LeePemberton.com

This is a scary time for the new business start ups that are specializing in carpet cleaning  in the northern parts of our great country.

The question I get is “What can I do, it’s really slow?”  -  Giving that question a quick “off the cuff” answer is not fair or easy!

And, here is why:

The first and most important “secret” that I have learned about being successful as a “Mom & Pop” business is simply this  .  .  .

Just Be Yourself – Will Always Be Your Best Policy.

Your effectiveness in business comes from your effectiveness as a person. The two are inseparable. To have a business goal worth pursuing implies that you have a life goal worthy of your best efforts.

That attitude will shine through in both your business and your training activities. If you don’t really believe that your business goals are meaningful, that is exactly what will shine through, regardless of all the motivational words you use.

• Learn to step back and remove your feelings from a situation.
• You can see situations much more clearly when feelings are removed.

Only then can the discussions begin!  Things that might be great for one “Mom & Pop” business, will absolutely not fit another. The secret is honesty with your self! Why even try to do something you can’t or won’t be comfortable doing?

Bottom line: Figure out who you are and what you are honestly comfortable with and I can help you! And while we are being honest with ourselves, next week we look at something called “Truth”.

Ethics has become a very hot and relevant topic today, especially since the “Great Financial Fiasco” of 2008, in politics, religion as well as in business. In fact every business person I know readily admits that good ethics make for good business.

However, in every business niche there seems to be those who preach “Ethical Behaviors”, while their behavior says something entirely different!

I find this to be disturbingly true also in our industry. There certainly appears to be a major ethics gap in many professional carpet care businesses, and that ethics gap is this:

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What One Personally Knows Is Right Or Wrong
Vs
What One Is Willing To Do Or Say To Make A Buck In Their Business Today
(or not do or say, depending on the situation)
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This attitude is at the foundation of many of the problems in our current business environment. Why does everyone just seem to accept its existence and quietly ignore it?

And finally, what do you think that we as individual businesses can or should do to narrow the gap or at least expose it? Or should we even bother?

My thoughts for this week,

Lee

A shopping experience I had a few weeks ago inspired me to share my story with you, so here it goes. . .
For those of you who don’t know it, the greater Pittsburgh area is “Pierogie” country. Whether you spell it pierogi, piroghi or pierogie, authentic homemade pierogies are a Pittsburgh tradition. Here in Pittsburgh we eat more than 11 times the pierogies of any other city in the nation. – That is — except for me! I have always considered pierogies “boring” & only ate them when it was obviously the polite thing to do.

Something happened to me in a local super market that has completely devastated my “disdainful” attitude! It went like this:

I was diligently performing my weekly shopping task when a sweet little white haired lady wearing an apron and standing behind a little portable stove offered me small, pleasant smelling tidbit on a toothpick to taste.

Not anticipating anything terribly disgusting, I smiled and accepted it. ONE WORD – DELICIOUS! I said, “my that was tasty” & she said “would you like a bigger bite? I said “SURE“! After I finished it I asked what was that? It is delicious.

She answered, That was a very special “pierogie” with a filling of whipped potatoes, spinach and feta cheese, sautéed in olive oil, garlic & butter. Then she pointed to the freezer where stacks of boxes were waiting!

Bottom line? I love those delicious “pierogies” –
but would never have tasted one without that demonstration!

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My Message To You Is “Demo Or Starve!”

FACT:
Sales or marketing presentations that offer a first-person demonstration as proof of effectiveness are nearly 50 percent more effective than simply relying on your reputation.

FACT:
There is never enough time to make a presentation that covers everything we really want to tell our prospect. Deciding what not to say, present, or cover is always a real challenge.

SOLUTION:
Whenever possible, include a hands-on, sensory-filled (sight, sound, taste, touch) demonstration to achieve outstanding results!

Strategy Evaluation Results:
In a well documented study conducted in 2001, the original marketing messages for nine hundred products & services were divided into four categories, based on the type of credibility strategy used.

Using only the credibility of a “brand” actually determined the baseline or “lowest success” results when the primary source of credibility presented was the established brand’s or parent company’s name and reputation.

The second best strategy was the “pedigree” of the new product or service (actually 21 % more effective than the baseline strategy). That means explaining how it was created or how it is delivered, including its source of technology, components or ingredients, as well as duration of the results.

The third best strategy was the “testimony” of customers, experts, and/or celebrities speaking of the product or service delivery results. (this was 29 % more effective than the baseline strategy)

However, without question, the very best strategy was the “demonstration” of the product or service itself (47 percent more effective) delivering a sensory impact (sight, sound, taste, touch) that provide first-person credibility of delivery of the benefit.

No amount of words comes close to the impact of first hand experience with a new product or service benefit.

Don’t blame your customer for not believing what you say. You have to prove it. Imagine Thomas Edison or the Wright brothers trying to “sell” a movie camera or airplane without a demo! – - – impossible!!!

PRACTICAL IDEAS

#1 – Get the Customer to Take a Taste!
Go to whatever length necessary to help your customer try your service (or product). Have them taste, feel, experience, and enjoy the wonder of what you offer. One of the country’s most successful car dealers has a weekend test-drive program that provides qualified customers with a car for the weekend. Once a customer has test-driven a car for a weekend, the dealer has a 90 percent close rate.

#2 – Show and Tell Your Demo
If you can’t get the customers to try your service, then bring your point of difference alive through show-and-tell demos. Let them see, feel, and/or touch the point of difference to make it come to life in their minds.

#3 – Use Technology to Bring the Demo to Life
If you can’t bring the real thing to life as a demo, then bring photos and video that show the points of difference. With today’s digital photos and video cameras, there is no reason to not have excellent visuals. Let the customer “see” for themselves you’re your difference fits into their life.

#4 – Use Technology to Remind Customers of the Demo
When possible, take photos or video of your customers actually utilizing your service or product. Then send the images to them as a visual reminder of the feeling they experienced that day.

This “Green Cleaning Report” is based on a survey done by John Braun at Hitman Advertising in October of 2010.

His purpose was to gain market research on what professional cleaners have to say about green and safe cleaning and some of the results were as you may expect.

But a few of the answers were surprising and serious, in my opinion!

First of all, answers seem to indicate that, in general, homeowners are concerned about the type of chemicals being used in their home. (To be expected, in my opinion)

In addition, it troubles me that about 1/2 of the operators surveyed indicated they had experienced physical problems with cleaning products they have used!

Also, the indication was given that customers are more interested in “Safe”, than “Green”.

To get a good look at everything the survey tells us, Mr. Braun has graciously offered CleanTip readers a Free copy of his 10 page report.

Just follow this link to get your Free copy  .  .  .
http://tinyurl.com/cleantip5

A reoccurring situation that I am noticing recently are businesses who haven’t been staying in touch with their clients/customers. They became jaundiced through the last decade of easy to get new customers. Now these business owners are realizing that they have to do some thing different, but they aren’t sure where to turn.

Referrals are a key way for an established business to get moving.

I have listed 15 categories of people below who move through either personal and business lives,
And can be a great place to get started:

1. Current clients or customers
2. Past clients from past invoices
3. Stagnant clients from past invoices
4. Prospects who for some reason did not buy
5. Fellow members of associations
6. Community leaders
7. Friends and neighbors
8. Advocates (people who’ve referred you more than once and say good things about you)
9. Drinking buddies
10. People with whom you volunteer
11. Parents of children who are your children’s teammates
12. Business owner and executive colleagues
13. Repair and maintenance people
14. Your corporate attorneys
15. Your CPA

Ok that’s a start, but remember, you have to get started!

Before we go any further, take a good look at a simple but revealing flow chart of your business.

MANAGEMENT = Top Position and . . . The Key To Your Success! &  Its You!

Next, you can see that management responsibilities are sub-divided into –

MARKETING, MONEY & TECHNICAL.

And…Pay attention to the lower left hand side of the chart and you can clearly see the bucket with incoming dollars leaking them out because of the “problems” that causes  “money to leak out” almost as fast as your customer puts it in!

Did you happen to notice the ”Smiley Face” beside the Technical and Marketing segments??

I put them there because they are what I call the “fun” responsibilities!

TECHNICAL is “FUN” because you “do stuff” you are good at and everything looks so much better when you are done!  This is really “FEEL  GOOD” stuff!

MARKETING is also “FUN” because you can do “STUFF” that is non-confrontational, like mailers & ads, yellow pages and signs. You really get the feeling you are doing something!  More “FEEL  GOOD” stuff!

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But,…

The “fun” & good feelings fade when the phone doesn’t ring (unless it’s a bill collector)!   You quickly find that there is just not enough money in that bucket to pay the bills, let alone yourself!

So, …. the problems get bigger and bigger. It just seems so logical to do more of the “fun” stuff so that you can get more $$ into that leaky customer bucket —— But that is truly a maddening tail chasing scenario that is simply unsustainable!

Facts & good sense require that we go back to the things we don’t like to do; so…. Financial details & financially driven decisions is where you go!

MONEY is where we must go to get answers.

Money is the lifeblood of any business and it must be carefully managed into the business and also out of it!

According to Dunn and Bradstreet, the Number One Reason Businesses in America Fail is because of Managerial Incompetence,  and that is in about 96% of the businesses that fail.

In order to understand what exactly they mean by managerial incompetence, I have listed the top  reasons business fail  here: I’ll also give the link to the article on the resource page for the rest of this interesting article

Top Reasons Why Businesses Fail
… of those that fail,  (well over ¾!)
82% Poor cash flow management skills / poor understanding of cash flow.
79% Starting out with too little money
77% Not pricing properly – failure to include all necessary items when setting prices.

Where Exactly Does The Money Come From?
Initially, from your savings, investors, business loans and leases, as well as income from products and services you sell.

Where Does It Go?
Ideally, it goes to these key areas:
For Equipment, Location or Building, Inventory, Operating expenses, and hopefully reserves and profit.

But, Does It Really Go there?
Unfortunately, because of poor management it often doesn’t!
For more immediate information, feel free to check out our resource box with additional links as well as phone numbers you can feel welcome to call.

• For information about “Educational Marketing”, visit
  http://www.ecleanadvisor.com/public/department15.cfm
• For information on specialty cleaning challenges, visit
  http://www.pembertons.com/jimscleanchat/
• For information regarding FREE Educational Fridays, visit
  http://www.ecleanadvisor.com/public/department44.cfm
• Call us at: 800-342-2297 or 412-751-3700

What they really mean is “Hey Lee, give me something easy & affordable to do that will get me more customers”.

Are you aware that this very attitude has created a flourishing business in our industry of selling Marketing and Advertising Systems for carpet cleaners?

A number of shrewd businessmen have found that they can make more money, easier – by selling marketing materials and consulting services to cleaners than they ever could by cleaning carpet (and the work is so much easier)!

I have to tell you, that as a capable and knowledgeable marketer with decades of experience, – who cares very deeply about this industry that we are all in together, and especially the great, hard working people who are its heartbeat; -

That there are some important truths that are frequently (and conveniently) glossed over that I feel really must be shared with you.

The biggest truth is simply that there is much more to developing a profitable carpet cleaning service than just marketing and advertising – The basic truth is that it takes a lot of work – very hard work!

With that sobering fact in your mind, I am going to follow through with some very fundamental guidance that I started to share with you back on July 9th when I spoke to you about “TRUST & YOU” – and the things that build TRUST.

We started then with the disclosure that the physical appearance of your business builds TRUST in your prospects mind! As a matter of fact, your prospects first opinion may well be created from what they see, before they know anything else about you!

Take a few minutes and go to the right sidebar of this page and choose the category “TRUST” along with the month of July and review the discussion I just mentioned – and while you are at it, check out the video.

In the meantime there are some things you need to consider before you attempt to seriously work at growing your business. It starts with what I refer to as your customer bucket.

Here is a graphic design of my concept of a customer bucket:

Notice there are a couple of pretty good leaks with customer dollars running out of the bucket.

Actually that is pretty normal, since most small businesses lose at least 10% of their customers each year for any number of reasons that they have little to no control over.

The problem is that most carpet cleaning businesses look more like this next bucket.
Check out the leaks!

This graphic makes it pretty clear that just trying to dump more new customer business in a business bucket in this condition would be an exercise in futility. Actually more customers would eventually be alienated in these circumstances

Yet, that is exactly what most carpet cleaners are directed to do by the consultants they are paying big bucks to help them! Is it any wonder they get frustrated and give up?

Good logical business sense says: “Get Your Business House In Order” before you spend money that will ultimately be wasted.

Before you can really accomplish anything, you must “FIRST REDUCE THE LEAKS!”

And, you do this by “Getting Your House in Order”. This graphic gives you a few serious problems to consider. – Check your business against these problems.

In a few days, I will add some additional slides with more “in-depth” information
Regarding these type of problems and how you can move forward in “getting Your House In Order”

For more immediate information, feel free to check out our resource box with additional links as well as phone numbers you can feel welcome to call.

• For information about “Educational Marketing”, visit
  http://www.ecleanadvisor.com/public/department15.cfm
• For information on specialty cleaning challenges, visit
  http://www.pembertons.com/jimscleanchat/
• For information regarding FREE Educational Fridays, visit
  http://www.ecleanadvisor.com/public/department44.cfm
• Call us at: 800-342-2297 or 412-751-3700

As we enter the 4th quarter of 2010, it is quite obvious that the consumer is continuing to be cautious with their spending. In fact, even the Healthcare segment is feeling the pinch.

But, as I have said before, we are absolutely in one of the best businesses we could be in an economic period like this, but be aware that even spending on asset maintenance is being stretched out.

I am going to share seven practical steps that I use and that you might want to review as we face our newly “frugal customers” for what I now believe will be an extended period of months, if not years.

#1. Protect Your Cash Flow – No matter how tough times get, you have to keep your cash flow moving. You have a business and you have to keep the business alive no matter what. Think of better strategies in order for you to attain that. Don’t be bashful about asking questions!

#2. Keep Your Personal Credit In Good Shape – Keeping good credit is especially important in times when you may need to borrow money. You are much more likely to get help from creditors when you show financial responsibility. Never forget that when you have nothing else to turn to, they are the ones you will need to rely on in order to keep your business afloat.

#3. Continue To Market Your Business – This is extremely important. Be consistent! You need to keep on marketing your business despite the economic situation because consumers still need your services.

#4. Focus On Your Core Competencies – Focus only on what you do best because it’s your key to remaining strong in business. The more that people trust you, the more likely they are to contact you for help.

#5. Make The Most Of The Customers You Have – Give your customers the best service and quality you can. This will not only enable you to retain them, but they in turn will help keep your business alive and growing buy referring you to others!

#6. Develop And Implement Strategies To Get Your Competition’s Customers – Study your competition and from that information, offer services that are measurably better than those your competitor offers.

#7. Review Your Inventory & Asset Management Practices – Look for alternate options and where possible, find ways to reduce your inventory & asset costs without sacrificing the quality of your services.

Click here for Lee’s Video Message

Hi – This is Lee Pemberton back to share some additional thoughts with you about “TRUST”.

I call today’s thoughts . . .
TRUST AND YOU!

If you hope to prosper . . .

You Must Focus on Building Consumer Trust in Your Carpet Cleaning Business! (and it won’t happen on its own

Customer confidence (trust) is extremely important to the success of every 1-10 employee small business. But none more so than in your Carpet Cleaning Service business.

In your Carpet Cleaning business, your customer rules and his or her satisfaction with your service will determine whether you receive repeat business and a referral or complaints and bad word-of-mouth comments.

TRUST — A Brief Definition

Trust is a combination of the value that others see in you, and their willingness to communicate and accept you and your services to help them get what they want. It’s people asking and taking your guidance as a trusted expert.

(The Collins English Dictionary defines trust as the worth or reliability of a person or thing)

I strongly recommend that you follow the link shown here and watch the video.

Link to short video by Jeffry Gitomer:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/mpd/permalink/m2WTDY715TFDS8

So, How Do You Win, Develop or Build Trust?

First, let me assure you that “trust” isn’t the product of any secret formula. It’s not something you can just sit and wait for it to happen to you.

Winning, building, and maintaining a high level of trust involves some serious thinking on your part!

It also requires reading, developing a clear focus on becoming an expert in your business specialty, it requires studying, it requires developing the right attitude, and then hanging in there when times are tough.

But you can and you must do it and when you do, it will lead you to more than money. It’s not just success, it’s fulfillment – for you and the people who trust you.

So, again, how do you win trust?
You win it by behaving in a trustworthy and reliable way in everything you do.

To win trust you have to be trustworthy. Trustworthiness is based on both your character and your competence. Building trust is all about being real and also being human.

One of the most important character traits required to create trustworthiness is integrity (i.e. your behavior has to be consistent with your values).

Building Trust in Your Carpet Cleaning Business

First of all, you should be aware that small businesses like ours have a competitive advantage over big businesses in at least this very important major area: the area of “trust”.

According to a recent 2010 Gallup Poll, 95 percent of consumers interviewed have “a positive or (trusting) image of small businesses like yours.

No other group received this large a vote of confidence. Big business on the other hand only received a 49 percent rating.

But,

it is critical to your Carpet Cleaning Business that you:

GET YOUR BUSINESS HOUSE IN ORDER

Like it or not . . .

THE PHYSICAL APPEARANCE OF YOUR BUSINESS Builds “Trust”!

Four Key Focus Areas Regarding Business Appearance

#1 – Must conform to or exceed the norms of a good quality cleaning service

#2 – Everything should be (and look) clean.

#3 – All smells (odors) should be at minimum acceptable, and preferably pleasant.

#4 – Everything should at all times appear uncluttered and professionally organized.

I must tell you that I believe this element of trust is the most difficult to master because it combines so many other vital elements. Give trust. You become trustworthy by giving trust.

I plan to address some more of these elements in next weeks blog entry.

For additional information on “Educational Marketing”, visit
http://www.ecleanadvisor.com/public/department15.cfm
For information on specialty cleaning challenges, visit
http://www.pembertons.com/jimscleanchat/
For information regarding our FREE Educational Fridays, visit
http://www.ecleanadvisor.com/public/department44.cfm

Call us at: 800-342-2297 or 412-751-3700

In the midst of the 2008 – 2009 financial madness, the American pillar of capitalism crumbled: Trust totally disappeared from our economic system.

The “credit crisis” turned into an “econolypse” because at the very heart of the crumbling of capitalism was the fact that “a credit crisis is a problem with basic trust”. And trust, not just credit, is what powers everything from business loans to elections to everyday consumer decisions.

The bottom line is: Trust is Marketing 101.

Since the 2008 – 2009 financial collapse, we now have a well founded, deep-seated distrust of our “economic system that will not soon diminish!”  -  and  -  that goes from the White House to local car dealerships. Only local businesses are still trusted because of reliable, pre-existing relationships! That means you won’t find a better time to strengthen your trust base!

Our society has now shifted from a period when trust was naively taken for granted to one in which trust rightfully must be earned.

What does this new era of trust look like? It is definitely relationship-based, person-to-person and mostly unrelated to big-brand institutions that sail by on a name that can be bought and sold. Only trusted product brands remain unscathed!

1-10 employee businesses, those who work hard, make payroll and don’t expect a bailout, will lead the way in establishing and strengthening this new era of “earned trust”.

Local business people, who are in touch with their customers, and who can be reached by phone easily; and who will do anything they can to properly service their customers, are the ones who will come out of this crisis not just intact but successful.

This era of personalized service, local brands and hands-on results will grow, and companies who are developing one-on-one relationships will thrive.

Service businesses that today establish good old-fashioned local trust by way of responsibility, hard work and commitment can look forward to a great future!

The most powerful marketing tactics available are those which are used in your “Educational Marketing”