IICRC now Clean Trust

A firestorm erupted on bulletin boards recently when it was announced that IICRC had changed its name. Such rancor hasn't been displayed since the CRI/SOA fiasco. But, the hostility is not quite as bad as that generated by the great Stainmaster flap when DuPont recommended Stanley Steemer and the Masterseries debacle that followed.

Posters say the new name will invalidate the warranty papers of some carpet mills and suggest consumers will be confused and aggravated by the changes. But they're most upset because the new name will negate ads, sales literature and truck logos for registrants who advertise IICRC and cause them undue expenditures.

A sample Bulletin Board comment: "I'm not happy about the name change. I've got logo's on my trailer and in my advertising ads. In what way does this name and logo represent the membership? What happens to all of the Sleeve and coat patches? Clearly those we voted in just ignored the dues paying membership, just like Washington DC isn't it?"

Aside from instances of overbearing behavior and malfeasance in management, I believe the idea of an independent training institute was a good one, especially for those who bought equipment from sales organizations that had no training or educational facilities. Many suppliers supported IICRC in the interest of saving money on training.

Ed York, who founded its predecessor, the IICUC, called me to chew me out for not openly supporting it. I told Ed that I liked his idea but we had our own school and we didn't want outside or generic influence on the parochial material we teach. These latest uprisings make me feel like I made a good decision thirty years ago.

On a positive note, the IICRC has cleaned house and removed most of the old governing group that used the organization as a personal play house. The board has been reduced to a manageable number of members and some of them that I know will try to complete the restoration. Let's give them a chance to return it to a certification body as it was intended by the founder.

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Please e-mail me at wfbane@baneclene.com.

Positive thinking*

Norman Vincent Peale speaking at a Bane-Clene convention said, "You can think your way to failure or to success. Belief is a form of thought. You can disbelieve yourself into a frustrated existence or you can believe yourself into a successful life.

"We do not half realize the power of thought either to destroy or to create. Thoughts are forces. You can't see them but thoughts are dynamic powers. Think negative thoughts and you activate negative forces, drawing back to yourself negative results. Like attracts like. Send out hate and you get back hate. Send out fear and you get back fear. Send out defeat and you draw defeat to yourself.

"Conversely, send out positive thoughts and positive results will come back. You gain victories by the thoughts you think. All creative, powerful living originates in thought. Get a good thought, build it up, develop it, let it take over. Make a giant of it, and it will make a giant of you."

*This is dedicated to a very special “positive thinking lady" on her birthday.

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Beware

Benjamin Franklin said, "Beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship." Don't give away $10 here, $50 there or maybe $100 to an impassioned plea for a charitable cause! Every day businesses are asked to give. Professional phone solicitors may use the shame game, too. "You mean you won't give $200 to help orphans?"

Bane-Clene Institute has a class on dealing with solicitations and how to turn some of them into potential customers. Never make an expenditure that is not in the current budget. If you wish to consider the charity or other solicitation, have them put the request in writing for consideration in the next annual budget. You'll be amazed at how few requests you get.

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Interesting e-mail

Mr. Bane,

I've got a slide in truck mount and nearly asphyxiated myself and two customers while parked outside their home with the machine running. The wind blew fumes in through a slider I had open for my hoses. We had to go to the emergency room for treatment. Several years ago I read an article you wrote about this but I forgot it. Why did you stop warning people in our business about how dangerous these things are?

Steve

Actually Steve, I think it's been about ten years since the safety campaign on the dangers of carbon monoxide was terminated. You wouldn't believe the hateful comments those articles generated. I was accused of using disasters to sell equipment but I wrote purely in the interest of public safety and the damage to our industry's reputation.

Publicizing these public relations nightmares was stopped to avoid the wrath of an industry that's dominated by equipment that runs on fossil fuel. Ironically, about that same time, industry bulletin boards were becoming popular and they serve the same purpose. Posters on these boards report carbon monoxide incidents and fires without rebuttal.

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Fiscal responsibility vs. corruption

Remember the demonstrations when Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker wanted to do away with collective bargaining for teachers unions? He did it anyway and the results are in. Some school districts went from a $400,000 deficit to a $1,500,000 surplus as a result.

Here's an article that explains it:

http://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/2011/07/wisconsin-schools-buck-union-cut-health-costs.

That's an example of corruption at the state level. Can you imagine the money that is purloined in Washington? Every one of those thousands of lobbyists who prowl the halls and back rooms is trying to get part of it. And we taxpayers are paying for it.

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Here's why

Numerous e-mails ask why I stopped criticizing the CRI's SOA program. They must all have missed my explanation in the Clene-Times®. The article is titled "Que Sera Sera" and is located at the top of the third column. Click on the link to the January 2011 issue of the Clene-Times below:

http://www.baneclene.com/clenetimes/2011Jan.pdf

Before I made the decision to leave CRI alone, I received a large number of e-mails asking me to stop wasting my time on them and start writing more about our business. It seems most cleaners believe that CRI is just like congress and doesn't listen to us anyway.

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First time over a million in one month

Blown away! That's the best way to describe how a guy feels who back in 1994 said that the internet was just a fad. The guy was me. Today, a large part of our business is done on the World Wide Web and its communications abilities are mind-boggling.

The monthly report for September indicated there were 1,014,518 accesses to our web site at www.baneclene.com which was established in 1994. There were only 823 visitors in 1995. This September had more accesses than the entire year of 2001.

The exciting part is that most of the visitors are consumers looking for a cleaning service. When they can't find one close to them on our locator service, many call our toll-free number and we try to refer them to someone even if they're not a part of our program.

Every Bane-Clene operator should be listed on the locator service to take advantage of this bonanza in free advertising. We'll make a home page for you or if you have a home page or web-site already we'll link it to our locator service. This is a no-brainer.

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Security tips

Put car keys beside your bed at night. If you hear a noise outside or someone is trying to get into your house, just press the panic button for your car. The alarm will be set off, and the horn will continue to sound until either you turn it off or the car battery dies.

Wasp spray is better and can be shot up to twenty feet more accurately than mace. With mace or pepper spray you have to get close to an assailant who could overpower you. The wasp spray temporarily blinds an attacker until they get to a hospital for an antidote.

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Our Founders talked funny, but they were smart

"There is not a more important and fundamental principle in legislation, than that the ways and means ought always to face the public engagements; that our appropriations should ever go hand in hand with our promises. To say that the United States should be answerable for twenty five millions of dollars without knowing whether the ways and means can be provided, and without knowing whether those who are to succeed us will think with us on the subject, would be rash and unjustifiable."

James Madison, Speech in Congress, 1790

"The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale."

Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Taylor, 1816

"No pecuniary consideration is more urgent, than the regular redemption and discharge of the public debt: on none can delay be more injurious, or an economy of time more valuable."

George Washington, Message to the House of Representatives, 1793

I'll bet those guys didn't even know there was such a word as "trillion." Politicians should wear uniforms with patches like NASCAR drivers. Then we could identify their sponsors (donors/bribers) and then we'd understand why they vote the way they do.

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Thanks for your e-mails and keep 'em coming

Dozens of e-mails are sent to me every day regarding the things I write about. Some agree with me and some disagree. From time to time some are published on this blog, but always without violating your privacy. Your full name and/or address are never published so they can be picked up by trollers.

This correspondence is very valuable to me because it reflects what you're thinking and the popularity or displeasure you may have in the subject material. I apologize for delays in answering, but each and every one is answered personally by me, not by a secretary.

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Five keys to success

1. Set goals even if they are short term.

      Remember the BAG method of goal setting we teach at BCI.

2. Subscribe to the 5 P’s; Prior planning prevents poor performance.

      There's a variation of this with 6 Ps but this is a family web site.

3. Plan your day, then work your plan.

      Most people in our business simply don't do this.

4. Finish one project before starting another.

      Too much juggling causes failure in small businesses.

5. Step back once in a while to take stock in how you're doing.

      "Success is not the destination. Success is the journey." Earl Nightingale

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Puzzled

They talk about RSS Feeds, 3G, DSL, Fios, Blackberry, Kindle, Wi-Fi, 4G, iPhones, iPads, iPods, Droid, Android, Apps, Twitter, Tweets , Gigabytes, Nano-something-or-others, Nook, Social networking and Texting. This strange palaver creates a generation and communication hurdle that is almost beyond comprehension

For someone like me who is still trying to grasp the difference between Beta Max and VCR, listening to tech-savvy folks talk about new technology is mind boggling. It's like being in a foreign land and not understanding what the locals are saying

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Customer explains budget dilemma (a lot of stuff)

"Folks who get free stuff are upset with folks who pay for the free stuff. Folks who pay for the free stuff can't afford to pay for the free stuff and their own stuff any longer so they want the free stuff to stop. Folks who get the free stuff want even more free stuff on top of the free stuff they get and vow to riot in the streets if they don't get all the stuff free.

"Politicians trolling for votes tell the folks who get the free stuff that the folks who pay for the free stuff are mean, prejudiced people for wanting to stop the free stuff. So, the folks who get the free stuff are encouraged to hate the people who pay for their free stuff and to vote for the politicians who give away the free stuff."

Thanks Jan... Your e-mail pretty well sums up what's going on in Washington today? Here's what a really smart guy said about this same situation 2,066 years ago:

"The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance." Cicero 55 BC

Monetary stupidity and moral depravity defined the most powerful nation on earth. How about cast iron genitals used for door knockers, extravagant entertainment, excessive booze, massive troop deployments in foreign lands and a steady debasement of their currency? Sounds like the USA doesn't it? (Well maybe not the door knockers.)

Some folks who learn from history are shouting warnings just like ol' Cicero did in those Roman times. The 'bright' politicians in Washington had better start listening. We all know what happened to the Roman Empire!

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