Monday, January 30, 2012

What a class

With all of the bad weather across the country, it was a surprise to have a full classroom last week at Bane-Clene Institute. People came from far and wide (the farthest was 1,600 miles) and only one person didn't show up. He was from Indianapolis (go figure). One of the things we teach is dependability and being on time. These folks are all winners.

January 2012 Bane-Clene Carpet Cleaning Class

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Friday, January 27, 2012

Reminds me of Amoco days

Beaulieu® of America is targeting pet owners with a new carpet called "Bliss EverClean." It's made with solution dyed polyester which, unlike nylon, can be cleaned with a half and half solution of household bleach and water. It has "Magic Fresh" built in odor control treatment, too. Beaulieu is showing the new product this year at Surfaces.

This reminds me of the Amoco "Roll Out" about twenty years ago. We did more than 200 demonstrations for carpet retailers, architects, carpet specifiers, designers and decorators all around the country. Marquesa Lana samples were abused by the audiences. Bowl cleaner, mustard, coffee, soft drinks, catsup and shoe polish were dumped on the carpet. Those of you who took part will remember the oohs and ahhs when you cleaned it. Bane-Clene operators who participated in those events prospered, not just from being paid for the demonstrations, but also from the contacts they made.

Hercules™ introduced a new carpet line to compete with Amoco and we were doing the roll out for their new products, too, when both programs came to an abrupt end. Amoco Corporate decided to get out of the fibers business. Shaw Industries bought the olefin fibers extrusion plant and DuPont bought the entire production of fibers from Hercules. These two maneuvers effectively put an end to an exciting era of easy to clean products. The big nylon guys must have been nervous.

I remember suggesting Marquesa Lana to a friend in Alabama and it is still on the floor of his rental properties. I had it installed in a motor home and it was excellent. Polypropylene had some issues if the face yarn weight wasn't heavy and dense enough. My friend in Alabama and I both bought the heaviest face yarn available and it performed very well. It will be interesting to see how polyester performs.

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Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Try to relax when driving

Use the drive time between jobs as a break from the routine. Stop for coffee and rest room breaks between jobs, too. Leave ample distance between you and the car ahead, even though someone will probably cut in front of you. Remember, you're in a van, sitting right up front where you may be seriously injured if you rear-end a vehicle.

Some drivers bring on stress by yelling at rude motorists who cut in and out of traffic. They don't hear you and they don't care. The worst part is that the culprit feels none of your wrath and pent up anger. The only one you hurt is you, and it may affect the next job that you do. Anger residue could cost you future business. Try to relax.

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Monday, January 23, 2012

Statistics or lies?

Washington, DC, Dec. 2, 2011 The economy created 120,000 jobs during the month of November and the unemployment rate has fallen to 8.6%, its lowest level in more than two and a half years, the Labor Department said today.

Am I missing something here? There have been between 320,000 and 400,000 new applicants for unemployment compensation every week. There are 45,000,000 on food stamps and no published total of how many are really unemployed.

Many of the "unemployed" people are working on a "cash" basis which means they don't pay taxes. Meanwhile our state unemployment insurance taxes in Indiana went up 150% last year. But wait! The inflation rate is just a little over 2%.

Most of the 120,000 new jobs for November were probably for the holiday season and were part time. I'd bet the real unemployment figure is north of 25%. They're either using some kind of "new" math or they don't know the difference between statistics and lies.

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Friday, January 20, 2012

Relax

The "sign police" aren't going to arrest you if you haven't posted your notices yet. The National Labor Relations Board postponed the date employers had to put up those much talked about posters displaying information about employee rights.....again. The first deadline was last November. The next was January 31, 2012. Now it's April 30.

“The Board’s ruling states that it has determined that postponing the effective date of the rule would facilitate the resolution of the legal challenges that have been filed with respect to the rule,” the NLRB said in a statement. Whatever that means?

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Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Compliments are appreciated

Our customers have always been very generous in telling us we do a good job. Over the years we've had thousands of nice cards and letters from customers about our service company in Indianapolis. Each and every one is like golden treasure to us. Many of the comments come on our report cards which we mail to each customer for whom we work.

This homemade card by Mrs. Charles Peer of Indianapolis is very special.

   

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Monday, January 16, 2012

Carpet under siege

Do you recognize any of these? µg/m³, CARE, EPA, PCH, OEHHA, CREL, VOC, GLP, IAQ, VOCE. That first one looks like a typo. I might recognize four, but all of these were mentioned in one "negative" article about carpet. How about "Caprolactam?" I never heard of it but it was mentioned, too. A bureaucrat must have found out about Caprolactam because a whole new bureau seems to have been born to defend against it.

California, the land of fruits and nuts, is proposing reductions in Caprolactam emissions from new carpet. Just when you think they're finished assaulting our industry, here they come again. I asked a friend in Dalton to explain it to me. He reminded me of the old adage, "No good deed goes unpunished." When industry tries to get a leg up on competition by helping bureaucrats, it is always bitten in that proverbial spot where the sun doesn't shine.

Caprolactam is employed in making Nylon 6, the fiber used in about 30% of carpet made. He likened it to Formaldehyde which hasn't been used in carpet production for 40 years. It occurs naturally in many products and in very small levels when carpet is tested. Carpet actually tests much lower than other types of flooring and building materials, but carpet is always mentioned in negative articles, not the others.

What I do understand is that carpet has been under attack ever since it became the floor covering of choice. That made it a prime target of other floor covering manufacturers, not to mention every "Greenie" and political affiliate who use junk science to achieve their devious goals. Remember the lab mice that died? It's been non-stop ever since.

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Friday, January 13, 2012

Everyone should have a customer like this

We've been getting calls and e mails from customers, vendors and colleagues in the industry about the up-coming celebration of our 50th business anniversary. One of the nicest surprises came recently from a customer. Chet Jelinski of Bloomfield, N. J. sent me a copy of a 140 page book he wrote titled, "A Bane Clene Diary." The book's sub title is, "My 30 years with Bane Clene as they celebrate 50 years in business."

Chet says he got the idea to write the book, "partly because today corporations are thought of as inherently evil, and I wanted to recognize a truly good American corporation." This is the ninth book he has written and will be available in book form or on line in the near future. Chet's web site is: http://www.blurb.com/my/book/detail/2886800#store-price.

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Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Another scam

Besides the usual scam e-mails wanting to send you a fortune from Africa, there are some claiming to be from the IRS, UPS, FedEx, DHL and the postal service. Here's the latest scam using the BBB:

Hello, The Better Business Bureau has been sent the above referenced complaint from one of your customers in respect of their dealings with you. The details of the consumer's concern are presented in attached file. Please examine this problem and let us know about your standpoint.

We kindly ask you to click here to answer this complaint.
(I deleted the link so you would not accidentally click on it)

We look forward to your urgent reply.

Sincerely,
Louis Gerald
Better Business Bureau

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Monday, January 09, 2012

8,062,565 accesses to www.baneclene.com in 2011

There were 614,684 accesses to www.baneclene.com in December (a slow month in the cleaning business) for information about cleaning. Customers ordered supplies, visited our Catalog, Information pages, MSDS, Spot removal guides, Troubleshooting charts, the Cleaning Digest® and Clene-Times® publications and my BLOG. And special thanks to all of you who sent e-mails to me about what I write. Your input really helps tell me what interests you.

Carpet mills, retailers, insurance adjusters, plumbers, banks and realty firms visited our web site, too. But most visitors were CONSUMERS. We know because when they can't find a local cleaner in our referral directory, they call our toll free number. Most phone inquiries are referred to a Bane-Clene operator who is not listed on our directory.

You may link to this web site for a one time fee of only $99. There are NO maintenance or renewal fees. This is the advertising bargain of the century!

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Friday, January 06, 2012

Another tax rip-off

A good friend and customer sent this e-mail to me regarding my comments on tax abatement I put on this blog on November 23rd.

Hi Bill,
Here in Massachusetts, we had a company, Evergreen Solar, receive a $55,000,000.00 tax abatement. Just a few months ago, guess what, Evergreen Solar filed for bankruptcy and 800 employees lost their jobs!! Why can't our politicians see the writing on the wall as well as the ordinary citizen can? Or don't they care? Regards, Gary

Thanks Gary..... They only care about getting re-elected. Our founders had it figured with congress meeting every other year. They allowed that they'd be home running for office on the off year. Now they supposedly "work" every year. With them all running for office and the president jetting around on his little 747, no wonder nothing gets done.

Besides the solar panel malfeasance, when tax subsidies expired 14,000 wind turbines around the country were abandoned. If an honest history is ever written about this, it surely won't be kind to corporate cronyism that preyed on public ignorance to exploit and loot the taxpayer's treasure. Nobody's watching the cash register!

Bill

PS..... We still talk about the wonderful luncheon on your boat and the trip across Cape Cod Bay the last time we were up your way. Thanks again for that beautiful day, for this timely note and for being such a good friend.

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Wednesday, January 04, 2012

How's the SOA thing doing?

A year ago, I said there would be no more criticism from me on the Carpet and Rug Institute's Seal of Approval program. Too many of you had indicated that you were not interested in CRI and asked (some in a crude way) that I stop writing about CRI and concentrate on more important matters that pertain to our business.

I'm obliged to report that the SOA program for cleaners has ground to a halt and is indeed shrinking. It took several years to get a significant number of cleaners signed on as CSP's (Certified Service Providers) and last year CRI proudly announced that the 1,000th CSP had signed onto the program. The other day I looked and there were only 946.

Out of nearly 40,000 cleaning firms in America that's not a very good percentage. About 70% of the CSP's are franchises which means that independent cleaners are not interested. There was some fear that CRI was attempting to take over the cleaning business, but 946 firms are not able to service carpet warranties, let alone normal customer needs.

CRI has fallen on hard times like many in this economic environment. They're vacating the beautiful building on the hill in Dalton and moving into rented space downtown. Members are closing plants and laying off employees. CRI has re-organized its board, the technical committees and reduced its management staff.

This rough patch will pass and hopefully CRI will survive and come back strong. When that time comes, I sincerely hope they'll tend to carpet business and leave cleaning to the people who know about it.

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Monday, January 02, 2012

Happy New Year

In this election year, I'm going to write once in a while about history. Some articles will be about our economy as seen through eyes that have witnessed good times and bad. Besides actually experiencing hard times, I've read volumes about the cause and effects of economic depression and recession.

If there is any doubt about the validity of the things I write, please look at references which are a matter of public record. In the words of that immortal Yankee baseball manager, Casey Stengal, "You can look it up!" I encourage you to become a student of history and watch how it repeats itself over the centuries and how it will do it again.

Stay informed and be ready to adapt to a changing world order. Keep your eye on what they do in Washington, not what they say. And above all, my sincere wish is that you and yours enjoy a blessed, happy and prosperous 2012.

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