I got into carpet cleaning after working as an Office Manager for a roofing company. I wanted to supplement my income so I researched carpet cleaning machines and discovered Low Moisture Cleaning. I bought a Challenger 15" and finally a penguin electric sprayer from Excellent Supply! (used hand pump for about a year, not pleasant) and have been cleaning residential full-time by myself for a year and a half. Most of my business comes from internet marketing and referrals. So I have some experience with inbound marketing (residential) so feel free to contact me if you have any questions on that.
I bought a Cimex December of 2011, and have used it on some existing accounts that came through our internet marketing. We are starting our commercial prospecting Monday and will be posting our experience and growth on a Facebook group I created.
I welcome all people whether you are just getting started or you have many accounts and multiple businesses, this will be a discussion area for your Sales Experience and help motivate everyone to get to that next level.
"Be a collector of good ideas, but don't trust your memory. The best collecting place for all of the ideas and information that comes your way is your journal." -- Jim Rohn
Hopefully this will work as a journal for all of the business owners in our industry.
If you would like to join, add me on Facebook and I will then invite you to the group, I don't really know any other way to do it, or I would have just posted a link, however Facebook is a good place for this, because it is free, and you can post and have discussions, post pictures, very quickly.
I think a god way to add commercial business is to point out in whatever material you direct at this market that all you are seeking is a few minutes to perform a limited area demo in a representative area of the company's carpeted floors. Many company execs and facility managers are familiar only with HWE, and need to be educated, without feeling any sales pressure, on how a low-moisture, high agitation system can benefit them. Once they say "Hey, that looks pretty good", then you can arrange to measure the job out, and submit a proposal to them.
Thanks Mark, you are exactly right. I just got a call today from a prospect, they do valves and have little oil stains all over the office area, not heavy like oriental rest., but normal traffic stuff mixed with oil residue. I was able to come in and do a demo quickly, stains where gone and stayed gone carpet looked great. The other two companies he had come out to demo could not clean without the stains reappearing. One company also wanted to hook up to their water system. I think it is a great opportunity for a novice carpet cleaner like myself to come in and outperform companies that have been in business many years. Good stuff, I am definitely going to push the demos.
