M arketing Guide 1 Welcome to the Rotovac Business Startup Marketing Plan. Our goal is to give you simple, clear, tried and tested advice on how to get your carpet cleaning business going, and how to keep it growing. You’ve made the best first decision – you’ve purchased a Rotovac, the finest carpet cleaning machine available. As your business grows, you’ll find that the Rotovac’s astonishing cleaning results and the word of mouth that follows will become your most persuasive marketing tool. There are many business marketing plans available, and some will even tell you what size yellow page ads to purchase and what color shirt to wear. At Rotovac, we believe in allowing you to shape your business to your needs. If you are starting part time for example, you won’t need to budget for expensive advertising. Part or full time, the Rotovac Business Startup Marketing Plan with help you to professionally begin and sustain a successful carpet cleaning career. © 2013 Rotovac Corporation. All Rights Reserved 2 Writing a Business Plan Before you do anything you need to come up with a business plan – and I know it’s not fun, but write it down! It’s easy to get lost in the details if you haven’t taken the time to actually sit down and plan out your marketing goals. Start with the basics – what is the name of your company? I would strongly suggest something short and easy to remember. So instead of “Zachariah’s Carpet & Tile Cleaning Service” try... “Zeek’s Carpet Cleaning” Instead of “Jabrowski Brothers Quality Cleaning” Try... “Portland Carpet Care” If your business name is even slightly complicated you will have to spell it out on the phone more times than you can count, and if it’s hard to remember then your clients might very well not be able to remember your name next time they need a cleaning. When planning out your business give yourself regular goals – like make a goal that in three weeks you will have approached the owners of 15 different apartment buildings to become their new cleaner. Set goals to have business cards, fliers etc made up. Set goals to buy new equipment, stock up on chemicals etc. Being successful when you are self employed is all about careful planning, and all about follow through. Commercial Vs. Residential Work When starting your business you should decide if you are going to focus on residential or on commercial work, there are clear pros and cons to both. Usually people go after commercial work because places like apartment buildings, retirement homes etc. will typically have you clean the entire building and will have you do so on a regular basis. The downside is that people seeking cleanings for commercial buildings will usually expect you to drastically reduce your prices, and getting paid often takes 2-3 weeks due to the fact that you are dealing with bureaucracies. On a regular 2 bedroom apartment you might get $120 if a person hires you, but if you are cleaning a whole building they might insist on paying no more than $60 a unit. I think it would be prudent for you to go after both actually, since regularly scheduled apartment buildings can be a great way to supplement your income from doing houses and apartments. © 2013 Rotovac Corporation. All Rights Reserved 3 Upselling your Services There are many different ways to upsell your services and make some extra cash as you go about your scheduled cleaning jobs. Many people start with Scotchguard, which is a great spray that will make your carpet last longer and do better between cleanings. Typically cleaners will charge $10-$15 a room for Scotchguard treatment, which can add up to be a substantial boon. For regular stain treatment, consider using a formula called “Stain Magic” which is excellent at getting up those more difficult stains and discoloration spots.Typically you would charge $10-$15 per room for this regular sort of stain treatment. For cat urine stains you really need a Water Claw or some other kind of spot lifter tool – and even then about 10-15% of the time the urine will have soaked through to the carpet pad and you will not be able to remove the odor. My recommendation would be to buy a Water Claw, use a chemical called OSR (an odor and stain remover) and also have your clients sign a waiver saying they understand that if the urine has settled into the carpet pad there is a chance the odor may return. Retaining your Customers When you are doing your next cleaning, take a moment to ask your customer about the last carpet cleaning company they hired. I’ll bet you a dollar they thought they did a good job but can’t remember the name of the company. The truth of the matter is that most people don’t think any more about their carpets than they have too, and usually forget the company they hired as soon as they walk out the door. To be as successful as you can be as a carpet cleaner, you need to make your company memorable. There are several ways to go about this. First, I would recommend getting some “swag” which is to say giveaway products with your logo and number on it – squish balls, pens etc. One popular tactic is to get cleaning spray bottles made with your logo and customers number on them. Tell them “if you get a small stain on your carpet, spray it with this and then dab with a rag. If the problem area is still there you can call the number on the bottle.” This works really well. The number one best working idea for retaining customers is booking their next appointment directly after the cleaning. Say something along the lines of “We recommend a regular cleaning every six months, can I put you down for a 10am appointment on September 25th?” About sixty percent of your customers will say “ok” and then you have jobs set up for the future. If you depend on new clients for all your business it is very hard to grow, but with a regular client base every new client is one more client – and more money you are making in the fiscal year. © 2013 Rotovac Corporation. All Rights Reserved 4 Other Services you can Offer Carpet cleaning is just the tip of the iceberg, there are all kinds of extra services you can market. Tile is a big one, probably the biggest one. You can actually make more money from cleaning tile – anywhere from $75-$150 an hour if you are charging correctly! Many people actually start cleaning carpets and end up exclusively cleaning tile because the money is better. Upholstery is also a good money maker, all you need is a detail tool and a standard sized couch shouldn’t take you more than 20 or 30 minutes. Typicall cleaners charge about $25 per couch, and $15 for loveseats. Flood restoration is a very profitable business if you can get the work – a typical smaller job will make you $5,000 to $6,000 and only take you a few hours. Not only does doing flood restoration require a LOT of classes and education, but you must be certified and licensed. Your company has to be in the position to be able to accept insurance. Nobody will be paying for emergency services out of pocket. Flood restoration is the kind of business that is difficult to get, but once you get hookups in the insurance industry it’s not unfathomable that you could be making $500k – to a million a year. Realistically this isn’t something you should even consider doing until you have been doing carpet cleaning for awhile, and feel comfortable with that. It’s easy to start with tile and upholstery though, so every time someone calls about a carpet cleaning just say “we have a 20% off special on tile and upholstery cleaning, did you need any tile or upholstery cleaned while we are there?” Handing out Fliers and Knocking on Doors There are free flyers on our resources page than can be modified for your business. Just bring the Photoshop files to a Kinkos and ask someone there help you swap out the business name and phone number. There are a million places where you can put up flyers but try and think about who has money, and who you want as customers. Laundoymats usually let you post notices and cards, but if you think about it people only go to laundromats because they are poor and can’t afford their own washer and dryer. If on the other hand, you put up flyers in the community center of a rich neighborhood, or at a coffee shop in an upper end area; you can attract potential customers who own larger houses that you can charge more for, and upsell different services to. © 2013 Rotovac Corporation. All Rights Reserved 5 Surprisingly, just going door to door and handing out fliers in good neighborhoods is (time consuming) yet very effective way to generate new business. I’ve heard people tell me that they usually sign someone up every hour and a half to two hours they spend knocking on doors. So if you finish a job in a nice area, why not knock on a few doors and hand out a few fliers? Yellow Page Ads Yellow Page ads are surprisingly hit and miss. I have talked to cleaners who told me they worked, but I have talked to more who barely broke even (the ads tend to be very expensive) or even lost money on them.