[Paul H]

Hi all

Other than obviously carpets upholstery etc.. some members offer services in other areas like pressure washing..window cleaning etc..

Just wondering with eggs in many baskets and without staff how you find this and what is or where is the main % of your work..and if carpet or windows etc.. does you well why not focus solely on that?

Just a while ago i was toying with adding an extra service but decided against it and stayed focused on the carpet cleaning side.. and this has done me well last month and if every month was like the last then great ,... and made me think was i just having a knee jerk reaction in adding services...in a hope it will bring more work...

Just after some thoughts

Thanks

[Neil Williams]

For me it's leather restoration & recolouring although I still have a couple of days per month for window cleaning (for selective customers only )
The highest £/hr is carpets then leather then windows.
The beuti of the '2 add ones' is that I can pick and choose when I want to do them and breaks up being stuck on just one service.
The leather is one thing I am slowly building up so that come retirement age I won't need to be dealing with carpet cleaning but can potter around with some slow leather work.

[Paul H]

See your idea with the leather ... ive went the other way .. ive dropped the re colours etc.. still do the cleaning alongside the carpets upholstery as it makes sense too maintain that service...

Your windows are they commercial / domestic?... and why just do the odd one or two if you have the gear  (not a criticism by the way).. just curious

I love the carpet etc.. side of things ad like you say the returns are good ... and i'd like to focus all my energy on that if i'm honest..but its still early days for me ( nearly 12 moths) ..   

[Doctor Carpet (Ret'd)]

Hi Paul

When I took over this business 14 years ago apart from carpets and upholstery I found I was also cleaning curtains and pressure washing. I seem to recall I was also offering a third service but I can't for the life of me remember what it was.

Although the business had already been established 10 years, like you, I investigated adding additional services-specifically hard floors. I did the training and some research. Whether CIU was around in those days I know not but certainly the net wasn't any where near as developed as it is now.

I also did some flood training which was most useful.

Over the years I have gained considerable experience on the jobs I have undertaken; gone on training courses; read cleaning magazines/journals; talked to other cleaners and discovered forums.

To sum up my expereinces-my carpet and upholstery cleaning business has grown and developed. By becoming an expert in my core business I ended up dropping other services, partly because of the costs of supplying them; partly because I hated doing them, partly because they were less profitable compared to the core business but mainly because I focussed on the core business and as such attracted large amounts of profitable carpet and upholstery cleaning business where ther client acknowledged I was an expert in my field and was prepared to pay a premium for that service.

Having supplied some of these other services and undertaken training in them has at least meant that I have a good theoretical knowledge of what is involved. this has meant that in some caases I have chosen to "cherry-pick" some jobs which are straight-forward/highly profitable or at least allowed me to give solid and practical advice to the client as to how to proceed without wasting money.

Of course having the skills and knowledge of cleaning is one thing, being able to profitably interact with a client is another.....

Rog

[Shaun_Ashmore]

A great post Roger you echo my business model my prefered day is carpet cleaning and interaction  with customers allowing me to spread the good word 

Shaun

Ps thanks for the birthday message will be celebrating it on Tuesday with a Magnum of cola and some crusts left over from Xmas

[Mike Halliday]

I've power washed for the last 4yrs, best decision I ever made.

The average job value is much higher than carpet cleaning and the hourly rate rarely drops lower than £100/hr

 the first year I did it I seriously considered working 7 months a year PW and holidaying the winter months,  the money looked so good.

This year i'm  offering a weed control service onto the power washing side based on a direct debit system were we return every 2 weeks throughout the summer and treat any weeds that regrow, i did it last year for free . And the amount of carpet cleaning I picked when I returned made it worth it.

[Billy Russell]

Thats a good point Mike, As some of you are aware my families main business is contract cleaning, we also do alot of other cleaning services as well, the amount of work we get carpet and upholstery cleaning from these other services is huge compared to other forms of advertising, admittedly this is commercial work and not so much domestic, but when we clean at commercial sites and the staff see our work, the main question we get is, do you do house's as well? All this from other services, so for me it works offering other services, this is just from my experience, each to there own i think, if it works for you, then go for it!!!

Hope you understand my ramblings!!!

 

[Simon Gerrard]

That sounds like a complete nightmare to me. I love what I do too much to arse around with other services because I think you lose your professional identity by being seen as a bit of a jack of all tades, but they, that's just me, wouldn't do if we all thought the same way.

Simon

[Billy Russell]

That sounds like a complete nightmare to me. I love what I do too much to arse around with other services because I think you lose your professional identity by being seen as a bit of a jack of all tades, but they, that's just me, wouldn't do if we all thought the same way.

Simon

Be a boring life wouldn't it, if we were all the same!!!

 

[Andrew Briscoe]

Thats a good point Mike, As some of you are aware my families main business is contract cleaning, we also do alot of other cleaning services as well, the amount of work we get carpet and upholstery cleaning from these other services is huge compared to other forms of advertising, admittedly this is commercial work and not so much domestic, but when we clean at commercial sites and the staff see our work, the main question we get is, do you do house's as well? All this from other services, so for me it works offering other services, this is just from my experience, each to there own i think, if it works for you, then go for it!!!

Hope you understand my ramblings!!!


We are the same as Billy, we pick up loads of customers from our cleaning contracts.
The amount of employees working at our cleaning contracts is about 1000, so you
are basically marketing to all for free.
Our contract customers have kept us busy this jan and feb.

Andrew ( jack of all trades, not jack of just one  )

 

[John Kelly]

Surface restoration technician. You are removing dirt from surfaces why restrict yourself to one medium.

[Mike Halliday]

I think in the minds of carpet cleaners there is an imaginary pecking order with 'specialist carpet cleaners' near the top. so to do anything else lower down the ladder is seen as devaluing the 'specialist' nature of the core business.

to be a colour repair specialist on leather is OK for  a carpet cleaner as it is seen as 'specialist'........ but to offer window cleaner is making your self a 'Jack of all trades'...... but often a window cleaners will earn more an hour than doing a colour repair on a suite.

I keep it simple I want to earn the maximum amount of money possible, my core business of carpet & upholstery cleaning allows me to do this but  if  cleaning public toilets of dirty needles  will earn me more money  I will do it.

[Neil Williams]

Your windows are they commercial / domestic?... and why just do the odd one or two if you have the gear  (not a criticism by the way).. just curious

We used to do a lot of it, infact peaking at 4 staff out there doing it but the hassle factor was just too much so we got rid of them and kept the 'cream' jobs. This meant the carpets suffered as windows were regular guarenteed work/income.
Then just as the economy started to go downhill I found a couple of guys who wanted to buy all those customers
I kept a few customers who valued us and as they are £100 jobs I kept them too

So to answer your questions 95% were domestic customers as they are loyal and pay on the day or within days as opposed to commercial, who take an eternity to pay and will drop you at a blink if someone else comes along £5 cheaper. And that's why I've still got the kit with the purified water being used for carpet cleaning too, I believe it is better for the carpets but that's just my view.

[Simon Gerrard]

I spent the first few years of my career offering a variety of services besides carpet & upholstery cleaning , floor cleaning, acoustic ceiling cleaning, carpet fitting, floor laying, fire & flood restoration etc but didn't really enjoy any of them as much a as C&U and so decided to specialise and I'm mighty glad I did otherwise I wouldn't have had the fantastic opportunities that have come my way since.

Simon

[Mike Halliday]

I spent the first few years of my career offering a variety of services besides carpet & upholstery cleaning , floor cleaning, acoustic ceiling cleaning, carpet fitting, floor laying, fire & flood restoration etc but didn't really enjoy any of them as much a as C&U and so decided to specialise and I'm mighty glad I did otherwise I wouldn't have had the fantastic opportunities that have come my way since.Simon

Simon how do you know? perhaps even greater opportunities have been missed by dropping those other services

[Andrew Briscoe]

I class the other services i offer as my pension fund.
I can either sell it and retire, had 2 offers in the past,
or let my son take over when he is 18, he is handy with a cloth now at 22 month 
and take a wage letting him do the brunt of the work,
or sell part and semi retire keeping some cream jobs.

What i have been offered is much better than a pension fund after only 10 years of work.

Andrew

[Simon Gerrard]

I don't think so, I get to look after the carpets and upholstery on some of the most luxurious ocean liners in the world, including the iconic Queen Mary 2 and  I have to pinch myself most days just to remind myself that this isn't a dream as I absolutely adore what I do - but then it isn't for everyone - far from it!

Simon

[derek west]

a very wise man once said to me, and i quote

"as a carpet cleaner, you leave far more money behind than you take with you"

when i'm cleaning carpets, i don't see a leather settee, i see pound signs. i don't see a travertine floor, i see pound signs, and it all costs nothing extra apart from some training.

last year 9k of my turnover was not from carpets and fabric upholstery and cost me next to nothing in advertising.

works for me but then i love doing all the services i offer, hence why i got rid of power washing, hated it.

[peter maybury]

I probably offer more services than most and a lot of the time it has just been a progression and not a concious descision. I spent a long time in the flooring market, when I started carpet cleaning I still had a lot of contacts calling me asking for flooring and it just seemed stupid to turn the business away. I once found carpet beetle in a carpet and was unable to give the customer an explanation so looking into that I ended up going to colledge to do a course. I like the vartiation of my work load as every day is different the down side is that I could not afford to train somebody in all the fields that I operate in. If you do it properly and avoid the risk of being a jack of all trades then there is ano problem. I love learning new things and enjoying education, I also enjoy the variation of the work I do and very often arrive to do one job somewhere and get a lot more work doing other things.

Peter
www.carpetcleanercardiff.com

[Paul H]

good to see the great responses

Rog - Good post

Mike - I take it you have staff working for you?? i could see the merits in the pressure washing etc... like you say good money etc.. like you say you could do it for 7 months of the year then take the rest off .. just wondering if you are constantly busy with pressure washing or with carpets etc.. how you manage the other services..and to fit them in..

are some saying there isnt enough work to be busy in just carpet cleaning etc???.. hence doing the other services..

I hope i,m making sense..