How To Start Your Own Carpet Cleaning Business

There are two fairly new, and very important conditions existingin the world today that have not only made the carpet cleaningindustry a "billion dollar business," but also practicallyguarantee your success as an entrepreneur.
First, almost all homes and office buildings built since 1960have wall-to-wall carpeting. Secondly, the replacement costs andthe cyclical faltering of the national economy have caused peopleto want to make what they already own last longer, especially inthe case of carpeting, which is a sizeable investment.
Most of the businesses employ janitors or janitorial services tovacuum their carpets after hours daily, and then "master" carpetcleaners to deep-clean their carpets perhaps several times aweek, and then hope to deep-clean every spring or fall, dependingon the kind of household traffic, and on their budgets.
It's true that people everywhere try to save money by handlingthese jobs themselves. However, empathy with the people, and andunderstanding of this trend, should be neither cause for alarmnor a deterrent to your success in this business.
Most people are just too busy to handle all their do-it-yourselfprojects. They continually put off until later any chore thatrequires special equipment. This is especially true with carpetcleaning, because deep down, they're fearful of botching the job.Thus, they're more than willing to pay an expert or a specialistto do this kind of work for them.
It doesn't take any special education, skill or experience tooperate a professional-type, deep-cleaning carpet cleaner. Yet,from your first job onward, you should project the image of athoroughly experienced expert in your field. And, we're going toshow you how you can get started in this business, and make $300or more per working day, with virtually no investment!
The important part of this business---or any other business---isthe owner-operator's "sense of marketing" and salesmanship. Makeno mistake about it, all businesses succeed through marketingstrategies and salesmanship. You won't be selling a product withthis business; you'll be selling a service. And the selling ofservices is often more difficult than product sales.
Your success in this business will be predicated upon the saleseffort you put forth. Getting it off the ground will require agreat deal of selling expertise on your part. You'll have to sellyourself AND your services.
Therefore, it will be to your benefit to learn all you can aboutselling. Then, you should continue to add to your knowledgethrough an on going program of learning. keeping up to date andbeing aware of successful selling ideas and methods will add tothe total success of any business person.
Even before the acquisition of equipment, you need customers.Your prospects are all the businesses and homes with carpets inyour area. Your problem is going to be in reaching theseprospects, impressing upon then the benefits of your service, andgetting them set up with an appointment for you to do the work.
We have found that the latest expensive and most productivemethod of reaching these people is by way of neighbor hood"hand-out" flyers or announcements, delivered door-to-door byBrownies or Cub Scouts, or members of other youth organizations.These flyers are advertisements or announcements of a "CarpetCleaning Special," printed on 5 1/2 by 8 1/2 sheets of paper thatinvite the recipients to call you for an appointment.
Study the carpet cleaning service ads in your local newspapers,the yellow pages of your telephone directories, and any similarflyers you may have received or seen. Make a pencil sketch ofyour own flyer, emphasizing customer benefits and yourcapabilities of doing the job and take your ideas to theadvertising class at a local college. Explain your project andask for volunteer help. In most cases, you'll be favorablyimpresses with the work, and will only have to pay with a copy ofthe finished flyer for the student's portfolio, and arecommendation or testimonial about his work for you. Even ifthere should be a charge for the work you have done at thecollege, it will be a reasonable one.
Contracting with an advertising agency will probably take longerand will cost a significant amount of money. However, you mightbe able to contact a staff member who does freelance work on theside. But you should set a specific date for completion of theproject, and agree to pay no more than half the total estimatedcost until the job is finished, and meets with your approval.
The next step is to take this original of your flyer to aprinter, and have printed whatever number of copies you want tostart. Most quick print shops will be able to print up to 20,000copies, and deliver in a reasonable time, with nominal costs. Ifyou decide to start with more than 20,000 copies, you will dobetter by going to a regular commercial printer. Largerquantities that would take a quick print shop all day can behandled by a commercial print shop in a few hours.
While your flyers are being printed, you should be lining up yourdelivery people--local Brownie or Cub Scout Troops. No bigproblem here. Either look up their local headquarters office inyour phone book or call a friend or two with children about theright age for the name and phone number of troop leaders. Arrangeto pay these scout troops $10 for each thousand circulars theyhand out door-to-door.
One other thing before you start handing out your flyers---besure that you have someone available to answer the phone and setup appointments for you. It's usually best to have a woman dothis; it makes the caller think of your service as an establishedbusiness. You can pay an answering service to handle these callsfor you, but if your wife or a friend is available that would beeven better. It is, however, imperative that a "live voice"answer your phone. People have some strange ideas about answeringmachines, and most businesses find they do much better not usingthem.
Your "secretary" should have a set pattern of answering yourcalls, and an appointment book. Usually, your flyer willadvertise a special such as "Your living room carpet deep-cleanedfor just $20. Get all the ground-in dirt and unpleasant odorsout. A professional job by experienced master carpet cleaners,and we can do it all for you tomorrow. Give us a call; set up acarpet cleaning appointment with us now; and we'll have your homesparkling clean, ready for company in no time at all!" Thisspecial offer should take you no more than an hour in thecustomer's home, meaning that your secretary can bookappointments for you at the rate of one every ninety minutes orless, depending on the travel distance between jobs, enabling youto book more appointments.
Just as soon as you have job appointments lined up, hurry over toyour local cleaner distributor, your local rent-all store, oreven some super markets and rent a steam-clean carpet cleaner.Most of the time, you won't have to pay until you return it, buteven if you do have to pay at the time you take it, the cost isusually $25 or less for twenty-four hours. Read the directionsand make sure you know how to operate it. Then load it into yourcar, van or pickup, and set out for your first appointment.
You should bear in mind that carpet cleaning is a type of servicebusiness that takes you into the homes of your customers.Therefore, how you look, dress, and handleyourself---particularly in the presence of your customers---will have a direct bearing on the success of your business.
Be clean, and conduct yourself in a business like manner at alltimes. Dress neatly. In fact, one of the best ways to get off toa fast start is to purchase a working uniform from Sears, Ward'sor Penny's. Drop by a "pennant shop" and have them make up aspecial oval name tag which can be sewn over the left breastpocket. At the same time, have them make up a large oval with thename of your business and your phone number to sew on the back ofthe uniform. When you hire people to help you with the work,outfit them similarly.
Go out of your way to be polite and friendly with your customers,but refrain from being fresh. Avoid getting involved in extendedconversations--if you are to keep on schedule, you won't havetime for a lot of talk.
keep your equipment clean, properly maintained, and operatingsmoothly. Have your supplies organized and within easy reach.Don't allow yourself to be caught in a position where you have tomake excuses because the equipment won't function properly, youcan't find what you need, or you suddenly find yourself out ofcertain supplies.
When working these advertising specials, just concentrate ondoing the job and moving on to your next customer. If thecustomer questions you about the cost to do the other rooms, givean estimate and set up a tentative appointment, which you shouldlater confirm with a call-back after checking your schedule.Don't try to sell your complete carpet cleaning services on thisfirst call, but do be sure to leave a business card with the nameof your company and your phone number.
Your service is the "deep-down shampoo cleaning" of carpeting inyour customers' homes or places of business. Always strive to usethe best equipment that's available. Later on--- possibly in amonth or six weeks--you'll want to buy or lease your ownequipment. Your business will grow and flourish as a result ofyour doing a good and complete job every time. It may take you afew minutes longer---especially when you are learning theequipment and establishing a procedure--but in the end this willpay off with satisfied customers; and a group of satisfiedcustomers is the key to your becoming wealthy in this business.
You want your customers to call again and again to clean theircarpets. Being pleased with your work, they'll spread the wordabout your service for you, free of charge! And this, of course,will generate an almost unlimited amount of ongoing work for yournew business.
The average price to the customer to have a 12 by 18 footwall-to-wall carpet "shampoo cleaned" is about $50. Yourmaterials to do that size job will cost about $5.
The typical job involves more than just one room, and the averageperiod of time spent on the typical job is about two hours, withan average billing to the customer of $75. Materials for each $75job cost you about $10, all which means that with just fiveappointments per day, five days per week, your gross incomebefore expenses will be approaching $2,000 per week.
Most people who set up carpet cleaning businesses manage to gross$50,000 or more the first year. We've described to you how to getstarted with virtually no real investment. However, we do adviseyou to either purchase or lease your own carpet cleaningequipment just as soon as you can possibly afford it.
Several equipment manufactures have financing plans available. Itwould be well to check several of these plans before purchasingyour own equipment. Even better than the financing plans offered,some of the manufactures have business start-up programs to helpyou along the way. They will provide you with complete carpetcleaning business plan, numerous advertising materials, a regularnewsletter featuring business ideas from all the buyers of theirequipment, and low cost supplies.
Before actually starting work in your carpet cleaning business,you should register you business or company name with your countyclerk. .The cost for this is nominal, and you will receive aregistration certificate or card, which you will need to open anbank account in your company name. You should also talk to a fewbusiness insurance agents to get complete business insuranceagainst damage of any of your customers' carpets or accidents intheir homes. Being able to state "All work fully insured," willgreatly add to your business image.
Think seriously about buying or leasing a van for your servicecalls. A uniform with the name of your company emblazoned on theback, plus a late model van with your company name neatly paintedon the side will do just as much to build your image and yourbusiness as a full page advertisement in the Sunday paper.
On the subject of advertising, so long as you don't erect a signon your front lawn or your roof, proclaiming for all the world tosee the fact that you're operating a carpet cleaning business,you won't have any problems operating your business from yourhome. Sooner or later though, you'll have to buy a city or countybusiness license. So, the sooner you do this and are approved bythe licensing agency in your area, the better you're going tofeel and the more confidence you'll exude in all your businessdealings.
Definitely plan to run a quarter page ad in your local businessand telephone directories. You'll really be surprised at thenumber of calls you get from these ads. At least in thebeginning, you should run a regular ad in your newspaper. Thisshould be a display ad, at least 2 columns wide by 4 inches deepand should appear in your Wednesday and Thursday papers. As youbecome established, it won't be necessary to run more than an adevery other week in your Wednesday papers and before holidayssuch as Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, when people alwayswant to spruce up their residences.
Radio and television advertising really doesn't pull that wellfor this kind of business when you compare the costs to thenumber of jobs you get from it. I would suggest, however, thatyou contact these media and try for a trade or better agreement.You clean their carpets on a regular basis, and they allow you tostore up advertising credit to use in the spring and fall whenpeople are really serious about spring cleaning, and Thanksgivingand Christmas preparations.
It's also recommended that you register as a "probationarymember" of your Chamber of Commerce. This will add prestige toyour business, and enable you to associate on equal terms withthe various other business leaders in your community. Joining andattending civic club meetings, participating in their causes andevents, will also result in long range business income for you.
Something else to keep in mind: Get the word about your being inbusiness out to the people in your area. Get the Chamber ofCommerce to mention you in their newsletter; send "blurbs" aboutyour business and service to all your area newspaper, TV andradio stations; arrange to put on an all-day demonstration ofyour work on the carpeting in the covered mall areas in yourcity's shopping centers, and hand out brochures at all homebuilding, remodeling, and home improvement shows. Do the samething at your county fair, and hold seminars on the care of finecarpets. The ideas for free publicity and promotion arelimitless, so use your imagination and "push" to get your name inthe paper and on radio and TV as often as possible.
There's always going to be competition. Some of it will be goodfor you, and some of it will be bad for you. Accept it as part oflife. Just keep in mind that you're in business because you feelyou can do a better job; you can do it more efficiently; and youcan do it with greater satisfaction to your customers than anyoneelse. Be aware of the competition, but don't worry about it. Juststick to your own business plan, and you'll be okay.
Depending on the population of your area, you should be planningfor additional carpet cleaning machines and the hiring of peopleto do the work for within three to six months---that is,unlessyour original motive for a business of your own was to see howfast you could work yourself to death. Assuming that all goeswell with you, within a couple of years you should have "hiredhelp" running the business while you enjoy the fruits of all thehard work you put in at the outset.
I personally don't see the need for you to even consider buying afranchised operation operation. There's just too much real helpavailable for the "independent" to go to the considerable expenseand obligation of a franchise. starting from scratch, and as anindependent, this is most assuredly a low-investment,low-overhead type business---the kind we recommend for anyone andeveryone who's determined to make it on his own.
A carpet cleaning business of your own is one of the easiest ofall small businesses to start. You'll find the initial start-upcosts well within your reach, and the margin of profit mostastounding! It's an easy business to operate, and yet one thatcan be called necessary to today's standard of living. It carriesa very high rating on all business evaluation stability charts,and it's a business that will grow rapidly to bring you themonetary rewards you desire.