Growing a Small Minnesota Business Through a Rough Economy

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.