www.alltec.co.uk: ALLTEC Professional Carpet Cleaning Machines, Equipment and Business Start-up: Hot Dogs

21st September 2011
Royston, Herts

Dear Friend

"Do You Know What Hot Dog's Have Got To Do With Carpet Cleaning…?"

Well, I didn’t know either, that’s was until yesterday when Mark Pritchard, a local carpet cleaner came into my office and sat himself down for one of his regular chats over a coffee.

About 12-years ago we helped Mark to start his own carpet cleaning business and now he has became a great customer and friend. Mark will pop in to my office once or twice a month just to find out what’s going on in the industry … or as he often does informs me what’s going on.

While chatting he picked up at a few of my marketing books from my desk and thumbed through them asking how are carpet cleaners doing at the moment. He asked if they were marketing like they should be. I said some of my clients are doing well, in fact VERY WELL, however a growing number seem to be having problems.

I told him I’d just attended the NCCA Carnival (17^th September 2011 which I thought was great, well done NCCA) and a lot of cleaners said they were worried as people were tightening their belts AND it doesn’t help that the ‘media’ are now talking about a ‘double dip’ at a time we thought we’d be over the recession, as it seems people have stopped spending again.

Mark just laughed and said “‘Recession’ what a load of rubbish”. Haven’t they heard of the Hot Dog Story?

Mark went on to say that his figures so far for 2011 are up again on last year. He said he just done one of his regular checks on where his work was coming from and again his biggest part for him was repeat and referral work. This totalled 71% of all his cleaning business (57% repeat and 14% referral). And he said these people were not bitching about his prices and worrying the ‘end is nigh’ … they are happy to have him back and his job tickets are still high.

Mark doesn’t have a big business, runs it from home, but has a great lifestyle. He plays Golf at least twice a week, he has five holidays a year, just recently returned from a Mediterranean Cruise, plus lots of weekends away with the kids. Mark is one of the few people I know that really runs his business to fund his perfect life.

Now before you start to feel sick and get the desire to hunt Mark down and let the air out of his van tyres, he did say that things out there have changed for him also. He has noticed the Internet work, which makes up 21% of his work (Google Ads & SEO), although it is still good has become more price conscious. BUT he doesn’t let that stop him. Just last week he booked 4 jobs with a total of £1,152.00 … so he isn’t lowering his prices.

He said that after having most of the summer off marketing he has just started to ramp up for the ‘silly season’ and for next February and March (what some cleaners refer to as the slow season). Mark has just this week turned his ‘Google Ad Words’ back on after leaving them OFF for three months. He has had a few thousand ‘I Miss You’ letters printed ready to go out over the next few months to his clients so he can increase the work from them.

However, Mark said if you believe what the media tells you it would be easy to start to allow your business to slide. There's opportunity in the air. You can feel it … just get on and be aggressive with your marketing and it will come.

Here's what Mark means…

I'm beginning to notice many commercial companies/stores have already cut down on staffing, this I'm sure, is a reaction to the economy's woes. Several store managers I work with have told me that their business is good, but even those managers are beginning to consider recession-spawned management techniques. Recession-spawned management techniques include things like cutting advertising and trimming staff. That's OK for them, but it spells opportunity for those who remain aggressive. The whole thing reminds me of a story I heard a long time ago about a hot dog seller.

I like Marks story so much I even ‘Googled it’ … and it went something like this:

The Hot Dog Seller Story

An old gentleman owned a hot dog stand in New York. His hot dogs were famous for blocks and blocks, maybe even miles and miles. People loved his hot dogs and he had a great trade from the local offices around him. He had a couple of people working for him and advertised in all of the local papers. He even hired kids to put signs on poles on street corners and he even made calls on local businesses to encourage their staff to stop and try his hot dogs.

Once people tried his hot dogs they were hooked. Business was good, so good in fact that he was able to open a couple more stands and put his son through college.

Finally his son came home from college and begin to talk to his father about what he had been learning. "There's a recession on out there Pops." The young man said. "You'd better stop spending so much on advertising, reduce the money you are spending on your hot dogs and let some of your help go."

"But business is good son." The old man defended.

"Sure it is now, but you'll see there's a recession on and you'd better get ready." His son replied.

The old man considered what he had heard and although he didn’t agree, how could he argue with his son after all the amount of money he had spent for his son's education. Finally he decided that perhaps he should follow his young sons advice and he should cut back and wait for better times.

After he reducing the advertising, purchasing cheaper hot dogs, cutting some of his staff and closing one of his stands his business, unsurprisingly began to pull back dramatically.

In reaction to the downturn he cut advertising even more and tried to run the stand by himself. To make matters worse, one of his old competitors built two new stands in the old man's territory. "Lucky I had my son to warn me", thought the old man. Eventually his hot dog business failed. His son had been right--there was a recession on.

The moral to this story is: Whatever your business is offering, keep advertising your "hot dogs", use only the best quality “hot dogs’, keep all of your "hot dog cooking" and "hot dog selling" personnel, and keep up-to-date with the latest ways to improve your “hot dogs”. Don't give another “hot dog seller” an invitation to enter your neighbourhood and STOP listening to the ‘cry of recession’ or you might just find it to be true!

So you can believe what the media says and what other people may say about the recession hitting hard and slowly start to reduce your advertising, cut costs by making do with old equipment, save money by not going out to give audits face-to-face and reduce your level of service to save time. This will do one thing… allow your prospect’s and clients to become someone else’s customers.

Put a stop to that now and make the change! If you are confident in your business others will be confident with you. Look at your business … Look at you and your staff! Do you look professional, do you look and sound like business is doing well … which gives people the confidence to buy your service?

To help you we have a few offers that can help you in THREE WAYS.

1. Marketing Seminars: Most importantly we’re offing you to attend our £125 per person Discovery Day Seminar for FREE! This is limited to just 20 people per seminar and is on a first come first served basis. More info here

2. Learn New Skills: We are currently offering ‘BUY ONE get ONE FREE’ on training schools. You could learn add-on skills like Leather Cleaning, Rug Cleaning or even Tile & Grout Cleaning. All these are easy to learn and very easy to sell you your customers. You could even become IICRC approved in Carpet Care, Upholstery Care, Commercial Maintenance Care or Stone, Tile and Masonry Cleaning. Buy any one-day school and receive any one-day school free for you or a partner/staff member. Buy any two-day school and receive any two-day school (including IICRC schools) FREE. More Info Here

3. New Equipment: Is you old equipment feeling or looking a little tired or out dated? We are offering some deals on or ALLTEC portable machines, Rotovac’s and tools. Now is a great time to up-grade, it will give you and your company a boost before the Christmas rush. More Info Here

I don’t know many businesses that haven’t been affected by this recession, but what I’m sure of it’s how you deal with it that matters … I have new start-up companies that are doing great, I have older companies going from £120 average job ticket to a £300 average job ticket … with almost no cost to the business.

It’s all about YOU … as Mr Henry Ford said in the ‘great depression of the 1930’s “If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right.”

If you believe people will not pay £100 plus for carpet cleaning … you’re right. However, I have a lot of people that are paid over £100 an hour for cleaning carpets. To find out more please attend one of my Marketing seminars… that can help you turn your business around.

Regards

Robert Saunders

PS. I three offers for you...

1. FREE Marketing Seminars: Most importantly we’re offing you to attend our £125 per person Discovery Day Seminar for FREE! This is limited to just 20 people per seminar and is on a first come first served basis. Click Here

2. BOGOF - Learn New Skills: We are currently offering ‘BUY ONE get ONE FREE’ on training schools. You could learn add-on skills like Leather Cleaning, Rug Cleaning or even Tile & Grout Cleaning. All these are easy to learn and very easy to sell you your customers. You could even become IICRC approved in Carpet Care, Upholstery Care, Commercial Maintenance Care or Stone, Tile and Masonry Cleaning. Buy any one-day school and receive any one-day school free for you or a partner/staff member. Buy any two-day school and receive any two-day school (including IICRC schools) FREE. Click Here

“When everything seems to be going against you,
remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.”
Henry Ford 1931

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