[Danielson B]

Hello

I consider launching carpet cleaning as a side business activity. I'd like to cater for residential landlords, letting agencies and undemanding householders. I am prepared to invest up to £1,000 into this endeavour and offer the carpet cleaning along with window cleaning, oven cleaning and door/window sill painting.

Which method of carpet cleaning should I choose and what equipment should I buy?

I fully understand that I will receive plenty of criticism here as yet another aspirant to providing inferior carpet cleaning services. I will almost certainly be told that such inferior carpet cleaners are already ubiquitous and that they harm the carpet cleaning market by their unprofessionalism and their mismanagement of customers' expectations. It's all right. And I wholeheartedly and in advance apologise to anyone who my topic will annoy.

But if at least someone recalls their own modest beginnings on a shoestring budget and gives me some unorthodox advice, I will most appreciate it.

[julianb]

Get a second hand machine letting jobs normally cheap man made fibre so you may be able to pre spray and scrub then rinse off the crap sorry if I'm a bit brief

[scott johns]

hwe machine a least 2 vac and heater a dryer if you can as other post normally cheap carpets in rentals
so you should be fine most pros don't touch rentals

[Danielson B]

Get a second hand machine letting jobs normally cheap man made fibre so you may be able to pre spray and scrub then rinse off the crap sorry if I'm a bit brief

Cheers. Do you also recommend a hot water extraction machine?

[julianb]

Hot water good more suction good quite simple but if limited due to finances  bit of scrub helps on some carpets

[Danielson B]

hwe machine a least 2 vac and heater a dryer if you can as other post normally cheap carpets in rentals
so you should be fine most pros don't touch rentals

Cheers mate. So you recommend me

1. A second hand hot water extraction machine with twin or tripple vacuum motors
2. An extra heater
3. An extra dryer

Do I understand well?

And what makes and models would be best for me?

[Danielson B]

Hot water good more suction good quite simple but if limited due to finances  bit of scrub helps on some carpets

So if I can't get a cheap enough hwe machine with 2 or 3 vacuum motors plus extra heater,

I should buy some more simple hwe machine (i.e. with only 1 vacuum motor) an no extra heater

and to make up for the lower suction and lower temperature, I should scrub the carpets with some brush.

Is it what you say?

[Steve Chapman]

Letting agencies can be some of the most difficult customers to work for,  don't be fooled into thinking it will be easy work, and if you price too low you will making a loss..........

[Robin Ray]

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but £1000 is not enough to set yourself up with any equipment worth buying. Also setting your sights at the lower end of the market as a core group of customers will attract the type of customer which will be the most demanding rather than the least demanding. Their demands will be lower and lower prices. You will end up working more and more  for less and less.

Your first port of call from a carpet cleaning perspective should be to go on a course. There you will learn what skills and equipment you need to get the job done correctly.

If you are in need of starting a business which is going to be simple and bring in cash fast window cleaning is the answer. It has very low start up costs and virtually no marketing costs and regardless of what anyone tells you can be as profitable as carpet cleaning. Every customer is a repeat customer so you only need to get them once. I have built and sold about 5 window cleaning rounds from scratch over the past 15 years so i know. To do this successfully you will need a minimum of £1500 though unless you want to work traditionally. If you ask on the window cleaning forum they will be able to tell you how to make a system and how to get the work.

Don't scrimp on training or equipment or you will be setting yourself up for heartache and failure.

[Danielson B]

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but £1000 is not enough to set yourself up with any equipment worth buying. Also setting your sights at the lower end of the market as a core group of customers will attract the type of customer which will be the most demanding rather than the least demanding. Their demands will be lower and lower prices. You will end up working more and more  for less and less.

Your first port of call from a carpet cleaning perspective should be to go on a course. There you will learn what skills and equipment you need to get the job done correctly.

If you are in need of starting a business which is going to be simple and bring in cash fast window cleaning is the answer. It has very low start up costs and virtually no marketing costs and regardless of what anyone tells you can be as profitable as carpet cleaning. Every customer is a repeat customer so you only need to get them once. I have built and sold about 5 window cleaning rounds from scratch over the past 15 years so i know. To do this successfully you will need a minimum of £1500 though unless you want to work traditionally. If you ask on the window cleaning forum they will be able to tell you how to make a system and how to get the work.

Don't scrimp on training or equipment or you will be setting yourself up for heartache and failure.

Thank you, Robin Ray. I am a starting traditional window cleaner and my canvassing brings me customers only very slowly. But although my income is very low and is growing very slowly, I must still pay my bills and groceries. Therefore I am in a desperate need of another stream of income.

[Danielson B]

Letting agencies can be some of the most difficult customers to work for,  don't be fooled into thinking it will be easy work, and if you price too low you will making a loss..........

And residential landlords?

[Lewis Newby]

Landlords often worse then the agents tbh.

Biggest problem is getting work. If your not getting window customers,  what will you do different to get carpet customers?

Most agents will have had several reputable local cleaners in offerering thier service at some stage, it's not a new approach and may not bring as much work as your counting on

[Robin Ray]

I would concentrate on the window cleaning for now as setting up any other income stream will become a money drain until it is well established.

As for canvassing set your sights on middle class housing. Don't rely on leaflets alone. Knock on each and every door and introduce yourself, say you are the local window cleaner and ask them if they would be interested in having their windows cleaned if they say yes ask them if you can have a look at heir property and give them a price( do no cave in on the price otherwise you will be doing it forever) If they say no give them a flyer and say "if you change your mind in the future give me a call". Keep a note of not at homes and call back at another time. The best times for canvasing are early evenings, Saturday afternoon and Sundays however week days are good for elderly people. Make every time you are not working a canvasing day and you will soon be turning away work..... guaranteed.

I personally would insist they have their windows cleaned every month or two months otherwise you attract people who muck you around.

And just one more thing... To keep and build a customer base the most important things are 1, do a really good job 2, be punctual 3, be friendly and pleasant 4, dress respectably.

If you follow these things I guarantee you cant fail.

[Danielson B]

I can try to phone or sms the landlords in mornings, and I can put leaflets (snippets) with a longer list of services through the residential letterboxes during my afternoon canvassings.

[Robin Ray]

With windows it has to be face to face!

 Leaflets are good to leave as information with people or to put out before you knock so you have a point of reference.

[Danielson B]

I would concentrate on the window cleaning for now as setting up any other income stream will become a money drain until it is well established.

As for canvassing set your sights on middle class housing. Don't rely on leaflets alone. Knock on each and every door and introduce yourself, say you are the local window cleaner and ask them if they would be interested in having their windows cleaned if they say yes ask them if you can have a look at heir property and give them a price( do no cave in on the price otherwise you will be doing it forever) If they say no give them a flyer and say "if you change your mind in the future give me a call". Keep a note of not at homes and call back at another time. The best times for canvasing are early evenings, Saturday afternoon and Sundays however week days are good for elderly people. Make every time you are not working a canvasing day and you will soon be turning away work..... guaranteed.

I personally would insist they have their windows cleaned every month or two months otherwise you attract people who muck you around.

And just one more thing... To keep and build a customer base the most important things are 1, do a really good job 2, be punctual 3, be friendly and pleasant 4, dress respectably.

If you follow these things I guarantee you cant fail.

Thanks. I am already doing it more or less like that. But the middle class is the most difficult segment. Up to now, I've had more success with the working class and pensioners. And if the acquisitions go as slowly as up to now, I will finally get broke.

[Robin Ray]

Keep going .Its a bit like mining. It can be hard going moving tones of rubbish then you hit a seam of gold and it all becomes worthwhile. Let us know how you get on.

[Danielson B]

Keep going .Its a bit like mining. It can be hard going moving tones of rubbish then you hit a seam of gold and it all becomes worthwhile. Let us know how you get on.

Cheers for your encouragement.

[Deep Cleaning Solutions]

Setting up a carpet cleaning business on a very small budget can be done. I know this because I did it! I spent £600 on a Altec professional plus twin vac machine and a few hundred on chems and other bits and another few hundred on training so about a grand in total! The caveat is though that I worked full time in another 2 jobs for the first 6 months and then I had another weekend job for the next 6 months while i did the carpet cleaning at the same time. Only after a year did I decide to go into carpet cleaning full time.

If you are looking into going in to carpet cleaning to add extra income in your situation then I have bad news for you because it's just not going to happen. A carpet cleaning business will suck you dry in the first few years and is one if the most expensive business to run in the first few years and I remember spending hundreds if not thousands on advertising a month in my first years to try and get work in. The hard work paid off and after 3 years I was doing between 25 and 35 jobs a week on my own, making far more than I had ever had done in the past. Unfortunately I became ill after about 3 years and lost everything including my van, equipment, the lot and it almost cost me my marriage! After about a year of being ill I started from scratch again with absolutely nothing and I'm still not sure how I did it. I decided to build the business in another way. I got myself a part time worker for 3 days a week and the next few years where unbelievably hard but another 3 years later and  I have 3 workers doing all the work and I only spend £100 a month on marketing. I'm not really allowed to do much physical work by my doctor so I had no choice but to have staff doing the work but it seems to be working now. I'm not there yet but in another year of my hard work with marketing and website work I should be in a good place. I want to be in a position and I'm nearly there that all the commercial work pays for all of the bills and then the cash jobs are just spare money for me to enjoy and have fun I hope my little story has shown you how hard this business is to establish but also hopefully it's inspired you a little.

 My advice is to build the window cleaning business up. Add other services that cost little or no money to carry out like garden tidy ups or deep cleans. Once you have built up a customer base and have a living wage then buy your gear and get your training. Then you can push your carpet cleaning on to your existing clients and maybe stick a few adverts in the local free magazines along with a few flyers in between cleaning windows. The best and most cost affective form of advertising in my opinion is to have a website so that's something else you need to look at when you get more established. Anyway good look with your business and think very carefully about jumping into carpet cleaning without much of a budget because it's not a business to earn extra income it's a slow burner that will with time bring in a decent wage and the key to it is repeat customers!

[scott johns]

I agree with above just stick with windows and get your round in place then you can start to offer
different services,as already mentioned letting places landlords are not worth the effort as they
are normally trashed carpets I know we clean with a wand but no magic will bring them carpets
back to new. good luck a keep positive smile at everyone it works .