[lands]

Simon

I agree my comments are common but if you read mine and yours literally you will see what I mean. You have mentioned going out and doing demos. Thats not the TM mktg itself, it's you supporting it with a strong belief in what you can achieve and the communiction skills to relay that to the customer. Thats more down to the operator than his equipment.

I use methods that I know many TM operators do not use and would happliy compete (not on time but on finished product). Doug still uses portys and whilst he may be an exception to the rule I would bet that most TM operators could not compete with his knowledge (ie finisehd product) and indeed communication skills which makes him the more viable choice for a customer. I want to reiterate my comments which are that the TM does not mkt itself. You must be good at mktg it.

Spencer, assume you are not referring to me when you think that work should land in your lap? I understand this better than most.

Pete
Pete  

[Ian Rochester]

Today I've had two team out:

Team One:

Texatherm to clean 1500ft² of hotel carpet that was already showing signs of shrinkage from the previous cleaner!

Then Prowler TM to clean two other jobs, both full houses.

Team Two

Out with the Extracta Exel and Scrubba doing a secure area where doors are locked behind us and couldn't use the TM even if they wanted to.

Me:

I've spend the day looking for a new van!! and still not decided which one I like best!

The TM is now always our preferred method, however there are times when other systems are needed.

A portable will be able to access and clean 95% of our jobs

A TM, probably about 85%

Texatherm, could be used on every job if we wanted to, but it wouldn't give the same result of either of the other two.

[mark_roberts]

Couldnt be bothered to read all the replys but heres an honest comment.

Ive a TM, portable and Texatherm.  The latter makes the most money per hour and the cheapest to run. 

Tms are costly.  £5 hour for petrol (Boxer 421), bigger van, better tools etc.  If your only doing a few jobs a day and home for 3pm then stick with the portable because a TM will just be eating into your profits.

If your flat out busy ALL YEAR ROUND, not just a week here and there, and you need to find time to fit more work in then a Tm will do this for you.

If you mainly do domestic and small commercial and esp if you use a bonnet system for the latter do you sums before parting with your cash.

Is a TM the be all and end all no way.  Will it bring in more work because you have a super dooper new state of the art machine NO it wont.

Will i sell my TM?

NO WAY cause it makes cleaning easier and for me thats worth the cost.

Mark

[carpet_care]

Sorry clinton just seen your post.

 The prowler I think weighs approx 350-400lb,John will correct me if i am wrong.

  Find it great after the initial getting used to wrestling with 50ft lenghs of 2 inch vac hose after using 25ft lengths 0f 1 and a half inch and the initial noise of the machine outside houses. Was waiting for some one to come over and complian but nobody has batted an eyelid except to come over to ask for a card or a price.


 Just me being paranoid about it, the job is usuually completed so much quicker and easier . more heat spray pressure and vaccum .

       The only change I would ever make now would be an upgrade but quite happy with the power of this machine .


  Regards Andy Locke.

[Fintan_Coll]

There are many arguments for and against, I have always used portables because I can do my own servicing on them, but I would not be able to keep a TM serviced as I am not a mechanic and my nearest service depot is well over a hundred miles away. Any breakdowns would be costly and time consuming whereas with a portable you can change a pump or vacuum motor in under an hour .
Having said that I know TMs are faster overall on big jobs but as I try to keep to domestic work mostly, speed is not such a big issue.

[Dave_Lee]

29th year in this business and I learnt early on that people were impressed and felt more confident when you had a professional looking machine. During many years this or me meant having a portable that was the most powerfull and Pro looking. However since going TM the number of jobs I have got from  neihbours of clients, just because the noise has grabbed their attention and then seeing the machine, has rocketed. I spent a lot of money on my latest set up, but I am confident that by the end of the first year with it, I will be taking £1,000 per month more, simply a result of its overt marketing capability.
Dave.   

[richie]

Simon,

GREAT TOPIC,

I see there are still people out there that are TOTALLY against TMs,  mainly due to ignorrance i think.  TMs will not market themselves however,  they WILL help with marketing.  I have on COUNTLESS occasions offered a FREE DEMO to potential customers.  Many of he customers have there mind made up just by my talking to them and the IMPRESSIVE look of the TM.  TMs do attract the attention of people when they are running due to the noise however they are not at a noise level that would cause a problem 99% of the time.  As many on this forum know,  i used to clean night clubs all over the UK.  Many of the clubs that i cleaned on the 1st occasion had previously been cleaned via a portable,  most clubs has 2-4 portables in taking 2-3 days.  They were amazed when i told them i was there on my own and would be finished within 8-10 hours (BIG CLUBS).  EVERY manager that had companies cleaning there carpets with portables told me that the clean was a VAST improvement. Nothing short of amazing in the words of many of them.
I can remember the first time i met Shaun Ashmore whilst i was cleaning a night club in Sheffield that was MINGING beyond belief.  Shaun was running Banes at the time & i was running a OLD Prochem Cub XL that had about 8000 hours on it.  Shaun told me that he wouldnt have taken the job on with Banes due to how dirty the carpets were.
A Truckmount will earn you more money than a portable regardless of purchase & running costs providing you can sell.  You can pick up from time to time a real good TM for under £4000.  You can find good running TMs that look tatty for under £2000.  You can easily make the tatty looking TM look great for under £100.  I know this because ive done it.  All you need is a detail sander, spray primmer, spray car paint or hammerite/smootherite.  You can get new vac, pressure & temp gauges for under £15 each.  Old looking brass fittings look near new when cleaned with a green scotch pad or wire wool.

There are some people in this great industry that just simply refuse to move forward for no real reason.  I cant understand the ones that say its because of the purchase price yet they are willing to spend £3000 on a NEW portable when they could spend less than that on a used TM that will OUTPERFORM, give more professional impression and last longer than the NEW portable.


Susan,
If you now own the very first HM Maxx 450d that came into this country i can assure you that the VERY FIRST OWNER of it looked after that machine very well.  It was owned by Tim Halford in South Wales.  I was working for him at the time.  Whilst i was there we clocked up about 1500hours (ish).  A few years after i moved back to England i went to see Tim.  The Maxx still looked great. 

Richie.

[spencer davies]

Pete,


No, Peter Blackburn, his previous comment was really negative.




S

[lands]

Pete,


No, Peter Blackburn, his previous comment was really negative.

Sorry, did'nt see that post. there seems to be alot of that about (negativity that is)

Pete





S

[Neil Grainger]

No one has mentioned that for the fraction of truckmount prices their are portables that have much the same power now or getting closer to it. Scorpion Prowler and the new advance 600psi

Portables are moving forward very quickly at the moment with better pumps and Vacs so this may effect the need or want of getting a truckmount.

In the summer I can make £400 a day no problem using my portable if the work is their.

Times are difficult at the moment for lots of people and the expense of paying £20,000 for a new truckmount not knowing what will happen to the economy is a worry.

For new people to the industry like me I am concerned that a good living could very easily go bad without much changing in the way i do business.

So to spend a lot of money on a Truckmount when for a fraction you can now get portables that are closing the gap on power makes more sense to me at the moment.

Anyway must go plane to catch at lunch time

[Doug Holloway]

Hi Neil

The reason no one has mentioned it is because it is not true, you only have to demo the machines to see there is a massive power difference between electric powered from sockets and petrol/diesel  powered.

It is quite easy to work out the amount of power available.

Having said that in the 'clean' end of the domestic markeyt which I and probably you inhabit, a porty can do an excellent job.

Have a good holiday.

Cheers

Doug

[Neil Grainger]

Coming home today Doug, so are you saying that the suppliers are telling us porkies then.

I fully understand that in a commercial market i would want a truckmount but in a mainly domestic market that I inhabit much like you do i need 1000psi on my machine, i think not.

So are the suppliers of such portables lieing to us

[gwrightson]

Neil,

to be frank , the suppliers ,i dont think are telling you lies

simply distorting the truth is more likely   or put another way juggling the figures.

I had a discussion with another cc only a few weeks ago, who in his words told me he had purchased a " I wont give the name of machine " supposedly leader in the porty market    and after several minutes it was quite clear to me he had been indoctrinated    by figures and marketing, with refrences like " will perform as good as any t/m" and "
more powerful than anything else out there"

I nodded my head , and gave up     and yet i know another cc who purchased the same machine used it once and never had it out of his garage since  
make your own mind up!!!

Geoff

[John Kelly]

No one has mentioned that for the fraction of truckmount prices their are portables that have much the same power now or getting closer to it. Scorpion Prowler and the new advance 600psi

Neil

The Prowler is a different beast altogether to the high-powered electric machines you mention.  It is basically a truckmount which can be removed from the vehicle if necessary - that is the only context in which you can use the word "portable"!

[Mike Osbourne]

Simon

You obviously go after a certain type of Client- Commercial & Knowledgable, so yes of course what you say is true.

However for the typical domestic client, they are perfectly happy/ignorant about performance differences. In fact the golden rule with clients is what is paramount to them in the context of having there carpets cleaned? And I'd say good feelings about the cleaner is No1, the machine outside is about no.5

All that said, for MY reasons I would like a TM ASAP.

[Simon Gerrard]

Mike,
Forget the market I am now in because I wouldn't be in those markets if I hadn't made the right decisions years ago. The decision to go from portable to Truck Mount transformed my business and provided the platform to build up to what I have now.
There are lots of myths about Truck Mounts and many of them have been aired here, as they always are.
What I would urge any one that is serious about taking their business forward is to go and work with a guy with a Truck Mount for a day, or  demos of a range of Truck Mounts and work and act with facts in your mind, not myths.

Neil,
Let me give you one big home truth. Portables will NEVER be as powerful as even the smallest Truck Mount. The most powerful portable that I know of is the Scorpion and I believe to get it going to its full potential requires it to be plugged in to four sockets because you can only gain so much power from a thirteen amp socket and even then you STILL don't have Truck Mount power.
Don't believe the hype these people feed you and go and seek out the truth.

Simon

[turneylogan]

Simon,

I don't have a truckmount as I only tend to work 4 days a week doing mainly domestics and I couldn't justify the cost. I would love one, as it would make life easier but the big thing that puts me off is this forum. It seems to me that, depending on your luck with your machine, you may have to do a lot DIY and tinkering with the mechanics, and knowing my luck, I'll be the one to end up with a lemon.

Running a porty is commonsense business practice for me. I do not believe for one moment that if I went out and bought a TM tomorrow that my business would soar...unless I spent time, money and effort on the appropriate marketing...which I can do without a TM in any case.

Although I can see it could open up different avenues of business.

My thoughts are that you can only consider a TM ONCE you have sorted out the marketing and the enquiries are not only coming in but are also REGULAR.

I do however take the power/speed issue. You just need to use the petrol version of a garden tool to see the huge difference.

[Spot On cleaning]

I bought a truck mount after 36 monthsof being in this business; Why? because i had had trouble with the extracta portable with the vac motors packing up etc, and back ache lifting it in and out of my car. As i have said on earlier occasions, the benefits of using these machines are many, and on the rare occasions that i have to use the portable machine, you then see the difference.

They have to be tried.

As far as maintebnance goes, i service it myself, very simple to do. And in two and a half years the only problem i have had is the two vac belts snapped which was my own fault for not checking them, and the fuel pump went, again my fault for nor checking the filters enough.

The tm now has a new Ford Mondeo fuel pump on it and the fan belts for the blower were acquired from halfords with no problems. I do not target commercial work to that great an extent, but know i could probaably increase my turnover by 30%. As long as you are happy with what you are earning.

I find marketing the tm on leaflets does work quite well, the reason being their perception of your equipment. A cleaner wants to charge say £60 for a standard sized lounge. He sees the equipment you have and cannot differentiate between your machine or a rental one, albeit the size is bigger. Will they pay you or hire one?

Customer sees the truck mount and realises straight away that here we have a professional set up with a large outlay and will pay because of this. Its all about peoples perceptions. As i have just said, i am happy with domestic customers, but could easily attack the commercial market.

I have been approached to do builders cleans and am still un-decided as yet. I personally cannot see a problem using the tm for dust removal. I thought about making a brush to go onto the pipe to extract it dry, then introduce water further down into the pipe to turn it into a mulch in the tank. Is this possible?

[Karl Wildey]

the old tM v porty debate, always end up with the porty guys knowing all the answers, and never listening to the tmers who once owned a porty or still do, and use it.

Marketing.
nice sign written van locked up and parked outside Mrs. Jones.

nice sign written van, park up with pipes running into Mrs. Jones.

Both doing the same job, carpet cleaning.

the Tm will been attention to itself, by its noise and the pipes, what an exellent way to say we are here and we clean carpets.

The Tm owners are on the increase in the country, even Ashbys have started to stock them, and they must sell more portys than anyone else

[spencer davies]

Neil,

I have two Speedsters and have also owned a Scorpion, we are now running a Hydramaster Maxx, the performance difference is huge, I can do a far better job with the Hydramaster, although I wouldn't knock the Scorpion or The Speedster, they are both excellent portables.

I am back at two fifteen today, the same job last year saw us packing up at 5pm.



Regards




S