Many times your job applicants aren’t liars. However, they may be “overly optimistic”. Other times they may be simply clueless! This is bad enough when hiring a new technician. But it can be disastrous for your carpet cleaning business when you take a managerial applicant’s previous work experience at face value …
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 …
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 …
Everyone wants success but few ever find it. Bill goes down deep into the human psyche with some soul searching questions about what motivates you as a business owner. Fortunately for all of us there are answers to be found inside us …
A prospective Denver carpet cleaner has caught the “entrepreneurial cleaning bug” but his wife just isn’t excited about this new development. Steve timidly ventures into the “family counseling” field with some hard-learned wisdom from his own experience in cleaning up …
Do you like your job? Do your techs and office staff like their jobs? Do you know OR are you afraid to ask them? Insights to both their and your motivations can give some engaging and maybe even frightening answers …
Don’t you just hate those nasty call-backs and complaints after you are convinced you left the carpets looking great? (Especially when the customer wasn’t even there when you did the work! Grrrr …) Here is one great way to pro-actively solve this problem before it even starts …
You may be “just a carpet cleaner” but have you ever been accused of being “a blue-sky person”? Do you recall information better when it is explained in story form? Have you noticed that one of your child’s favorite sayings is “Mommy, read me a story?” If your head is nodding up and down, you are going to love this book.
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 …