The residential cleaning market is dwindling as we speak, from the economy to the lower volume of carpet being produced and shipped into the residential marketplace. If our companies just stick to our original plan of cleaning residential carpet, our market will shrink despite our best efforts to limit the financial impact.

A regular market for our services is the commercial market. They have plenty of carpet still being produced, shipped and installed. They have plenty of soil entering the building. They sometimes lack the sophistication of proper cleaning techniques themselves, and could use our help.

Our reluctance into this market seems to be on several levels, such as time of day of cleaning. Our other foray into this market caused us to work not only in the daytime on residential carpet, but at night too. This quickly turned us off to the idea and caused us to look elsewhere for market improvement.

Another reluctance was the sheer size of many commercial buildings. We did not have the manpower, equipment, or even the knowledge on how to set up a commercial cleaning plan for maximum profit potential. Our truck-mounts could not possibly reach deep into the bowels of the building, our hoses and trucks would be open to vandals late at night and even with dual wand techniques, we just lacked the effort after the first attempt to devote any more time to this enterprise.
Not to mention the price most commercial buildings were willing to pay. Our response was “I am not working for that tiny amount, and I don't care how much carpet you have!”  We would just blame the low-ball carpet cleaner and curse our decision to get into this industry in the first place.

Well, time to buddy up with your local commercial enterprise again; but, this time plan a little before going out to close accounts. Choose only the buildings you want. Choose only the buildings you find that close at an earlier time in the afternoon. Choose only the buildings that will let you get them on a cleaning plan where you get to the carpet before it looks like a farm field. In other words, employ a marketing system that lets you be in control of the sales outcomes.

One word. Encapsulation cleaning. Well that’s two words actually, but two words that will change your thinking about commercial cleaning forever. This system will bring you from the “one tool” cleaner to the multi-truck operator in no time.
Let me say one more word. Pile lifter. OK, another two words, but just pile lifting the carpet can save your customer thousands of dollars on early or premature replacement of their carpet. The more dry soil that is removed from the carpet, the less fiber loss occurs, the longer carpet lasts. Simple numbers. Speaking of simple numbers, since you can clean much more carpet per hour with the encapsulation process, you can charge less per square foot, and still be profitable. Your cost of service numbers go way down and customers on a schedule will be cleaning cleaner carpet.
Sounds like a win-win to me. 

Dane Gregory is the commercial sales manager for Bridgewater Corp, which owns Interlink Supply. He works with commercial cleaners to help them build their businesses by adding services without a lot of additional cost. He also helps them with technical aspects of cleaning carpet, tile and grout and stone surfaces. He instructs classes for each floor surface as well as the Commercial Cleaning Initiative, which covers all these floor surfaces.