[Mike Halliday]

do you think that the domestic market is more quality orientated than the commercial market? (I think i can guess the answer)

when you have the homeowner putting his hand into his pocket to pay the bill then he is going to want to see excellent results, but if you are working in a pub or office where the manager is not bothered how much it cost or what it looks like as he's not paying then its different.

the reason i ask is I'm thinking about employing another technician who will work on his own. I don't feel I can let him into people homes but I could have him servicing the commercial sector.

I have an office /sales manager starting work on the 20th of may his role will be to target the commercial market with an ongoing marketing campaign,
he's agreed to do a months trail on which he has guaranteed me he will bring in  a fair amount of commercial work, he will also be organising a marketing campaign aimed at my existing database hopefully this will mean I can cut down my budget on my leaflets and use the saving to pay his wages.

but this will only work if I can leave my technician to go out and do the commercial work.

[Shaun_Ashmore]

I think that beauty is the eye of the beholder if he has an eye for a clean carpet then doesn't matter what you give him to clean with.

Shaun

[Ken Wainwright]

You're about to go through an exciting and challenging phase in your business' development Mike.

I can hear what you're saying about quality and it's a tough one to call. From a business perspective, there's value to be gained from your view of the situation, but from my own experiences in this and another industry (I did learn very fast) the buck will always stop with you, so you need to set out your goalposts from day one!

Your employees are just that. Employees.  They're not your mates, not your brothers or heirs to your empire. YOU set the values. YOU set the standards. It's YOU who pays the wages. For me, my employees worked to MY standards. Anything less is not a compromise, but a betrayal of everything you have ever stood for. If they're not prepared to work to YOUR standards on EVERY job, then they don't work for you.

In my days before CC, I was a manager and a trick I learnt there made life much easier, so I'll convert it to our industry. Shaun Bradbury of Dry Fusion/Wrennals/Cleaners Warehouse is a very successful businessman with high values and standards. My suggestion to you would be to have a picture of him in your mind and every morning and everytime you have a problem or need to make a decision, think to yourself  "What would Shaun do?"  Believe me, that sort of trick will help to clear your mind and make decision making a lot clearer.

Whatever you do, don't compromise YOUR standards.

Safe and happy cleaning
The Ken

[Mike Halliday]

Ken its funny you should mention Shaun Bradbury because it's something he said 5-6yrs ago on a training day that has prompted my question.

he was talking about bonnet cleaning and giving demonstrations on commercial jobs

he said he would give a demo to the main decision maker and have it agreed the exact process he would use to clean the carpets. from that point any managers who complained were given the same answer.... they are working to the agreed cleaning procedure authorized by the senior manager its tough luck if they are not happy with the result!!

I've often seen a difference of attitude when the bill payer never sees the job. I did a job for the NHS research dept. the manager called us, she had been told to get  the carpets cleaned, she could'nt care less what the final result was.

[Pristine Clean]

Mike,

We do alot of commercial carpets, We get this work mainly because we are Contract Office Cleaners. So we had already a very large customer base. From small offices to fortune 500 companies.

Standards are important. It does not matter whether its residential or commercial. Plus if you let the standard drop there will be a chance that they wont use you again or complain to put it right.

The bit about where you agree a technique and standard is ok but if you know you could do better and acheive a much more favourable result then why not let your work shine for others to see.

Dave