[creighton foyle]

hi guys i have decided to take the plunge and buy a new cc set up and i am looking at the alltec triple vac and the  airflex turbo, now matt does a very good deal for a start up package but it is only a good deal if i get to use everything.  i bought an extracta package years ago which got stolen (the machine that is) but when all the stuff arrived i couldnt help thinking i was oversold on the chems and the other bits and bobs.
 so my question is if you were buying a start up package now with your experience what machine and tools would you say are a must to make start up easier ie a particular make/type of wand or hand tool, would you think a sebo or even a rotovac is a must and if your chem store was a larder what are the basics you would stock it with.
 also i am a little nervous about marketing myself, i am happy to do the leaflets and i am planning to advertise in the local paper 6 nights a week indefinatley so do you think this will be enough to kickstart the business. i am fortunate that my wife earns enough to keep our house running with her house cleaning business (private work with no employees) and i am able to supplement our income with the odd decorating job (my trade) and hopefully a bit of pressure washing as i have recently purchased a machine.

regards my budget after paying for 20000 leaflets, a webbsite,  advertising until december and allowing £550 to do the ncca training course and membership (is membership worthwhile) i will have £4200 for start up equipment though i could stretch that if i used my cards.

[jasonl]

I would buy a cheaper extractor, along with a buffer,sprayer and some pads , go LM , and put the rest of the cash into well directed marketing.

[derek west]

in hindsight i would of bought a new van along with a brand new boxer 421, to back this up i would buy an enviro dri an rx20 with buffer driveplate, a good whole room dryer, and a drimaster hand tool.

[peter maybury]

an extraction machine is a very important part of the business and will clean areas that you cannot get results on with low moisture. By buying small items like upholstery tools you will open up other revenues of income. Investing in a rotary scrubber will open up the hard floor market. Your appearance and equipment will determine the type of work that you will get.  If you are driving around in a crappy van with crappy equipment then do not expect many customers to have the confidence to give you prestigeos jobs.
Low moisture cleaning is relatively cheap to set up so consider it an add on. You need to equip yourself to take on as many situations as possible.
Years ago I was only doing carpet cleaning but if I was nt doing hard floors and the like now I would not have survived the recession.
Peter Maybury
www.carpetcleaningnewport.com

[Colin Day]

Having had the cash at the time, I wish I'd bought a Prowler and a brand new van :

[richy27]

derek has a very valid point. image is a lot in this game if you stick a rug doctor in the boot of a car and call yourslf a cc then you are going to struggle to convince anyone you are a prof.

you haven got to buy new.

in 3 years i have gone from having a postman pat combo and a powerflite upgraded to an renault trafic and then got an airflex turbo (which i still have ) and now i have a new shape relay and a spitfire truckmount have done all this as my business grows without borrowing money to do it. all my sec hand equip and vans i have sold for not much less than i payed for them and thr truckmount cost me 3.5 k ith only 180 hours on it.

if i could turn back the clock i wouldnt do anything dif because doing it gradually and being able to afford to buy some new additions gives me a great sense of achievement.

the most important thing is to have working capital to live on while your business grows so tha needs to be taken into account.

dont rely on the phone ringing just becsuse you have X amount of leaflets and website you need an ongoing program to market your business to your target audience . 

[richie]

The best idea is to buy a extraction machine that is more powerful than ou require at the moment so when you grow the business you wont have to upgrade straight away.  If i were you id buy the Airflex Turbo rather than the Alltec machine.  What is Matt offering you in the package exactley?  If you let us knw we can then advise you further.  Regarding LM,  this can be added on to your business at a small cost but i would not use it as your main cleaning setup as it is limited to soil removal.

If you can push and pay abit more and you intend to go further into the CC industry then take a look at the Prowler as sold by Restormate (John).  This will give you extra cleaning power and cut down on time taken cleaning especially on commercial work.  The Prowlers are priced at about £6500 but worth every penny.

Richie.

Richie.

[creighton foyle]

i have already got a mwb transit high top which is in very good condition and will look very smart when signwritten , i think i am leaning towards the airfex as my machine of choice but i do not want to buy loads of extras that i dont need or a wand that is not suitable which i will feel the need to change as soon as someone tells me i should have bought such and such thus having to spend more money, likewise if i need to get  equipment for low moisture cleaning as an add on i would rather budget for and buy it at the start. also when you say you would buy a good rotary cleaner are you refering to the rotovac or is there a cheaper machine out there that i could consider.
 i am lucky that my wife earns enough to keep our house running so i can concentrate on building a client base without having to worry about paying bills .
 i have worked as a self employed decorator for thirty years so i am not bad with people but after returning to wales from france in 2006 and being unable to work through an injury until 2008 i have struggled to keep in work full time. a quick look in the yellow pages showed me there are about 100 decorators in my area compared to only ten carpet cleaners (thats without the ones not listed in the yellow pages)so its not rocket science there are the same amount of homes which could be potential clients but only one tenth of the competition for the cc work i may not get rich but i am hopeful that eventualy  i can earn a good income from cc and pressure washing. finally i would love a list of your preffered chems , not everything just basics

[David Rogers]

I would buy a cheaper extractor, along with a buffer,sprayer and some pads , go LM , and put the rest of the cash into well directed marketing.

Here here ....... speaking as someone with a 1 week old HWE+inline that I don't need or want, my regret is painfully raw!

If I were setting up from scratch now, I'd get:-

- This Rotary for Commercial:- https://www.btowstore.com/epages/15094.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/15094/Products/RotaryPack

- This Rotary for Domestic:- http://www.carecleanuk.com/shop/products/NLL-415-Plus-102-Pack-150rpm.html

- An Oreck Orbiter for stairs (which I do have and love)

- An Envirodri GEN4 for VLM (which I do have and love)

- A SEBO BS36 (which I do have.   Hey, c'mon, no-one loves a vacuum!  )

........and that's be it; spend the rest on marketing.    Maybe scratch the two buffers above for a new Dry Fusion (I currently have a battered but working one I'm playing with).

David.

[Simon Gerrard]

Dave,

I think you are making a very serious mistake by going the Dry and LM only route. LM and the Dry Compound system are one of many systems you should have at your disposal to clean customers carpets. By narrowing down the system you have you are also narrowing down your market and that in my view is a suicidal move for a fledgling business such as yours.
You've got to learn to think about carpet cleaning from a customers perspective and given them what they want instead of what you want them to have.

From reading your posts you seem to have had one bad experience with HWE and knee jerked into the Dry / LM route as a consequence of that. You cannot run a successful business on a wing and a prayer. The change to Dry / Lm should have been the consequence of thorough market research not just an impulse.
You are in the North East, one of the toughest areas in the country, trust me you will need every edge you can muster simply to survive, without cutting out the most popular carpet cleaning system on the planet.
Sorry to be so brutal, I just think you need a reality check.

Simon

[jasonl]

Dave,

I think you are making a very serious mistake by going the Dry and LM only route. LM and the Dry Compound system are one of many systems you should have at your disposal to clean customers carpets. By narrowing down the system you have you are also narrowing down your market and that in my view is a suicidal move for a fledgling business such as yours.
You've got to learn to think about carpet cleaning from a customers perspective and given them what they want instead of what you want them to have.

From reading your posts you seem to have had one bad experience with HWE and knee jerked into the Dry / LM route as a consequence of that. You cannot run a successful business on a wing and a prayer. The change to Dry / Lm should have been the consequence of thorough market research not just an impulse.
You are in the North East, one of the toughest areas in the country, trust me you will need every edge you can muster simply to survive, without cutting out the most popular cleaning system on the planet.
Sorry to be so brutal, I just think you need a reality check.

Simon

I worked LM in the north east , for 10 years ,, made a fortune, still know guys doing it.

[John Kelly]

As I've mentioned before we have a local dry franchise who is doing fantastic. In fact I am gobsmacked at how succesful this guy is in both gaining work and selling franchises and I'm talking high end work.

[creighton foyle]

dave what hwe did you buy and why do you regret it

[Simon Gerrard]

The point I was making was more a business one than a cleaning one. It seems Dave has had one bad experience with HWE and because of that decided there and then to go down the Dry / LM route.
I think some forget that we are first and foremost business people and therefore a good carpet cleaning based decision has also got to be a good business decision also, and visa-versa, otherwise we are going nowhere.
If there are fortunes to be made in the NE with LM / Dry compound then it may turn out to be a top notch decision. But what if the market is already saturated (excuse the pun) or spoken for by these big players  Dave has no chance of competing with, what then?
Surely a decision to drop the most popular carpet cleaning system on the planet requires some serious thought / research / soul searching?

Simon

[David Rogers]

Dave,

I think you are making a very serious mistake by going the Dry and LM only route. LM and the Dry Compound system are one of many systems you should have at your disposal to clean customers carpets. By narrowing down the system you have you are also narrowing down your market and that in my view is a suicidal move for a fledgling business such as yours.
You've got to learn to think about carpet cleaning from a customers perspective and given them what they want instead of what you want them to have.

From reading your posts you seem to have had one bad experience with HWE and knee jerked into the Dry / LM route as a consequence of that. You cannot run a successful business on a wing and a prayer. The change to Dry / Lm should have been the consequence of thorough market research not just an impulse.
You are in the North East, one of the toughest areas in the country, trust me you will need every edge you can muster simply to survive, without cutting out the most popular carpet cleaning system on the planet.
Sorry to be so brutal, I just think you need a reality check.

Simon

Hi Simon,

Thanks for the advice (I mean that genuinely not curtly) but it's not what I'm seeing in my business model, with my customers, in my region.   I've built up a strong word of mouth reputation on VLM (and more recently LM) and you have to also consider that my business model is not typical 'cc' ......  what I've not yet referred to since joining the forum , is the fact that 40% of my business is currently Oven Valeting!  I used to have a seperate website for this:-   www.ovenzest.co.uk   but I have now combined both the carpetzest and ovenzest websites into one 'eco/green' cleaning proposition, with both domains pointing to the same website (work in progress).   My Oven Cleaning is 100% eco so the VLM sits alongside that proposition.  HWE just doesn't sit well in my eco and low moisture proposition; to reinforce this, I'll shock you even more by saying that as from August I am no longer doing fabric upholstery cleaning!!  This is because having tried ARIDEX etc I have been unable to find a convincing low moisture solution to upholstery cleaning.   I don't want to advertise all of my services being eco / low moisture and then have a page on upholstery cleaning that uses HWE.   So I appreciate I am in a very different market to most but my services from August will be;  VLM and LM 'natural' carpet cleaning, Eco Oven Valeting, Leather Suite Cleaning, Hard Floors, and Property Deep Clean / EOT.      That's it.   

Cheers,
Dave.

PS.... I can understand how some of my posts may have made it appear that I was departing from HWE on a knee-jerk but that's really not the case.

PPS..... When Gav was up yesterday to pick up the Extracta, he brought me along a 'Bone-Dry' flyer that came through his door, to look at.  I called them and asked how quickly they could do 4 bedrooms, lounge and dining room.   The earliest they could visit for the survey was a week tomorrow and they couldn't do the clean until not this weekend but the one after..... sounds like they're doing ok with VLM in the North East!

[David Rogers]

dave what hwe did you buy and why do you regret it

The Craftex Maxi 130psi + inline heater that I have listed for sale in the 'for sale' section of this fine forum     Nothing wrong with the machine, just redundant in my business at present.   I took it brand new as a back-up machine but it will never get used.........    My Ninja is going next week and I sold my Extracta to Gav on this forum yesterday, so I was planning to use the Maxi for upholstery cleaning because for it's capacity and 130psi pump, it's very light.   However I'm moving out of the HWE upholstery field so as I say, it is currently a 1 week old ornament. 

[David Rogers]

As I've mentioned before we have a local dry franchise who is doing fantastic. In fact I am gobsmacked at how succesful this guy is in both gaining work and selling franchises and I'm talking high end work.

Hi John, I know you can't say but I'm guessing your referring to Zero Dry Time.......  I wanted a franchise from them a little while ago, but their Durham, Sunderland and Newcastle territories were all taken and as you say, seemed to be doing very well.   

[Simon Gerrard]

Dave, You seem to have your head screwed on a little better than I thought so good luck to you, you certainly seem to have the enthusiasm and I admire that.


Crikey, I might have to look into VLM next as I might have missed a trick or two there

Simon

[Ricky M]

Dave,




You are in the North East, one of the toughest areas in the country, trust me you will need every edge you can muster simply to survive, without cutting out the most popular carpet cleaning system on the planet.
Sorry to be so brutal, I just think you need a reality check.

Simon

thats a bold statement for someone that dont live or has not lived there for a lengthy period time !
I was dragged up there   and made some really good money ,when I decided its was time to fet a proper job   actually picked up four figures every week with out fail mon-fri 11am - 7pm ish , then they sent me out around the country for a good 5 years

Its not about where you live !  

[Colin Day]

"If i were you id buy the Airflex Turbo rather than the Alltec machine"

Must be a biased view....   Have you worked the 2 machine's then...? I doubt it... :

What about the Scorpian? 

I wouldn't dream of suggesting one machine from the other unless I'd had a comprehensive knowledge and experience of the two, all I can say is I use the Alltec TV, it's bloody brilliant and it never lets me down......

I've never had the pleasure to use any of the other machines, so my wiew is admittedly.... Biased!