip 4:  Have your upholstery professionally cleaned and deodorized.

Tip 5:  Have your Mattress professionally cleaned and deodorized.

Please note: You will want to have your carpets, upholstery, and mattress cleaned by a professional company using a truck mounted direct drive hot-water extraction cleaning system.  You will still come in contact with some allergens, but the less you breathe in, the lesser your symptoms will often be.

Sales Force or Carpet Cleaners?

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Carpet cleaners have earned themselves a bad reputation for several reasons.  Many of the reasons, like rusted white vans, are not practiced by a large portion of the industry, but still affect this perception.  One behavior, above all others, is practiced by nearly every carpet cleaning company.  Whether you call it shotgun sales, overcoming objections, or simply upselling, the difference between a financially stable carpet cleaner and one scraping by is their ability to achieve difficult sales bonuses.  These bonuses are usually based on an average increase in the size of a customer’s bill.  This means the main focus of each carpet cleaner is getting the customer to pay more money than they originally were quoted.  This is the job of a marketing company or sales force, not the job of a carpet cleaner.

This also means that once a carpet cleaner has realized that his sale is not going well, he either tries to overcome the objections of the client, or move on to the next client as fast as possible.  Often on two man teams, the crew chief can be found acting as a salesman nearly the whole job while his assistant does all the cleaning.  This is not conducive of ensuring they provide the best service possible.

Another problem these actions pose is that these carpet cleaners are being trained in sales instead of carpet cleaning.  This valuable time would be much better spent training in the technical aspects of carpet cleaning.  Keep in mind: “service” should be the main focus of the “service” industry.  My family owns the Commercial Steam Team, a commercial heavy carpet cleaning company in the Twin Cities Area of Minnesota.  Personally, I believe in training and rewarding carpet cleaners for cleaning carpets, not sales.  I do understand the temptation to become a sales-heavy company; everyone would like more money in their pockets.  I just think we can be a little more patient and let that growth happen through the volume increase associated with referrals and quality, instead of marketing through advertising and then marketing to them again in the home.  The more put off the public is from these bad experiences, the more difficult it is to overcome their objections.  This increases the sales pressure, which in turn, increases the negative outlook on carpet cleaners, and the cycle continues.  If we all did it the right way, the industry would have a much better reputation, there would be more consumers for our services, meaning we would all make more money.  It would not occur overnight, however, but as Obie Wan said,  “Patience, my young Pad Wan.”

Tips: Allergies and Mattresses

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With fall approaching, it’s time to get serious about allergy control.  I live in Rosemount, Minnesota and I can personally testify to the fact that the Twin Cities can be an allergy knockout around here.  The pollen, dust, and dander that cause those puffy, running, painful noses and swollen eyes like to hide in the fabric of your furniture, as well as the fibers of your carpet.  Most of those that suffer from allergies know to have these cleaned in the spring and fall.  However, have you ever had your mattress cleaned by your carpet cleaner?  Every time you lay down on your mattress, it squeezes and forces air out.  This air contains dust, dander, and pollen, which cause many allergic reactions.  On top of that, you lay in contact with your mattress for 7-9 hours a night.

Having your mattress cleaned a few times a year can greatly reduce your allergies.  I recommend putting your pillow through the wash on occasion as well.  Also, turning the furnace fan from the setting “auto” to the setting “on” will encourage better air flow and utilize the furnace filter.

Equipment Maintenance is Essential to Quality Control

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I own a carpet cleaning company in the Twin Cities Area of Minnesota and quality of workmanship has always been my focus.  From proper hiring and employee management, to staying up to date on technology, there are many things that go into ensuring quality stays at the highest level it can be.  Quality control levels for most companies decline over time, and although there are a lot of factors involved, I believe one of these factors is overlooked by nearly all carpet cleaning companies.

The maintenance of carpet cleaning equipment is essential to keeping quality levels high.  I was speaking with our supplier who supplies most of the carpet cleaners in the area the other day; He said that we were the only company that does preventative maintenance on our vans.  I always assumed that a lot of companies slack off in this department because there are front end costs to this and a lot of tedious work involved.  To hear that we are the only company doing it shocked me!  Carpet cleaning vans are full of tubes and hoses.  If these tubes and hoses get clogged up, the strength of the vacuum drops considerably and the pressure per square inch of solution drops, causing the van has to work at higher rpms in order to try to keep up.  This drop in pressure and vacuum strength may not even seem noticeable to the technician, since it happens gradually over time, but this power is very important to the quality that a company can provide.  No business can afford to go out and buy new equipment every couple years when the power begins to drop.  Some technicians begin to try to boost their results by using more cleaning agents and altering the ph. levels of their solution.  This creates unbalance in the ph. scale and can cause rapid re-soiling.

This is why de-scaling the equipment and lubricating the machine is so important.  Checking valves and running water through the system every night is a must.  These machines are the constant in carpet cleaning.  No matter who you have operating the equipment, no one can do the best work possible if the equipment isn’t capable of producing the best results possible.  Well-maintained equipment gives the technician’s fair opportunity to do their very best work.

Blood Removal in Carpet Cleaning

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Whenever I tell someone that I know how to remove blood from carpet, usually without a residual discoloration, they usually ask me if I do crime scene cleanup.  Although I have cleaned up after crime scenes, those are not where this skill comes in most handy.

 

The most common occurrences of blood in carpet seem to come from children and pets.  A cut on the underside of a paw or a bloody nose after a rough game of basement football is all it takes to track that reddish-colored liquid onto a light-colored carpet.

 

But what does someone do to get this out?  Blood is one of the most difficult things to get out of carpet.  I’ve discovered that the iron in our blood rusts when it comes into contact with the oxygen in the air around us.  Naturally, that rusty discoloration is best treated best with rust remover.  I get odd looks when I first break out my rust remover to get the discoloration of blood out, but once people see it work, they are fascinated.

The only catch is that this has to be done by a professional with a top of the line direct drive truck mounted carpet cleaning van.  Rust remover is a spot treatment that is not meant to be left in the carpet.  It needs to be thoroughly rinsed out of the carpet after applied.

Who Would You Like to Have Clean Your Carpets?

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Commercial Steam Team

  • Career employees

  • Carpet cleaning technicians who make 10% profit sharing at the end of the year
  • Technicians who are trained to clean carpet

  • Crews who are supplied with everything they need to do a great job

  • Technicians rewarded for quality of work
  • Crews who make a living they can be proud of

Corporate Franchises

  • Short term employees (very high turnover)
  • Technicians who are treated like numbers

  • Technicians trained in marketing and sales

  • Crews who have to pay for their own cleaning agents

  • Technicians rewarded for how much they sell at each job
  • Crews who make just enough to get by


Everything in the Commercial Steam Team column of this article is the standards by which Commercial Steam Team treats our employees.  The Corporate Franchise column is a conglomeration of the different trends that they each individually make.  Not every franchise makes all of these mistakes with their employees, however each franchise is guilty of at least one of these.  Personally, I wouldn’t want to any company who makes any of these mistakes do work for me.  I would want a company that takes pride in their employees and treats them accordingly.

Property Managers Can Avoid Billing Headaches!

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Businesses, especially property managers, tend to have a lot of problems setting up their billing with residential-heavy carpet cleaning companies.  Often, these companies force these property managers into yearly contracts.  Now these property managers can be stuck with these headaches for at least a year:

  • Bills being sent to the job site instead of the billing address.
  • Companies expecting to be paid on site or in advance, instead of 30 days out.
  • No understanding of budget restrictions.
  • Locations of cleanings not listed on invoices causing confusion about which locations have been cleaned or paid for.

These may not seem like big issues, but when you’re in the property management business these problems can happen over and over, even hundreds of times a year.  Even if they are minor headaches, they add up.  I own a commercial carpet cleaning company in the Minneapolis / St. Paul area and surrounding suburbs.  I have found that it takes a lot of the stress away from property managers to know that they do not have to sign a contract and they can leave at any time.  After all, if we don’t make them happy then we don’t deserve their business.  Most residential companies do less than 10% of their business with other businesses.  As a commercial carpet cleaning company doing over 85% of our business with other businesses, we have learned the importance making billing simple and easy to reduce the stress and headaches that property managers face on a daily basis.

Boycott Silent Letters!!!

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As one of the owners of a family owned commercial carpet cleaning company South of the River in Minnesota, I write a lot of blogs based on the carpet and upholstery cleaning industry, especially about what is of particular concern to the Twin Cities Area.  Today I have stepped outside that direction to cover a subject that is of concern not only to the carpet cleaning industry, but a concern to every English speaking person on the entire planet.  Silent Letters!  Seriously, what is up with that?!  I don’t know who first started the trend of needless letters that make no sound, but I am even more appalled with those that encouraged and helped spread such an awful affront to the quality of life in English speaking countries.  Honestly, have you ever watched a six year old try to look up the word gnome in a dictionary?  His bright red frustrated face glowing over pages as he scrambles frantically through the wrong half of the book.  Perhaps these imaginary letters made some kind of sense back in the days when we believed in wizards and dragons, but in the 21st century, I think it is time to drop the act and admit that there is no point to adding letters that don’t adhere to the laws of phonetics (really, the word phonetics doesn’t start phonetically!), especially words that start with silent letters.  There is only one word that should start with a silent letter and that is the word pseudonym. This is only because the word is used when a fake name disguises a real name.  So it is fitting that the first letter disguises its real pronunciation.  That is the one and only exception to the rule.  No other words should begin with a useless letter.  “Knock knock…”,  “Who’s there?”  “The letter K”,  “Really I thought you were N.”  As I wrestle to write out these gnarly words, my knuckles wrinkle and my knees knock because I don’t know why these phonetics are wrong. And what is up with the word knight?  Six letters and half of them don’t have any purpose.  That is a waste of good ink if you ask me.  How many hours of education are lost while teachers and aids plead with children to understand the concept of silent letters?  How much quality family time disappears while parents try to make sense of this senseless issue.  Perhaps children wouldn’t hate homework so much if they didn’t feel backhanded every time they tried to pronounce a word that starts with the second letter.  Life isn’t fair, that’s true, this is because we have no control over so many things.  We do, however, have control over this.  We can make a difference.  We must take action.  I call every frustrated English speaking human being to take a stand and boycott silent letters!  From now on we avoid those words at all costs and when we can’t, we start to pronounce those camouflaged letters and call them out of hiding before we spiral into a collective psychosis. . . Doh!

The Importance of Responsible Driving in a Service Vehicle

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I own a commercial carpet cleaning company in the Twin Cities Area of Minnesota and my crews are always on the road.  Usually, they are traveling from our shop in Burnsville, Minnesota to a carpet cleaning job at a Plymouth, Minnesota home to an upholstery cleaning job in Northfield, Minnesota then up to Roseville, Minnesota to clean the carpets at a restaurant and then back to Burnsville, Minnesota to pack it in for the night.  With all this driving it is so very important to drive carefully for several reasons:

  • A van with a logo and phone number is a moving billboard.  Every move made on the road can affect public opinion of our company.
  • Repairs after an accident can be very expensive.
  • You can’t clean carpet while the van is being repaired.  This lost time is lost money.
  • Employees can get injured in an accident.  This is bad on both a personal and business level.  These employees have families that love and depend on them.  Also they can’t clean carpets if they are too hurt to do so.
  • Injuries to others out on the road can be tragic and costly.  Although insurance should cover it, rates are sure to go up.  These people also have families and loved ones that can suffer for their injuries as well.

I’m sure there are many more reasons to be safe out on the road, but these stand out to me.  Nothing is more tragic than the loss of life or quality of life due to a senseless accident.  I am so proud that my employees have never had an accident, both for the safety of my employees and for the safety of everyone else in the Minneapolis/St. Paul and surrounding areas of Minnesota.  Keep up the great work guys.

Family Owned Carpet Cleaning Companies Vs. Corporate Franchises

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It is true that corporate franchises have deeper pockets than independent family owned businesses.  This is definitely true in the professional carpet cleaning industry.  Other than that, what are the differences between corporate franchises and family owned businesses?

  • Franchises tend to pay closest attention to the “bottom line”.
    • Ideals, morals, employees, and customers usually take a back seat to the stock holders.
    • Since those that profit from the business are not usually present to see these employees and customers, it is easy for them to become disconnected from the people that their decisions effect.
    • Franchise owners have to pay their corporate parent company a percentage of their profits.
      • I am familiar with companies being charged 15% of their gross sales.
    • Franchise owners are usually forced to buy their equipment and cleaning agents directly through their parent company regardless of whether it is the best or most cost effective product.
    • Deep pockets often lead to expensive advertising campaigns that drive in business.  Sometimes so fast, that it reduces months of training to only a few days.
  • Independent family-owned businesses are run by the morals and values of their family.  Not all families are the same, but a strong morally-just family will most likely build a strong and morally-just company.
    • Without a parent company to answer to, family owned carpet cleaning companies are allowed to choose the best product on the market.
    • Without a 15% franchise fee to pay, family owned businesses can pay their employees more and buy more powerful equipment, resulting in better outcomes.
    • Because there is no board of directors to appease, family owned carpet cleaning companies can treat their employees the way great employees should be treated.  I recommend profit sharing as a means of doing this.
    • Without the money to hire large advertising firms to drive in business, family owned businesses rely on repeat business and referrals through hard work, expertise, and customer service.

Although it is true that not all family owned independent businesses follow these guidelines, it is true that corporate franchises have no choice but to adhere to the guidelines that their parent companies have set for them.  Franchises are more easily accessible due to their advertising, but once discovered, family owned businesses have the potential to provide far superior service than corporate franchises.

You Know The Price, But What Are You Paying For?

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In the professional carpet cleaning industry, the term, “professional” can be a loose term.  This can be for many reasons, but the one I plan to focus on in this article are those with good intentions and training, but weak equipment.  What do I mean by weak equipment?

  • Equipment can be purchased for as little as a few thousand dollars or more than 50,000 dollars.  Why would anyone pay 1,000 times as much for equipment unless it is substantially more powerful?
  • Some portable carpet cleaning equipment is small enough to be transported in the trunk of a car and run off of low wattage circuit breakers.  In order to get the most power possible for carpet cleaning equipment, it is powered directly off of the van’s 8 cylinder engine.  To draw even a fraction of the power of an 8 cylinder engine from a circuit in a home or business, the circuit would pop in a matter of seconds.  The more powerful the carpet cleaning equipment, the more thorough the cleaning will be.

We all worry about price when we schedule service appointments, but we also have to consider that a very low price can mean very cheap and weak equipment.  Even the best of intentions can’t replace the power that is necessary to do the job right.

What is a Residential Carpet Cleaning Company?

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What is a residential carpet cleaning company? What are the differences between a residential carpet cleaning company and a commercial carpet cleaning company?  What are some of the problems that come up when hiring a residential carpet cleaning company?

  • Carpet cleaning started in the residential districts and residential carpet cleaning continues to be the lion’s share of the carpet cleaning industry.  The reason for this is that the profit margin on each job is much higher in residential carpet cleaning.
  • By training salespeople to upsell in the home, split second decisions made under pressure can bring a residential company large dollars. Residential carpet cleaning companies usually pay very little for carpet cleaning; bonuses are instead given for add on sales.  Residential carpet cleaners can make a very good living if they are trained heavily in sales.  Budgets are already in place when businesses get cleaned, so training in sales are pointless to commercial carpet cleaning companies.
  • Customers can be placed into large vague time frames to minimize driving time and waiting between jobs.  By placing all of the jobs from Lakeville, Apple Valley, Eagan, and Rosemount Minnesota together, residential carpet cleaning companies can avoid gas costs.

Although this is inconvenient to the customer, it has been done this way for so long that most people accept it and take time off of work to get their carpets cleaned.  Commercial businesses need to be cleaned when they need to be cleaned so these time frames are irrelevant in commercial carpet cleaning.

  • Although commercial strength carpet cleaning equipment is better for cleaning residential carpets, it is not as necessary as this equipment is in restaurants, and trucking companies, etc.  Therefore this expensive equipment is usually not considered as cost effective for residential carpet cleaning companies.
  • Advertising is key for residential carpet cleaning companies.  Formula’s such as X amount of dollars spent on advertising equals a similar amount of customers received from the advertising and the profit comes from the up selling done once in the home.

Commercial clients don’t usually to find their carpet cleaners through advertising.  Businesses tend to find their vendors through networking and referrals.  Because of this commercial carpet cleaning companies don’t tend to spend as much money on advertising and instead focus on quality and repeat business.

  • Large corporate franchises are the driving force in the residential carpet cleaning industry.  What these franchises lack in quality control, they make up for in advertising dollars.  I am not currently aware of any commercial carpet cleaning franchises.  I am only aware of independent family owned companies in the area of commercial carpet cleaning.  Family owned independent companies tend to deliver higher quality because the owners are “present” and often maintain the ideals they were raised with.  If your profit comes from advertising, then you will focus your resources toward advertising.  If your profit comes from upselling, your focus will be on sales.  However if your profit comes from repeat business, then your focus will be on the hiring, training, and maintaining of career professional employees.  This is where commercial carpet cleaners stand apart.

What is a Commercial Carpet Cleaning Company?

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What is a commercial carpet cleaner?  What do commercial carpet cleaners do?  What is the difference between commercial carpet cleaners and residential carpet cleaners?  These are all good questions. The difficult part of the explanation is that commercial carpet cleaners can clean residential and residential carpet cleaners can clean commercial carpets.  The question is, “who is best suited for each and why?”

  • Commercial carpet cleaners have more powerful equipment that gets far hotter than most residential companies because this is necessary to release the grease and oils that are often on commercial carpets.  That heat also does far better to release dyes in the carpet such as coffee.
  • Commercial carpet cleaners have more powerful vacuum strength as well.  This is because most businesses, especially restaurants, can’t have their carpets cleaned until their business day is over and that can be as late as 2:30am.  The carpet then needs to be dry by the time they open in the morning.  The stronger vacuum strength supplied by an 8 cylinder engine cuts the drying time down considerably.  This vacuum strength also increases the percentage of debris and particles that are removed from the carpet fibers.
  • Commercial carpet cleaners have a responsibility to do more thorough background checks and pay substantially more than residential carpet cleaners to ensure that they always have clean cut, professional personnel.  Government agencies and other secure businesses often require background checks on the vendors that will be entering their buildings.  Also, residential carpet cleaning relies on advertising to bring in a steady stream of new clients and commercial carpet cleaning companies rely on repeat business as the bulk of their business.  The quality of employees is the largest key factor in this equation.
  • Residential carpet cleaners hire and train salesmen because the person holding the checkbook is usually on hand to talk to.  Commercial carpet cleaning companies hire and train for quality instead because the decisions are usually finalized in a board room weeks before the job is completed so there is no point in trying to sell anything during the job. This is why commercial carpet cleaners train for cleaning, not for selling.
  • Residential carpet cleaning companies usually work a normal 9-5pm schedule.  Commercial carpet cleaning companies understand that the normal business model for residential carpet cleaning companies won’t work well for businesses. Commercial carpet cleaning companies may do a job at 5pm in Plymouth Minnesota and then head down to Apple Valley Minnesota for another job at 8pm.  A crew may finish a job in Roseville Minnesota at 7pm and have to wait for 2 hours to start a job in Shakopee Minnesota at 9pm.  Residential carpet cleaners want to use broad time frames like am or pm time slots in specific areas of the state.  Businesses simply need it to be done when they need it done.

The truth is that all of these characteristics that successful commercial carpet cleaning companies should possess are better for both commercial and residential carpet cleaning.  The difference is that these standards are absolutely necessary to do a great job in commercial carpet cleaning where as they are a luxury in residential carpet cleaning.  Personally, I would prefer a commercial carpet cleaning company at either my house or my business, but then again I am a little biased as one of the founders of the Commercial Steam Team in Burnsville Minnesota.

Who Will Be in Your Business

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I own a successful commercial carpet cleaning company in the Twin Cities Area of Minnesota.  After scheduling a 100,000+ square foot carpet cleaning job for a large defense contractor in Plymouth, which will remain nameless, I thought to myself how glad I am that I can send in my employees’ background checks without worry.  This made me think about all the times that I have had service personnel in my business or home without the slightest clue what kind of past they have.  This sparked another thought; When I am searching for the lowest price I can find, am I increasing my chances of having a thief, or worse, come to service me?  Wages are a factor in the prices that we pay for services and the lower the wages the lower the possible price of service.  I won’t say that every high priced company pays well, but I think it is safe to say that the cheapest out there hire the cheapest employees they can find.  Sometimes this can be accomplished by hiring known felons who may have difficulty finding a better paying job.

Keeping this in mind, I will think twice about going with the cheapest bids.

The Importance of Carpet Cleaning in Rental Properties

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Carpet cleaning is important to rental properties for multiple reasons:

  • Carpet costs money to replace and cuts down on profit
  • It is easier to find renters for a home with clean carpets
  • Odor is a huge deterrent to potential renters

There is a lot of competition among property managers to lure in potential renters as square footage and location dictates most rates.  Clean carpet can definitely be the deciding factor between two potential properties.

Employees Reflect Their Employers Values

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How important are employees to a growing business?  I can’t speak for the rest of the world, but here in the Twin Cities Area of Minnesota, employees are the “truth in service”.  What do I mean by that?

  • If a business owner is greedy, he won’t pay enough to get the best employees.
  • If a business owner doesn’t train his employees well enough, it shows in his employees’ performance.
  • Honest owners encourage their employees to be honest with their clients.
  • Employees who are treated fairly by their employer are happier and that will show in their demeanor.
  • Employers that pay attention will have employees who don’t cut corners.
  • Employers who reward hard work will have employees who go the extra mile.

These are all unavoidable ways that employees directly reflect the practices of their employer.  This is truth in service.  If your employees don’t give proper service, look at your practices first and see how they parallel the practices of your employees.

No Contracts in Commercial Carpet Cleaning

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It seems impossible to get just about any service these days without being on a contract.  Contracts would be fine, but the way they are written these days state that you have no choice but to keep using a service even if the service provided doesn’t live up to the promises made by the salesperson who sold the contract.  Contracts should not be an excuse to give bad service.

My family and I own a carpet cleaning company in the Twin Cities Area of Minnesota and we choose not to make our clients sign contracts.  Our family’s motto is “If we aren’t good enough to keep you happy, then we don’t deserve your business.”  This notion seems simple or idealistic, but I think the world could use a big dose of idealism right now.

Growing a Small Minnesota Business Through a Rough Economy

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My name is Ryan Zakariasen and my family owns a carpet cleaning company in the Twin Cities Area of Minnesota named the Commercial Steam Team.  When we started the company out of my garage in Lakeville, the economy was booming.  Shortly after the birth of our company, the economy went from boom to crash.  This is not good for commercial carpet cleaning companies because we rely on company budgets to leave room for professional carpet cleaning.  Similar to the residential market, anything you don’t have absolute faith in goes in the “maybe-next-year-pile”.  I think this is where most companies have gone wrong.  While they were fat and happy gorging themselves on a plentiful economy they let quality slip.  Whether growing too fast to train their people or too much faith that advertising will replace any lost clients, they managed to create doubt in their client’s minds.  Doubts like; I think that’s the best they can do, but is it really?  Even if it is the best they can do, are the results really worth the cost?

After the economy turned, carpet cleaning company owners panicked and began cutting corners furthering the doubt in their clients minds.

I believe it is because we have left no doubt in our clients minds that they see the money we are saving them instead of the money we cost them.  The truth is that cleaning the carpet is far cheaper than replacing the carpet, especially when you factor in the cost of shutting down and moving all the furniture and equipment.  A downturned economy is the worst time to skip carpet cleanings because the cost of replacing could be real trouble for companies trying to walk a fine budget line.  Our clients sustain us through this quicksand economy because they have absolute faith in us, from our practices to our people. Our company was founded on this trust, and is the reason we are here today.

How Sand Affects Carpet Fibers

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Sand is to carpet what saws are to trees.  I own a carpet cleaning company in the Minneapolis – St. Paul Area and Minnesotans track a lot of sand onto our carpet.  Carpet fibers are very thin strands; thinner than the hair on you head. The fibers are woven and spun together for strength in numbers. This is why we can walk on carpet without damaging it much while the carpet is clean.  The fibers rub against other fibers with limited friction.

Sand, on the other hand, has at least two ways of changing this.  These tiny grains of sand are like boulders to the tiny thin carpet fibers.  The sharp surfaces of the sand are more than enough to chop through a few individual fibers.  Another instance is when two pieces of sand rub together with a few fibers in between them. Eventually they rub right through those fibers.  This is like having sandpaper taped to the bottom of your shoes.

If this is your home then it is not too hard to have people take off their shoes.  This will cut down on the need to have the carpet cleaned as often.  In businesses, you can’t ask people to take their shoes off.  You can, however, have the carpets cleaned and protected on a consistent schedule that make sense for the volume of traffic your company receives.  The cleaning removes the sand and the protector coats the fibers and makes them thicker for the sand attacks that happen in between the cleanings.

The Truth About Carpet Protector

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Did you know that every inch of Commercial and Residential Laid Carpet has Carpet Protector applied to it at the factory during the manufacturing process?  This is because the companies who make the carpets understand that their carpet will not live up to the warranties without this protector coating the carpet fibers.  Carpet manufacturers don’t want to spend any money that will not make them or save them money. I see this as proof that carpet protector not only works but works well enough to be cost effective to every single carpet manufacturer.

Benefits of Adding Deodorizer to Carpet Cleaning Rinse

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I hear all the time: “I can’t believe how good it smells in here now.” I hear this when I call my clients to make sure they were totally happy with the carpet cleaning job we did for them.  Do I have a secret to achieving this?  Yes, I do! Every time we fill our rinse tank with water, we add Multiphase Deodorizer to the mix.  There are three major benefits to doing this.

  • This deodorizer contains an enzyme that feeds on bacteria.  We do not put enough in our rinse to treat problem mildew, mold, or urine areas.  However there is enough to ensure that even if the carpet takes longer than usual to dry there no worries of mold or mildew forming.
  • It helps reinforce the full strength application of deodorizer that we do use to kill the bacteria, mold, mildew, and urine.
  • Leaves your carpet smelling fresh and pleasant.

We have found that despite the extra cost of introducing this enzyme deodorizer to our carpet cleaning rinse, going the extra mile goes a long way in customer satisfaction. Not only making these Minnesota nice clients happy, but actually turning them into full-fledged fans.

My Experience With Multiphase Enzyme Deodorizer

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I own a carpet cleaning company in the Twin Cities Area of Minnesota called the Commercial Steam Team.  I have been cleaning carpet for 13 years and one of the most effective products I use is Hydramaster’s Multiphase Deodorizer.  As in its name, Multiphase is a triple action deodorizer that covers a broad spectrum of odor causing bacteria.  I like to use this deodorizer because it is both powerful on bacteria while being gentle on carpet cleaners.  In my 13 years of carpet cleaning in Minnesota, I haven’t found anything that works nearly as well.

How Your Van’s Appearance Influences First Impressions

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How many times have you driven by your neighbor’s house and seen a white van parked in the driveway covered in rust with hoses running into the front door of the house?  After seeing that beat up old van, your first inclination was probably not, “I should get their phone number so I can have them clean my carpet”.

This is because your subconscious makes certain assumptions when you see a poorly maintained van;

  • If the van looks that old, the equipment is probably out of date as well.
  • If they haven’t taken good care of their van, do they take good care of the equipment?
  • If they can’t afford a new van, can they afford capable employees?
  • If they don’t take pride in their appearance, do they care about generating positive word of mouth?
  • They don’t look like they care at all!
  • Are they too cheap to do a great job?

The truth is that one or more of these assumptions is probably correct.  If you want people to take you seriously as a capable and educated professional, you cannot let your first impression be a rusted out van.  A sharp, crisp, clean van lets people know that you take pride in being the best professional carpet cleaning company you can be.  After all, your van is a moving billboard.

Salt Build-Up In Carpet

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If you live in the Twin Cities Area of Minnesota, or any community that salts their icy roads, then you know that salt coats your car and needs to be rinsed off regularly to avoid rust.  The truth is that this salt coats the bottom of our shoes as well.  We don’t notice how much salt is on our shoes because it is most abundant on the part of our shoes that we don’t see very often (the bottom).  That surface has tread that is designed to grip the surface that you are walking on.  The better the tread works, the more it also grips sand and salt.

Salt is especially harsh on carpet for several reasons;

  • Salt is coarse and abrasive;  It can wear out the carpet fibers.
  • The salt from roads is coated in smog which can transfer to the fibers and dye them a darker color.
  • The chemical make-up of salt is harsh on the carpet fibers and can break them down.
  • As salt gets damp it dilutes and re-crystalizes around the carpet fibers holding fast in place.

The problem with salt that has re-crystalized around the carpet fibers is that it has to be diluted into liquid form to release itself from the carpet.  This is done through the method of hot water extraction.  The heat and water injected into the carpet dilutes the water and the vacuum sucks that salty liquid out of the carpet.  This is why The Commercial Steam Team uses powerful truck mounted hot water extraction (steam cleaning) unit.  Weak vacuum strength will leave the carpet soaked since it takes large volumes of water to melt the salt down.  Also be sure after the salt has visibly disappeared to continue rinsing the carpet as the diluted salt is invisible and may still be in the carpet.  Extra rinsing is essential.

Uniforms Are Important In The Carpet Cleaning Industry

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I can’t tell you how many times I have driven by someone’s house or business and saw work being done by someone wearing a sleeved or sleeveless white t-shirt.  Unless you’re a painter, that’s not a uniform in my opinion.  The questions that instantly pop into my mind are;

  • If they can’t afford uniforms, can they afford good equipment?
  • Can they afford to pay for good employees?
  • Can they afford the cleaning agents that are necessary to get the stains out?
  • Are they out of money, lazy, or cheap?
  • What kind of message are they sending their customers?
  • What kind of message are they sending their employees?

Sharp, clean uniforms tell your customers that you are a team.  It shows that you are dedicated enough to provide this for your employees.  More importantly is what not wearing a uniform says, Which is, “I’m not good at my job”.

Spring Carpet Cleaning in Minnesota

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“Since it’s May of 2011 and we don’t seem to get a spring this year, do I still have to get the carpets cleaned?”  I know the weather here in the Twin Cities has been mimicking Seattle lately, but yes even their businesses need to have their carpets cleaned.  In fact, the extra moisture this year poses an extra risk of mold and mildew in carpets.  This happens because of the humid air as well as moisture being tracked in on people’s shoes.  A thorough carpet cleaning and an enzyme deodorizer treatment is very important after the winter is over.  The enzyme in the deodorizer feeds on the bacteria kills the source of smells and allergens.

Salt and sand are also tracked in from the Minnesota roads, parking lots, and sidewalks.  They don’t affect houses as much since people usually take their shoes off at home.  However, employees and customers rarely take their shoes off in a commercial setting.  The more sand and salt gets trampled on the more damage it will do to the carpet.   A powerful commercial carpet cleaning will clear this out of the carpet fibers allowing the carpet a fresh start.  New debris will always get tracked onto the carpet, but keeping the overall amount of sand and salt at a minimum is crucial.

How Sand, Dirt, and Dust Wear Out Carpet

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Have you ever had your carpets cleaned in your home or business and the carpet didn’t look as good as you had hoped in the high traffic areas?  This could be because your carpet cleaner didn’t do a sufficient job, but it could also be permanent fiber damage.  If it didn’t look like there was much of a difference after the cleaning then it was probably not a very good job.  That being said, carpet fibers that have taken on damage will appear dirtier than they really are because they no longer reflect light the same way that they did before this damage happened.  Similar to scratched-up Plexiglas, light is distorted and will appear much darker than the unscratched Plexiglas.  This happens because carpet fibers are essentially made of clear plastic.  These fibers are so thin you may need a magnifying glass to see them.  They are woven together like yarn to make thicker strands.  Sand, dirt, and dust are very small but compared to carpet fibers they are gigantic boulders with sharp edges.  The more soiled the carpet gets, the more power this sharp debris has to saw into the carpet fibers, sometimes severing them from their root completely.  Compare it to taking sand paper and gluing it to the bottom of your shoes.  That is the best analogy I can come up with though to describe what happens when these particles collect in large numbers.  Our shoes crush and mash the fibers together, scraping and slashing them with tiny sharp particles.  To be honest, it is pretty amazing how well carpet stands up to this, especially in commercial applications.  Even worse than dust and dirt are the metal shavings created in machine shops.  These particles are like tiny saws and our shoes are the lumberjacks.

The best defense against these microscopic belt sanders is to have the carpet cleaned and protected on a regular basis (minimum of once a year).  The cleaning lowers the numbers in the sand and dirt army while the protector creates a thin plastic layer over the fibers that will take the damage instead of the fibers themselves.  Much like how wax protects the paint job on your car from flying sand on the roads.

My Very Own Testimonial!

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As a company we have so many testimonials from people all over the Twin Cities Area of Minnesota.  From Britt, the building services field supervisor for the City of Brooklyn Park, to Alex Shapero at J.N. Johnson in Edina Minnesota we have posted testimonials complete with pictures describing why we are the company best suited for cleaning the carpet and upholstery for their companies.  When it comes to their experiences with carpet cleaners they are the experts.  I decided though, that after 13 years of carpet cleaning I would give my own testimonial.  Not just for the carpet cleaning work we do, but by how much easier it is to do a great job when the carpet was protected the time we cleaned it before.  Time and time again I have had the same experience.  Carpet that had been previously protected is not as dirty when we arrive.  This is because the interim vacuuming’s lift far more dirt and dust from the carpet.  The fiber damage in the high traffic areas isn’t as bad, both from less dirt and dust, to saw into the carpet fibers and the fact that those particles have to wear through the protector before wearing through the fibers themselves (like wax does for car paint).  Dyes from spills have a harder time finding their way into the dye sites of the carpet.  Dirt, spots, and spills seem to strip away much more easily the next time we clean.  My favorite thing about carpet protector is that it makes our great work look better and last longer.  Our results are that much better than when we didn’t previously protect the carpet.  So my very own super special testimonial is “I, Ryan Zakariasen owner of the Commercial Steam Team in Burnsville Minnesota says, “Carpet protector not only works, but works consistently well.  The difference between protected carpet and unprotected carpet is a noticeable difference.”

Networking in the Carpet Cleaning Industry

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Why are networking groups wonderful for carpet cleaners?  For those of us carpet cleaners that “walk the walk”, networking is a forum for educating the public and also a chance to spread the word about what an amazing job we did for Bob’s mother in law’s sister’s cousin’s fiancé’s best friend’s boss.  First-hand knowledge is always the best evidence but when that is not available, the word of someone you trustworthy is a close second.

Indoor Oxygen Quality

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More and more we hear about the importance of air quality in homes and businesses.  Air quality effects asthma, congestion, allergies, headaches, and many other medical conditions.  Air quality can cause problems and/or make current problems worse.  Some of us have air quality in the front of our minds but some people don’t think twice about it.  Why should they, some ask,  it’s just tiny particles they can’t see hiding inside an invisible gas.  Out of sight, out of mind.  When I hear the words “air quality”, I don’t feel that I hear the full impact of what is at hand.  This is why I like to call it “Oxygen Quality”.  Oxygen is the life blood of our respiratory system and very few people don’t understand the importance of oxygen.  Indoor “oxygen quality” affects every breath we take.  Even if the tiny particulates floating in the air didn’t harm us directly, they are still taking the place of and depriving our lungs of valuable oxygen molecules.

Allergies are often mistaken for colds or the flu and businesses with poor air quality report severely increased numbers of sick days to those who have good oxygen quality.  Productivity is also higher in employees who are not affected by asthma and allergies.  It has been proven that this oxygen quality is important but how can we effectively improve the quality of the oxygen we breathe in our homes and offices?  There are a few options to improve indoor air quality:  Air scrubbers and air filters are of course helpful to remove what is already in the air.  Running the furnace fan 24/7 helps cycle the air and replacing the furnace filter when it gets saturated with dust are also helpful.  But how do we affect the causes of poor indoor air quality?  In office buildings especially, a huge amount of dust and allergen particulates reside in the carpet and upholstery.  Every time we sit in a chair it expels the air that fills the foam seats and shoots those particulates into the atmosphere around us.  On a sunny day sit your chair between you and the window, slap the seat and watch the dust dance in the sunlight.  Similarly the carpet kicks up those particles as it’s walked on as well.  Dust treats these fabrics like a filter and sticks to them building up until they are jarred loose.  The longer between cleanings the more particles get expelled into the air.

Professional commercial carpet and upholstery cleaning is the best way to remove these particles from these materials.  Oxygen is important to us all and like anything important it requires some investment to receive its full effects.

When Should I have My Carpets Cleaned at My Home?

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When should I have my carpets cleaned at my home?  Good question.  If you ask any random person on the street you will get a full range of answers from every month to never. Who is right? I have been cleaning carpet in the Twin Cities Area of Minnesota for over 13 years and I wish I could give one blanket answer for all customers, but I can’t.  I can however, do the next best thing.  I have created a list of options based on different factors that affect that timeline.  These are specific to the Twin Cities Area of Minnesota and may not apply to the climate and practices of other states.

  • Residential carpet should never go longer than a year without being cleaned for health reasons such as allergens, and mold.
  • Light carpet such as white or off white, even light shades of other colors has more room in the dye sites to take on dyes and needs to be cleaned and protected more often than other carpets and should be cleaned before traffic areas are  visible for best results.  Fiber damage and traffic wear patterns show up more noticeably on light colored carpet.  For light colored carpet, we recommend every 6 months to a year.
  • If you wear your shoes on residential carpet we recommend cleaning and protecting every 6 months at the very least.
  • If you have residential carpet that is a darker color you are more susceptible to the carpet looking lighter in the high traffic areas than looking darker.  This comes from actual fiber damage.  Dark carpet should be cleaned once a year for health reasons but if based strictly on looks you can go from a year to up to 2 years depending on the amount of traffic.
  • Even dark carpet needs to be cleaned at least every 6 months if shoes are worn in the house as that speeds up the fiber damage in high traffic areas considerably.
  • Wheel chairs and walkers are very hard on carpet.  This carpet should be cleaned and protected every 6 months at the very least.
  • Variables such as amount of foot traffic, spills, and age of the owners can affect the frequency of the carpet cleaning as well.  Not every household is the same.
  • One reason for all carpet to be cleaned and protected as well is the sun itself.  The sun’s rays will fade carpet color.  Carpet protectants help protect the carpet from this.  This fading is usually noticeable when the furniture is moved.  The area where the furniture sat didn’t receive any sunlight and appears darker and richer as a result.

Please keep in mind that this is based on my 13 years of experience as a carpet cleaning expert in the Twin Cities Area of Minnesota.  Experience has also taught me that there will always be exceptions to these rules and people should keep an eye on their carpet and if it starts to appear dirty or dingy before the recommended time of cleaning then the safe choice is to have it cleaned and protected sooner rather than waiting for the scheduled date to come up.

Who sets the standards for carpet cleaning industry in the Twin Cities?

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Who sets the standards of quality in the carpet cleaning industry?  I wish I could answer that question by giving you a name of someone or some agency that holds those in our industry accountable.  However, there isn’t one.  It’s not like the NFL where a commissioner oversees the actions of the owners and players and fines those that step out of line accordingly.  In the past our reputations had been the best way to sort out the good, the bad, and the ugly.  If you did a good job for someone then you would clean for their whole extended family and friends.  People looked to each other for this info because they trust each other more than the advertising executives that wrote the commercial on their favorite radio station for piles of money.  Those days have seemingly ended.  Even here in the Twin Cities Area of Minnesota it is hard to turn on the radio without being bombarded with inaccurate scare tactics citing 20 year out of date statistics.  As consumers we have grown dependent on T.V. and radio advertising to tell us what to buy and where to go.  Our first call is usually to the jingle bouncing around in our head, instead of to our parents or friends for references.  Our industry has accepted this as the standard practice for quite some time now and acts accordingly.  X dollars spent on advertising = Y dollars of new customers.  No need to do great work if there is someone new to fill the void whenever you lose a client to bad service.

So who does set these standards?  Who demands accountability?  Most people blame the consumer.  “You get what you ask for.”  On some levels that’s correct.  But how many times can you be disappointed after giving up your precious time researching without saying “what’s the point?”  It’s easier to be disappointed after calling the first company that comes to mind than to be let down after putting forth an effort.  Also, if there were enough companies out there worth referring then that is where our minds would first go.  I believe that it is the small businesses that set these standards.  We can choose to compete with the big national franchise moguls by cutting corners and slashing prices to eek out a living, or we can do what those huge companies can’t do by ensure quality stays at its highest level.  We accomplish this by hiring idealists as well as using profit sharing to ensure that they take as much pride in the company as we do.  We use our money on the best top of the line equipment instead of advertising.  We pass out bonuses for quality control instead of sales.  We train carpet cleaners instead of a sales force.

I may just be a small business owner in the Twin Cities Area of Minnesota, but I believe that we can be an example to the public.  We can lead the way to higher standards in the carpet cleaning industry.

How Often Should My Business Have It’s Carpets Cleaned?

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How often should businesses clean their carpets?  I am asked this question all the time.  One would think after focusing on commercial carpet cleaning for 13 years I could give a definitive answer to this question.  Unfortunately, I can’t.  There are many variables that alter the frequency in which the carpets in Minnesota businesses need to be cleaned.  Here, in the Twin Cities Area, we deal with a lot of sand and salt.  This increases the frequency of cleanings needed considerably compared to other areas of the country.  These cleaning schedules listed below are for Twin Cities and surrounding areas of Minnesota companies only and based on my personal carpet cleaning experiences:

  • If you are a retail store with lots of foot traffic.  You should be having the carpets cleaned and protected every 3 months to every 6 months depending on the amount of people who come in off of the street and the cleanliness of the parking lot.
  • If you are a restaurant or Bar you should be sure to have the carpets cleaned and protected quarterly.  This is important because of how often people spill and as well as the grease that gets tracked in from the kitchen.
  • Office buildings should have their carpets cleaned every 6 months to a year depending on the number of employees and the conditions they walk in on the way to the building entrance.
  • Automotive and trucking companies tend to be heavy in oil.  This oil attracts dirt and will cause the carpet to rapidly soil. I recommend that these companies clean and protect anywhere from quarterly to twice a year.  Falling behind on this causes the oil to compound exponentially, meaning the longer it goes without cleaning the faster the damage will occur.
  • Churches should have one thorough cleaning and protecting a year on all carpet.  However they should have certain areas like their entrances or narthex cleaned multiple times a year depending on their size.
  • Industrial companies rarely clean as often as they should.  Metal shavings and oil from factory machines and forklifts do a real number on carpets.  They often accept the fact that they will need to replace their carpets eventually and let it go.  This is not necessary however.  Cleaning and protecting quarterly will almost always prevent permanent damage from forming in the high traffic areas and although the carpets will still get discolored eventually between cleanings the fibers themselves should stay sound and the cleanings will provide a night and day change.

I’m sure it goes without saying that these are not concrete numbers.  Every business is different and the weather has to be considered as well.  A carpet will get dirty faster during winter months than summer months.  Total number of people, exits, and how often people go from the outside to the inside of the building are variables that I have had to average out.  The amount of sand and salt used on roads and sidewalks in your specific area are factors that affect Minnesota businesses as well.

The Key To Referrals For Twin Cities Carpet Cleaning

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Born in Edina and raised in Burnsville Minnesota, I have lived my entire life among the “Minnesota Nice” and I have to say that it is not a myth.  This doesn’t mean that everyone in Minnesota is nice all the time.  It simply means that the base intentions of these Midwestern folks are to be cheerful and form bonds with those around them.  At least that’s what I’ve noticed.

This applies to carpet cleaning in the Twin Cities Area as well.  People in Minnesota hope and expect cheerful, capable people show up to clean their carpets.  We say to ourselves “I treat others with respect and a cheerful attitude.  Why can’t they do the same?”  If I wanted to be treated like I lived in New York City, I wouldn’t live in Plymouth Minnesota.  I want to believe my vendors abide by the “Golden Rule”.  If I get a good price I might accept that instead, but I won’t refer them to my friends.  If they do a good job with a bad attitude I might accept that, but I won’t refer them to my friends.  If their price is fair, if they do a great job, AND they make me feel comfortable with a smile on their face, then I WILL refer them to my friends with enthusiasm.  I become a cheerleader!  I become an advertiser!  I want to see them succeed and I want my friends to thank me for relieving them of their stressful decision on who to let in their home or business to clean their carpets.

People live in and move to this sometimes frigid climate for the warm hearts of the people who live here.  They feel let down when they don’t receive that kind of treatment, and I can’t blame them.  In my experience as a commercial carpet cleaning expert here in the Twin Cities, kindness and personality is often the missing ingredient in referrals for Minnesota carpet cleaners.

Why Do I Like Being A Professional Carpet Cleaner?

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Why do I like being a carpet cleaner?  My answer is usually received with a look of disbelief.  When people think of carpet cleaning they often think of an overweight guy in a rusty van and a less than white t-shirt.  This is one of the reasons that I like being a carpet cleaner.  Confused?  I like being the best at something and the larger the gap between the best and second best the better.  For 13 years our motto has been “don’t just be the best in the carpet cleaning industry.  Be the best of any industry!”  This has worked wonderfully for me and I have enjoyed passing this on to my employees as well.  Demanding the same and compensating accordingly because they are worth it.

The other reason I love being a carpet cleaner is our customers.  Loyal fans are a more appropriate term.  Knowing that you are making a difference for people and seeing the smiles on their faces when you do is an amazing reward for any hard work.  Being greeted like old friends by our customers warms my heart.

Third is being in a position to offer bonuses for quality work and end of the year profit sharing for our employees.  Knowing that we are doing things the way they ought to be done, not just the easy way or the most profitable way is very rewarding.  Being successful with a clean conscience is rare in any industry, especially this one.  As a family owned business, we agreed that it is only worth doing if we can enjoy it.  I have to say that I have enjoyed it in so many ways.  So yes, I do like being a carpet cleaner.

Profit Sharing in the Carpet Cleaning Industry

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Confucius said “The path to wealth is rich in hate.”  This is one of my favorite sayings, partly because it is so very true in most cases.  But also because I love challenges and proving that statement to only be solid wisdom instead of solid fact is a challenge worth taking on.

The carpet cleaning industry in the Twin Cities Area of Minnesota is an industry that employers and employees can make a good living.  In most cases a bonus system is set up for “upselling”.  Raise the bill of your clients far enough above what it was when it was booked and you get a bonus.  This is not bad for the employee’s wallets but not always good for their conscience.  This can indeed breed “hate” from the consumers towards the companies and even employees who use high pressure sales tactics.  It also breeds an environment where sales training and skills outweigh quality control and technical training essential to doing a great job.

The best carpet cleaners are rarely the best salesmen.  I don’t think upselling should be rewarded that way.  Employees should understand the products and be knowledgeable about them enough to inform the client when asked or when it is obviously necessary.  Mentioning and selling are two different things.

There is another method that breeds “hate” even more.  This is the bait and switch method.  Everyone has seen ads for $5.95 a room or something along those lines.  If you check the small print you will see that it says something like “deep cleaning 40 cents a square foot”.   When the cleaner shows up to do the job he turns down his equipment and cleans a room with plain water.  Then he pre-sprays the carpet and turns his machine up to full power and cleans a stripe down the center of the room.  He then asks if the customer wants him to do that method over the whole carpet for 10 times what they were originally quoted.  By the time they leave the customer is left feeling cheated.  The employee makes a good living this way but only in the monetary sense.  That method leaves the customer feeling cheated and foolish.  The employee can’t take pride in how he makes his living.

There is only way that I have found makes sense to compensate employees well while also making the customer truly happy as well.  This method is simple profit sharing.  At the end of the year when the profit numbers are figured out the employees split 10 percent.  Each year at the company the employee is vested one more share in that percentage.  This rewards both loyalty and quality.  The more work the company does as a whole, the more profit there is to go around.  Yes the employer has to give up 10 percent of his/her profits but with the increased quality and attentiveness from the employees, I don’t doubt it adds more profit than it costs.

This way the employees can take pride in how they make their living as do their families.

This way the customer can take pride in knowing they got a great job at a fair price and that their money is going toward a company that treats their employees with respect.

This way the employer, in this case me and my family, can take pride in knowing that they are building a successful company without the expense of anyone involved.  Or rather without the “hate” that usually accompanies that success.

Profit sharing has worked great for my company in both employee retention and quality control.  To be honest the results have been immeasurable.

Why Have Carpet In Minnesota Businesses?

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My first apartment was on the border of Bloomington and Richfield Minnesota.  Although it has been overhauled since I lived there, it wasn’t the nicest complex to live in.  I remember looking at the carpet which had more visible dirt and stains than dye pattern and thinking “why don’t they just put in laminate?”

When I asked the office manager she said simply, “We don’t want to get sued.”  In Minnesota, we constantly enter buildings with wet shoes and boots.  Even when the floor is dry, the souls of our footwear are damp.  This is the same as if the floor itself was wet.  Comical as it is in the movies to go feet over forehead, it doesn’t feel very good when you hit the ground.  This goes for any business.  Even those businesses that just can’t have carpet, still put in extensive rugs in the entryways. This can cost nearly the same as carpeting those areas wall to wall depending on their quality.

Employees who get injured slipping as they walk inside the building, or by stepping into the spill in the break room can cost a company a lot of money in workman’s comp insurance and lost work days.

The other part that makes sense to anyone who has worked on hard floors is that it takes its toll on the feet, ankles, and knees.  Even that small amount of carpet makes a big difference on the barking dogs on the end of our legs.

Honestly, as long as a company cleans and protects the carpet on a schedule that makes sense for the level of foot traffic they get,  Minnesota businesses will be glad to have commercial grade carpet in their businesses.

Meet The Team: Russ Jr.

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Russ Zakariasen Jr. cst shirt, desk

Russ Zakariasen Jr. –  President

Carpet cleaning can be frustrating, but it can also be the easiest thing in the world.  Getting to know who you will be working with can help ease the stress of deciding who to choose for your carpet cleaning needs.  Who better to get to know than the president of the company?

Russell Hamline Zakariasen III, or Russ Jr. as we call him, was born in Quincy Callifornia and raised in Burnsville Minnesota.  Athletic by nature he was the captain of the golf team for the Burnsville Braves, later changed to the Burnsville Blaze.  He attended business school at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.  Now of course he is president of Commercial Steam Team working with his dad and brother.

Russ Jr. can often be spotted at Kaposia Park in South St. Paul playing disc golf with his brother Ryan or at Northfield Golf Club playing golf with his Dad.  His greatest passion has been coaching his sons basketball and football teams in the Rosemount Athletic club.

I sat down with Russ Jr. and asked him a little Q&A to help you get to know him better.

Q.  How did you get into the professional carpet cleaning industry?

A.  Like most kids I needed a summer job in High School.  I started telemarketing for a carpet cleaning company in Bloomington Minnesota.  I worked at that company through my last two years at Burnsville High School and through my four years at the University of Minnesota.

Q.  What do you like about the carpet cleaning industry?

A.  I love the daily interaction with our customers.  We have built such a loyal customer base over the years with wonderful people. They really show appreciation for the way we do business.  That positive reinforcement means a lot.

Q.  What was most important to you when starting this company?

A.  We wanted to create an environment where we found nothing but the very best employees, then treated them with appreciation, respect, and paid them well, so they would stay with our company long term, and treat our customers the way we need them to.  This really worked well!!

Q.  What is it like working with your family?

A.  I truly enjoy working with my family, working toward a common goal together.  We also are so lucky to have employees who feel like a part of our extended family.

Why Even Have Carpet In Minnesota Homes

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Born in Edina and raised in Burnsville, I have lived my whole life in Minnesota.  With all the salt and sand, the sloppy slush, the muddy springs, why install carpet in our homes?  Before becoming a carpet cleaner I didn’t give it much thought, but I might have chosen hardwood or laminate flooring.  Hard floors don’t stain as easily and are easier to dry when moisture is introduced.  Still, the truth is carpet insulates in multiple ways.  I learned this cleaning for television studios.  In the control room they actually carpet their walls.  This reduces echo, and absorbs sound to help soundproof the room and keep those sounds from being picked up by the microphones in the studio.  Everyone who lives in Minnesota knows how cold it gets here in the winter.  Carpet creates a comfortable barrier between the frozen floor and our sensitive feet.  Personally, I like lying on the carpet in front of the fire with hot chocolate in the winter.

It’s my personal and professional opinion that as long as you clean and protect your carpet once a year and take your shoes off at the door, you will be happier with the cozy feel of carpet than chilly hardwood floors.

Why Did My Carpet Turn Yellow Beneath My Area Rug?

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In my 13 years as a carpet cleaning professional in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota, I have run into many cases where the carpet underneath an area rug has a yellow tint to it.  This discoloration is literally the size and shape of the area rug that was sitting on top of it.  It took some time but through my research I learned that the gases released from the glue that holds the carpet together can actually change the ph. level of the carpet.  This usually takes months of trapped gas to make this happen.  I would imagine humidity and airflow as well as other factors, contribute to this phenomenon.  Unfortunately there is no known method to reverse this problem.

How Mass Advertising Can Lower Quality

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Have you ever been to a fast growing franchise restaurant and felt like the person helping you either doesn’t know what they are doing or just doesn’t care?  Of course you have, we all have.  Unfortunately this isn’t exclusive to the fast food industry.  It can happen in any industry when a company grows “too fast”.

The dream of just about any business owner is to have their company skyrocket to the top.  They look for gimmicks, advertising schemes, and even mudslinging to make this happen.  Some industries like law firms and investment companies have readymade employees to purchase from the well-stocked shelves of universities.  Industries that require on the job training don’t have that privilege.  Industries like carpet cleaning require mentor training, or apprentice training.  Reading a training manual only gets you so far.  Professionals need to pass their expertise down in person.

Mass advertising and gimmicks can lead to very rapid growth, especially when the new fad is creaming the market.  Going from 1 van to 10 or more vans in a couple years is wonderful in theory.  However, it takes at least 10 people to run 10 vans.  20 if the recommended 2 employees per crew are used.  In theory there would need to be 10 experts to train these 10 crew chiefs for several months.  One expert just can’t get that done properly.  In fact the rapid growth most likely takes that person out of the equation entirely as the responsibilities of the administration grow just as fast.  When does this training happen?

In a slow but steady growth model, driven through referrals, there is time for assistants to train under experts for 6 months or more.  Not only learning the basics, but also becoming very comfortable with all the variables they might run into in the field.  Mass advertising and excessively rapid growth would make this very difficult to do properly.

Thorough Rinsing Reduces Redo’s

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Reputable carpet cleaning companies agree to return to their jobs any time a customer is unsure of the results of the work done.  The most reputable companies call every job a week after cleaning to make sure they are happy and offer what we call a “redo” to make sure the client stays a satisfied and loyal client.

As important as redo’s are, they also cost money to complete.  This is time and expense being used without extra compensation from the client.  For this reason and more, it is important to do the job right the first time.

Carpet cleaning, like many things in life is largely about balance.  In this case it’s about the balance of PH. levels.  The process starts with pre-spray and spot cleaning agents and finishes with a rinse to balance the Ph. out.  All professional carpet cleaners, no matter who they are, start off with an alkaline or acid pre-spray.  The next step is to rinse it out with a rinse that is opposite the pre-spray on the Ph. scale.  Spot cleaning agents vary in specifics, however, unless it is a leave in treatment, they all have one thing in common.  Cleaning agents need to be rinsed out as much as possible.  Cleaning agents that are not rinsed thoroughly can attract dirt back to the spot or spill.  This makes the spot or spill look like it has resurfaced and come back after the cleaning is done.

The best way to thoroughly rinse the carpet is to make sure you have the most powerful direct drive carpet cleaning truck mount available.  Second, make sure you are using a rinse that is opposite the Ph. of your pre-spray.  Third, simply do extra rinse strokes any time you clean over an area you spot treated.  The whole room doesn’t have to be done this way, just the spot where you used a spot treatment.  Fourth, you do extra vacuum strokes where you did extra rinse strokes.  Extra rinse means slightly higher moisture levels and requires “balance” when it comes do drying the carpet as well.

By maintaining balance in the carpet of both Ph. levels and moisture, the chances of a spot or spill appearing to return on you are nearly eliminated and so are your redo’s.  Out of the last 1814 jobs, my crews only had to return to 23 of them.  All 23 are still very happy clients.  This is one of the methods they practice at every job to make sure they keep their routes redo free and full of loyal, paying, repeat customers here in the Twin Cities.

Two Man Crews Vs. One Man Crews

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In the carpet cleaning industry, you often hear of one man crews being better than one two man crews.  In truly selfish terms, the employer can make a lot more money with one man crews.  The cost to the employer is less with one man crews.  Also, they spend longer in the presence of the customer and build more of a rapport which helps in increasing on site sales or “up-selling”.

The flaw in this strategy is that it only benefits the company and in no way benefits the client.  The customer may believe that the extra time spent by one person means better quality.  However, between setting up the job, pre-spraying, cleaning, setting down the wand to pull the hose or go get the spot treatments, easily two thirds of the time is spent doing what the assistant would do while the crew chief keeps the wand moving.  The truth is this is all wasted time that the customer could be using to live their busy lives.

Two man crews are efficient.  It is easier for a crew chief to ask his assistant to go to the truck to get something, than to set the wand down and go get it himself.  This can lead to steps being skipped for the sake of time or fatigue.

One other important factor that I have found is accountability.  Two man teams rely on each other.  One person can’t sacrifice quality without it affecting the other worker.  It’s much easier to decide to slack off for one day or one job without personal accountability to another crew member.

Loneliness can also lead to depression.  There is no one to help spur the other team member on.  Honestly, cost to the employer and increased sales are the only benefits to having one man crews.  Solo routes will always be necessary in any carpet cleaning company.  That being said, for the sake of the customer, solo routes should be the exception, not the rule.

Rapid Re-Soiling After Carpet Cleaning: Professional Carpet Cleaners

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Professional carpet cleaners stopped using oil based soaps or “shampoo’s” decades ago.  Some less experienced carpet cleaners still have a problem with rapid re-soiling.  Why is this?  Proper training and equipment eliminates this problem for those companies that understand how it works.

  • State-of-the-art direct drive truck mounts are important to get the carpet dry enough after the job.
    • If the carpet is left wet for days then the carpet will lose its ability to resist rapid re-soiling.
    • Ph. balances must be equalized.
      • Companies that rinse with water will leave the Ph. level of the carpet too high after cleaning. This can feel residue-free, but will attract soil none the less.
      • Companies that grow too fast through advertising tend to have a turnover of only a few months.  Proper training takes many months of assisting to an expert carpet cleaner to ensure that Ph. ratios get balanced.

Carpet cleaning is a science, but it is also hard work.  Training is important as well as hiring the right workers and paying well enough to keep them motivated and in your employ.  “Shampoo” may not be a factor in professional carpet cleaning anymore, but work ethic and training always will be.

Commercial Steam Team In Your Home

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Did you know the Commercial Steam Team also cleans homes?  Many people don’t know this.  In fact if you don’t work at one of the many businesses they clean, you might not even know they exist.  The Commercial Steam Team has been cleaning for some of the dirtiest companies in the Twin Cities Area of Minnesota for years.  Also cleaning the homes of the employees and owners of these businesses.

Already the leader in commercial carpet cleaning, from greasy restaurants to oily trucking companies, no one has had more success on the toughest, dirtiest jobs around.  Without advertising, business has grown for the Commercial Steam Team through this tough economy while the rest of the industry is down significantly.  This is because of the unheard of quality provided by the well trained carpet cleaning professionals in our employment.

In the last 2 years, the Commercial Steam Team only had to return to 23 out of 1814 jobs (every one of those clients is still a very happy client).  This amazingly low call back rate is in spite of calling every single client a week after cleaning and offering to go back if they have any concerns at all.  This is unheard of professionalism in our industry, as residential companies are not held to the same standards as those of us who clean the carpets for fortune 500 companies.

Businesses often clean on a schedule, sometimes multiple times a year and they don’t want to have re-occurring headaches each time the carpet needs cleaning.  The Commercial Steam Team has perfected our carpet cleaning methods and hires only the very best clean cut people.  With profit sharing and generous bonuses for customer satisfaction, Commercial Steam Team employees have kept even the most hardnosed managers happy for years.  Now this same commercial strength equipment and professionalism is available for residential clients.

Mention this post for a 10 percent discount on your home’s carpet cleaning!

Rapid Re-Soiling After Carpet Cleaning: Janitorial Companies and Handymen

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Well intentioned as they are, janitorial companies are not professional carpet cleaners.  In my 13 years of carpet cleaning I have cleaned up after hundreds of janitorial companies who wanted to make a little extra money from their clients by cleaning their carpets.  This is a sound idea for them as a business model, however it often ends up with them disappointing their clients.  The main reason is rapid re-soiling. 

Unfortunately, janitorial companies typically cause the carpet to get dirty faster after they clean for their clients, meaning that they need to be cleaned more frequently.

Here’s why:

  1. Professional carpet cleaning equipment is very expensive, so they often try to use equipment they already have to do the job (Floor buffers)
    1. Floor buffers can unravel the carpet fibers and loosen the nap of the fibers leaving more room for soil to penetrate the surface of the carpet.
      1. Floor buffers do not remove as much soil or even their own cleaning agents from the carpet; rather they push it down into the carpet.
  2. Janitorial companies may rent equipment to do the job, and the more they spend on the rental equipment, the less profit they make on the job.
  3. Rental equipment is abused over time. As a result it takes so long to properly extract the moisture that few are willing to spend the long hours or days it takes to get enough water out of the carpet.
    1. Carpet left too wet can be sloshy and take days to dry.
    2. The longer a carpet is left wet after cleaning, the more time spills have to wick up through the carpet.
    3. Moisture in the carpet can begin to reduce the carpet’s ability to resist re-soiling if left wet for days.
    4. Moisture left too long encourges mold and mildew growth deep in the carpet.
    5. Training, specific to carpet cleaning.
      1. Janitorial companies rarely pay above minimum wage and as a result their employees are not motivated to learn and execute alternative job skills to the ones that they already do.  This is not the fault of the janitorial companies.  There is just too little profit margin in that industry to pay any better.
      2. It takes many months of working with an expert in the carpet cleaning field to learn the proper ways to mix the cleaning agents and to identify potential problems.
      3. It takes a carpet cleaning business owner years to perfect what he or she teaches their employees and for janitorial companies and handymen, there isn’t a seasoned carpet cleaning expert to pass this knowledge on.
      4. Professional carpet cleaners stopped using oil based soap or “Shampoo” decades ago.  Janitorial companies and handymen have taken longer to catch on.

The bottom line is that when carpets need to be cleaned, especially in a commercial environment, a commercial carpet cleaning expert is necessary.  Janitorial companies and handymen can be wonderful at what they do but they are not professional carpet cleaners any more than plumbers, electricians, and ballet dancers are.  Ph. levels need to be balanced to prevent rapid re-soiling and equipment and personnel are key in making that happen.

Employee Turnover In The Carpet Cleaning Industry

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Employee turnover in the carpet cleaning industry is a very large problem.  In search of profits employees are often undervalued and under paid.  Expedited growth in a company due to things like mass advertising can also cause employee turnover as well as mass hiring which poses the same problems.  Carpet cleaning isn’t the hardest of all professions but it is manual labor and does require stamina and motivation to do a great job every time.  Employees require training and an apprenticeship of sorts in order to become experts in the field. 

Hiring and maintaining the best employees is crucial in this professional industry.

When someone hires a carpet cleaner they expect to have someone capable and experienced show up.  If that cleaner has only been working for a few weeks, many problems could occur.  Spill diagnosis, problem identification, mixing ratios, equipment repair and maintenance, even patience and wisdom come with experience.  The longer an employee is around, the longer he/she will feel vested in the company and want to do the best job possible.  I highly recommend profit sharing at the end of the year.  This boosts morale, especially since it lands in a crucial month in the slow part of winter. 

Also we can’t forget the obvious, pay employees a fair wage.  Don’t try to squeeze every dime out of them.  Make sure they can go home proud of themselves so their wife and kids will look up to them.  Carpet cleaners work hard and deserve fair compensation. 

Another big problem with some of the larger carpet cleaning franchises is that they charge their employees for the cleaning agents and equipment they use.  Any time an employee has to decide whether or not to use something that will help them do the best job possible, it is a hit to the pride.  They either give up the money or the quality but they can’t have both. In either case the quality of the job suffers.  Making someone pay for something the employer should pay for also makes people feel they are being taken advantage of.

My company, the Commercial Steam Team, has had almost no employee turnover since we started the company in 2003.  That’s because we believe in our staff, support them, and  treat them like family, not like tools to use and discard. In fact only one employee has ever left the company and the reason he did was to finish law school.  I am proud of how we have run our company and will continue to do so.

Rapid Re-Soiling After Carpet Cleaning: Do It Yourself

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When you pull out your couch to get that tennis ball your dog knocked underneath it in a rousing game of repetitive catch.  You suddenly notice that the carpet underneath the couch looks completely different than the carpet in front of it.  A few months go by and either your conscience or your partner begins nagging you to do something about it.  “Don’t worry sweetheart, I will rent a rug doctor.”  Famous last words.  If it was that easy then everyone would do it.

This is one of the leading causes of rapid re-soiling in carpets today.  The three reasons being;

  • Operator error.
    • No one should be expected to know what they are doing when trying to do a professional job on their first try.
    • It takes days to do the best job possible with a rental unit.  Many people don’t realize this until they are in the middle of the job and rush through it after that (understandable).
    • Equipment power.
      • Rental equipment is limited by the electrical power source available and can’t risk tripping circuit breakers in the homes and apartments it is used in.
      • Rental equipment is designed with more emphasis on its durability than its effectiveness. After all if it broke every time it was rented, it would eat up all the profit. Meaning that it’s going to be underpowered.
      • When more than 5 percent of the moisture is left in the carpet, it takes a long time to dry and will affect the carpets resistance to re-soiling.
      • People tend to beat up rental units. After all, they don’t own them, and most people tend not to respect other people’s property. This means the equipment’s performance will likely be sub-par, something that a rental company is not as likely to be concerned about as long as it is still rentable.
      • Available cleaning agents.
        • Professional carpet cleaners stopped using “shampoo” or oil based products decades ago. The rental units often still use these.
        • Rental units often rinse with regular water which is not capable of balancing the Ph. levels of the cleaning agents that were used, even if they were not oil based.

The truth is that most people who attempt to clean their own carpets do not ever attempt it again.  Or they get stuck in an endless cycle of cleanings that become more and more frequent over time as the residue builds up in the carpet.  Most professional carpet cleaners know (and those that don’t, should) not to use oil based products or “shampoo’s”.  Few suppliers even carry those products anymore.  Also professional carpet cleaners are the only carpet cleaners that know the proper mixing ratios, have the expensive direct drive truck mount equipment to do the job (this varies from company to company).  Truck mounted  units are not limited by circuit breakers and some even run directly off of the V8 engine.

In summary, DIY carpet cleaning is a buyer-beware sort of thing. If you’re serious about cleaning your carpet, you should hire a serious professional to do so. Have a great day!

Too Good To Be True Carpet Cleaning Prices

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Ask just about any Established Professional Carpet Cleaner in the Twin Cities, or anywhere for that matter, what makes it tough to make a profit and they will usually bring up the “low ballers”.  These are fly-by-night companies that pop up and offer bad work for low prices.  You see, the carpet cleaning industry is one of the easiest industries to get started in.  It is however one of the most difficult to compete in.

After people lose their jobs or even quit their jobs they figure they can buy some cheap equipment and enter the industry.  These people receive a crash course and a franchise or sometimes not even that.  They have good intentions but have no experience in either being a carpet cleaner or being a business owner.  They stick it out for 6 months to 2 years offering unrealistically low prices.

They eventually realize they are working hard but can’t make a profit even without hiring employees.  Just as fast as they disappear due to a lack of quality, no profit margin, or a bad reputation, another pops up to take its place.  This creates a constant stream of “low ball” companies that in some ways affect the industry as a whole.  Companies that have nearly perfect customer satisfaction are labeled with the same cloud left behind by the spotty work of these fly-by-nights.  Reputation is key to individual companies, but it is also key to the industry.  Some people lose faith that great carpet cleaning companies exist and they just stop looking.

Especially in a market like the Twin Cities Area, companies need both good intentions, and time to build knowledge and expertise.  It is also important for the company to offer incentives for good work like bonuses for customer satisfaction and profit sharing which never exist in the “low ball” companies.  “Too good to be true” just doesn’t exist in satisfaction run industries.  “Fair pay for great work” not only exists but is “fair” for both parties involved.

Office Chair Cleaning Reduces Sick Days

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Office chairs are extremely expensive.  The lowest end seems to be around $150.  Nice ones are often $250 and up.  Even if you only have 10 employees your bill is easily in the thousands to replace your office chairs.  You don’t even want to know how much if you have hundreds of employees.  Sometimes replacing is the answer when you have holes in the fabric and other actual damage. 

Far too many companies don’t realize that they can have their chairs cleaned on a regular basis for a small fraction of that cost.  For $10 or less a chair, depending on volume, the Commercial Steam Team thoroughly cleans office chairs.  This is a far cry from the staggering prices of replacing.

Another main reason for having office chairs cleaned by highly trained professional carpet cleaners is office productivity.  Look and smell aside, chairs store dust and allergen particles that release into the air as people sit down.  When they take a seat the spongy pad inside the chair squishes forcing the air stored inside the pad out at high speeds.  The allergens take a ride once again floating in the air for long periods of time.  Because of this your employees are breathing these allergens in all day long. 

Allergies are the true cause for a large percentage of sick days.  As we all know, employees are not at their best when they are still working but experiencing fatigue, congestion, wheezing, headaches, and other symptoms from allergies.  This is why having your office chairs cleaned regularly is very important to a high quality work environment.

Call an experienced professional for help cleaning your office furniture and experience the benefits right away!

Indented Quotes and Images – beautiful

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Commercial Steam Team Encapsulating Spot Remover

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The Commercial Steam Team introduces our encapsulating spot remover.  We have been using an encapsulation spot remover both at our jobs and as gifts and products for our clients for about 4 years.  We kept it under wraps without announcing our use of it online in our blogs because we always make sure to test everything we use long term to make sure that it works properly.  First we research it. Then we use it in our own homes.  After that we use it ourselves on jobs.  Finally we give it as gifts to our clients.  Now that our clients have been raving about it for years we decided to mention it here in our blog and offer anyone who mentions this a free bottle of our encapsulating spot remover when we clean the carpets at their business or home here in the Twin Cities area.

As the foremost experts in commercial carpet cleaning, we take pride in making sure that everything we use is non-toxic, bio-degradable and hypoallergenic.

Lots of people have problems with dogs peeing or marking their furniture.  My rascally dog “Buddy” is no exception.  To make it worse his urine is bright yellow.  I can’t bring the van home to Rosemount from Burnsville every weekend, so I was so glad to discover that this encapsulation spotter took care of all of his mistakes for me.  One of my employees, Steve, cleaned up the powdered toner that his brother-in-law spilled under their desk chair and forgot to tell him about.  He was amazed too.

The way it works is the easiest thing I have ever come across.  Simply blot first (always blot first before any cleaning method to remove excess spill liquid).  Then just spray the encapsulating spot remover directly on the spot.  Use something to work in the spotter into the fibers.  You can use the bottom of the bottle or even your fingertips.  You can use a towel but if you rub too hard you will cause damage to the fibers.  Also, always use a white towel, or dye transfer is always a possibility with any method.

After this you just wait until the carpet dries completely.  With some spills, it will already appear to be gone and others will not.  The next step after the carpet is dry is to vacuum the carpet with your vacuum cleaner.  I just wait until I’m vacuuming anyway.  It is amazing how often this works.  I have had and heard of great results on coffee, sticky residues, pop spills, animal urine.  This is also the safest method to start with and it can be repeated if it doesn’t completely work the first time.

Carpet Cleaning Quality Control Calls Are Key

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Did you know that Commercial Steam Team calls every client the week after we do a carpet cleaning job? It’s critical not only to help ensure that every client is happy, but it also makes good business sense in other ways.

For instance, in spite of regularly scheduled maintenance and a high attention to detail, it’s still possible to miss equipment that is starting to slide out of alignment. Catching this early lets us correct the problem before it becomes a problem.

If our clients see something wrong, they tell us, in part because we assure them to do so helps us too!

And if anything is wrong, we schedule a redo. Quality control, after all, means making sure that everything we do is quality.

Follow this link to learn more about why carpet cleaning quality control is essential for our business.

Brief History of Carpet Cleaning

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Carpets made walking barefoot in our homes a reality.  Carpet is also responsible for laying in front of the fire or the T.V.  And as I can speak from experience here in Minnesota, carpet also lowers heating costs in the winter.  The one thing people realized early on was it gets dirty and it’s not as easy to clean as hard floors.  So how did they get them clean?

The first cleaning method was “have the slaves or maids clean them”.  I would say lol but there is nothing funny about slavery or indentured servitude.  The reality was that carpet cleaning was only affordable to the wealthy.  Carpet was primarily loose rugs that could be removed from a room and beaten to remove the dust and dirt.  Sometimes a stiff bristled brush was used to sort of sweep the dirt and sand from the rug.  In 1827 a publication teaching servants housekeeping said to use a lemon to remove ink stains.

The 1880’s took a bit of the load off of the servants by the invention of carpet sweepers.  By 1900 the horse drawn door to door carpet care business was in swing.  Early models were so large they were on a carriage drawn by a horse and parked at the curb of the building getting cleaned.  Sounds familiar to me as a professional carpet cleaner.  Soon in the 1920’s the wealthy were given the opportunity to own their own personal carpet cleaners.  These were expensive and John Q. Public couldn’t afford it for decades after that.

In 1947, I am very glad to say, hot water extraction was invented.  Though consistently improved over the last half a decade or so, hot water extraction has continued to be the leading method.  It is hard to believe that a $2,000 portable unit and a $70,000 direct drive truck mount fall under the same classification, but they do.  From rug doctors wielded by homeowners to Hydramasters wielded by professionals the hot water extraction industry continues in full swing to this day. There have been other attempts to improve on the carpet cleaning industry such as dry cleaning, foam cleaning, rotary cleaning, etc.  Each of these methods spiked interest when they first came out.  Each declined as fast as they rose as people were disappointed in the results they received.  Even with the bad publicity of cheaper portable machines, the positive results of high end hot water extraction truck mounts has maintained the lions share of the carpet cleaning industry with no signs of slowing down.  In some ways the carpet cleaning industry is still a door to door industry.  Though now it is a multimillion dollar door to door industry.

40 Years of Marriage

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Russell Hamline Zakariasen ll, or as we call him Russ Sr. and his wife Lynda, formerly Lynda Lee, have been married for 40 years as of January 16, 2011.  I could not be more proud of my business partner and father (for hanging onto a catch like my mother).  And I couldn’t be more proud of my mom (for hanging in there)  Just kidding, they have done what each of us hope to do in our lives and that is live them to the fullest and share it with those we love.  Both born and raised in Hopkins Minnesota.  As an elementary school teacher my mother, Lynda, has achieved her Masters degree and influenced not only the lives of her own children but also those of hundreds of children in her classes in Burnsville Minnesota as well.  Dad has been an adventurous soul from building Cedar Hills Golf and Ski club with his father in Eden Prarie Minnesota, to gold mining in Quincy California, then came home to opening one of the first quit smoking clinics in the country right here in Edina Minnesota.  He finally found his place in the world by teaming up with his two sons Ryan and Russ Jr. in the carpet cleaning industry.  Together, with the unimaginable patience and faith of Mom, the three of them started the Commercial Steam Team and have enjoyed every moment of this rollercoaster ride.

Congratulations Mom and Dad for 40 years that I couldn’t begin to describe in a short blog post.  May you have another 40 years even greater than the last.

9 Reasons for Property Managers to Use Commercial Steam Team Carpet and Upholstery Cleaners

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*We make your job easier!

*We understand that our job is to make you look good!

*We do the scheduling and quality control for you!

*We pick up and drop off keys so you don’t have to!

*We go back to any job where there is a concern Free Of Charge!

*Only 11 out of 886 jobs asked us to come back last year (just over 1%).

*Our employees have a stake through profit sharing.

*We call every job a week after just to make sure they love it.

*Sharp looking direct drive truck mounted units (V8 engine).

*Licensed Bonded and Insured*

Minnesota Carpet Cleaning

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Minnesota is a unique and wonderful market for carpet cleaning.  Everyone wants carpet on their floors because the floor gets too cold in the winter and it helps keep our toes warm and heating costs down.  However, our de-icing methods and sanding the streets, not to mention mud during the spring thaw, contribute to Minnesota being one of the harshest climates on carpet.

The sand we use makes ice less slippery but that same grit that makes our tires and shoes gain traction also acts like sand paper on the bottoms of our shoes.

When salt is allowed to build up in a carpet (commercial carpet more likely), it will form together into a single mass.  Especially when moisture like melting snow is added.  This mass not only adheres to the fibers but now has a much larger surface area to get through.  For this a portable carpet cleaning unit and dry cleaning methods are useless.  The salt needs to be melted through moisture and heat.  It then needs to be removed through large amounts of suction.  I recommend a top of the line direct drive truck mount unit. (Hydramaster 4.8 cds if possible).  For best results have the carpet cleaned on a regular schedule before the salt has a chance to combine with itself and the sand.  Also vacuuming regularly is helpful to get as much out as possible while still in crystal form.

Making Life Easier For Property Managers

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Property managers have a unique business unlike any other industry I can think of.  Whether residential property management helping people rent and manage their rental units, or commercial property managers owning buildings and leasing out the spaces, or managing the tenants for a building owner.  What makes their jobs unique is that they are firefighters without the glory.  By that I mean they spend all day putting out fires.  Much of this I’m not aware of in specifics, but their tenants run into problems and look to their property managers to solve those problems.  Some of these problems effect the carpet or upholstery.  This could be a leaky ceiling, dripping down a chair onto the carpet.  An overflowing toilet seeping through a wall into the adjacent office.  The sippy cup that isn’t supposed to leak, but instead drips milk in a trail from the kitchen to his bedroom as he swings it back and forth.  When any of these things happen it becomes another in a long string of “help me nows” that I’m sure seem to happen all at once.  No vendor should add to these headaches.  Property managers also understand it is far cheaper to clean and protect their carpet as opposed to the massive cost of replacing it.

It is my belief that carpet cleaners should be the Aspirin for these headaches.  Making life easier for property managers by being upbeat and friendly.  Picking up and dropping off keys.  Always being on time.  Calling ahead to ease their mind.  Doing their best every time.  Using the top of the line direct drive truck mounted carpet cleaning vans.

Service industries across the board should understand that service is about making life easier.  Making life better.  I have found that everyone wins in this scenario.  My clients are happy because when a tenant tracks grease all the way down the first floor hall, they already know who to call and they know it will be painless.  I win because they won’t even think of going somewhere else.  I get more business and they get peace of mind.  That’s what I mean by making life easier for property managers.