I’m Jon-Don’s “Value Added Service for Technician’s” (VAST)* seminar coordinator plus I am an IICRC approved instructor presenting a host of different seminars for Jon-Don.  I haven’t chimed in here as often as I should and I’ll try to improve.  (My excuse is that I’m on the road a lot more than that slacker Steve Toburen!)

Burn-out is a common industry problem for both us as entrepreneurs and our employees.  Here is a humorous but sobering take on how to identify the signs of impending burn-out before you get slammed.  How many of these symptoms have you noted lately in your life?

#1 You used to eat out for lunch, now while cleaning your customer’s couch you just rummage through it looking for leftovers.

#2 You’ve actually named your wand!

#3 You used to brag about 2-3 hour dry times. Now your jobs take two or three weeks to dry- and you don’t care!

#4 When your customer asks you a question you tell them to just “mind your own business”.

#5 When you make out an invoice you can’t remember what year it is!

#6 Your new reply to a customer asking “how much will the job cost?” is, “Look lady, if you have to ask, you can’t afford me”!

#7 You used to guarantee customer satisfaction, now you guarantee you’ll show up sober!  (But only if the job starts before noon!)

#8 The last time you smiled was when your truck mount broke down so you could FINALLY get a day off!

#9 Your new marking strategy involves standing on a busy intersection with a hand-lettered cardboard sign that reads “Will clean carpets for food.”

#10 You ask your customer: “Uhh, Mrs. Jones, since you are not doing anything anyway, would you mind pulling some hose?”

#11 You start using your handkerchief as a spotting towel OR vice-versa!

#12 You have Dr. Phil on your speed dial.

#13 The only “spotter” you carry on your truck is a pair of scissors.

#14 You confess to your customer, “My best friend ran off with my wife … and I still miss him!”

#15 A client asks you “how is it going?” and you burst into tears.

All of the above were offered in jest … or were they?  Hmmmm … maybe I better get focused and do a more serious post on burn-out!

Happy cleaning,

Jeff Cutshall

Jon-Don’s VAST Coordinator

*Our “Value Added Service for Technicians” is actually a bit of a misnomer.  The VAST seminar is designed for ALL employees (and owners), not just technicians, of carpet cleaning companies to give a one day in-depth look at how to apply the SFS core concept of Value Added Service in their daily actions.  Companies that have sent employees to VAST (or sponsored me to come in and present one on-site) report much greater job satisfaction and morale among their employees and many more Cheerleaders than before the seminar.  For more information just e-mail me at jeffc@jondon.com or call me at 816-223-6659. In addition to VAST info on this website you can click here for even more details and our current class schedule.

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• “Share the wealth” of what can be a crushing responsibility
• Empower your people while at the same time “hold their feet to the fire”
• Introduce security measures into your company that will help “honest people stay honest”!

In this Special Report Steve Toburen explains how to achieve the above and much more. Your company doesn’t have to be a source of headaches and heartburn!

Steve

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I was wondering what your opinion is about offering my carpet cleaning customers the option of paying with a credit card?  Do you think it would increase my average carpet cleaning ticket sales? For the last 22 years I’ve only accepted personal checks (or CASH, of course!) but now I’m considering accepting credit cards.  But it is yet another monthly expense so I’m wondering if it makes sense.  It seems like I’ve had a few people at least a couple times a month ask if I accept VISA and MasterCard.  I would think you could make more money accepting them, to charge add-on extras such as additional rooms, Scotchgard, upholstery cleaning, etc, etc.  Taking their credit card number also might be a good safeguard on those moving out of town. And accepting credit cards would also be super helpful to have for those Stay Beautiful carpet cleaning maintenance contracts you told us about in the Strategies for Success seminar and yes, I know I still need to get my S/B program set up!  Of course the credit card sales people all say I need to accept credit cards, but you know how that goes!

Pondering in San Diego

Hey Pondering,

If you read over your query above I think you’ll see you have already answered your own question!  Just look at all the extremely valid advantages you list on accepting credit cards for cleaning payment and all without any “prompting” from me!

So yes, I always recommend offering the option of payment by credit cards.  (Many SFS members tell me the American Express card is very popular among their clients but that may depend on where you live.)  All the points you mention above are valid plus being able to make automatic withdrawals from your cleaning customer’s credit card is essential to the Stay Beautiful plan’s success.

In addition, numerous studies have shown people are likely to spend more per ticket when paying by credit card. (This obviously means more sales for your carpet cleaning services and a good thing for you!) Plus don’t forget to use this SFS “skyrocket your Scotchgard sales” technique of:

a) On the initial phone call get permission to phone them at work and then …

b) Call the customer at the end of the job and review/qualify the job and finally …

c) Just ask them if they would like to have their Scotchgard finish “renewed”?  When the customer agrees to this “impulse buy” getting their credit card for the Scotchgard finish means you get your money right away and you avoid the hassle of having to bill them.

Let me know how you are doing and get that Stay Beautiful program up and running!

Steve

P.S.  One suggestion, Pondering, would be to check around on credit card provider rates.  Some have gotten very competitive on rates they charge.  If you are going to process a lot of credit cards I would look at the wireless terminal option.  You might post this credit card question on the different industry discussion forums out there as these folks are down in the trenches and can give you some very up-to-date information.

Now obviously after all this trouble you want to actually have these comment cards returned so …

Always pre-apply an actual stamp to your Customer Comment Cards.  Your clients won’t want to “waste the postage” and you’ll find your response rates will more than double!

Bonus TIP: Leave several spaces under the heading “Friends who might be interested in our services” for your client to write in names and phone numbers of prospective clients. Also ask: “May we use your name when contacting these people?”

For all of this to work your employees need to be both reminded (and rewarded) about giving great customer service. And getting your employees on board with Customer Comment Cards is what we’ll talk about in your next QuickTIPS!

Steve Toburen

Every week we share a timely, practical tip like the above. So if you’re not already signed up for these FREE weekly QuickTIPS, do so now.

This week’s FOCUS: Low budget start-ups

What equipment should I buy with $5K for a carpet cleaning start-up?

Can buying a franchise help me get started in carpet cleaning?

When should I move my owner-operator carpet cleaning operation out of my house?

What is the survival rate of new carpet cleaning start-ups?

What can I do to pay the bills till my carpet cleaning business kicks in?

As a “just starting out” carpet cleaner should I buy expensive or low cost cleaning chemicals?

Should I start out hitching a ride as a sub-contractor cleaner?

When to jump from my part-time “job” to a “real” cleaning business?

Download: Ten Essential Strategies for Success in a Tough Economy

Download: 12 Secrets to Success in Carpet Cleaning

Also new this week:

• The “Lone Ranger” Rides No More (Part I)
• How Mac W. Skiver found “Sawadee” at SFS!
• SFS Seminar- August, 2011 (Portland, OR)
• QuickTIPS: Impress your carpet cleaning client with a flashlight
• So how do I get started in contract commercial carpet cleaning?
• Don’t know where to start on blogging?

Create a positive Moment of Truth with the customer by focusing on the drying of their carpet. Ask the customer which room in their house they would like to have dry first and start there. If needed, you can also place air movers on this area to speed dry it.

It may be that you were going to start there anyway. However, by getting the customer’s opinion and asking permission to do any other Value Added Services, you have the advantage that you are subtly pointing out that these are positive Moments of Truth. As we all learn during the Strategies for Success Seminar, if the customer does not perceive it as a Moment of Truth, it isn’t one!

Steve

P.S. How do you let your customers know they are in the driving seat? Please share your techniques below in the comments.

Just a short question.  I’ve always felt like I should be able to charge a premium rate for night or weekend work. However, when I bring this idea up to other carpet cleaners they act like I’ve hit on their mother!  What did you do and if you did charge more, how much over your regular rates was it and did you get any resistance?

Perplexed in Toledo

Good question, Peplexed.  Let’s break my answer down by industry segment.  For example, commercial work … they expect you to do it after hours.  So I did not break out a separate charge.  BUT our production level was high enough we almost always made more per hour than we did on our day time residential work which we also then shared with our commercial crews.  So in a round-a-bout way we did charge a premium for commercial.  But our customer didn’t realize it!

Residential?  This gets a little trickier.  I would set my minumum pricing higher for after hours work and if they kick offer them the option of waiting and having it done during normal working hours.  (Hopefully when I had a truck out in their neighborhood.)  But of course all these “rules” go out the window when you are dealing with a “preferred customer”!

Charge more for emergency water damages that came in after hours? Absolutely. For years, we didn’t charge extra for “after hours call-outs”. Then one day I finally got smart.  We started charging a 50% surcharge for work where we received the call AND responded between 5 PM and 11 PM workdays and 8 AM to 5 PM on Saturdays. We charged an 80% surcharge on work between 11 PM and 8:00 AM on work days and between 5 PM Saturday and 8:00 AM on Monday.

I cringe to think of the money I lost over the years by not making this one simple change … Of course, we didn’t have the internet back there for me to check with other people across the country.  You have such an incredible resource with the internet, Perplexed, and in SFS we’re happy to be your “partner for success”.

Steve

P.S. Don’t tell me this can’t be done. I charged these “up-charges” on hundreds of restoration losses over a ten year period and I didn’t have ONE adjuster peg me on it. (We didn’t charge extra on the equipment rentals, only on the actual emergency services.)

In other words the question your customer wants to ask you is “Can I trust you?”

Well “Ozzie and Harriet” are gone and so is our sense of trust. In fact a recent poll stated that the trust factor for business has dropped in one year from 58% to 44%. At that rate in a few years no one will open their doors to strangers. (Much less the typical carpet cleaning technician!)

Since Steve Toburen developed the Strategies for Success seminar for Jon-Don, way back in the dark ages, he has hammered home the idea that most of our customers (often female) are fearful of service people coming to their homes. This is even more critical today.

What has changed since then (the first SFS seminar was in 1996) is the rise of the Internet and the use of social media such as Facebook and Twitter. Customers are trying to make decisions about your trustworthiness before they ever communicate with you. What is on your website? Is the homepage a picture of your truck and fire-breathing equipment? Listen carefully here:  NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOUR TRUCK!

Instead, you should talk about the people who work for your company. How about pictures of the technicians and your staff? Place a bio underneath each employee’s photo and list their qualifications to come into your customers home. Tell the story about how you started your company and why. People love to read about how a guy left corporate America so he could be free in the afternoon to coach his daughters basketball team. Your story may not be as exciting but it is your story. It is what makes you different from the large franchises.

Are you on Facebook? If you use it  strictly for hanging out with friends just remember that your customer may also be looking at your posts. Use Facebook to promote your company but in a non-salesy way. If you are doing a charity event for dogs make sure all your customers know about the event and how you are participating.

Have you started a blog?  This can be under your company name but it can also blog about the Saturday soccer games at the local community park. Always remember that people don’t do business with companies- they do business with people!  Your job is to become a “trust agent.” In other words you want people to feel comfortable with you and your company.

Today it is easier than ever to reach your customers, but it is less likely that they will listen. After all, why should they? They have been burned repeatedly by too many other carpet cleaners.

Your job is create the systems that will allow them to answer that question without asking it. The entire SFS program is built upon the systems that will turn you into a trust agent and your company into a totally different business model based on the Emotional Dynamics of the Home Front.  Want to know more?  Dig deeper into this site including by checking out our Special Reports Directory.

We’re looking at buying a mailing list and targeting certain demographics for a Spring carpet cleaning mailing campaign.  Do you find an age range that the majority of residential customers fall into? If you were going to direct mail to carpet cleaning prospects and age was one of the available selection criteria, what age range would you include in the target search?

Just Thinking About It in Rochester, NY

An interesting question, Just.  My estimate would be over 35 and with an emphasis on even older.  But let me digress on your initial question to expound on why this “35 and even older” profile presents such a challenge for the typical carpet cleaner IF he or she wants to grow.

In our “Strategies for Success” seminar we do a class exercise profiling both our typical customer (including age) and the average (usually very young) entry-level technician. The differences between the two will scare you to death.

After extensive class discussion we always arrive at the same conclusion: Both the typical young technician and the (usually middle aged to elderly) home owner are suffering from the same Primary Emotion- They are SCARED TO DEATH of the other individual in the transaction!

Then I ask: “What did we call the last relationship between two countries founded on ‘Mutual Fear”?” That’s right- the COLD WAR. Something to think about.

Another question: What do we do when we fear someone? We avoid them. So consequently there are thousands of hard working but oh-so-very-young techs out there who spend their day “hiding out” from the client, avoiding them as much as possible.

Yet the #1 way the customer defines if a “good job” or a “bad job” was done on the carpets is based on their RELATIONSHIP with the person doing the work. Interesting, huh? How to get out of this vicious cycle?  “Knowledge does bring confidence.”  We fear what we don’t understand and we avoid what we fear, including the homeowner. And so the vicious cycle begins once again … so sad, because it is so unnecessary … with the right knowledge.

The side effects of fighting this “Customer Cold War” are the main reason so many young technicians burn out and quit quickly. Our job as owners and managers of carpet cleaning businesses is to give our techs the tools (weapons) to fight and win. Sorry to be so dramatic … but it is all true. And where can your technicians get this “knowledge”?  (I thought you would never ask!)  Just go here VAST to see where your front line techs can get the knowledge and confidence they so desperately need!

Steve

P.S.  Wow, Just, that was quite a detour from your original question re: mailing demographics.  Let me get back on track here!  IF you are going to buy a list based on home owner age I would go with forty and over.  But two additional suggestions:

1. I would think median household income and average neighborhood home values would be two factors that might even be more valuable than age.  Lost of “old people” are just scraping by on social security and hand outs from their kids.  Sad but this economic fact makes them poor prospects for your services.  You are looking for affluent home owners with disposable income, regardless of their age.
2. Before you invest huge amounts of money in direct mail analyze your website and especially how well you are doing with “search engine optimization”.  At least some of the funds you have targeted for direct mail may be much better invested in the internet.  Maybe Big Billy Yeadon will chime in here with a few thoughts …

And so it goes.  This crazy texting/cellphone addiction isn’t just limited to train engineers.  Techno addiction is a cancer in this country and especially so with the twenty-something generation that you likely draw your technicians from.

Hopefully you are in agreement with me that yakking/texting on a cellphone while working in the customer’s home is a huge NEGATIVE Moment of Truth!  And yet … trust me, every day carpet cleaning technicians are ticking home owners off big time doing exactly this!  So how about your company? Do you KNOW what your techs are doing out there?  Do you think you should?  Or even more importantly…

How can you keep your young techno-addicted employees from texting on their cellphones when you can’t be on top of them 24-7?  Simple.  You can’t!  Sure, you can rap their knuckles and say, “Now don’t make personal phone calls in the customer’s home!  And don’t text either!”

Folks, give me a break.  Telling your employees not to make personal phone calls on the job is the equivalent of me locking up a heroin addict in a home with a big drug stash and saying, “I’m going to be gone all day.  Now don’t you do any drugs while I’m gone!”  Give me a break!

Here is what some of our Strategies for Success members have been doing.  (Bear in mind if you implement this idea you WILL encounter employee resistance.)  When your employees come in to work each day:

1. They turn in their personal cell phones to the receptionist who will monitor their phone for emergency calls and if needed will contact them in the field.
2. In turn the employee picks up a company supplied cellphone which has been blocked so that it can ONLY receive and make calls to and from the office.
3. Now the employee can contact the office and if needed the office can patch them through to other business and, if absolutely necessary, emergency personal calls too.

BUT the key here is YOU are in control of the employee/homeowner transaction instead of an immature worker that is hopelessly addicted to his cellphone.  And that should give you a warm and fuzzy feeling inside!

Hey Steve,

I’m a technician who attended your recent Langhorne, PA SFS. Quick question for you. When you were in business, did you by chance have your employees wear bow ties? I think they could create a great positive Moment of Truth when worn to a customers home. I really would like to start wearing them but I’m having trouble convincing my boss (who also attended SFS with me) to implement them. He seems skeptical about them and after all, he’s the boss! I’m just looking for your opinion on my bow tie suggestion and any input you could give.

Thanks for your help,

Pennsylvania Bow Tie Boy!

P.S.  I’m still seeing amazing things happen from implementing procedures from SFS! I am sooo excited about our business!!!

Hi Pennsylvania,

Great to hear from you.  Even before I focus on your question- congratulations for caring enough about the business you work for to write in!  (And I LOVE your PS where you state that you are “so excited about our business!”  I wish you had been around back when I was working down in the trenches! Your boss is fortunate to have you!)

Anyway, to the bow tie idea.  It is true- I wear a bow tie with my carpet cleaning technician uniform in our SFS seminar.  And I think it is a great idea to appeal to your customers- most of whom are over forty years old and were raised on the old Texaco “you can trust your car to the man who wears a star” commercials.  (And of course they were also wearing BOW TIES!)  My guess is it would make people smile and/or talk about you to others and isn’t that what a Cheerleader does?  TALK!

Now, on the other hand, is the “bow tie issue” going to sink a business either way?  No.  It is just a detail- nothing more.  And the “old guard” (my apologies to the owner of your business!) is probably going to resist it.  (Especially older technicians!)  Why not ask your boss if you personally can “try it for a week”?  Why not?  I would have been delighted to have a tech showing the amount of initiative you are.  (And yes, Pennsylvania, you can quote me to your boss!)

Steve

P.S.  A easy, cheap way to get the type of black bow tie I wear at SFS is go to any second hand clothing store and look in their formal wear section.  It will probably cost you a dollar!  Also another hint is to buy your uniform shirt a half size too large.  This way you can button that top button to wear your bow tie and yet be comfortable without the collar constricting your neck!

NOTE to business owners:  Isn’t it great that Pennsylvania (who is a technician but with management potential) is “buying in” emotionally to the business he works for?  Would you like to enjoy the same result from your key people?  Then do them the honor of trusting them enough to bring them to SFS!  The return on your investment in them will be enormous!