How Did You get Your Start in this business??

And I wonder, do you consider yourself in sales?......selling a service, or yourself?


Me?....it was 1986, I was 19 years old, needed a job, so I looked in the news paper (pre-Interwebs era) lol

I saw an add that said "Earn $500-600 per week! Being over double what I had made weekly up until this point I was intrigued. So I called and went to the "interview" (word used loosely), was hired on the spot, but who wasn't hasha.
After a 3 day "training period" I was out on my own, cleaning carpet and upholstery with a rented (from the LA based Bait and Switch Co.) I was hired by.

When a newbie and you had none of your own equipment you were paid 35% of your job totals....this was walking in to coupon jobs for $12.50 for 2 rooms or $24.95 for 5 room. IF you bought or had your own equip you made 40-45% based on a sliding scale, based on your job totals. So if you were to make any real money, or the $5-600 advertized you sold your ass off, anything and everything!
I made good money working for them, especially for a 19-20 yr old, but I'm not stupid, and soon bought my own equip and worked on getting my own customers.

Long story short........
....I've been in this Biz ever since, good or bad.   

How 'bout you?

Great story...we started about the same time.  

I was stationed out in San Diego (Camp Pendleton) in '87 working for that cheap-skate Uncle Sam when a few guys and me decided to rent a place off base next to the beach....a little more expensive than we could really handle.

So, I started working for an independent up in Laguna Beach on the weekends. Good guy, paid well and didn't stress me on making any particular sales quota. He just told me to be "On time, be polite, and do the best job that you can".

I continued to work for independents on both coasts during my military career to make ends meet....I guess I was always the kind of guy who needed to work 2 jobs, should have seen that trend earlier.

I wonder if that is why you are more sales motivated...you worked for a franchise that required it. I was just told to clean, never become a great salesman as a result.

I don't see myself as a salesman at all (probably a good thing since I am not the best at it). I see myself as a service guy who solves people's problems. If I could remove the money side from the equation, I gladly would, but you have to pay the bills too. I guess that is why I never provide the bill on the spot, I prefer to mail the invoice later so that the money part is removed from our interaction...keeps things less stressful and more friendly.

Having 2 jobs is why sales have never been a priority as the cleaning side was never the only source of income. It was always about solving the problem and the feeling of accomplishment that came with it.

Looks like that will have to change pretty soon....turning in my resignation this week. Will be cleaning full-time by August.  

I have always worked in agriculture as soon as I was legally of age to work. Landscaping, sod farm, farming tobacco, grocery, and golf course maintenance.

After graduating high school, I enrolled in a local community college in pinehurst, NC. Three years later I graduated with my associates degree in applied science.

From there I worked another 9 years in the business and found myself on the end of a dismissal meeting.

My brother Inlaw had been talking to me about starting my own cleaning business for several months but I wasn't interested cause I had a job and really like it, just hated the people I worked for.

Well now I had time to consider that option. So, after about three or four weeks of research and a good friend who happened to have a cleaning unit in his car lot. I jumped in.

I consider our company to be a service driven model. As I have always worked in service working for private country clubs. One of the first things I did was make a vision statement. "Neighbors Serving Neighbors".
We have been in business for five years and I have loved every step of the way.

That's been our focus from the beginning. It has worked well for us and I have created a good niche in our area with this concept. We do some selling, we offer, explain, and they have the choice to accept or not.

sold 4 truck landscaping business in 2007.     housing market in seattle crashed hard people lost a lot of money    

yards were the last thing anyone cared about at that time so the business got crazy competitive,   large companies willing to work at near cost just to keep slightly afloat.    

decided I wanted to work indoors and knew a guy who was getting older that had a decent carpet cleaning business.      

He set me up with 1 other guy doing the entire northwest hospital campus,  5-7pm mon-sat    

hated it,   got treated poorly by all the hospital staff...   any time we were cleaning they all had this attitude that it was just a huge inconvenience and we were in the way.     couldnt use anything other than matrix all fiber rinse as that was the only thing the hospital would approve so the cleaning results were horrible.    

pricing was from 1985 and the campus was massive.        

started putting up my own signs on the side of the road and doing jobs for around 125-150.00,   which was a slap in the face compared to what I made landscaping but the job market here was non existent... if you wanted to serve coffee you were competing with masters degrees minimum

at first it was a big step back from previous business and still not doing as good as pre 2008,  

but ive accepted that the real estate market that was allowing us to profit so much was an unrealistic bubble.       3bd ramblers in the right neighborhood were selling for 950k up to a million dollars,    after the crash they dropped to mid 200s.    


Overall I like the steam cleaning business and am happy now that it is starting to get some traction.    I believe I can build a much more simple business with a more steady income that can partially run itself.

A lot of cleaners think its tough to have people clean for you,    its almost laughable coming from having employees out building 20k landscapes for you...    the stress level and possible issues arent even in the same ballpark