The SFS / VAST team of Jeff Cutshall, Chuck Violand, Bill Yeadon and Steve Toburen share their insights into the best business practices and how you can make it alone in the Cleaning and Restoration Industry.
Carpet cleaning business owners can do well by taking a lesson from small children. Kids are by nature inquisitive and take in enormous amounts of information (also called “learning”) by asking questions. Sadly, as we grow older we lose this essential “growth trait”. Chuck Violand weighs in on why and how you should rekindle your curiosity and start asking some so-called “stupid questions” …
Chuck Violand sums up his recent posts comparing your carpet cleaning and/or restoration business to different types of sailing vessels with a few reminders for you, the captain of the boat. Chuck’s thoughts could mean the difference between a successful voyage or the disastrous “shipwreck” of your business …
Learn how to sell and set up regular commercial contract cleaning accounts. Download Big Billy Yeadon’s ideas on how to develop these essential commercial maintenance programs.
Do you know where your employees are … right now?! Do you think you should know? Steve feels adding “Employee Accountability” to your company is essential. One way to gently “hold your employee’s feet to the fire” is to start tracking your vehicles with a GPS online service. Steve is asking for your “been there- done that” experiences …
We all love to point the finger at other people’s mistakes. Steve just re-discovered a doozy that put a real “dummy” in a wheel chair for life. Why? Because he refused to learn anything from a previous boneheaded blunder. And then we come back to you …
It has been well said, “The fish rots from the head down”. And so it is both with the captain of a ship and YOU heading up your cleaning business. As the owner or manager you should look deep within you BEFORE you transition into a larger business model. If you don’t, just like a ship captain that is “over his head” you may be putting innocent lives at risk! Listen to Chuck …
As carpet cleaning or restoration operation owners we love to bellyache about how “you can’t find good people anymore”! But as Chuck Violand explains, could it be that the fickle finger of guilt points more at us as small business owners and our abdication of our responsibilities as the skipper to develop our crew? Read on …
What do Rock & Roll, Toto, and Facebook have to do with your cleaning business? Value conscious customers!! Big Billy Yeadon advises carpet cleaners to keep an eye on their company image in this new economic climate. So how and what are you contributing to your community?
What type of employees do you want? Easy, you say, “The very best!” Not so fast here. Chuck Violand shares how the size of your company will determine the profile of the employee you want to go “sailing” with you on some very choppy cleaning business seas!
How do you sum up life in one paragraph? Does it even remotely involve your truck mount, pre-spray, cleaning solution or other cleaning equipment? We sure hope not! Brian Dyson of Coca Cola has done a very nice job of helping everyone (carpet cleaning and restoration professionals included) keep focused on the really important things in life …
They say “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery”. If so, SFS member Dave Pastor very “sincerely” likes our SFS Director of Training. Read how Dave blew away his local BNI group by sharing a few key SFS ideas. Then learn how you can use these same concepts in your company. (Even without attending SFS!)
Chuck loves sailboats and he loves business too! So it is only natural that he would draw parallels between the two in when teaching the opening day of Jon-Don’s Strategies for Success. For example, Chuck says that money and sales are the “wind” that not only move your business forward but even help keep it afloat …
As Chuck reflects on how the typical carpet cleaning or restoration business is much like a boat he focuses on your business wind- MONEY! No money? Then as a business you are “dead in the water”. A simple concept? Yes. But at times agonizingly difficult to implement. Read on for Chuck’s meditations …
You would never knowingly hire a heroin addict, would you? And yet you are allowing another equally insidious addiction to continue without trying to stamp it out. Steve shares one sure-fire (but very painful) “tough love” approach …
Chuck Violand has been kicking off the Strategies for Success seminar for the last couple of years reflecting on his love of boats … and how different business models are like varied boats- all of which require different skills and tactics to avoid a tragic shipwreck. So which type of boat are you skippering? Check back in frequently to see Chuck’s latest thoughts …