They're still at it

The stock market loved it when 195,000 new jobs were created in June. The Federal Reserve pumped $85 billion into the economy (they do it every month) to buy worthless bonds and mortgages that no one else will touch. Meanwhile, first-time unemployment compensation claims averaged 345,500 every week in June.

Some kind of new math must account for all of this euphoric exuberance. In the good old days, the math would have told us there were 345, 500 x 4 = 1,382,000 newly unemployed people in June and only 195,000 (mostly part time) jobs were added in what was a rotten month.

Better keep those printing presses rolling Mr. Bernanke. Wall Street bankers and brokers who get those big bonuses won't love you if you don't CTA. By the way, those are some of the same banks that are so stingy with loans to small business.

How do politicians feel? The $85 billion (That’s BILLION with a B) donation to Wall Street has been described by some Washington insiders as "Chump Change."

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Mea Culpa

There's always the excuse that today everything is exaggerated. But the simple truth is that I made a typographical error. On the front page of the July Clene Times® I wrote an article titled Defining our new market. In it I said, "In fact, many politicians claim that an annual income of $150,000,000 is now going to be considered “rich.”

Wow! Adding that many zeros is a mistake only government is allowed to make. The right number should have been $150,000. One Hundred Fifty Thousand Dollars is now considered "rich." It has been corrected on the Clene Times copy on our web site, but the 40,000 hard copies we mailed are gonzo. Sorry if I shook anyone up with that typo.

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You Owe It to Your Client

Customers traditionally do not know much about carpet. A customer who is contemplating the purchase of new carpet often asks their professional cleaner about the best fiber or the best brand. This puts us on the spot, especially if we suggest a lesser quality product. We need to be able to make a recommendation strictly in the best interest of our client.

The best method of learning how to consult about carpet choice is not by reading the brochures distributed by carpet manufacturers or sales organizations. Instead, keep a notebook and every time you see a marked difference (either good or bad) on the job, write it down. Look for unusual appearance and especially for ease in cleaning.

If possible, ask customers for details such as brand name, type of fiber and even the official color. Look for crushing, pilling, watermarking, resilience, color retention and list your observations. Make a master chart in your office and keep score on fiber producers and carpet manufacturers. Above all, be honest in your assessment.

List the styles, colors and performance experience of as many as you can. In a year or two, you will have a database of information that can help you make a meaningful recommendation to the person for whom you work. This is another "value added" reason for them to do business with you in the future.

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Ideas feed on each other

All of the baseball promos encouraging fans to vote up to 35 times for their favorite team and players for the All Star game remind me that we'll soon be in an election cycle again. I wonder if the baseball brass got their idea of voting so many times from our illustrious politicians. Now I heard that politicians are looking at the All Star game promotions and thinking seriously about voting being allowed from smart phones.

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A new scam?

In monitoring consumer complaint sites, I saw a report in which a company allegedly misrepresented themselves to be Stanley Steemer® by redirecting internet phone traffic. When a customer Googled carpet cleaning, Stanley Steemer showed up on the first page. According to the complaining consumer, the phone number associated with Stanley Steemer on the Google map was somehow replaced by the phone number of the imposter.

When called, the company answered, "Carpet Cleaning." When asked the name of the company they said "where did you see our ad?" The consumer said, "under Stanley Steemer on the internet." The bogus operator then said they were "Stanley Steemer" and made the appointment. Redirecting traffic by hijacking Google search phone numbers and replacing them with counterfeit numbers is not nice. Who's responsible? If this story is true, I'd like to know and I'm sure Stanley Steemer would like to know.

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The power of education

“A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.”
Theodore Roosevelt

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Special holiday tomorrow

Many of us will take a long weekend to celebrate the 4th of July. Please don't forget the reason we celebrate and especially let's remember all of those who died for our freedom to do it.

Our founding fathers opposed big, oppressive government and the worst of their fears has come to pass in recent years. Reality check: Fraud, corruption and crony capitalism are rampant.

As politicians continue to disregard the ingeniously crafted Constitution, pray that we soon find a way to return to the Christian/Judeo roots of our independence.

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"Happy days are here again"

The feds pompously announced a $113 billion budget surplus and said the deficit had shrunk to "only" $642 billion. Revenue is up 16% and spending is down 1%. I have two questions. What budget? The Senate hasn't passed a budget for five years. And how can federal department heads be so precise with numbers and percentages? They can't even answer simple questions when they appear before a congressional committee.

Meanwhile federal spending was frantic at the end of the fiscal year with department heads trying to get all they can get for next year's so-called budget. The only good news out of all this is that federal spending is expected to boost the economy. The jury is still out on that one.

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How to succeed

Be different! Think of your own experiences in nearly everything you buy and likely they are not too good in one respect or another. The appointment with someone coming to your home to perform a service is a good example. Chances are they will be late.

An appointment with the doctor will likely keep you waiting from fifteen minutes to an hour before you are seen. The visit to a mechanic leaves a greasy fingerprint or worse inside your car. A dozen check-outs at the supermarket and only two are working leaving you stand in line.

In these hard economic times there are a dozen excuses for every malfunction. The successful service business will not make excuses but will get the job done and at a reasonable price.

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Selling service

The consumer is interested in solutions to their problems, not hearing about yours. When presenting your service to a prospect, have answers ready for the normal objections that people will use as bargaining chips in negotiating a price.

Always remember that the consumer buys for their own reasons, not to help you. Explore the possibilities of why they should buy from you and hit their "hot button." Listen to them and they will usually tell you early in the conversation what that hot button may be.

When quoting a commercial job, offer alternatives in the maintenance plan. Don't even suggest that it is chiseled in stone and inflexible. Offer to increase or decrease frequency as the situation dictates. Most of all. . . don't forget to ask for the order!

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Green, green

Years ago the Christie Minstrels made this song popular: "Green, green, it's green they say, on the far side of the hill. Green, green, I'm goin' away to where the grass is greener still."

They could never have dreamed of the number of people who would jump on the "green" wagon as a way to the other side of the financial hill. Windmills, electric cars, solar panels and exorbitant tax incentives are all the rage right now. Green is in. Anything with the name green attached to it is presumed to be an instant winner.

I guess recycling is good, but not long ago I watched a trash compactor truck pull up to a customer location. There were two dumpsters, one marked with the recycling logo and the other was plain. The driver dumped them both into the same bin. Sadly, the owner of the business is paying extra to have the recycled material picked up separately.

In the cleaning industry, endless products attach the word 'green' to their juice or equipment. Ads in trade magazines tout the importance of going "green." One equipment manufacturer has even painted their little machine green and named it the "Big Green Carpet Cleaning Machine." Their ad says, "Cleans better*, dries faster." Better and faster than what?

In fine print barely visible is this disclaimer: *Cleaning results compared to the leading rental machine based upon measurements of color reflectance and brightness of carpet fibers. Since their machine cleans better and dries faster than their rental counterpart, will they apply for and be awarded the CRI Platinum Seal of Approval, too? Stay tuned!

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Service

According to the BBB, nothing leads to a customer service meltdown quicker than using phrases such as “That’s our policy” or "Our policy won't allow that." Here's another sentence that should never leak from the lips of your customer service team, “There’s Nothing I Can Do about that” or one that's even worse, "That's not my job."

A response that is bound to get a customer's ire up is, "You'll have to speak with my supervisor before I can do that." In a good service company, operators are trained and given the responsibility of adapting to changing scenarios and fixing problems.

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Latest statistics

An article in the Indianapolis Star said the poverty rate in Indy has doubled since the year 2000 and that the national poverty average in large cities is 22%. LBJ's war on poverty has obviously been lost since nearly 50 million are on food stamps. Another 20 million are on disability and there are 40 million retired folks, 65 and older, on social security.

Unemployment is high with millions drawing on it for 99 weeks. Productivity is low with everyone busy on their smart phones and very little getting done. The overall economy is barely moving and resembles the massive traffic snarls nationwide which more or less confirms the situation. Acts of terrorism and natural disasters lead the news nearly every day.

The Supreme Court will rule this year on Christian clergy taking part in opening prayers at anything that's government related. Movies, television, the theater and even TV commercials try to out-do one another in being gross, lewd and lascivious. For the past century, we have witnessed a systematic coarsening of American culture led by the entertainment industry.

Larry Cramer sent me this quote attributed to Jay Leno which sums it up in one sentence:

"With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control, mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country from one end to another, and with the threat of bird flu and terrorist attacks, are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?"

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News flash from Dalton

"The Carpet and Rug Institute's Seal of Approval testing and certification program now stands at 374 solutions, 427 vacuums, 94 deep‑cleaning extractors and 104 systems for a total 999."

For more than ten years, CRI™ has been trying to recruit professional cleaners to their Certified Service Provider program. Today there are a little over 800 of those, down from more than 1,000 two years ago. With more than 40,000 carpet cleaning firms, 60,000 janitorial services and a million rental machines out there working on carpet, it's strange that more have not signed on. Since it only costs $25 a year to be certified, you'd think there would be 30,000 taking advantage of the benefits of such a program.

CRI has convinced some carpet mills to tie their warranties to the Seal of Approval testing and certification program. Does anyone in Dalton have any idea about what the real world is about?

This boondoggle will only lead to further loss of consumer confidence in carpet and to another decline in carpet sales. There are many in the cleaning industry crying, "Pity the poor consumer." It's much closer to home than that. If those in the Dalton cocoon don't get their heads out in the fresh air they're going to hurt the entire carpet cleaning industry.

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Attitude

Modern slang has defined the word "attitude" as being "obnoxious, in a bad mood or in a particularly foul frame of mind." It is common to hear someone say, "George has an attitude," meaning that George is a person with whom it is not easy to get along. This is similar to those who define "quality" as meaning "good." Neither definition is right.

In the world of real communications, a person can have a good attitude or a bad attitude, depending on another's perspective. Be careful to mean what you say and say what you mean . Be sure the words you use are grammatically correct. The winners in business in the years ahead will be easily understood and will definitely have a "good" attitude.

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Tax fairness?

There's been a lot of talk lately about paying our fair share in taxes. Corporate welfare is not limited to big companies and banks that feed at the taxpayer's trough. It's alive and well in nearly every state and city of any size that is doling out tax money to companies that promise to come to town and hire people.

Forget Solindra and the hundreds of crooked cases of crony capitalism we've seen in the past four years. I'm talking about one state competing with another or one city luring a company away from another city. They offer tax abatement and pay for training new workers. Tax abatement simply means the rest of the taxpayers pick up the tab.

Good examples are Kansas and Missouri. One lured a trucking company away from the other at a cost of 24 million dollars. Meanwhile, two companies went the other way at a cost of 40 million. Who pays for this? We do, the taxpayers and their competitors who are actually paying to bring their competition to town.

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Customers need to know

We must be able to explain why our price may seem higher than that of a competitor. If we can't explain our prices, we shouldn't be charging them. There are certain costs which must be figured into our price. Account for each and every one! And know how much competitors are charging for similar services, especially if they are bait and switch type operations.

Customers are barraged with price ads. If we haven't justified our price, our prospective customers may try one of the low-price merchants. A competitor who embellishes the truth has a chance to gain those prospects one time. But the company that "tells the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth" all the time will win in the long haul.

Segments of Bane Clene® Institute's curriculum are devoted to profitable pricing of services and how to advertise to specific markets. If pricing or advertising is a problem for you, try to make it to our school in Indianapolis when it's convenient.

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Theoretically

If everyone in the carpet cleaning business used exactly the same equipment, exactly the same chemicals and had exactly the same training, then every job result would be exactly the same. Theoretically speaking, that's correct.

But there are other factors that come into play. Some of the most important things on consumers' minds today are honesty, integrity and execution! No matter the amount of training, performance is not standard and must be worked on constantly to ensure customer satisfaction.

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Wicking

Spot removal is sometimes more difficult than it initially appears. The immediate disappearance of a spot in some cases may be only temporary. Later the spot may reappear through the wicking process. Moisture in a carpet needs air to dry. Air causes moisture to move to the surface. As moisture evaporates into the air, even clean water will leave a trace of any mineral or chemical it contains when the last drop dries. Most times these are not visible, but sometimes show up weeks later and cause a complaint.

Brown Out® is an inexpensive solution to eliminate this problem, saving you a potential call back which can be very costly. Brown Out should also be used on furniture and rugs that are wet cleaned and all carpets made of natural fibers. It's great on fringes, too.

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Time to get smart

We've gone through twenty years of abusing carpet. I don't mean physically, I mean abusing it in the minds of consumers. Most problems with carpet are not in the quality of the product but are in the eyes and ears of the consumer. Vacuum cleaner hucksters on television show dust from carpet fouling the very air we breathe. Half hour long Infomercials by a cheap little rental machine embellish the amount of dirt and germs found in carpet.

Even our scientists are guilty. Dr. Michael Berry, one of the most quoted persons of science in our industry said, "Carpet is a sink." Just hearing this graphic analogy could cause a prospective buyer to choose another floor covering. "Clean that sink" and "Clean carpet for health's sake" have become the mantra of certain teachers and the information they teach is passed along to consumers by their students in the form of very negative advertising.

When the news business is slow, reporters revisit Kawasaki syndrome, formaldehyde and the 120 neuro-toxic chemicals found in carpet by "Green Nest." Do you remember Dr. Roselyn Anderson and the costly fraud she perpetrated on our industry with her claim that carpet off-gassing killed her lab mice? No wonder there has been a downturn in consumer confidence and carpet sales. Could it be time for a change in strategy?

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