[The Carpet Cleaning Pro]

A professional is a person who is paid to undertake a specialized set of tasks and to complete them for a fee.

Definition
 
The main criteria for professional include the following:
 1.Expert and specialized knowledge in field which one is practicing professionally.
 2.Excellent manual/practical and literary skills in relation to profession.
 3.High quality work in (examples): creations, products, services, presentations, consultancy, primary/other research, administrative, marketing, photography or other work endeavours.
 4.A high standard of professional ethics, behaviour and work activities while carrying out one's profession (as an employee, self-employed person, career, enterprise, business, company, or partnership/associate/colleague, etc.). The professional owes a higher duty to a client, often a privilege of confidentiality, as well as a duty not to abandon the client just because he or she may not be able to pay or remunerate the professional. Often the professional is required to put the interest of the client ahead of his own interests.
 5.Reasonable work morale and motivation. Having interest and desire to do a job well as holding positive attitude towards the profession are important elements in attaining a high level of professionalism.
 6.Participating for gain or livelihood in an activity or field of endeavour often engaged in by amateurs b : having a particular profession as a permanent career c : engaged in by persons receiving financial return
 7.Appropriate treatment of relationships with colleagues. Consideration should be shown to elderly, junior or inexperienced colleagues, as well as those with special needs. An example must be set to perpetuate the attitude of one's business without doing it harm.
 8.A professional is an expert who is master in a specific field.


So do people see us as professionals, or... just a trade???

[Simon Gerrard]

As professional tradespeople
They are never going to see as one of the 'Professions,' doctors, lawyers etc, of course not, why would, should they?

Simon

[Neil Williams]

So do people see us as professionals, or... just a trade???

The question was 'Do people see us........' not what we think of ourselves.
I believe it's split, for those who initially see us as tradesmen, will change their stance if you've been called out to deal with a tricky stain and achieve the desied result that they couldn't, suddenly they'll see us as Professionals.

My opinion of what the public perceive as professionals are for those occupations where qualifications and training are manditory, and controlled by organisations. Carpet cleaning isn't.

For me the word professional means someone who is paid a full time wage to carry out a specific trade.

Technically the players at the football club I support who play in the Conference are professional football players which is the same as Premier League players are called, because they are paid a full time wage to play football, the fact that several of them aren't as good as they think they might be doesn't change what they might put on their passport applications 

[Steve Barnett (Carpet Care Plus)]

Professional is as professional does 

[AshWhite]

They can call me Shirley Bassey as long as they put the dough in my palms.

[Neil Williams]

They can call me Shirley Bassey as long as they put the dough in my palms.

Go on then give us a song Shirl

[AshWhite]

See the second half of my post 

[wynne jones]

We are simply cleaners.

Anyone can clean a carpet in a week or two. Professionals go to university and then do lots of additional education before they can call themselves professionals.

How dare we even suggest we are on par with such folk. 

[Jim_77]

Wooden Spoon Alert!!!!

[garybristow]

wynne,when you go to a carpet that is filthy they are calling in a pro person because its something they cant do thereself
i turn up with a headful of knowledge,ive been trained,i have about £17.000 of truck mounted cleaning equipment,i am uniformed up ,i have a company image with experience of 27 years,i rarely advertise as i have built a customer base
you can call yourselves what you like! personally im a professional carpet and upholstery cleaner!!
( i can hear the tune from the dambusters as im typing this)

[Helen]

Professional is in the eye of the beholder!
What counts as professional to one person, would not necessarily be the same to another.

[Adam Fearnley]

Thing is you can turn up in a suit, with top of the range equipment, but you're still a cleaner, I'm not even sure if it's considered a trade? I don't want to knock it but it seems some people here think they're working in canary wharf and won't get out of bed for less than £50 an hour :  I think those type of people make a mockery of the 'profession'.

[Simon Gerrard]

We don't charge less than £50 per hour, neither should anyone else, IMO, I don't go to work in a suit, or work in Canary Wharf

Simon

[wynne jones]

I really do think people generally see us a cleaners.

If we go around talking to custies and telling them we ain't worth much and that anyone can do the job then it just confirms the stereotype.

When I work for a custy for the first time they soon change there perception and if they don't I really don't want them as a long term client anyway.

Ultimately we are business people and anyone who runs a profitable business is 10 times the YES man in a suit doing a 9-5.

[Adam Fearnley]

That's a fair point, you could see us as businessmen in sales, marketing, and some cleaning  

[elliott cleaning]

In any type of 'work' there are what one calls 'professionals' and 'others' - call it trade or whatever.
In our industry, I have found there are two types of 'cleaners'.

In the last month I have been to a couple of new clients - in both cases I have been confronted with averagely soiled carpets and in both cases the clients have pointed out a few stains where they have said that they weren't to concerned about these as the carpet cleaners they had used before were unable to remove them and thus they had accepted that these were permanent.  In one case the stains didn't cause me a great problem - the second case required a fair amount of work but had a positive result.

I charge accordingly - and thus regard myself as a 'professional' in this particular industry. The ones that cleaned those carpets before me are obviously 'trade or others'.

I know a number of carpet cleaners - a limited number on this forum - who fall into the 'professional' catagory

[mark_roberts]

Hi Elliott

Good point and a situation Im sure most of us face almost daily.

In your case did you 'know' you could remove the stains before attempting to and so set the price or did you determine the charge after obtaining the desired result?

Sometimes I think pro stain removal should be an additional fee, depending upon the result.

Thanks
Mark

[jon barnes]

What's wrong with tradesman? A master carpenter is still a tradesman yet the difference in workmanship between that and someone who struggles to bang two bits of wood together is enormous! I don't really think of it as a derogatory term to be honest

[Adam Fearnley]

We are not listed as a trade on wikipedia but 'carpet layer' is.

[Warren Aldridge]

I dont think being a carpet cleaner is a trade.

I would consider it a service.

Lets be honest, there is no barrier to entry, anyone can become a "professional carpet cleaner"
There is no regulation, sorry NCCA and TACCA people  but there is no real regulation of this industry or industry standard.
Its fairly easy. I don't think I've worked in anything that didn't require ongoing education or personal development.

As a carpet cleaner, we are a cleaning service, that's all really. Nothing more, nothing less. Everybody has to know something about what they do for a living. I'd bet washing cars can be quite technical. I'd certainly think twice about who washes my Ferrari ( If I had one )

But I don't consider myself to be a cleaner, very far from it actually. I may do the cleaning, but I am a business owner, a professional. I do the hiring/buying/selling/negotiations/marketing/strategy/planning/budgets/accounts.

So I call myself a business man, very few people can run a business like most of us do, it takes guts and brains.

But my helper: He's a cleaner, he's not a tradesman