Soak & suck warning

Before you begin cleaning a carpet, do this simple test in a traffic lane. Kick the carpet with your foot or reach down and lift a few tufts. If the primary is delaminated from the secondary backing it will be easy to spot and may save you embarrassment and replacement of the carpet.

Cheap, inefficient extraction equipment available in most hardware stores is the problem. A carpet that has been soaked several times by one of these machines and then followed by a powerful, high-pressure, hot water unit may be delaminated and you'll get the blame for it.

You can clean this carpet without further problem, but if there is evidence of delamination, you should not proceed until you have the signed approval and confirmation by the customer that the delamination is a pre-existing condition and you are not responsible for it.

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Trickling down

Antron fiber is used by 20 commercial carpet mills and is a very good product for school applications. Invista, the fiber producer, has launched a website, antron.net/recovery/, for school renovations which will utilize funding available through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Maybe we'll get to clean some of it.

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CFR

The banking debacle has one common denominator running through the whole sordid mess. The CFR (Council of Foreign Relations) is up to its eyeballs in every phase of this disaster from banking to Wall Street to the SEC. Their fingerprints are all over the government.

CFR members hold key positions in every segment of the calamity including the investigators and supposed regulators. This group, most with Ivy League pedigrees, have infiltrated the financial and political worlds to create the most incestuous financial disaster ever recorded.

Their strategy is to have one-world government (globalism) and one currency (not the dollar) which they can control. They have ignored the basic law of nature that in-breeding creates idiots and consequently the inmates are running the asylum.

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Clean Trucks

One of the best scenarios a carpet cleaner can hope for, is to have their service vehicle seen in someone's driveway. This is not only advertising, it is a testimonial that the resident is using the company's service. Neighbors and passers-by are exposed to this information.

A sparkling clean service truck says a great deal about the caliber of the service being offered by the cleaning company. People tend to judge others by outward appearances. Rightly or wrongly, that's the way it's done in our society.

A clean, well-lettered service truck translates to a high-quality service to many consumers. Conversely, a battered, dirty service vehicle may not even get a second look, much less a job. Keep those trucks clean!

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Can CRI/CSP solve carpet's dilemma?

The CRI/CSP (Certified Service Provider) program may be valuable if it were widely advertised by local carpet cleaners around the nation. But only 595 of the estimated 44,532 professional cleaning firms have signed up. Logistically, the numbers are not there to be successful.

The CRI testing program has caused confusion about the real root of consumer discontent with carpet. Most carpet complaints are not about professional cleaners. Nearly all professionals (not just Bane-Clene®) use good products in our services. Otherwise, we do not survive.

Complaints on the internet show that installation woes are still number one with consumers, followed by ill-informed carpet sales types, scheduling snafus and product substitution. There are even cases of retailers in bankruptcy taking deposits and not delivering the carpet.

Complaints about professional cleaners are not about chemicals or equipment. Overwhelmingly, they concern bait and switch ads and rude behavior. I've worked with TV personalities, BBBs and Angies' List exposing some of these. Nearly all other cleaning complaints originate from Do It Yourself, janitorial and in-house operators who use cheap products and unskilled labor.

The original CRI/SOA program for professional cleaners emphasized training, especially in customer relations, and placed the responsibility on industry schools. Certifying cleaning firms through these schools again would bring sorely needed numbers to the CSP program.

I have no suggestions for CRI about the DIY problem or for janitorial services and in-house operations which skimp on product quality and service frequency. They turn over their help too quickly to properly train them. But my answer to the headline question is a resounding, NO!

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Understanding the Stimulus Bill

A college student asked his economics professor to explain the stimulus bill. The professor said, "Come over to the swimming pool and I'll explain it." The professor gave the student a bucket and said, "Go to the deep end and fill the bucket, then go to the shallow end and pour it in."

After a number of trips from one end of the pool to the other, the confused student asked, "But why are we doing this?" The professor explained that he was trying to make the shallow end of the pool much deeper.

The student said, "But all we're doing is wasting our time and effort. When this process is over, both ends will be the same." The professor replied with a smile, "Congratulations my boy. Now you're beginning to understand the stimulus bill."

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Respect on the telephone

Begin by answering the phone promptly and giving your undivided attention to the caller. Use the caller's name whenever possible and use phrases like, "Thank you for calling." and "May I put you on hold?" Smile, too! A smile lights up your voice and I believe it can be detected.

Be positive! If you were the customer, how would you like to hear someone on the phone tell you bluntly, "No! We don't work Sunday!" Wouldn't it be much friendlier to say, "I'm so sorry, Mrs. (Name), but our technicians are off duty on Sunday."

Quoting company rules doesn't go over well with a prospect or a customer. Everyone knows there are rules, but if you relay them softly instead of calling the play like a baseball umpire, chances are their perception and reception of the rules will be more favorable.

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Tough time for business

In October of 2000, I wrote an article for a magazine about why cleaning companies fail. Most failures are caused by one or more of these reasons; under capitalization, poor planning, low cash flow, ignoring customers, procrastination, ineffective marketing, and having a closed mind.

This was written before the 9/11 catastrophe, the war on terror, skyrocketing oil prices and the current economic debacle. In retrospect, this has been a terrible decade, but surprisingly most of the people I know in our business are still in our business in spite of all that's happened.

Profits may be down a little and we may have to work a little harder bringing in business, but we're still here. Think about this when you watch the negative nightly news with its litany of troubles. I'd rather be in our business than a lot of others I can think of, wouldn't you?

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Who are they kidding?

A bait and switch cleaner who advertises $6.00 a room ran a help wanted ad that said their best man had earned $975.00 the prior week. He would have had to clean 162.5 rooms just to cover his pay. What about advertising, telephone, office help, insurance and truck expenses?

The next week another bait and switch advertiser had an ad for help in the same newspaper. It stated that a hard worker could earn $1,000.00 a week. Which only proves that the first liar doesn’t stand a chance.

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Insurance woes

Everyone is talking about bailouts, bonuses, foreign payments of our tax money and buck passing. Was the housing bubble started by congress? Did AIG get bailed out because they underwrite congressional pensions? Who in congress got campaign contributions from AIG?

But the most egregious legislation the corrupt politicians in Washington have ever proposed would make veterans use their own insurance for treatment at a VA hospital. That's one more way our inept congress has of saying, "Thank you for your service to our country."

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Food for thought

Wools of New Zealand has made its annual color forecast. They predict these colors for 2010 that sound good enough to eat. Whoever wrote this release must have been hungry at the time.

• Sumptuous tones of coffee, caramel, cocoa and melted chocolate blend with soft, warm, natural colors.
• Romantic hues of faded rose and mulberry intersperse with rich shades of wild berries, plums and violet.
• Fresh vegetable greens blend into herbal shades of olive.
• Mellowed golds diffuse into warm aromatic spice tones of cinnamon and burnt orange.
• Cool grays complement warm soft neutrals, ecological greens and rich, dark tones.
• Barely there pastels, frozen naturals and powdered minerals morph into meteorological inspired tones of stormy grays, teals and midnight blues.

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What would Thomas Paine say?

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What would Thomas Paine* say about the present state of affairs in America?
Click on the link below and scroll down to the video, then click on it to start.

http://rightsoup.com/and now a message from thomas paine/

* He was known as the father of the revolutionary war and I have always considered him to be one of the founding fathers even though there were many who did not appreciate his common sense approach to government. We need some of that in Washington today.

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Call it anything else

Polyester has such a bad reputation that Mohawk and DuPont petitioned the Federal Trade Commission to establish a new fiber subclass within the classification of polyester. Retailers were having trouble selling the new PTT fiber that is technically in the polyester family.

The application was made in 2006, and FTC has agreed to grant another fiber designation for the new product called Triexta. Mohawk SmartStrand, with DuPont's Sorona fiber should benefit from the change in regulation. Now they don't have to call it polyester.

The word is that the new fiber is better than polyester, but no information has been shared with the cleaning industry, that I know of, regarding the cleaning, maintenance or performance of the new fiber. But we'll find out, won't we?

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