My name is Doug Massena, and my carpet cleaning business has been a customer of yours since we bought a new System 5 back in 1979. I was just 19 years old and was helping my dad, who has since passed away, on jobs while attending college.
On October 25th we reached our 40th anniversary and I still turn out a decent living in spite of our particularly depressed economy here in Las Vegas. I’m proud of the fact that we haven’t had to advertise since the summer of 1986. Nearly all of my business is repeat or word of mouth. In the last 15 years I have been picking up more and more business from some very wealthy people, including one multi billionaire, and have even been cleaning private jets and one home with wall to wall silk carpet!
When I hear Zerorez® commercials on the radio saying that ALL other carpet cleaners are leaving dirt attracting residue in the carpets they clean, and that only Zerorez can thoroughly clean these carpets, and that everybody else is incompetent, I understandably get upset. While it’s true that I am leaving a trace amount of diluted PCA 5 in my customers’ carpets, you and I know that this amount has been proven to not attract any more soil than a carpet cleaned with plain water! If you go to their web site, they say that ALL other carpet cleaners saturate the carpet backing and pad with excessive amounts of water. Bane Clene® operators never do this!
I have a very strong and loyal customer base, but these misleading ads could possibly cut down on potential new business. I would think that other Bane Clene operators would be of a like mind on this issue. I guess I wouldn’t mind if they were accusing an unspecified number of carpet cleaners as being no good, but they chose to accuse everybody! Am I right on this, or should I just ignore the whole thing?
Thanks for writing Doug and may you and your family have a happy and prosperous New Year. While 1979 seems like just the other day when you get to be my age, that is a long time in business. Congratulations on your 40th anniversary, and I'm very sorry to hear about your dad.
Bogus competitor claims annoy me, too. But it's a fact of life and over the years we've learned to ignore them. If you keep on doing what you're doing and concentrate on every customer as if they were your only one, you'll find the blowhard advertisers either blow away or grow up.
Most important, don't waste good advertising dollars defending against their bogus claims. I know folks from CRI read this blog and hope they will eventually learn that it is this kind of advertising that is killing carpet sales. It's not cleaners, chemicals or the quality of the carpet.
©Bane-Clene® Corporation 2012 Reprinting or electronically publishing this article is strictly prohibited without permission from Bane-Clene Corp.
I'd like to hear your comments on this article.
Please e-mail me at wfbane@baneclene.com.
