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.