Nature's Quick-Dry Forum
Welcome to The Nature's Quick-Dry Forum. Feel free to post a message.
HELL YA...
just got my 1st call... she recived a flier from me on tues... called and wants her carpets cleaned... i told her i don't do estamates over the phone and explained why but told her I could could come over to give her an exact quote...
she said if she was satisfied with the quote she'd like to have me do the cleaning right then...
my nerves where all in a jumble so it didn't go as well as i'd hoped on the phone but i'm in the door and thats the important part ;-)
mark
Good for you Mark, It will get easier the more you do it. Just keep handing out those flyers, in a couple weeks hand out to the same area. It takes awhile for them to start recognizing your company.
Get some ref. magnets and hand out with your flyers. Many people won't want there carpet cleaned now, but when they do you want them to be able to remember who you are.
If they like the job don't forget to ask for a testimonial.
For some people there is something not too different from stage fright involved. But once you get there and get to work, the butterflies will disappear, and your work will apprear absolutely Shakespearean!
i'm figuring to be on a o5 or 6 week rotation for fliers... the more i'm passing out fliers the more i'm seeing lots of areas of potential...
right now i'm sticking to newer upper end areas with the built in brick mailboxes that have newspaper slots in them... makes it quick to just drive up and down the street tossing the fliers in
I have my son 2 days a week so i obviously can't do jobs then... if i can drop 400 fliers each of those days i think i'll be happy thats putting bout 3500 fliers out per month... at a 1 to 100 return that would put me at a nice 35 jobs a month... i could deal with that me thinks haha... 1.6 jobs 5 days a week.. at an average figure that puts me at over 100k a year...
while it's a longshot it's nice to think of things this way... it all starts with one job though...
i'm typicaly very ellequent on the phone... I've worked on the phones for a LONG time... one of my managers always thought it was funny... i could be talking mean nad nasty and the phone would ring and do the "mom thing"
i realy need to work a phone script for myself... but haven't gotten around to that yet... i've always made a phone script in my head for myself but i think this one is a bit big for my mind at the moment haha
i was just cought up in the moment... depressed the phone haddent rang yet (actualy called myself yesterday to make sure it was OK) and in the middle of taking care of the kiddies...
today is a good day :)
mark
I work for a school and I have teachers come up to me and ask me about how it works and when can they set up a cleaning and I still get tounge tied and I see these people every day.
Donalson,
Good to hear that you got the first job. It is very exciting to have that first job, but try your best to not let the customer see that you are to over zealous, as this can make the custy a little nervous. Other than that congrats!
steady as she goes,
Jim
Donalson,
By the way, the web page looks fabulous.
Jim 
Donalson, congrats on your first job, your fliers have a lot higher sucsess rate then mine in the last two weeks I have handed out 1,650 door hangers and have not recieved a call yet, I do not know if it is my fliers, compitition, the area, or the weather right now it is -8 degrees wind shield factor.
But I do have good news, kinda off of the subject. I was selected to the national deans list, Only 1/2 of 1% of our nation's college students recieve this award. So that is pretty cool, would rather be getting jobs and making money though. My wife is supportive of my efforts and when I complain about noone calling she says it may not be what God has in store for me so that does make me feel better and helps me relax by putting it in God's hands.
Again congradulations on your first job and I respect you for keeping the fish on your flier even though you were advised not to, I think it will help there are more christians then anything else in the US, and me personaly I would choose a business that I believed was a christian buisness before a different business.
I've also noticed that whenever the weather get's bad people don't call, whether it be from flyers or anything else. I'm having a bad week right now as well.
our weather here has been pretty nice up into the 60's by day... down in the 30's at night though...
kind of nervious about this 1st gig... i'm not exactly as prepared as i'd like to be (I don't have any protectant and i still need to print up labels for my free bottle of spotter)... but this will put some cash in my hands to buy the last little things i feel i need right now.
hopefuly i get a few more calls over the next week or so... i prob put the deadline on the fliers a little to far from now (endish of feb)...
congrats on numero uno!
i suspect with yer enthusiasm, you'll get many more.
persist!
1st job...
very nice mid aged couple... moved into the house about 9 months back, house is about 3 years old,
burber (what a 1st carpet to start on doh) the last owners had a dog and kids... so various stains around... their dog had also vomited a while back... apparently dog food had a lot of red dye in it so it left a big old red spot... also prior owners had never had the carpet cleaned (sounded like she was a bit of a tree-hugger anti chemical person) so there where some VERY heavy wear patterns in the high traffic areas...
total size was fairly small as they only wanted the living room, piano room and hall done... 539 sq/ft... 400 of which was the living room...
total came out to 141.61 on the gold package (i move some furniture and free protectant in the living room)
regular price would have been $188.81 but i'm running 25% off right now
they where happy to pay it as they just where hoping to prolong the inevitable... replacing the carpet (they'd had the price cut when buying the house to replace it)
went though and vacuumed... i'm continously amazed at how much hair burber holds in... and how big of a PITA it is to get to release soil.
pre-treated the pet spots with heavy z-bomb/whamm mix, sprayed red vanish on the 2 pet vomit areas and went to work on the hall...
about 13oz of whamm w/ 3 oz of z-bomb in a gallon...
spent a good a while to scrub the heavy areas in the hall... went on to the living room... the couch spot lightend up but wasn't where i wanted... the small vomit spot dissaperaed as i went over it... the other looked good... no red but the yellowing was more noticable now (was noticable before redvanish was applied)... sprayed it with some spotter for the smell (yuck) and went though the rest of the room...
wasn't happy so i went out and mixxed up some heavier z-bomb cyclone mix and sprayed it over the few VERY heavy traffic areas and went to finish the piano room... came back and scrubed over the traffic areas again and they came out much better.
IMHO not a SUPER 1st job but they customer was VERY happy... I def see getting some good referals from them.
all said almost 2 1/2 hrs there (lots of scrubbing and a good bit of just chatting w/ the customer in between) and $141.61
at the end as i was putting things away I asked her to fill out a testimonial sheet... she specificly mentioned the reason she called was the fish... that was something i needed to hear.
she left this comment on the sheet
"Mark (Carpet & Floor Care) removed some very stubborn stains that I did not think would ever be removed. The professionalism of the technician was second to none I have seen before in this type of business."
I did find a few little things that i need to work the kinks out of (top of my mind putting in the subtotal as the FULL ammount then putting the amount of the discount) but all in all it went very well...
i still need to return to apply protectant (part of the pacakge but i don't have any at the moment)
they also seemed very pleased with how i stood behind my work...
time to get on making a good thank you letter complete with referal info.
all in all a good 1st job
Good job Mark, when you have stains like red or yellow you should spray those with your red vanish before you spray and Pre-Spray so the chemical will get into the fiber better. The fiber can only hold so much liquid so if it is full of your pre-spray it can not accept the other chemical. This means your red vanish or whatever is not able to do its stuff as effectively. Also particluarly on red stains you may need to add heat to the red vanish. Just take a steam iron set on the med steam setting. Take a damp cloth and put over the stain after you have applied your red vanish. Place the iron over the damp cloth for about 15 to 20 seconds, no more than 30 then check to see if the stain is gone. If not repeat until stain is gone. There may be some red stains or others that just don't come out, but most of the time they will. Don't rush the process, too much heat too long can take color out of the carpet. If it's an olefin carpet which many berbers are then you want to reduce the time the iron is on the carpet to about 15 seconds at a time. Olefin is more heat sensitive so you don't want to melt it.
Jim
I did spray w/ redvanish before pre-spraying... left a little yellowing spot but nothing bad...
i'll email ya pics before and after in a sec.
well went back yesterday to apply protectant, I didn't have any at the time of cleaning and gave them the option (it was included int he package they wanted)...
some of the super high traffic areas where still a little dingy so i whipped out the machine and used the brushes to pre-scrub which seemed to help, still didn't come out quite as good as i'd like but i suspect it's mostly due to permanent damage.
they where still THRILLED "it used to be black",
i walked over where the big red dog puke stain was and couldn't find it (when i left it had left a little yellowing)... we (customer and I) couldn't find it... i played down my supprize a bit but still couldn't belive it was 100% gone.
I have the feeling I have a cheerleader but we'll find out when i get some referals from them (which she said she'd be doing woot)
figured i'd update...
mark
Traffic lanes get mashed down underfoot more than the carpet around it. This both lowers the "memory" of the fibers (they eventually forget how to stand up straight), as well as abrades the look or sheen of the individual fibers in the heavily used area. As a result, these areas reflect light differently than the rest of the carpet, meaning they will continue to look different from less abused carpet even if you've managed to get them spotlessly clean.
