Dear carpet cleaner,
Are you constantly struggling with the poor-cash-flow blues? Has the tough economy lengthened your customer’s times between cleanings? Do you see your customers “migrating” away to greener pastures? (Read here companies with marketing budgets much bigger than you can afford!) Deep down inside are you afraid no one will want to buy your business when it comes time to “hang up the wand”? Find one great proven answer to all your concerns by downloading this free Strategies for Success Special Report: “An Overview of the Stay Beautiful program” by Steve Toburen.
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This program is probably one of the best things that I was able to get out of SFS. Since I have started the program, I have been able to sign up 8 people for an approximate total of around 200 per month. That will come in handy when Winter time hits here in Spearfish, SD!! I still need to come up with a follow up letter to those people that are not in their home when I clean for them. As for SFS, all I can say is WOW!! I learned more in that one week than I had in 7 years of business. I am very thankful that I went in October 2008 in Roselle!! JonDon has completely outdone themselves with this program and I am forever grateful!! Thanks JonDon, Steve, Bill and Chuck!!
Steve,
Thanks you sooooo much for this great idea! Wonderfully written article!
Cathy
No Cathy, it is I who must thank you! Sometimes Bill and I feel like “prophets crying alone in the wilderness” with no one listening. So comments like this are the gasoline that keeps us going. Please keep contributing here.
Steve
PS Now when will we see you at a SFS, Cathy? You are just the sort of member we want in our select group.
Steve,
I told my husband that we MUST attend. We’ve decided that I will continue to “lord over” the house cleaning portion of the business but he is going to take control of the carpet cleaning portion.
I know the house cleaning portion like the back of my hand. My goal now is to master carpet cleaning knowledge….but I cannot do it all. So I’m getting hubby on board with this.
He is going to get certified and we will start searching for a tech who can also get certified….so that we can work ON the business, not IN the business (E-Myth).
I’ll keep you posted!
Cathy
I’m delighted to see the “we” part of your sentence, Cathy. Those couples who attend SFS together implement MUCH, MUCH more than those who go separately.
Steve
PS Do not postpone SFS, Cathy, and don’t wait too long to sign up. For example, our Roselle class in mid-March is already over-booked and with 20 people on a waiting list to get in.
Steve,
We are in the process of evaluating the SB program for our company to determine if it would be a good fit.
One question that we didn’t see addressed in the special report…. (and no, I didn’t go to my SFS manual to see if it was there).
Since the monthly payement is based off the initial cleaning price, how would we deal with yearly price increase? We raise our prices every year. Do we raise the 10% we are “billing” each month?
Or allow them to stay at the initial rate? You noted that you had some customers on the program for 10 years. Did they stay locked in to the rate from 10 years ago or did you charge them 10% of your current rate to do that scope of work?
We can see another selling point if the rates are kept 10% of the initial cleaning. Telling the customer if they sign up for the SB program today, the will have this ‘rate’ for the life of the agreement and won’t be subject to price increases! We think this could work from a business persepctive since the profitability of the program is so great that even if you don’t raise the price for the SB customers, you’d still be ahead of the game (that is…if your pricing is profitable to begin with). And it’s a win for the customer. What an incentive! It sounds great to them to have no price increase when in actuality, while we raise our prices each year, it’s not so significant that it would make a big impact on the 10% they are paying each month. 10% of the price increase would only be cents or a couple dollars in thier monthly payment – but they may not realize it. It certainly does have emotional impact to the customer to never have a price increase while in the SB program.
Your thoughts on this are appreciated!
Meg
Okay…I did go to my SFS manual and it wasn’t addressed there either. LOL
Good point, Meg.
If you check the sample S/B contract under Paperwork and in the System marked “Stay Beautiful” you will see Point #7 “Termination or Modification of the Program” it allows you to change the program at any time. However, the obvious caution to this is the customer also has the right to terminate their participation too!
I would be cautious about two things:
1. You wouldn’t want to lightly raise their monthly price because the beauty of this program is they become used to the same monthly price. If you change it you WILL see some people dropping off the program.
2. On the other hand, I don’t think I would lock myself into t a “same price for life” guarantee. You just never know and the people that will want the program will go for it without the guarantee.
Thanks for “holding my feet to the fire”.
Steve