[Paul Davidson]

With the so called Credit Crunch biting hard, the economists and media circus now telling us that the Country is officially moving into recession.

What do you think the affect we be for the Carpet Cleaning Industry? 

Will it be a case of less customers, as people have less disposable income available, this generated by increased livings costs and infalation?

or

Will we get extra customers based on the potential of lots of people who were planning on purchasing new carpets deciding to save some money by keeping there carpets and getting them cleaned instaed?

Hope i got it right second time!!

regards

Paul

[Timmy Boy]

I don't want to jinx my current situation but its the busiest I have been for about 6 months. January to May were dire. So bad that I had to lay some guys off as the work was not there. I think my clients
have just thought 'what the heck' and started to go back to what they were doing before all the doom and gloom of the credit crunch. At the end of the day the people who have carpets cleaned are generally house proud people with young families, the need will not just dissappear.
I was encouraged by some marketing blurb i saw the other day which said that now times are a bit tougher the throw away society will need to make do. I used to clean a care home which would have me come in once every few months and clean their carpets when a resident moved on. Then it stopped as they said that they are now replacing the carpets every time. I expect that they will start to call me again now times are changing!
I feel sorry for all the builders clean companies that have set up off the boom, overnight the bubbles burst
Regards
Tim

[markpowell]

My thoughts exactly, i think more people will have things cleaned now than replacing them, a lot of customers have told me exactly the same over the past few months, i do however think that there will be more price shoppers than ever before
Mark

[John Kelly]

What you have to do is pitch your marketing to put that idea into peoples heads.

[Doug Holloway]

Hi Guys

Nobody knows where this 'recession' will lead, they are all different.

However all recessions cause us to examine our expenditure and if it's not justified then cut it.

As you know I have many websites so get a fairly good idea of the market, which at least on line seems to be holding up very well.

Carpets wll still need cleaning and the good CC"s / businesses will survive, thats how the market works.

Cheers

Doug

[maxcarpets]

increase advertising.

[Simon Gerrard]

Justin,
In my opinion, indeed in my experience, that is the very last thing you should be doing. The one truth I have learned over the years is that you cannot spend your way out of a down turn. What you can do is keep in close touch with your existing customer base with special offers and new services but if I were you I would be cutting my overheads to the minimum and hope for the best.

Simon

[Doctor Carpet (Ret'd)]

You should also have not over-committed yourself on the home front so that if there is any contraction in business you can contract your own domestic liabilities if need be.

In other words, never live up to your income.

[maxcarpets]

Simon,

We always make sure that we reach 50,000 homes per month with our advertising ( not including net ) I have just increased it to 75000 adding the words 15% discount throughout Jun/July etc! Have been very, very busy So I say increase advertising but give a special offer.

Justin

[Mike Osbourne]

I think people will just stop spending on everything thus leading to mass unemployment just like, or worse than the great depression of the thirties.

Most carpet cleaners will go out of business with debts and no hope of a job, losing their house and possibly leading to family breakup or breakdowns, or worse.

On the other hand you could look on the bright side. :

[Doug Holloway]

Mike

You forgot to mention the rise to power of Adolf Hitler MK 2.

There are those who believe you should spend your way out of a recession thereby creating demand, all comes down to confidence in the end.

I remember the industrial recession of the early 80's high unemployment etc, hardly touched financial services, friends of mine who worked in the City didn't even notice it.

This time its the other way round at present.

Cheers

Doug

[Shaun_Ashmore]

Doug I had to read that twice I thought you wrote 'industrial revolution', I knew you were getting on a bit

Shaun

[bennymon]

hi folks ive had a really busy year untill this week nothing booked beyond tuesday morning 

[Shaun_Ashmore]

Even by my standard I have never had an empty week, my sales figures are up on last year and I've already had 4 weeks holiday.

Mustn't grumble

Shaun

[maxcarpets]

Been up every month this year, but as with all of us I do not exactly feel comfortable with all this going on. It does make you worry about where it will end. Fingers crossed we should pull through. Not sure about newbies though.

Justin.

[Peter Blackburn]

Jan and Feb were very good for me and this flowed into March, this was because of an offer. April was bad and May was predictably terrible. June and July Fantastic. So all in all, up on last year.
Very very little in the way of enquires from new customers. So reduced all my advertising and am looking to reduce again shortly. Now is not the time to market a business.

All my business at the moment is from old existing customers which is nice.

I feel sorry for anyone that is trying to build a business at the moment; I know I couldn’t do it.

Cheers
Pete 

[M.Acorn]

Just had a £200 job cancel that was booked for tomorrow,her husbands friend is going to do it ! i said call me back if it goes horribly wrong  ..
Also just found out that the reason my Prochem steempro is not working right is because it keeps sucking up water through the vacs ,when it`s foamed up ! ie working on the top floor of a 3 storey house and not getting downstairs quick enough to shut it off !
had a run of probs with my machine,keep getting fliud squirting out when i let go of the trigger,been told to move the little silver pin on the k valve round half a twist to solve that.
Always have probs with the machine when i am quiet and not earning money

[M.Acorn]

Yes using de foamer now,didn`t realise that it could do damage to machine if this happend though,spoke to Graham @ olympic ,got some new brushes on order which will hopefully sort out the cutting out problem 

[Andy Hogarth]

I had a very very rich client  tell me a recession would not stop his wife getting the carpets cleaned However they will have to curb it on the wine a tad

His reckoning was he will continue to pull in a good wage and has enough put away to at least keep his house and car looking nice.

I think it's a good time to start hitting the more affluent areas with flyers and I'm doing the Cleveland Way for charity so I'm using this to get in as many local rags as poss and mentioning the business more and more.

I'm a tad apprehensive as I've only set up this year and don't have a very big client base but it is building steadily.

Top thanks to everyone who helped with the website as this bring in a fair bit of work, Anybody just starting up needs to hit the www. Yell and my site is keeping me going at the mo

Will be an interesting year for sure

Andy



 

[elliott cleaning]

I think your client says it all, Andy.

Some customers lose out in a recession, the majority just stand still & still have their carpets cleaned.  Others, both businesses & individuals flourish in a slow down.
You just have to make sure your customer base has the right mix.
If you are short on the mid & top end of the market then now is the time to start marketing to those catagories