How many of you have noticed...

[Willy P]

Might be an opportunity to get some folks to cash in the retirement savings to buy a V....

 

[Desk Jockey]

In our town I've seen no new ones this year or last. A couple that have fallen by the wayside and a few more that appear to be struggling.

Out YP pages looks like it was gutted, went from 5-pages to 2-page of carpet cleaners. Full page advertisers dropped down to quarter pages and many have line listing or are not listed. :shock:

 

[ACE]

Yes, I notice allot of new people jumping into this business. I always make it a point to introduce myself when I see someone new working in my area. After a short conversation it’s usually obvious they are not a threat to my business. Most of the newbie’s jumped in with no industry or no business experience.

 

[Chris Muetterties]

Might be an opportunity to get some folks to cash in the retirement savings to buy a V....

That sound bitter ? Did you cash yours out and were only able to buy a Recoil ?

 

[Ken Snow]

I don't think Yellow Page ads are a good measure. They have been steadily declining for years in most categories due to lack of use by younger population who find most things online now.

Every recession and downsizing period sees people starting their own inexpensive startup business, from painting and home improvement, to carpet cleaning, chimney sweeps, maid & janitorial services etc. These types of businesses can be started with less than $100 to just a few thousand (plus financing) and are a natural for downsized laborers to get into.

The challenge for people starting out is how to get business once family and friends are exhausted. They typically are not business people, with minimal to no marketing knowledge or business skills and usually have a distain for those who do. Most will fail, but they will take a chunk out of any markets they are in. In my opinion the key to not having them being any of ouyr customers is by doing everything we can to make us be the only cleaner our customer would ever allow in their hhome, and let someone else's market share be impacted.

Ken

 

[Desk Jockey]

I wonder how many companies have actually seen growth as a result of this economy. I've talked to quite a few like Mikey but not quite sure how the camp is divided compared to those companies baking their last batch of biscuits.

I would guess the middle would benefit the most?

The high end clients could be looking for a break by using the middle, the low end customers would just put it off and not have it done.

So the low end cleaners might be the one's hurting the most???

Mike was smart and added rug cleaning and direct mail marketing to his data base.

 

[Desk Jockey]

I agree Ken, YP is not a measure, it has been declining for years.

It was just a very noticeable difference since it was so drastic a change from one book to the another.

 

[ACE]

I wonder how many companies have actually seen growth as a result of this economy. I've talked to quite a few like Mikey but not quite sure how the camp is divided compared to those companies baking their last batch of biscuits.

I would guess the middle would benefit the most?

The high end clients could be looking for a break by using the middle, the low end customers would just put it off and not have it done.

So the low end cleaners might be the one's hurting the most???

Mike was smart and added rug cleaning and direct mail marketing to his data base.

I am a competitively priced company not the lowest. Business is better than ever. I few years ago I used to get this line allot: “We should have them cleaned but, are going to replace the carpets soon”. I don’t hear that anymore.

 

[Desk Jockey]

It's the experience not the machine that makes a difference.

People don't really care what you're cleaning with.

Look at the Lima bean, those customers were just as satisfied with the cleaning, when in the past they only had it cleaned with the Vortex.

They like Mike, not the machine! :wink:

 

[Walt]

Business is up here. However, I know of several different cleaners who are struggling or who have dropped out of the business all together. From what I can tell, it's the ones who have high overhead and/or are in a niche market. For instance, there was a company cleaned mostly for real estate agents - gone. Two others were "green" cleaners - gone.

Lot's of new guys popping up. It used to be they'd have to wait for the yellow pages to come out to start getting business. Now all they have to do is have a website and google adwords.

Shawn, I agree that having a Vortex will make you stand out. I built my business on it. It can be part of a successful marketing package. I also had savings to live on, a marketing plan, and a supportive wife. But I have to imagine that it doesn't work every time. There have to be plenty of start ups that bought a Vortex and have gone out of business. Otherwise, Kip would still be able to lease them. Also, there have to be some markets that are struggling economically and might resent someone looking so outwardly successful. For every touted success story there has to be others that quietly went away unnoticed.

Do you imagine that in a down economy, with the price of fuel poised to increase rapidly, possible consumer resentment and restricted credit, that purchasing a 90k truck would really be in the best interest of a start up company or small burgeoning company? That was probably a silly question. Of course you do!

Vortex ego is a silly thing. I've never understood the idea of standing smugly off to the side bragging about how successful you were because of a machine. That's like living in a nice home and looking down on others for living in something less. We all know people who base there success on how much money they have and what they can buy. Does that endear them to you? Does that build relationships of real value?

 

[Ken Snow]

LOL- How did this thread turn into a Vortex advertising thread? Where is the data to support it Shawn? Does a majority of something when it is such a small pool to begin with really mean anything about the equipment parse' or could it be other factors behind the people who bought a vortex that contributed mostly to their success?

I would think someone who has never cleaned and bought a "high end" machine, be it a Vortex, new Butler, new fill in the blank, etc. have other factors in them that give them a big step up from the few $100 start up person.

They likely had a business background vs a genral laborer background. They likely have the financial wherewithal to operate the business with negative cashflow until the revenue starts to exceed the cost of operating.

They likely understand the power and have resources to market the business to generate new business from beyond their family & neighborhood. They also probably understand that having drive and determination are far more important than anything else and that the customer does not need them, they need the customer.

Ken
Ps I actually agree with you Shawn just don't think the Big Machine" gets as much credit for the success as you believe it does~ if you really believe it.

 

[Desk Jockey]

I was at a seminar two years ago and a very nice guy there had two of them. He had not even cleaned a carpet yet, he was there to learn the business before he trained his crew to be sent out.

I've had correspondence with him several times since and it's been rough on him, but he is still around. A Vortex or two Vortex's do not equate to instant success, you've go to have the work to use the machine. Without the work you've just got payments!

On the flip side you can see quite a few of the guys on this board have them and have done very well for themselves. It's definitely top of the line and makes quite an impression.


But ultimately it's a tool, a great tool, but still a tool.

You're a tool if you think it's any more than that!

 

[Ken Snow]

Too funny Richard!

 

[diamond brian]

This is probably our biggest challenge, Shawn. Every time I'm at my distributor, I see a new van--or at least an old van with new lettering. just driving around, I see new competitors all the time.

I know that the proper attitude is to acknowledge that these upstarts will probably starve out soon. But, let me remind you that every time a customer calls and books a job with these guys, it's one less job your company could have had. And, it happens several times a day.

You've invested thou$ands and given a substantial amount of time, energy, blood, sweat, and tears. Your newest competitor has invested $300 worth of chloroplast signs, a ninja, a cell phone, and a minivan.

I think basking in the reality that one's new competitors won't make it is far too passive, given our current economic environment.

I had a new customer scheduled yesterday--she was from india or pakistan. Very rude on the phone-kinda like her time was more valuable than mine. We get there and she alludes to the fact that it is a buyers market and wants the stairs done free. I agree (after all, we're already there). Then, she reasons that since we're going around furniture (and technically not cleaning the entire rooms), that we should do an additional bedroom upstairs at no charge.

My temper got the best of me, so I told her she was cheap, lived like a pig, and to go F herself.

I have always marketed my company in such a way as to avoid these bottom-feeders. She just pissed me off. I'm still pissed.

 

[Willy P]

[quote="Willy P":jas83fau]Might be an opportunity to get some folks to cash in the retirement savings to buy a V....

That sound bitter ? Did you cash yours out and were only able to buy a Recoil ?[/quote:jas83fau]

LOL- You nailed it. Life insurance cashed out, sold the jewelery, took out a second mortgage on the single wide and did some man whorein' to raise the funds. I can be a slut when I need to.

 

[TimP]

Too bad most of us are too ugly to do any real man whoreing.

 

[Guest]

How is that Terra Clean Vortex doing these days????

 

[Ron Lippold]

For me it was the best move I could make. I priced other vans all tricked out as well as portables. When I saw the Vortex I knew it could not be beat.

I wanted to brand my business and it has been very successful. The aspect of it being a mobile billboard is a huge plus. Its Not just letters, That butterfly tells a stroy. I will have another V.

 

[Willy P]

Too bad most of us are too ugly to do any real man whoreing.

Low light situations with lots of make up.

 

[Willy P]

How is that Terra Clean Vortex doing these days????

Found a siting Chuck
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=616&p=5998&hilit=Terra+Clean+Vortex#p5998

 

[Magic Al]

there are lots of companies jumping into the stone polishing business, adding it to carpet cleaning. They simply add a few lines to their coupon ad and voila! they are stone pros.

This is like your $100 cc'er. Knows nothing but makes a mess of the market.

After almost 24 years in stone restoration, I can give a written guarantee that you can't identify most of the stone out there, no less figure out what to do with it. I would be the same BTW, with carpet.

As far as companies going OUT of biz, we don't see that. The reason? Where are they going to go??? Become auto execs? Bank presidents? Mortgage brokers? You get the gist. No, what they do is hunker down in front of the TV and watch SportCenter all day, hoping that the phone will ring in their single wide.

When it does, they immediately slice their price in half, figuring 1/2 a days pay is better than nothing. Soooo, the whole market starts tumbling down.

Guys like me, with large warehouses, multiple trucks, office help, sales reps, i.e. fixed overhead, can't compete with that. And don't.

All we can do is what we have done in the past. Direct mail market, send out reminder post cards to previous customers 3 times a year (that really, really works) and hope that our previously proven avenues of advertising continue to draw more than flies.

Again, maybe cc is different from stone restoration. Obviously there is a much larger amount of carpet than stone. But our market is limited to people who don't know the meaning of recession, but are influenced by the media who are screaming "BARGAINS, BARGAINS" when we are preaching "QUALITY and VALUE".

It makes it tough. We have had good and not so good months this year, and we still can't figure out how the rest of the year will shake out. But our back log is much shorter than it used to be, and that means we have to react to so many things we could ignore in the past. We have added a new service that has proven very profitable and will be promoting that heavily in 2010. Our ads and ad budget are fixed for the year and it is not worth disturbing for that.

Sorry I didn't get swept up in that silly Vortex discussion, but I thought the question had nothing to do with equipment.

 

[Desk Jockey]

Good response Shawn.

I have just a couple of comments and then I'm out of this subject, because I'm not against the big machines, just the simplistic thought that the truck itself will make you money.

The fault I have with promoting a machine is, what happens when your competition buys one? :shock: Is he now as good as you?

Would you not be better to promote "yourself", "Your Company" than a machines that anyone else can buy and now be seen on par with you, because he has one also.
Are you not a commodity at that point?

Look at what happened with the one customer when Mike brought the Lima Bean. They have had him clean for years, they trusted him, they knew he was a proficient cleaner.

Yet they wanted the big machine. Why? Because Mike had sold them on the Vortex, instead of himself.

The tired technician comparisons, wouldn't you be much better off buying a powerhead?
It would provide consistency in cleaning, easier on the body and less fatigue at the end of the day.


I see the big machines as a great confidence booster, with it you know that you can clean just about anything. Plus you can be assured that if it doesn't come clean no one else can come behind you and clean it any better.

Those guys that own Vortex's were successful before they owned the machine, they would be successful without it......if you could pull away from them.

It's the man not the machine! :wink:

 

[Mikey P]

Look at my site, you tell me what is getting sold more, me/us or the machine?

 

[Brian R]

Look at my site, you tell me what is getting sold more, me/us or the machine?

What you are selling is the machine

What is selling is you and the wifey.....Family.


Mikey, why don't you have your website in your profile?