The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth

About 25 years ago a man from Cincinnati came to Indianapolis for the installation of a truck mounted cleaning unit. His new van was professionally lettered and in a prominent place on both sides it said, "Award Winning Service." I asked him what award he had won and he replied, "Oh! It's one I gave myself. It sounds good and nobody will know the difference."

This man was a PR machine. He had done his homework on the cleaning business before he got into it and could talk intelligently about it. During class at Bane-Clene Institute he often took the floor and indulged us in speculation about his plans for success. In advertising class he gave his ideas freely and appeared to have some knowledge in the subject.

His business card said he was "bonded, insured, guaranteed," and that he had "10 years experience." In class he went into great detail about the importance of "blowing one's own horn." Before he advertised "Bonded" he should have talked to his insurance company and understood what it means because in his first year he was sued by a customer and lost.

It's not easy to tell someone who is spending money with us that they're wrong. But I tried to explain the "bonded" issue and to delicately point out that he was new in the business and advertising "10 years experience" and "Award winning service" was false advertising. The sad end to this story is that he didn't make it to his first anniversary.

Bane-Clene® unit for sale

About once a month I look at web sites that advertise used Truck-Mounts for sale. It helps me stay abreast of our market and to clarify current economic trends. Ever since fuel prices went berserk a few years ago hundreds of gasoline and diesel powered units from well-known manufacturers began appearing for sale on these sites.

Besides confirming high fuel prices and a bad economy, there is a rewarding aspect for Bane- Clene. Our used systems are in high demand and requests for them have increased. Bane-Clene units 10, 20 and even 30 years old are snapped up and put into service. Recognizing this trend, Don Bane began buying and refurbishing our used systems several years ago.

I've never advertised anything for anyone on this Blog. But Lo and behold! The other day when I looked at one popular used equipment site there was one of ours, all alone with page after page of those petroleum-guzzlers and I felt sorry for it. Here's the ad. Please call the owner direct. Don't call us. We're NOT responsible for the condition of the unit or any provisions of the sale.

Beautiful blue one ton 350 engine Chevy van (1997) with 1997 Bane permamount deluxe Electric truckmount in EXCELLENT shape. Built-in aluminum cleaning & storage racks. 120 gallon Stainless steel solution & waste tanks. 3 Electric reels. Great starter or second van, ready to go. In my 28 years in the business I've used it "all" and I MUCH prefer this electric unit and lower maintenance costs. One owner, one driver, garaged at night. Plenty of power for large homes and commercial work. * Location Ocoee, Tennessee * Call Bob at 423-322-8583. $6,500.
P. S. Happy Birthday to a very special little person, on her very special day!

A numbers game

A mailing list company claims there are 44,532 carpet cleaners in the United States. They also sell a list with 7,105 suppliers to the carpet cleaning trade. That means if the market were divided evenly every supplier would have six or seven customers.

More than 50 years in the cleaning business has taught us what works. Example: By having our own service operation we know that there is nothing better than old fashioned direct (junk) mail to reach a specific market.

Some don't understand what makes direct mail work. A select mailing list, a good mailing piece sent to the same address as often as budget will allow and someone who knows the business to answer the phone when a prospect calls to inquire... That's what it takes.

We have a complete line of reasonably priced brochures that are designed, tested and proven to target the specific market for the services we offer. Call our toll-free number, check out our catalog or look on-line for details. They really work.

Cold weather ahead

A full or nearly-full gas tank reduces the odds that you will need expensive fuel system service on your truck. A partially empty fuel tank may result in rust particles flaking off and clogging fuel filters, lines and injectors. Keep your gas tank as full as possible at all times. Never let it get lower than half a tank, especially in the winter.

Don't forget to keep heat in your truck if you park outside. If you take your base unit to a heated area be sure to remember pressure sprayers and other equipment that may contain water. Brass parts will distort when they're allowed to freeze. Don't leave your cleaning heads unprotected in freezing weather. Chemicals may separate when allowed to freeze.

And don't forget to keep emergency gear like a snow shovel, newspapers, flares and a flashlight on board in case you get stuck in a snow drift. That snow shovel can be a public relations bonanza, too, if you use it to shovel a path at a customer's home.

The "new economy"

The Federal Reserve is pumping $85 Billion a month into government bonds and has really inflated things around the Big Apple. A NYC realtor is advertising a one bedroom apartment in Harlem for rent at $28,000 a month. Facebook and Twitter are going public. Investment banks, Wall Street brokers and their employees are loving it. The companies that make "smart" phones, high-tech hardware and software are flourishing. Lawyers are giddy.

But let's take a look at the root of this economic boom. The "free" money from the Fed really only benefits those who are "connected" to government or Wall Street. Naturally, peripheral vendors do well, too. The DC area for example, even with the so-called government shut-down, has the highest income per capita in the nation. What is the economic engine that drives DC? Lobbyists, lawyers, accountants, and government taxing, borrowing and spending!

For consumers this exciting "new economy" means we can watch football in our car, at work or anywhere and we can play video games all day long with people working in other offices. We can read tweets about someone we don't know dining in a restaurant we never heard of. We can make reservations for our vacations or dinner while at work or even as we drive home. All this activity is guaranteed to keep us occupied and oblivious to what is really happening.

I have qualms about all of this. Who besides Wall Street, lawyers, devise makers, big carriers, politicians, government employees and tax collectors are making money from this "new economy?" Can walking around looking at a hand-held devise all day make a living? Will playing games on company time make an employer prosperous? Is the inflationary influence affecting NYC and DC contained? If the answers are "yes" then I'm all for it.

100 years old this month

The federal income tax has a birthday this month. It began as an innocuous 1% tax on income of more than $20,000.00. The form was three pages long with only a one page instruction sheet. Five years later, at the end of WWI, it had a top rate of 77% and has been a political football and hot potato ever since.

©Bane-Clene® Corporation 2013 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.

Be Alert

Scammers are already taking advantage of Obamacare. Watch out for fake phone calls and e-mails asking for employees' social security identification numbers. The callers sound official. Fake e-mails are easier to spot. In any event hang up or delete.

©Bane-Clene® Corporation 2013 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.

The "Gunny" said it

There was an old Gunnery Sergeant in the Marine Corps in World War II who taught this philosophy for survival. "If you ain't shootin', you better be loadin'. If you ain't loadin', you better be movin'. If you ain't movin', you're gonna get dead."

The old Gunny's ideology could be applied to business today. When things are slow and you're not shootin', clean up your equipment and stock your trucks. That's loadin'. Then make courtesy calls, plan ads and get out your brochures that tell about your service. That's movin'.

Too many people in the cleaning industry are hunkered down waiting for their competition* or the government** to do something.

*Congratulations to Stanley Steemer® on their latest TV ad campaign. They're movin'!

** They're gonna get dead!

©Bane-Clene® Corporation 2013 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.

Stock answers

Lately a lot of e-mails have asked where I get the information I write about. Most of the comments along with that question are complimentary, but a few are not so much. I usually answer the e-mail with a few lines of prepared text like this:

Thanks for reading the stuff I write. Most of the info I get is from guys like you who are really in the business, plus some golf buddies who are attorneys, accountants and successful business people. Over the years, I've learned to trust what they have to say. About 30 of us are in regular e mail contact. I even have a few politician friends, believe it or not.

To close, I address the individual question about business. The point is that I trust the core of people with whom I regularly correspond and I don't usually write about something without the benefit of asking some of them for advice or knowing the answer from first-hand experience.

©Bane-Clene® Corporation 2013 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.

More on government healthcare

At the end of WWII, I spent two weeks in a Naval Hospital with pneumonia complicated by malaria. The head nurse, Lt. Helen Heffentrager, must have been jilted by a Marine because anyone who wore our dogtags became the object of her irritation. Every morning she would scream, "Get up out of that sack you lazy, (bleeping), good for nothing Jarhead, and swab the deck." She was a foul-mouthed, red-headed hellion.

I remember a Navy Dentist who wouldn't give me Novocain. He said, "Marines are supposed to be tough." Probably these events are the reasons I chose a civilian doctor and hospital in Philadelphia rather than use the "free" government health care when my wife was expecting our first child. I was in the Marine Corps when she was expecting our second son in 1951, and I chose a civilian doctor and St. Vincent's Hospital in Indianapolis.

Sidebar: Elizabeth had a Cesarean Section and a private room at Episcopal Hospital in Philly for seven days. The total cost for the hospital room, operating room, surgeon and doctor for pre-natal and post-natal care was $402.00. The hospital used four pints of blood in the surgery and we were not charged for it. They just asked us to donate eight pints to their blood bank and my Marine buddies took care of that. BTW... Navy Corpsmen were exceptional.

©Bane-Clene® Corporation 2013 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.

Healthcare and inflation

Talking heads on TV say government healthcare will cost more and be less efficient. Radicals on both sides seem to agree on that. Don't forget that all the big insurance companies met with politicians before the plan became law and you can bet they played CYA.

Meanwhile the Fed is printing $85B a month but contends inflation is only 2%. Last week I listed real inflationary increases for things that we use in business. They ranged from 3% to 30% and most people I've talked with say their healthcare rates are increasing from 10% to 40%.

Today I got a 90 day supply of arthritis pills for Tramp, my old hound dog, and they cost 50% more than the last batch. And here's something else for you animal lovers to think about. Some insurance companies are offering insurance plans for animals.

Be careful. When we didn't have health insurance for humans, a hospital room was $10 a night and a doctor made house calls for $8. Insurance is a form of socialism and anything with that label makes everything cost more.

©Bane-Clene® Corporation 2013 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.

More on "QE"

Here's a quote on the subject by a prominent author that was sent to me after my comments last week about the irrational behavior of the Federal Reserve Board:

"As government printing presses and central banks inundate the marketplace with ever expanding supplies of money and credit, the tragic consequences are becoming much easier to see. It is increasingly difficult for politicians to explain away the economic upheaval, social disorder and general erosion of the moral and social fabric attendant on their policies. "

No, that wasn't written this year. That quote is from a book titled "Age of Inflation" by Dr. Hans Sennholz, circa 1979. The book should be required reading for everyone, especially idiots in government who spend taxpayers' money.

©Bane-Clene® Corporation 2013 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.

Information on a fast track

Watching the news it was interesting to hear a reporter talking about how the news business has changed because of instant communications. As a low-tech person who still doesn't even have a smart phone, I began to think about the old days of slow-flow information. Whenever we discovered something helpful, it would take weeks or even months for it to filter down to our customers. Today a few key strokes on a special e-mail list and every customer gets the latest information almost immediately.

More important, the information flow phenomenon has become a two-way conduit. People who are not even customers comment on things I write about in my blog or in the company newsletter. Thanks to e-mail, even a low-tech person like me can stay in the loop as to what is on the collective minds of my colleagues in the business and what's happening out on the firing line.

The statistic that really boggles a low-techie like me is the report Google sent recently that said there were 42,859 views of my blog since I started writing it. Wow!

©Bane-Clene® Corporation 2013 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.