Bill Yeadon

Big Billy’s complete listing of book and blog reviews

As an entrepreneur continual learning is essential to your success.  But HOW can you keep up?  After all, 11,000 business books were published in 2007 alone! My mission here in the BBB & B section is to sift through that huge pile and review the books and web resources that will help your business …

• Steve Jobs versus the Google Boys January 18, 2012
• American Airlines files Chapter 11- so what? December 8, 2011
• Great managers keep great employees November 9, 2011
• "The surprising truth about what motivates us" September 7, 2011
• Don't know where to start on blogging? August 17, 2011
• Sending the client a "love poem" from their carpet? July 27, 2011
• "Blogging"- A powerful tool for carpet cleaners! April 7, 2011
• Groupon: Does it work for carpet cleaners? December 29, 2010
• We all need a little "feedback" ... December 22, 2010
• The Baker vs. the Carpet Cleaner- Is there a difference? December 1, 2010
• Attention all cleaners- Go beyond Google Places October 13, 2010
• Cleaning professionals- Can you improve your apology technique? October 6, 2010
• How does this quote make you feel? September 22, 2010
• Big business marketing applied to small cleaning business budgets September 8, 2010
• How's Your Elevator Speech? September 1, 2010
• Should a cleaning professional ever really be done learning? August 25, 2010
• How to skillfully pitch your commercial carpet cleaning services August 11, 2010
• How "Duct Tape Marketing" can help a small carpet cleaner ... July 14, 2010
• Is "massive discounting" a sign of panic or just smart business? July 5, 2010
• Are You Fascinating? May 26, 2010
• Ready for a pop quiz? May 17, 2010
• Should a professional carpet cleaner learn from MSN's focus on women? May 5, 2010
• Big Billy Yeadon asks: "How up-to-date are you in your carpet cleaning knowledge?" April 21, 2010
• Use "sound" in your carpet cleaning marketing strategy April 8, 2010
• How are you going to motivate yourself for success in carpet cleaning? March 31, 2010
• How can you motivate your carpet cleaning or restoration employees? March 24, 2010
• "Information age" to the "conceptual age"- where do I fit in? March 10, 2010
• The "Little Big Things" add up in your carpet cleaning business! March 3, 2010
• "Requiem in Pace Yellow Pages." January 27, 2010
• No Waiting, Read This Post Now! January 20, 2010
• Thanks Rob Lyon! What A Great Marketing Book for a Carpet Cleaner! January 6, 2010
• FREE advice from people who aren't carpet cleaners? December 23, 2009
• Web Marketing Checklist December 10, 2009
• Getting Rich December 2, 2009
• Brand Sense- marketing cleaning services through the five senses November 18, 2009
• Gentlemen: Start Your Vacuums November 11, 2009
• Facebook Fan Pages- yes or no? November 4, 2009
• Direct Mail Post Card Critiqued- OUCH! October 28, 2009
• Rhinos, Social Media, Triexta October 23, 2009
• Exploiting Chaos October 21, 2009
• What We Have Here is a Failure to Communicate October 14, 2009
• Failure to Communicate September 30, 2009
• 49 Questions to Improve Your Results September 23, 2009
• Great info and it's free September 14, 2009
• New Type of Business Card September 11, 2009
• The Expectation Effect September 2, 2009
• Is Social Media a Fad? August 26, 2009
• The Non-Designer's Design Book August 12, 2009
• "The right people in the right seats" August 5, 2009
• How the Mighty Fall August 3, 2009
• What’s It Going to Take to Persuade You? July 15, 2009
• How to Get Smart in 15 Minutes June 25, 2009
• Are you a Sales junkie? June 10, 2009
• Couldn't agree more. June 6, 2009
• Wealth From Health June 2, 2009
• The Personal MBA May 13, 2009
• General Ruminations on Business Reading (Part 4) April 8, 2009
• General Ruminations on Business Reading (Part 3) March 11, 2009
• General Ruminations on Business Reading (Part 2) February 4, 2009
• General Ruminations on Business Reading (Part 1) January 7, 2009

But there is one area of pricing that falls more into the marketing realm. This is HOW you price residential carpet cleaning.  And yes, it is a huge “grey area”.  In other words there is not one right way for all companies. What works for a large multi-truck company does not necessarily work for an owner-operator. It all depends on the model your company uses.

So let’s get down to the three major pricing methods:

1. Room Pricing

2. Square Footage Pricing

3. Package Pricing

Room pricing is the most popular method of pricing and is also the standard for large companies such as Stanley Steemer, DalWorth or ChemDry. These companies have thoroughly studied the profitability of their models and you can be very sure they are making money.

Most room pricing models do not include vacuuming and some may not use a traffic lane pre-conditioner. Also, each company may differ on the fine points such as how much (if any!) furniture they move. The strong point of this model is its simplicity. The phone rep asks how many rooms and then quickly gives a price.

Even better a consumer can go on Stanley Steemer’s website and easily figure out how much it will cost them to have their home cleaned without making a phone call. The job can either be booked online or if phoned in will be a much quicker, simpler phone call. All of these items streamline the job allowing for quicker processing both in the office and in the home. Booking the job without a separate pre-inspection visit is attractive as the customer does not have to be home. The average Stanley Steemer truck will clean between 6 and 8 jobs a day!  Wow!

Now when a single-truck operator tries to compete in similar advertising he will lose big time!  Let’s compare a fictional day between a multi and single truck day. Our fictional companies create 30.00 a day profit per truck per job. Single truck does 4 jobs a day for a total of 120.00 profit. Multi-truck operator has 15 trucks doing 6 jobs a day for a total of 1900.00 profit a day. As you can figure the small company cannot compete. The branding and scale of operations favors the larger company.

Square Footage pricing is sold as the fairest of packages as the customer only pays for what is cleaned. This works very well in open areas or for traffic lanes in bedrooms. Customers with smaller rooms are happy because they don’t get charged for an average room which may be larger. This may also simplify the job for the technician as the customer may not want the furniture moved creating more square footage to be cleaned.

The major drawback to this system is when asked the size of their room, most customers say they have no idea. This means either you have to spend a lot of time on the phone coaxing some numbers out of the customer or you have to make a separate visit to the home for an inspection. This may not be a bad deal if the customer is OK with the extra trip. Normally your closing ratio jumps drastically as you are in front of the customer and especially so if you follow Steve Toburen’s “Carpet Cleaning Inspections that Sell” script.  But if you are going to go to the trouble of a separate home inspection then the Package Pricing Model may be your best bet.

Steve doesn’t give me the space to run on and on here (he reserves that privilege for his wordy posts!) and I need to collect my thoughts on package pricing.  But tune in soon for my take on this final and very likely most profitable pricing model- Package Pricing!

NOTE:  If you want to be notified when Part II is published, just subscribe to our RSS feed.  Here’s a primer as to what a RSS feed is and how “feeds” can benefit you.

Here’s how the Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus concept applies in marketing our cleaning and restoration services.  We speak “Martian” while 93% of our clients speak “Venetian”! (Remember that women are your primary market in residential cleaning.)

This “different language” is most obvious in ads that focus on a cleaner’s truck mount or the cleaning method. (The testosterone-driven ads that focus on truck mount brand name or technical data such as heat, psi and inches of Hg just don’t do it for females!) Even worse, your chest thumping statements about “My method is best” or “We’re #1” leave women cold.

Instead, all advertising needs to only answer one question from your customer’s perspective. “Why you? What’s in it for me?” In fact, if Clara Peller of Wendy’s “Where’s the beef?” fame were to return she would be asking “Where’s the benefit for ME?” So let’s do a little marketing “cross dressing” and put on our “Female Customer Eyeglasses.”

Remember that all buying decisions are “right brained-triggered” which means they are emotion based. Ninety percent of these actions are unconscious, subliminal choices.

This is why emotion-based marketing is so much more successful than fact-based marketing. Pictures of babies, puppies, kittens or a beautiful room will outdo a picture of your truck mount any time! So use personal pictures that show you, your family or your company in emotional situations.

This leads to the BIG question that you need to answer before you design any advertising. What is your USP (Unique Service Proposition)? You can figure it out by answering these questions.

1. What is special about your company?
2. What are you (and your employees) passionate about?
3. What does your company do better than anyone else?
4. What can you do that the competition is not doing and not likely to offer?
5. What does your customer need/want in a carpet cleaner?
6. What fears/emotions does your usually female client have about a service company’s technician (usually male) working alone with her in her “inner sanctum”- her home? (Hint- it isn’t pretty!)

Over the years this SFS web site has published many examples of how emotions influence buying decisions (and especially those of women). There is no question that the very best USP you can bring to the Home Front table is “Managing the customer’s experience to provide a high perception of value.” Hey, that sounds like another SFS mantra: Value Added Service!

I challenge you to examine your marketing using the criteria we’ve talked about above. Remember, the main decision maker in your customer’s home is the wife, the mom, a woman. So HOW can you communicate your message to HER effectively?

Bill Yeadon

Did you guess that a cell phone service provider has the most addictive sound? Close … there are 2 cell phone sounds that made the top 10 but the winner is:

Envelope please!

INTEL Yes I know you are saying- “Ooh, ooh, I knew that!”  Yeah, right …

One of my favorite authors, Martin Lindstrom, (the author of Buyology and also Brand Sense) studied the world’s most addictive sounds.  Never forget that the sense of sound is a powerful force in marketing. For example, when a famous casino removed the “annoying sounds” from their slot machines in Las Vegas their slot business dropped 24%!

Maybe you are thinking, “Well, Bill that is real interesting but how can this benefit my carpet cleaning business.”  Simple- you need to incorporate “sound” in your cleaning business marketing strategy. The best known sound, (the high pitched howl from your un-muffled truck mount blower doesn’t count!) is the swoosh sound of your carpet wand. (You haven’t lived until you have heard Chuck Violand do his “rushing air in a scrub wand” sound in our Strategies for Success class!)

Think how easy it would be to put your scrub wand sound on radio. Commercials on the radio all blend together unless a distinct sound makes you re-focus your attention.  So here is the opening for your new commercial:

Indistinct vacuum sound of whispering air steadily increasing in volume and then dropping down.

Voice over: “What was that sound?”

Second person: “What sound?”

Voice over: “That sound!”

Loud sound: Swooshing, sucking noise. (Actually I am sure we could get Chuck to recreate it since he loves doing it!)

Announcer:  “That is the sound of another happy customer getting their carpet cleaned beautifully by Jon-Don cleaners. Just go to www.JonDon.com or call … ”

OK so you don’t like that one!  Then here is another idea. You have probably all bought a birthday card that plays a song. The sound comes from a very cheap computer chip in the card. Have your “carpet wand sound” recreated on a chip and you can place it on your reminder card. (Chuck may be able to retire off of the royalties from this one!)

I am even going to give you the copy:

“Has it been too long since you heard this beautiful sound?” SWOOSH

“What is it? It is the sound of clean, healthy carpet.”

“Call Jon Don today and tomorrow you can hear that great sound plus enjoy sparkling clean carpets once again.”

It may SOUND crazy but remember good marketing in carpet cleaning stands out. Trust me- these ideas WILL stand out!

I guarantee you’ll never listen to your industrial cleaning equipment in the same way.

If you would like to read the full article about the influence of sound in our buying decisions, here you go:

The 10 Most Addictive Sounds in the World

Steve,

I know this is kind of a vague question but what are some pitfalls to buying out other CC businesses? I am a middle aged corporate manager that has dead-ended in my career.  I’m tired of all the company politics and want to do something different. Any “do’s and don’ts” that I should be aware of? What pitfalls have you seen trip up other purchasers of carpet cleaning companies?  Thank you for your help.

Excited About Changing Careers in Minneapolis

PS  I found this site by accident and it has been a huge help.  Thank you all for being so generous with your knowledge.  So far Jon-Don appears to be a great company!

The “Biggest Pitfall”, Excited? Many carpet cleaners, (Strategies for Success members excluded!) don’t have the slightest idea on:

1. How to price their services profitably.

2. How to build a “name brand” that has real value.

3. How to build systems into their company that allow it to be easily transferred.

4. How to build customer loyalty to the company by consistently creating Cheerleaders.

Numbers 1 and 4 are by far the most important. You asked, Excited, so I listed the four most common pitfalls.  By the way, these four points are exactly what we cover in our “Strategies for Success” seminar which by the way would be a superb industry overview for you BEFORE you buy any carpet cleaning business.

There ARE good carpet cleaning companies out there that can cut years off of your learning and growth curve.  I know.  Almost twenty years ago I sold one!  BUT speaking frankly, Excited, too many carpet cleaning companies that are for sale aren’t really “businesses”. They are a “job for the owner” and not a very good job at that! And who wants to “buy a job”?  Come to Strategies!

Steve

P.S. Pitfall #5- Many times, you can’t really believe any of the financial numbers that are presented to you in a prospective purchase and not because carpet cleaners are dishonest. (They are no worse and maybe better than the population as a whole.) BUT, carpet cleaners ARE notoriously bad record keepers and worse accountants. Take all of the “books” you are shown with a grain or two of salt.

By the way, Excited, while I don’t have a Special Report on how to BUY a carpet cleaning company I do have one on how to “prepare your business for a successful sale“.  You can use the points in the report as a yardstick to evaluate the companies you look at.

You baby boomers can immediately visualize the sensuous curves of the greenish looking glass. Remember the hiss of the bottle as you opened it and the cold refreshment as the caramel colored nectar rushed down your throat and tingled all the way to your stomach. As a kid that was usually followed by a satisfying “ahhhh” and a quick wipe of your mouth with your sleeve.

Wow! I’m getting thirsty just thinking about it! Can you see how years ago Coca-Cola involved touch, sight, hearing, smell and taste in every product? This is what Martin Lindstrom explains in Brand Sense. But do you think children today will look back on their youth and remember the feel of an aluminum Coke can? Close your eyes and there is no way you can feel the difference between a can of Coke or Budweiser. (Taste obviously is another matter!)

Starbucks has bought into the sensory benefits. Walk into a Starbucks and the smell of coffee surrounds and permeates you. Even people who don’t drink coffee like the smell. Starbucks goes to great lengths to choose the right type of music and then sell you the CD. The warmth of the cup in your hand and the taste of the coffee gives new meaning to comfort foods. Comfortable chairs, fireplaces and wireless computer service make it a “home away from home”, just as Starbucks imagined it.

You are probably thinking that it is easy to involve a variety of senses in drinks like Cokes and coffee. But how can you bring the client’s senses into play in carpet cleaning and restoration?

S i g h t

Sight is the most seductive (and most important) sense of all. A test was done with flavored soft drinks. Everyone performed well when the grape drink was purple and the orange drink was orange, but when the cherry drink was switched to yellow, 40% tasted it and thought it was a lemon lime drink. This means that if you pull up in a Bozo Clean truck and a sloppy technician saunters up to the door, the most beautiful, fresh smelling carpet will still not satisfy the customer. A beautifully groomed carpet should look better than the day it was installed. A restorer needs to make sure those dehumidifiers and fans look clean. (One Jon-Don client meticulously cleans every dryer and covers them with new plastic bags for each job.)

S m e l l

The sense of smell is an easy one for carpet cleaning. Smell can alter our mood. Tests show a 40% improvement in our mood when exposed to a pleasant fragrance, particularly if the fragrance taps into a happy memory. You can introduce a pleasant scent very easily using one of the 9 scents from Jon-Don’s Matrix Fresh Family of deodorizers. Find one that your customer likes and add a drop to any future mailing to that customer. Restorers know that the second day of a drying job is when the customer starts complaining about the musty smell and worrying that mold is taking over her house. A smart restoration company will set up an air scrubber on Day One that will eliminate those moldy smells. Create immediate positive Moments of Truth after a fire loss by using a suppression spray to knock down the smoke odor. This helps to convince the customer that there is hope that their home can be restored.

To u c h

When a customer chooses carpet, the second most important item after color is the touch or the feel of the carpet. The same is true after the carpet is cleaned. They comment on how soft the carpet feels under their bare feet or how the kids now like to lie on the carpet. When cleaning velvet fabrics, the feel is even more important. For carpet and fabric, a good acid rinse such as Matrix All Fiber Rinse will do the job.

S o u n d

With this sense the less the better. Unless you are a serious truck mount fanatic, a loud truck mount is annoying. On the other hand, the rhythmic sound of a wand actually can be soothing. (If you haven’t been to Strategies recently and heard Chuck Violand’s new imitation of a scrub wand you haven’t lived!) Listen to your vacuum and check to see how noisy it is. Remember women have a much greater sensitivity to noise.

Ta s t e

This is a tough one to include for the customer! Of course giving dog biscuits to the family dog is a positive MOT for both the dog and the homeowner. On the negative side, be careful using solvents as they can literally leave a bad taste in your customer’s mouth.

For almost a half-century marketers have focused on the Unique Selling Proposition or USP. Today that is changing to an HSP or Holistic Selling Proposition.

The HSP plays perfectly with the idea of marketing to all the senses. Over 90% of our decisions come from our unconscious mind. In other words the senses detect, the brain selects and the conscious mind elects.

So look at your company from a consumer’s viewpoint. Think about how you can incorporate more sensory impressions into not only the actual service but also into your entire marketing program. While you may not have the benefit of an icon like the Coke bottle, your copy can paint visual pictures that can make people “experience your service” before it happens. Thus you can make carpet cleaning something they look forward to instead of something they dread.

Do you know of someone who has or has attempted to develop, successfully or unsuccessfully, a carpet cleaning business similar to the Honda/Acura, Toyota/Lexus, etc., models of serving both price conscious and more discerning clients?  This is a concept that I find intriguing and would like to learn what someone else may have experienced.

There would be two separate entities operating under one corporate umbrella.  For instance, my existing premium “high end” company would continue to cater to a more discerning client base while a separate service would serve more price sensitive clients.  My feeling is that the benefits would be found in economies of scale in purchasing, maintenance, office/bay, and fixed costs (admin staff, utilities, etc.)  Essentially this model would be a multi-truck operation but with different names on the trucks.

The idea, for me anyway, is to make the infrastructure a “multi-mission platform from which deployable units have different missions”.  Forgive me as I spent many years in the Navy and can’t stop thinking like that!

Anyway, I was just wondering if you were aware of anyone having attempted something similar.  I’d like your thoughts on this.  Thanks so much.

Intrigued in Southern Georgia

Dear Intrigued,

I think it will be very difficult to maintain two corporate cultures and identities under one roof.  (Especially if you start trading employees back and forth and if you can’t do that you lose an essential advantage of the plan.)  You will also be dividing your marketing dollars and inevitably your presence in the community.

By happy circumstance, Intrigued, I just posted a reply to Jeff Cross over on the Cleanfax bulletin board re: business expansion.  Even though Jeff was talking about expanding into two different cities I think the main points still apply to what you are proposing.  I’ll paste it in as my famous P.S.

But the key point from my Cleanfax post is “Do you totally dominate the market you are serving now?”  If not, then your biggest bang for the buck is probably to focus on your local Prime Market first.

Remember that the Navy is not a profit making entity!  Honestly, I find most “going outside your market expansion plans” are driven more by owner boredom than by sound financial planning.  Sorry to rain on your parade!

Let us all know what you decide.

Steve

P.S.  Here is the question my good friend, Jeff Cross, posed on his excellent Cleanfax discussion forum:

Expanding to other cities?

So you feel that you have cornered the most valuable customers in your own local market, business is good, and now you are thinking of expanding.  What are some marketing or management steps you would take if you were to expand to another, nearby town or city and “set up shop” there?  Jeff

My reply:

My simple answer for 99% of the cleaners/restorers out there would be …  DON’T.

Why not?  Simply because very few will ever totally dominate their local and easily reached markets and if so why go through the agony of setting up a branch location?

IF someone insists on going ahead and expand into another location or company here is what I would do:

a)  Build up a big “expansion fund”.  (You will need it all before the new location can stand on its own two feet.)

b)  Develop a complete Operations Manual of my existing location so that the new branch would be a “clone” of the original.  This will allow you to trade employees, equipment, etc.

NOTE:  SFS members will have a huge head start on point “b” with the 1,000 page’s plus of systems and procedures that they receive in their Strategies for Success seminar.  And no, you can’t “buy” the SFS Operations Manual!  We give it to you free but only if you attend the SFS seminar.  (You also have to promise to not fall asleep during Big Billy Yeadon’s marketing day.)

c)  Look for a good branch manager and cut them in on a profit-sharing plan for the new location.

d)  Especially in the beginning hold your mananger accountable to meet growth and profit targets.  (Actually this topic of “Adding Employee Accountability” is a good goal for every company.)

e)  Before I did any of these things I would have verified that the new area met my target demographics.

f)  Then before I pulled the trigger I would have someone blindfold me and pound me to a pulp with a 2″ X 4″.  IF I enjoyed that experience I would continue with my expansion plans.  On the other hand, if I discovered I wasn’t such a masochist after all, I would probably focus on my current location  and maybe “expand” by offering other services to my existing client base.

My two cents,
Steve
sfs.jondon.com

P.S.  Honestly, Jeff, I find most but not all “second location” expansion plans are fueled by owner boredom, not by actual profit and loss realities.

Now I gotta say I’m the first to say I can be wrong.  So let me know if you agree or not by giving us your comments below.  No matter how bad you pillory me you still have my thanks in advance for participating.

Steve

Since 2002 Toyota has admitted receiving over 2,000 reports of unintended acceleration in different models (all of which had gas pedal assemblies from the same plant- duh!) and went through multiple government investigations.  During all of this the company basically stone-walled, repeatedly saying that all of their vehicles were safe and coming up with a wide array of excuses for the problems.

Then on August 28 at 6:35 PM a panic-stricken 911 call came in from near San Diego:  “We’re in a Lexus … we’re going north on 125 and our accelerator is stuck … we’re in trouble … there’s no brakes … we’re approaching the intersection … hold on … hold on and pray … pray …”  Then the call ended with the heart-rending sounds of a crash.

Tragically, all four occupants of the car, including the driver who was an off-duty California state trooper, died in the fiery accident.  Once the 911 call was released Toyota finally was forced into paying attention.  Ouch!

So what can you take out of this tragic tale?  Your carpet cleaning business may not literally have people’s lives in its hands like a car company does.  However, your reputation has been slowly and painfully gained over many years … and is equally fragile.  Soooo …

Above all else- LISTEN.  Toyota appears to have missed the ball on this one due to a combination of apathy, complacency and denial- all very dangerous qualities  in business.  In Strategies for Success we highlight a famous quote from many years ago by Andrew Grove of Intel fame:  “Only the paranoid survive.” I’m sure right now Toyota executives are wishing they had inscribed this dictum on their board room wall or even had it tattooed on all of their foreheads!

So do you have mechanisms for your customers to TALK to you?  Customer comment cards, next-day Quality Check Calls, a customer review section on your web site?  And when you get even a luke-warm review do you not only respond to the customer, but even more importantly ask two company-wide questions:  “WHERE did our systems break down?  HOW can we change our Service Circle to make sure this never happens again?”  (Ask any SFS graduate what the term “Service Circle” means and you will get an earful! For more SFS customer service ideas download these tips.)

Something to think about …