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.