Simple Chemical Question

Got this off another board:

Edited by kkForumAdmin - 08/May/2009 at 1:28am

one of my competitors uses pre-spray and rinses with just water, he says saves money on chemicals, is this ok to do?

nothing wrong with a porty. don't have the cost of TM start up or maintenence and a way cheaper to begin. go TM after you get established. better yet maybe look at OP cleaning. seems to be the in thing these days.

Thanks, RedStar.

It's been a tough start for me since I'm a new business and am not yet really known in the area. With the economy the way it is and snow on the ground now it certainly isn't helping matters. I bet once spring comes things will start looking up.

I seem to have an advantage over my competitors since I'm using a portable. My competitors keep trying to get commercial clients but can't because they only have a truck mount. The commercial places I spoke with had to turn my competitors away because their insurance polices prohibited the doors/windows being open after hours to get the hoses inside from the truck mount. There really isn't anybody except for Chem Dry and one other person who does VLM in my area. Everyone else just does hot water extraction with truck mounts.

I anticipated being slow since I was a new company and since winter was near. That's why I made sure I had enough money to pay for all the equipment in full and cover the expenses for insurance etc in case I didn't get customers right away. I'm glad I did, and I'm glad I still have my other business to fall back on. But my other business is only seasonal (during late fall/early winter) so that's why I was looking to get into carpet cleaning.

Being slow has been useful though. When I'm not filling orders for my other business I spend a lot of time reading up on various carpet cleaning forums and practicing at my house on various remnant carpets I bought. Just last night I was bored and wanted to fire up the machine so I practiced getting stains out of the one carpet. I learn a lot from people on here and the various boards. The guy I bought my Rotovac from lives 20 miles away and told me I could contact him if I ever had any questions so that's always helpful as well.

Edit: Can't forget all the investing advice I learn from here too. Although I can't say I always agree with it


Edited by luvsnow - 06/January/2009 at 11:08pm

Always happy to help when I can, luvsnow.

Another suggestion is to consider charging more if the carpet needs the extra scrubbing power of the rotovac.  Because of the points we agree on of time and chemical expenses involved in the use of the powerwand and the end results produced - the customer should be willing to pay for what he or she gets.

You are the pro.  That means you prescribe the correct treatment and if the patient will not follow the doctors orders the good doctor informs the patient he will not be able to continue treating the patient.  When writing an estimate, you must be willing to walk away and not look back.  You will find out if they value your judgment or if they are looking for the neighborhood boy who can follow instructions and do their dirty work.

Ken_Is_OK wrote: you never had your own carpet cleaned so that means you dont really value carpet cleaning. why did you get into the business in the first place?

I came back to read something and realized I missed this post. I don't know if you saw my thread in the Introduce yourself forum, but I'm 19. So the choice was never really mine as to when the carpets got cleaned. When I was younger the carpets were cleaned regularly by Stanley Steemer, but my mom swore they didn't use chemicals so she went with someone who did Bonnet Cleaning instead. She liked how the carpet came out and called the guy in twice a year. Then the guy who did it, had a stroke and sold off his business. She called the guy who bought the business and didn't like how he cleaned and for whatever reason, just stopped cleaning the carpet professionally.

Don't ask me, if it was my carpet that I paid for, I'd get it cleaned regularly. No sense in spending all that money on a carpet and not take care of it!