[Paolo]

I feel I need to add this.

You diversy because you are not busy, you need to spend more money on new equipment.

You then need to advertise and go and get customers, oh wait, that;s why you diversified.....

Not for me, the reason I diversified was because an opportunity came along and I took it.
Speaking from "EXPERIENCE", this has done no harm to my business whatsoever and I have
plans surrounding the oven cleaning which "will" lead on to bigger and better things...

Diversification is not for everyone, granted, just those who can make things happen. Ian and Andrew's posts prove what can be achieved if you have the minerals not to keep all your eggs in one basket. I applaud the "Can Do" attitude they have....

Yes but they diversified as they wanted to grow, not because they were struggling to find customers.

If you can't find customers for one business, what will be different about the next!?

[Colin Day]

I feel I need to add this.

You diversy because you are not busy, you need to spend more money on new equipment.

You then need to advertise and go and get customers, oh wait, that;s why you diversified.....

Not for me, the reason I diversified was because an opportunity came along and I took it.
Speaking from "EXPERIENCE", this has done no harm to my business whatsoever and I have
plans surrounding the oven cleaning which "will" lead on to bigger and better things...

Diversification is not for everyone, granted, just those who can make things happen. Ian and Andrew's posts prove what can be achieved if you have the minerals not to keep all your eggs in one basket. I applaud the "Can Do" attitude they have....

Yes but they diversified as they wanted to grow, not because they were struggling to find customers.

If you can't find customers for one business, what will be different about the next!?

I did actually say "Diversification is not for everyone"

But it is the way forward at building a business where your aims are perhaps, to create jobs!

[seamus campbell]

I really think its a case of some people can always find a reason not to do something, If anyone seriously expects to get a business up and going in a matter of  mths they are seriously over optimistic, Yes it is poss to get of to a flying start and then hit a slump, But business takes time to build ,and yes the economy is in the doldrums, But it is the same for almost every industry,

[Helen]

[quote author=Steve Barnett (Carpet Care Plus) link=topic=116169.msg1001673#msg1001673 I clean carpets, upholstery, leather, hard floors.

Get off your backsides and make something happen. There is no magic bullet. Do leaflets, do neighbour nudgers, get a website, get a facebook listing, walk the streets cold calling businesses, even do a yellow pages ad - but do something.

How true, but then you are from the generation that was bought up on "if you want something you have to work for it" ( no offence Steve ) and not like more recent generations who have been taught at school that "you have a right to something no matter what". It's not their fault, but now it is hitting some hard as they can't have what they want now!

Sitting down doing nothing will bring you nothing, moaning about having nothing will bring you nothing, we all do it from time to time and then we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and get going again. It took us 4 years to build a solid base to our business to build on, and from then on we have tweaked and adjusted as need be, striving to get perfection (we won't) but that is what we strive for. Yes we have our down days, we all do, but give up....... never or the last 12 years will have been wasted.

[Matt Seymour]

There isn't enough carpet cleaning work to keep all the carpet cleaners going.

Well that's a new one - seeing as it's generally accepted that less than 15% of the homes in this country have their carpets cleaned. Therefore, there is plenty of potential customers out there just waiting to be educated as to why they should have their carpets cleaned.

I clean carpets, upholstery, leather, hard floors.
I supply and fit carpets, laminate, wood and vinyl.

To both domestic and commercial properties.

I've been in the carpet industry for 30 years next year and I've been in business for myself for 20 years next year. I've traded through 3 recessions.

Get off your backsides and make something happen. There is no magic bullet. Do leaflets, do neighbour nudgers, get a website, get a facebook listing, walk the streets cold calling businesses, even do a yellow pages ad - but do something.

Phone Ian Rochester or Simon Gerrard or scores of others and find out how to run a successful business.

With the greatest respect to Matt Seymour, he has been in business for 5 months and it hasn't worked for him for various reasons and now you are agreeing with him that the carpet cleaning industry is going down the pan.

As I said, there isn't enough to keep ALL carpet cleaners going.

There will be many who survive or even thrive this year, but there will also be those who go under or find themselves working very hard for very little.

Obviously the more established guys who have longstanding customers and a large customer database are best placed to do well, but some newbies will be OK too.

There are many contributing factors, I am just suggesting a little caution before people go out and start buying oven cleaning gear etc because everyone seems to have the same idea.

I am getting out because prices are tumbling in my area, I have Enterprise around here who are still pulling in thousands depsite Watchdog AND a letter from the council being delivered to thousands of homes in the area warning about them. It has become harder and harder to secure work and all the forms of marketing that were previously bringing in work have completely dried up.

I had a choice, throw more time and money at it or take a good look at what is happening and cut my losses. To continue would be a risk and with a baby due in May it's not a risk that I am willing to take.

[L.Doubtfire - The Blade Runner]

Matt,if you’ve got what it takes to `cut the mustard`you`ll succede
At anything( pardon my spelling ! )
I started way back in 1974.There was much more work around in
Those days,on site carpet cleaning other than the Hoover `Shampoo`
3 contra rotating little brush thingies and other methods were unheard
Of. The renting out of small capacity HWE machines even by the local
Asian newsagents is now commonplace.
When I started it was take away plant cleaning.( Well nearly all anyway)
There was the Stimvac Mk5 stainless steel model HWE.
I`m both a carpet / window cleaner,hav`nt got what it takes at either,well
Not to take £100,000 per annum sole trader as some would have us believe.
All those years ago a leading company in the industry told me that if all your
Offering is an on site carpet cleaning service,you`ll never get it `off the ground`.
You have to offer a full comprehensive service,ie Chem-Dry will be booked
Up for months with the recent floods.
This post covers very little I know,but if you do have `what it takes to cut the
Mustard` you will get on.
There again,whats the definition of success ?
I get the impression your possibly like myself,not really sales orientated,
A family on the way,I see your point and don`t really blame you.


Lewis  Doubtfire

[garyfindlay]

speaking to a client today, and she was saying her brother in law is in the construction industry and hasn`t worked for 15 weeks. Her husband has to travel 100 miles, and stay overnight to get the same money he had on his door step. Everyone seems to be getting it hard.

[Matt Seymour]

I don't have a problem with sales or marketing, I have worked in sales in the past. In the albeit relatively short amount of time I have been running I can only think of one  occasion where I didn't turn a request for a quote into a job and I've never had a complaint or been called back to rectify a problem.

The fact is that there isn't much work at the moment and an awful lot of people are chasing that small amount of work. There are carpet cleaners in my area who have been going a lot longer than me who are having problems.

A few months ago I was doing quite nicely and meeting most of my targets without too much trouble, but in November and December the bottom just fell out of it completely. We didn't have anywhere near the amount of snow and bad weather around here as was the case in other parts of the country, so it had nothing to do with that. Every report I've seen shows a huge decline in the number of people searching the internet for carpet cleaning in this area. I previously did pretty well out of my leaflets, but that stopped working and Facebook, which used to get me quite a few jobs, also provided nothing.

I probably could have made a little more effort to secure commercial work in the last couple of months,

The last enquiry I had I quoted between £30 and £40 to clean a living room and they turned their nose up at it because there are countless companies offering to clean a living room for a little over £20. I am not matching those kinds of prices.

It's all very well people saying that a positive mental attitude and hard work will reap rewards, but it doesn't apply to everyone in every location. Competition has a lot to do with the success of any business.

At the end of the day carpet cleaning and oven cleaning is a luxury a lot of people can't afford at the moment and more and more people are offering those services at lower and lower prices, all competing against one another.

[wynne jones]

Matt

You don't have to justify on here your decisions. You have made your choices and whether your beliefs are right or wrong is of no consequence. If I were in your shoes I would not be on here, I would be focusing on what I'm doing today and in the future.

[L.Doubtfire - The Blade Runner]

Hi Matt,your last 4 paragraphs has always`s been the case I recon.
Always`s has been and always`s will be.


Lewis  Doubtfire

[happy mondays]

Very good posts from Ian, Andrew, Steve and a few others. Myself and my wife started a domestic and commercial cleaning business 8 years ago. It started with one office contract (which we still supply services to now) and a couple of weekly domestic jobs, after alot of hard work and long hours for a few years we employed 27 part time staff and 3 full time staff. When you get to a stage in business as mentioned adding other services is easy to do, you have a large client base who trust you. So getting customers for things you used to sub contract is easier than anyone starting from scratch. Any business needs time, alot of effort and long hours to make it profitable and worth doing long term. Over the 8 years we have had good times and plenty of bad times. The good times are being able to buy more or less anything we wanted, the bad times being big customers paying us late or going bust on us owing us thousands of pounds and worrying if we had enough to pay our staff. Even though we moan about working for ourselves we are still doing it     

Matt, a good and high % of people will always be willing to pay good prices to have offices cleaned, floors cleaned, carpets, windows and ovens cleaned, this is the case with many other services such as gardening, decorating, etc.....  some services like windows and offices are of course of a higher %

Working for yourself isnt everyones cup of tea so fair play to you and good luck.

But believe me "where theres muck theres brass" this will always be the case!

Best of luck to you,

Paul

[John Kelly]

Haven't read all the posts on this thread, haven't the time, but I will say that anyone who thinks they can establish a succesfull business in less than 3 years is living in cloud cukoo land.
Up here in the North East we've had 3 major recessions in the last 20 years, previous 2 where some other parts of the country didn't suffer at all. Right through those, carpet cleaners have flourished. Nowts easy, get your arse in to gear and go for it.
I got asked today to find someone willing to stainguard a newly laid 100% wool carpet in a restaurant. I phoned 4 people, 1 was too busy, 3 went to answerphone, 1 rung back and earned £350.
I can never understand why when I ring carpet cleaners lots of them don't even have a personal message on their phone, just the generic Orange or O2 etc. If a customer rings you for a job and gets an answerphone they'll more than likely just ring someone else.

[feldon]

I like Matt started in August last year, had some good months and a couple of bad months, noteably December because of the snow. January so far is slow, but I am getting work and I am out delivering leaflets everyday.  When at home working on website and a new leaflet design.  I am also one of those who is going into oven cleaning, mainly to get in with letting agents as I have not had much success so far with them but in speaking with several they have said that they have struggled to find oven cleaners and I was told that they would rather deal with one person for carpets, ovens, eot cleans etc. as it saves them time in dealing with lots of different people etc.

I've been self-employed for nearly 20 years in several roles and like others have said it takes time to make a successful business. 

However it is a lot easier to quit than to carry on and see things through as I have learnt the hard way when I have not stayed with something only to regret my decision at a later point.

There is another thread on here at the moment saying how other newbie's are actually not doing to bad, a great inspiration.

[L.Doubtfire - The Blade Runner]

When I was doing both,the main problem I had was,,,,,,,,,well
If you’re a window cleaner,what do you know about carpet /
Upholstery cleaning.? ? The customers attitude I mean.
To perceve the professional element,and be a professional as
A carpet cleaner,,,,,a person`s carpet ya cleaned last week see`s
Ya cleaning shop front windows the next week it dos`nt look
Too good in their eyes.

Lewis  Doubtfire

[robert meldrum]

A moment please............

I was NOT suggesting DIVERSIFYING but ADDING a related service to an existing one !

How often have you cleaned suites or carpets and it was obvious that some cosmetic work on timber frames / tables / etc, would have mad a huge difference to the overall picture.

When I spent my three days at the Furniture Clinic I was aware that they sold products for restoring wood finishes and had I been a bit younger would have enquired further.

In my first job as a Golf Pro, I spent a fair bit of my time re gripping clubs and restoring the finish on wooden clubs, even making matched sets and going through the full - sanding / sealing / staining / finishing routine - so I know how simple it is to deal with wood ( much easier than leather )

If you add such a service to carpet cleaning I believe you will get MORE carpet cleaning as you are rsolving your customer's problems and your average ticket will be greater.

Most people don't think the chips or marks on timber items are removable, but in most cases it's a dawdle, so why not get the extra money.

This is NOT a HANDYMAN type of service and should be sold as an EXPERT RESTORER SERVICE alongside your existing CLEANING EXPERT SERVICE.

Just make sure you can deliver.