[Daria Taylor]

hey everyone, hope you all ready to enjoy this year’s Christmas before starting new year.

I had this question in mind for quite a while and it's probably off topic, but still i thought i will ask.

Like i have said we all different, but we are all in the same industry, most of us run our own business and it’s either cleaning carpet cleaning or combined, and my question is what was your background before you started c'c or cleaning business and what made you diversify?

I myself from accounting background but also have experience in construction business and management, my husband is a quantity surveyor, we decided to open this business after working away for many days at a time and not seeing each other for many days, doing jobs we didn't enjoy. I always wanted to be my own boss and enjoy the thrill that i get from taking a risk and the unknown.

It's not a question where i am interested of who has 10 degrees and some one has none, it's just the question of why you chose this industry and it would be good to see how many of us come from different backgrounds, but yet again doing the same thing.

dash t

[Andrew Briscoe]

I have been self employed since 86, in that time i have been in the used car parts business,
nightclub manager, carpet sales, cleaning since 89, and a motorcycyle stunt rider 
left school with little qualifications, worked in poultry processing, then managed a farm (poultry)

so jack of all trades, and master of none 

Andrew

[Colin Day]

I started out as a Joiner when I left school and got sacked for skiving college.... Then I worked in a Chip Shop in Keswick before joining the Royal Navy in 1991. There I became a Radar Operator, Power Boat Coxswain, Navigator's Yeoman then left in 2001. I then was a security guard in Carlisle at Nestle, left and became a Biosecurity Field Officer for DEFRA in the Foot & Mouth Crisis then a fork lift truck driver in a warehouse, carpet cleaner (For someone else) then car valet for Lloyds of Cockermouth. Taking a major dislike to civvy life, in 2004 I rejoined the Royal Navy as an Aircraft Engineering Technician and got medically discharged after slipping off a helicopter damaging my right knee (Not in flight I hasten to add) in 2008 just before my promotion.....

After all those bosses I'd had, I decided to stick 2 fingers up at them all and be my own boss

[Jim_77]

Now all you need is 2 fingers and a mirror

I had a good time at Uni   then decided my course didn't add up to much so didn't pursue it.  Carried on my summer job doing building work for a couple of years, drove a van delivering computers, worked as a DJ and then got into carpet cleaning through a mate.  He was working for the previous owners of my local SM franchise, I had my days free because I DJ'd at night so graduated up from cash in hand, part time and then full time... then bought the franchise off them.

Looking forward to the next chapter in the saga........

[richie]

Left school wih 4 GCSE's,
Worked in a butchers, Warehouse, uPVC fabricator, double glazing unit builder, fork lift driver, managed a sex shop (im being serious)  , carpet cleaning, DJ on weekends. 

Guess which job was the best one 

Richie.

[The Great One]

Hi

Left school

Junior Army (hated it)

left to work in a bakery (1 year)

Unemployed for 18 months

Re-joined Army

Bar Work in Blackpool

Casino Croupier for 20 years

Fell into Cleaning while being a croupier, did both for a while (3 years)

Became fully self employed 3 years ago

Love it

Regards

Martin

[Joe H]

Apprentice engineer
Draughtsman
got into work study
then into Transport management for 20 years
got fed up, took voluntary severance
bought a small cleaning and caring business, dropped the caring - didnt want the responsibility.
Made the general cleaning business grow to 28 part time workers at its max.
At one point ran alongside the general cleaning a computer build, repair, upgrade business from home.
Did a bit of carpet cleaning alongside the general cleaning
5 years ago decided I like the carpet cleaning, so started buying serious stuff.
Now the carpet cleaning is the main part of my business but still employ a few staff (5) to do the general cleaning.

[M.Acorn]

Left school , couple of gcse`s,didn`t get on with school,teachers were all thick.
Started a 4 year apprenticeship,as a chef at Pembroke college in Camb,day release to do my city and guilds.
Qualified ,moved up morth.
Worked all over as a chef,sous chef,head chef,chef manager,both in restaurants,and industrial catering.
While persuing my true love music,started dj`ing semi pro in the early 90`s,then moved onto music production,had some releases too,met some of the worlds best dj`s and producers along the way.
Was made redundant from my head chefs job in sept 04,my wife ran a domestic cleaning company ,and was subbing to another cc`er.
Just seemed logical to have a crack,have always been a bit ocd with the vac,so much so i burnt several out as a kid,and pretty much got banned from using it !
Really couldn`t think of anything else i would rather do,well other than dj`ing out again,only thing that comes close to paying over £100 p/hr.My quality of life has improved a great deal,always got ££ in my pocket now.
And just picked up a 2ltr 16 valve 9a from a corrado,which is my winter project,rebuild,rebore,new bearings,pump,Shrick cams,flowed head,should see easy 200 bhp.
But plenty more when funds permit.Wanna go bike carbs,or throttle bodies and 2 stage injection,running on mega squirt management,eventually 
Have always been into cars,when i did my chef training i worked with an ex drag racer,so he took me under his wing ,and taught me a lot about engines etc,he had a 7ltr v8 with 4 barrel holley carb,you could pour petrol down it when the car was running ! and it wouldn`t miss a beat !

[Steve Barnett (Carpet Care Plus)]

I've been in the carpet industry since I was 19 (47 years old now !)

Started off in retail as a salesman/estimator.

Trained as a fitter at Brintons.

Worked in the contract sector, selling, estimating and fitting. I've fully carpeted embassies, department stores, office buildings and some of the most stunning homes.

Was made redundant for the 2nd time at 30 years of age, just as I had signed the papers for a new home and as my youngest daughter was about to be born.

I vowed then that I would never work for anyone again !

Supplied and fitted carpets for the last 17 years as a sole trader, added cleaning 13 years ago - just as an add on service. Decided 2 years ago to expand it seriously as I couldn't see a long term future in fitting (nearly 30 years on my knees !) - updated my training, upgraded my equipment, joined the forums and haven't looked back.

Still supply and fit, the difference is I now get that work as a spin-off from my cleaning clients rather than cleaning from my fitting clients.



 



Steve

[deep-cleaningukltd]

30 year's working on dairy farms finally as Head Herdsman for a 1000 head heard (that's big, trust me) in Cheshire. Working from 04.30am untill 19.00pm. No life and always grumpy (over tired). Mind you my wife tells me I'm still grumpy.

2001 fell out with boss (after 8 yrs) who told me one day that all I thought about was getting home, cheeky b.......d. So I thought about his statement for about one second and told home in that case he could do it himself!!!!!!!!!!!

Went to work nights for Morrisons Supermarkets sitting on my backside infront of a computer trying to stay awake. 2006 started C/C part time during day whilst still doing nights; back to no life and always grumpy. July 2008 built C/C business enough to dump the night job and go full time; three-four months before the banks tried to wreck everything. Onward and sideways.

[sherco]

Left school straight into the building industry, as a tiler, did this for ten years, then got into commercial landscaping, at the age of 26 i had 50 guys working on the landscaping and forestry contracting  business then the recession in the eighties killed it overnight, much worse than this recession i would say. Carried on with the forestry side and got back into tiling and natural stone restoration which is 80% of my business now, but still keep my hand in with a bit of forestry and excavator work as i love it but no money in the job. I also have 6 properties i own and rent out, so i do the maintenance on those...thats it 

[Henry Roberts]

Hi

Left school at 18 and worked on my parents Turkey farm for about 18 years ( bloody hard work, about 20,000 turks per year)
About mid 90's - difficult time in poultry world and started Auto valeting from some of our farm buildings as well as doing about 3,000 Turks for X-mas trade only.
Valeting took off well and having already got machines for cleaning car interiors, started carpet cleaning.
Eventually sold farm for housing development, and bought a unit on the Industrial est where I expanded the valeting business and bought my first TM 10 years ago. Best thing I ever did as I had constant back ache lugging portables up/down stairs!

Happy X-mas to everyone.

Henry

[jasonl]

85-86 Business studies at college


86-88 Breaking rocks in a quarry

88-90 Mormon Missionary

90-92 Newsagent

92-01  Chem dry franchissee

01-present Carpet cleaning , fire and flood restoration, buying and selling 5 different companies. Bought and sold a ready mixed concrete business 08-09 ,, that was a bad move

[Doug Holloway]

Hi Guys

Excellent thread.

1st cleaned carpets at M&S head Office, Baker St, 1971 as a Saturday job, initially as bucket boy. Carried on this for 10 years.

1976-82
R&D Technician then Chemist.
82-86 Cleaning business in London, CC and office cleaning in the City.
86-89 QC and Technical manager, adhesives.
Then had a series of jobs , selling central heating, adhesives, life assurance, hated much of it.
89 set up current CC business, quite a few ups and downs, the worst being the early 90's recession.
Once I had been my own boss I couldn't hack all the nonsense that goes with being part of a larger institution.

Cheers

Doug

[Neil Williams]

1978 - 94 Royal Engineers Fully qualified Heavy Plant Mechanic, HGV 1, mine disposal, bridge building and numerous other skills and qualifications.
94 - 2001 Police fire arms officer
2001 saw an advert saying earn £30k self employed carpet cleaner. Clearly it didn't take long to see that this was just a con, unless you worked 7 days per week, selling when you weren't cleaning and trying to get customers to buy numerous add ons whilst at the properties.
Then there was the constant going bust and starting up again in another town. Oh yes and we got 25% (pay) of the actual job
After 2 years of this I decided that if I halved the cost to the customer i would also be 2 x better off and went for it, with the back up of I'd inadvertantly picked up numerous window cleaning customers.
Picking up window cleaning customers was easier than carpet cleaning and that in the end took up 80% of my working month.
Then I got my wife to pack up her job to run this business.
Then we started employing guys to do the window cleaning because the work load became so much.
Eventually they proved to be more hassle than they were worth and we got rid and off loaded some customers.
This year we sold that business to concentrate more on the carpet cleaning and our holiday caravan business.
In the spring we hope to sell the house and move to North Dorset/Somerset area and start again.

[james roffey]

Left School in 1982 went to work in family business of Private Investigators at the time i thought this was what i wanted to do my father ran the business and my step brother worked in the same business, my father retired ten years ago and i continued working with step brother i hated it working late in the evening weekends everything had to fit in with work, family came second.
 money was rubbish and part of the job was serving court documents so that was often very dangerous but oddly quite enjoyable as it got the adrenalin going but the rest was
dull dull dull. until this year when i knew i had to get out.
carpet cleaning could not be more different meeting nice people having a chat working hard getting paid good money and the work fits in with what i want to do if i dont want to do it,
 i dont

[Doctor Carpet (Ret'd)]

After a business studies degree I worked for NatWest for just over 14 years.

Bought Doctor Carpet off one of my bank customers. (Insider trading? You bet, although my superiors thought I was completely barking. But what do they know about a good business proposition?)

Now been trading for 10.5 years although the business is over 20 years old.


PS Is it just me or do there seem to be an awful lot of people on this forum who are aged about mid-40's? Reading the answers would suggest so, and it all seems that for none of us it was a "mid-life" crisis.

PPS I'm 47 on Thursday. So there-I'm one of the clique.

[Mike Osbourne]

Certainly in my case  the thing I was doing most of my life suddenly didn't appeal any more, so what do you do then?

Carpet cleaning is very accessible both financially and skills wise, hence the high level of competition. But that is only an obstacle if you can't hack it.

Doug, did you tell 'em where to stick it when you left your QC job.

[Peter Blackburn]

Collage from 1997-2000 BETec National Deploma In Engineering.
2001 - 2003 - Full time mechanical engineer for food processing plant, part time carpet cleaning.
2003 - 2009 - Full time carpet cleaning and part time (1 day) engineering degree student.
Sept 2010 - Start course on Nuclear Engineering & Nuclear Physics.

Regards
Peter

[nevil]

I dropped out of engineering college after a couple of years. Took up surfing and partying pretty well on a full time basis. 

Then I met a girl, got her up the duff. So started taking life seriously. Spent five  years working in closed mould composites. Mostly teaching other folks how to use the process.

I couldn't stand working for someone so started carpet cleaning from scratch. Pretty pleased with how it's going but do sometimes get itchy feet. Cathy and I are still together and now have two lovely kids.

And don't surf any more.