From Humble Beginnings to High-End Success: Carpet Cleaning Business Growth Strategies with Brent Versendaal

Focus on providing exceptional service, using high-quality materials, and marketing your services in affluent areas. Tailor your offerings to the unique needs of this clientele.

Brent Versendaal [00:00:00]:
Things like that, like, not having pricing in our marketing Yeah. Because we’re not about we’re not about price. One of the things we’re still getting good at that I wanted to I wanna pick your brain about offline more is the scripting because I think we can get way better at that when we are taking the calls because we still for this, I I had to man the phones last week for days because I had some guys at training, and, I I was surprised at still how many calls I got with people saying, I want a price. I want a quote. You know? Yeah. And I’ve got I’ve got a way to talk to them about that and talk to them about our value that we bring

John Clendenning [00:00:34]:
Yep.

Brent Versendaal [00:00:35]:
And all the ways that we do that, you know, the 16 point process that we have for our clean

John Clendenning [00:01:16]:
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the carpet cleaner success podcast, your only show on the Internet, run by 30 year veteran in the carpet cleaning industry, talking to carpet cleaners, helping you grow your business, learning from people like our guest today, Brent Versendal. We’re having a really good chat. I’ve wanted him on the the podcast for a while now, and we’re gonna learn a little bit of his backstory as well. So you can always check-in with us on stories, how to think through your carpet cleaning business, grow your carpet cleaning business, just learn some fun stuff, and get some actionable insights from all the different training and guests that we have on. So, anyways, with that said, welcome to the podcast, Brent. It’s really good to have you on.

Brent Versendaal [00:01:55]:
Thanks, John. Looking forward to this. It’s always fun to business.

John Clendenning [00:01:59]:
Yeah. So am I. And, actually, it’s it’s funny. So, so, Brent’s a rug rat. His his father started the business. We’re gonna talk about that a little bit. And I was actually on a call with him a while ago from somebody who looked over shoulder and saw saw the planes and stuff like that. And I knew his dad was this, an aircraft mechanic.

John Clendenning [00:02:16]:
I’d never looked past your shoulder until that was brought up. It’s like, oh, do you fly too? And I’d never even made the connection. I go, well, yep. I I yeah. Those are the things that, you know, in perspective, you don’t kinda kinda kinda really notice. But so we’re just gonna take a snapshot to start off with, and we’ll ask a bunch of questions about the business and just kinda dig into where you came from. But, just a general idea right now, just your the the your name, the business location, business name, you know, size of company, that kind of idea, how many crews on the road, and, like, just kind of just a general snapshot of where what what, all seasons carpet care looks like right now.

Brent Versendaal [00:02:52]:
Okay. Yeah. We’re, we’re located in the Rockford, Illinois area, Northern Illinois near Wisconsin. Currently, I have 3 technicians and 1, we’re calling him a production manager. He’s he’s a relatively new hire, but a guy that I’ve known for a little while. So he’s gonna be kind of a jack of all trades eventually. But right now, he’s filling the office manager role. And then myself, that’s it right now.

Brent Versendaal [00:03:17]:
Yep. We, we’ve got we actually have 4 trucks. Actually, I have more than that, but, 4 that are being used. I it’s funny. You know, back in the day, I had more technicians than trucks. Now I have more technicians than technician technicians, but, we got 4 that are, in production, and I occasionally still go out and do some jobs when need be, getting to be less of that, which is where I wanted to go. Although, we could talk about this further. I think it’s good from my standpoint at the point where we’re at for me to be in the field occasionally.

Brent Versendaal [00:03:48]:
Yep. The guys are Yeah. We’ll get into that too. Implementing some of the new stuff. I know what they’re dealing with. But Yeah. So we’ve got that. We do primarily, you know, carpet cleaning, related things, upholstery, tile grout.

Brent Versendaal [00:04:00]:
And then we also have our own rug cleaning shop here too. So we do that’s that part of our business has been growing for the last few years.

John Clendenning [00:04:08]:
That’s great. And so the focus mostly residential, residential commercial split, what would you say the percentage was sort of just in the

Brent Versendaal [00:04:16]:
Well, it’s, it’s about 70 30, 30 being commercial, and a lot of that commercial is, some accounts that have have that manage residential properties. We call

John Clendenning [00:04:29]:
it. Right? Yep. And the type of commercial you guys chase after, ideally, like, you know, sometimes we’ll take things just to because we got them. But, what it is it, you know, there’s again, some carpenters like to focus on like, what we used to do is the the day work, like, the condo hallways and stuff like that, hotels and, you know, banquet halls. The end of day, like, the 5 o’clock, the dentist, chiropractor, accountants, stuff like that versus the 2 AM greasy restaurants. So Yeah.

Brent Versendaal [00:04:58]:
We don’t Yeah. We don’t do any of those anymore.

John Clendenning [00:05:00]:
Yeah. Isn’t that weird? You do you take all those things on early on. You think you you think you kinda need to be yes to everybody, and then there’s a point at which you’re going, hey. You know, he’s getting up the next morning to show up for, you know, 8:30, get on to the 1st job, you know, between 8:30 and 9 to actually please the residential customers and make and make what I always consider done well, the real money in the in the business. So there is an angle for commercial commercial carpet cleaning. But any of the guys I’ve talked to and some of the guys that we work with, b two b is very it’s less marketing, like like, outreach. It’s less it’s less, Internet. You need all that just to back you up and your credibility, but it really is a who you know old boys kinda club.

John Clendenning [00:05:44]:
Right? So, it’s if you know the prod the, the office managers or the building managers, in skyscrapers downtown, you know, Chicago and stuff like that, You know, this guy might move to that building. Now you become the guy in that building, and they’ve got, you know, a 1000000 square feet, 800,000 square feet that just needs to be done on rotation over the year, and it’s just a contract. And these guys get get people going in, you know, from 9 o’clock at night till 4 in the morning every night. But you didn’t get that because of a great Google ad, and you didn’t get that because of a door hanger or a flyer. You got that from a referral from a, you know, a dinner out and maybe taking guys golfing and things like that, and you play that different kind of game as well. So for most of us, residential is where, you know, where our bread and butter is. You find the best clients in your marketplace, and you hang on to them as long as you can to get as much money out of them over their lifetime, and hopefully, their children and stuff like that.

Brent Versendaal [00:06:34]:
Right. So Right.

John Clendenning [00:06:36]:
So yeah. So tell me a little bit. So let’s kinda dive into dad, the business, and I think, well, 1972 was when Yeah. When that was started. The little story behind the business, what what got him into it? And then when did you start showing up, you know, like, in meaningful, not just the the you know, sticking around the office, but actually being handed something to do, and that kind of thing back in the day?

Brent Versendaal [00:06:58]:
Yeah. Well, my dad was an aircraft mechanic, and I worked in machine shops too before in the 19 sixties. Yeah. And he, he the thing that happened was, he got we’re in Rockford. He was gonna get shipped to O’Hare to work there, which was a hike at the time.

John Clendenning [00:07:14]:
Yeah.

Brent Versendaal [00:07:15]:
And he didn’t wanna do that. So his only other option was to, you know, quit the job, because he had just had a young family at the time. And he knew somebody who had a I think it was a steamatic old steamatic franchise. Yep. So he went into business helping him, and that’s how he got into carpet cleaning. And then eventually, he went out on his own. And being, an aircraft mechanic, he’s he could fix anything and built he actually built his own carpet cleaning machine. It was essentially here’s a funny story.

Brent Versendaal [00:07:46]:
And then I grew up you know, he ran it out of the house my whole life. He never had a building, so he was always out of the garage. And that’s what I knew growing up. And I remember when I took over the business, and I I knew nothing about it, really, and I inherited his equipment that he had made. And I remember calling to get parts, and I’m explaining to the guy at one of the places that most people in the industry would know. You know? This is what I’ve got. I got a truck mount. They’re I’m describing it to him because that’s not a truck mount.

Brent Versendaal [00:08:11]:
That’s a portable. My dad had essentially built a portable into his truck.

John Clendenning [00:08:17]:
Into his truck. Wow.

Brent Versendaal [00:08:18]:
Yeah. We had we had to plug in on every job. Okay. But, anyway, that’s it was just Yeah.

John Clendenning [00:08:23]:
That’s cool. And I guess that’s a skill set as well. You think about it. Like, how many, how how many new cleaners do we kinda run into at you know, on forums and events and stuff like that? And it’s like, you know, they’re they’re going down to the janitorial supply place. They’re calling the Butler or HydroMaster guy all the time and and and to fix stuff and whether it’s portable, whether it’s whatever. You know? And and maybe even have somebody there to help them out that is in today’s day and age isn’t a cheap rate to get somebody to kinda come and change electrical switches and stuff like that. And I don’t know if it’s a lost art or if it was just but it’s like, you know, or just the bootstrapping of it or whatever. Or, again, your dad had the technical proficiency, but, that was always like, I mean, I was a young 20 something year old kid, and I just had to figure out how to change a switch that burned out, how to change a palm, how to, you know, fix wands and lines in the field on the wood so you can finish the job up and get get through it and, and stuff like that.

John Clendenning [00:09:20]:
And it doesn’t become a down day or, you know, even a down job and stuff like that. So funny that your dad actually built the equipment right into the truck. Mhmm.

Brent Versendaal [00:09:27]:
He even built his own blinds. He would weld them together out of aluminum.

John Clendenning [00:09:31]:
That’s awesome. No. I I didn’t know that. That’s, that’s awesome. So, yeah, so that was, so when did the name all seasons show up? When was the actual brand in the marketplace? And Yeah.

Brent Versendaal [00:09:43]:
His my dad started out as, Four Seasons carpet cleaning

John Clendenning [00:09:47]:
Yep.

Brent Versendaal [00:09:47]:
And his uncles who had a a car dealership in Michigan who were in business told him he should change it to all seasons because back in the day, the yellow pages ruled. Right?

John Clendenning [00:09:56]:
Oh, a. Very good.

Brent Versendaal [00:09:58]:
So you wanted an a in as your in front of your name. So he’s changed it to all seasons.

John Clendenning [00:10:03]:
Yeah. And

Brent Versendaal [00:10:03]:
so that would have been just, like, 19 74.

John Clendenning [00:10:07]:
Yeah.

Brent Versendaal [00:10:07]:
Oh, there are people all the way into the nineties and even into the 2000 that were original customers that still called them 4 seasons.

John Clendenning [00:10:16]:
Yeah.

Brent Versendaal [00:10:16]:
And caused some confusion in the marketplace too with some other people Yeah. Came into the marketplace.

John Clendenning [00:10:22]:
Yeah. But the again, just again, there’s always, like, nuggets that we we as we talk through with anybody, there’s, like, there’s little words that are said that is actually the huge knowledge bomb right there. You had customers for decades re remembering the old name, but you had customers for decades. Right? So Yeah. Even talk about that a little bit. Like, again, we’re in an industry that businesses come and go. As I said, like, doing these interviews to anybody who’s been around for more than 10 years, let alone this long, because, you know, 80% of all carpet cleaning businesses go to business in the 1st 5 years. And of the remaining 5 years, it’s almost 90% is the net average.

John Clendenning [00:11:01]:
So about 4%, 4 to 5% actually last 10 years or longer, and that’s across most service industries, but carpet cleaning in as well. And one of those things seems to come down to and I I kind of feel it’s more so now. Maybe I’m just forgetting, you know, my early days. I started 95. I’m remembering and and all that, but I am finding more and more so. There seems to be a forgotten art of the reason why we’re in business is to build a database of customers to come back again and again and refer us. That’s kind of the reason why we’re in business. It’s not that first time job.

John Clendenning [00:11:39]:
In fact, if you break even on the first time job and it’s a great customer that’s gonna you’re gonna see for the next 20 years and 5, $10,000 worth of cleaning over that 20 years. It’s worth it to break even on the first job, you know

Brent Versendaal [00:11:52]:
Right.

John Clendenning [00:11:53]:
Buy a good customer into your database kind of idea. And I see people chasing, you know, low cost customers with low cost pricing and not really understanding that that person’s gonna go find the next lowest deal next time, and they’ve never built the business out of it. Whether they’re 1 year in, 5 years in, or 20 years in, they’re still just chasing new new new and not repeat in referrals. So dad obviously got that years ago. Right? And he did something right to get people calling back, and then you’ve taken over and done more of the right. So let’s talk a little bit about the marketing mix and, like, the the database side of it, because I’m sure the marketing has changed from the 70 to the 80 to the nineties to 2000, and now now where we’re at. But the philosophy of what you’re what you’re presenting into the marketplace let’s talk about how that maybe is has morphed a little bit from what you walked into when you became sort of owning and running the business. Yeah.

John Clendenning [00:12:48]:
You know, what you’ve done to the business to transition it from where it was seventies eighties into the rest. Right.

Brent Versendaal [00:12:53]:
Well, what I will say is my dad, I mean, as as much respect, as much as I loved him, I would say he wasn’t really a a businessman. You know? From the E Myth, if you’re in the E Myth, he was a technician, essentially.

John Clendenning [00:13:07]:
Yep. And

Brent Versendaal [00:13:07]:
he was good. He was moral and ethical, and he did hard worked hard, like, every day working all day long. And so he I I learned a lot from him from that aspect. But, but from a marketing standpoint, like, he didn’t look at it as something to overcome. And then he went through some hardships in the late late seventies, early eighties, and he kinda got to the point where the carpet cleaning business was just a way to provide for his family.

John Clendenning [00:13:35]:
Yeah.

Brent Versendaal [00:13:35]:
It really it was a job for him, and he didn’t see it as an opportunity like like I did. So, and I and I didn’t know any of these things getting into it. Yeah. So I was like because I saw him running his own business my whole life as a kid, and I even though I went to college, I had a degree, I had a good job. I always had the zits to have my own business.

John Clendenning [00:13:55]:
Okay.

Brent Versendaal [00:13:56]:
And, my dad was 67. He still could’ve kept cleaning carpets for quite a few years. He was in good shape, but, he was wanting to get out, and a friend of mine was playing in the sea of my head. He he had his own little computer business. He goes, you should buy your dad’s business. Honestly, it’s I never considered it.

John Clendenning [00:14:12]:
Yeah. Wow.

Brent Versendaal [00:14:13]:
And I went to my dad, told him I wanna buy it, and, he tried to convince me not to. He thought it was a waste of my education. Let me do it. He told me later that he thought I would have given it up after a year or 2 and went back to my job. Mhmm. But, he’s proud of what

John Clendenning [00:14:29]:
I’ve done with

Brent Versendaal [00:14:30]:
it. That’s awesome. All that to be said that from a marketing standpoint and and a business running standpoint, I had to learn all that the hard way because my degree is in engineering, and they don’t teach you any business in school. So I learned all of that stuff, like I said, the hard way. I think you and I crossed paths unknowingly and many times

John Clendenning [00:14:51]:
Yeah.

Brent Versendaal [00:14:52]:
Like, early 2000 probably in the the prAna world, and things that I got from that. My dad, just to give you an idea, I think he started out in the seventies charging 11¢ a square foot to clean. And I think it may have been high in the seventies. I don’t

John Clendenning [00:15:09]:
think Yeah. Because I was gonna say 1995, I was 21¢ a square foot and, thought that I was overcharging at the time as well. So, you know Okay.

Brent Versendaal [00:15:19]:
In the seventies, that might have been high.

John Clendenning [00:15:21]:
But Yeah.

Brent Versendaal [00:15:22]:
But by the time I took it over in 19, 97 and the day I stepped in, he he stepped out. Basically, we never worked together. Okay.

John Clendenning [00:15:30]:
He did

Brent Versendaal [00:15:30]:
he did answer questions and whatnot for me, but he had he was only at 14¢ a square foot.

John Clendenning [00:15:36]:
Wow. Okay. So, yeah, I’m not yeah.

Brent Versendaal [00:15:38]:
And his business advice to me was, hey. You might wanna raise your prices a couple of pennies when you get started. So I I took the huge step of going up to 16¢ a square foot, and I was a

John Clendenning [00:15:48]:
barrel laser.

Brent Versendaal [00:15:49]:
So, again, back to, like, marketing and sales strategy. Like, he he said that, and he encouraged me to go after, essentially, apartments

John Clendenning [00:15:58]:
Yep.

Brent Versendaal [00:15:59]:
You know, which is very common.

John Clendenning [00:16:00]:
Jobs. Yep. The dirty the dirty stuff.

Brent Versendaal [00:16:02]:
And and to undercut Yep. And to undercut other people to try to get that work, which is what I know a lot of guys do, and I’m admitting to doing that too early on. I still remember my first customer was a rental apartment landlord who I still work for today to this and we’re actually friends now. But Yeah. I remember offering him $50 to clean this 2 bedroom apartment, and he got me down to $45. Very first day on the job. Yeah. And, so I had to learn all of that mindset about and that took years to not to charge more, to put value into what we’re doing, and then to try to put that into my marketing to try to get those type of customers that are willing to pay for value versus low prices.

John Clendenning [00:16:48]:
Yeah. And that it is a mindset. So, again, we learned like, I mean, Joe Polish was a great marketer back in the late nineties, early 2000. Like, he marketed us carpet cleaners well with 30 page sales letters and all that kind of stuff to show up. Kinda learned it from Dan Kennedy. Dan Kennedy was another person. Howard Partridge was great at the the business philosophy and, like, the and that kind of stuff and the the sort of the the the office side of it as well and the referral marketing side of it. And we had a lot of and then, again, the, a lot of these guys read good books and recommended them.

John Clendenning [00:17:17]:
And I remember back in the day, that was a cassette tape, and you’d buy the course. And on the van seat beside you, put the next one in, have this one spinning on a pen so you can get it rewind it back again, stuff like that. Right? And before the days of CDs and all, but it was kinda you didn’t know what you didn’t know, but you realized you were being indoctrinated into being an actual real business owner whose focus again, like the E Myth, Michael Gerber, great book anybody should read for sure pick up, but it’s, you don’t, like, you don’t wanna be the technician. That is a hat that you have to wear until you can high have other people wearing it, even if you keep it on and go out on jobs, stuff like that. But you’re far like, as a business owner, you’re not the doer of the tasks. That might be one role, but you’re the, you you know, the creator of the systems. You are the person who understands, steers the ship, the vision of the company. Well, the vision is marketing.

John Clendenning [00:18:10]:
You do not have a client base, a database, a direction with your company without marketing. The phone doesn’t ring. Like, I hear people on I see people on truck mount forums and other forums and stuff like that saying, oh, I’ve never had to market my business, and I’m busy. You know, are you busy if you broke your ankle? Are you still busy in paying the bills? Are you like, maybe you’ve got a good referral network that’s still marketing. Maybe you’ve joined the chamber. Maybe you, you do, charity stuff, and you’ve got your your your cleaning shirt on, and you’re flipping, you know, pancakes and burgers and stuff like that, and everybody knows you, and they always refer you as the guy. That’s all marketing. There’s that’s all part of part of what everybody should be doing anyways included in these little digital things and all.

John Clendenning [00:18:53]:
But you’ve gotta start with your mindset that, you know, you can charge a higher price, and you can provide different services. I think the first time I got that was so I started 95. I think by 97, 98, that’s when I learned to package. Right? So 3 separate packages. And that was my way of upselling because I’m shy kid. It was like, well, I can’t I’m trying to sell you a protector. I’m trying to I’m I’m mentioning it. Like, I’m right? Put a package together.

John Clendenning [00:19:20]:
Give it a really great, framework around why this package is better than this one. Put it on a laminate. Have the customer walk around with something tactile in their hands that you can point over and go, yeah. So if you took this pack this this program right here, that program was a better name than the package. Even if you took this program right here, that would include this and this and this. As you do your pre inspection, healthy audit in the home, you’re starting to frame yourself as a consultant Mhmm. Care of their home. And as soon as you do that, you realize the quality of client will improve.

John Clendenning [00:19:51]:
The number of referrals will improve from those quality clients, and the the ones that just want a cheap price, the dog is crapped all over the carpet. The husband’s fixed the, or boyfriend has fixed the motorcycle in the living room and left grease all over the side. Those clients just start to fade away because you’re you’ve created a better market, a better reputation. You’ve a raised your prices, which weeds out the other people, and all of that kind of and and you you start understanding slowly and surely, wow. Maybe this does go somewhere. Mhmm. That again, now that you know, I I I know that you’re sort of at the top end of the market now. You have did you ever go through the the the 3 package route before you’ve kinda gone back to the 1 package route? Or, like, how did what was your little journey through sort of the way to get people to spend more per job? You know?

Brent Versendaal [00:20:42]:
Yeah. I did go we did do packages a while back and then kinda got away from that and then kinda went a la carte

John Clendenning [00:20:48]:
Yep.

Brent Versendaal [00:20:49]:
For a while, and now we’re we’re we’re primarily one package. Yeah. Right now, you know what we’re doing with,

John Clendenning [00:20:57]:
the elite service. Yeah. Like, with, yeah, with Michael Clevenger in the group. That that’s an approach as well that works really well. It’s a get it’s just an it’s another model, but just we’re hitting the top end of the market. We’re we’re we’re we’re showing you that there’s one way to do it, and let us come into your home and and do an, you know, an estimate and a conversation and see if it’s a good fit. And it’s it is definitely a way to get those best customers, and weed out the ones that that doesn’t work with anyways.

Brent Versendaal [00:21:22]:
Right. So Yeah. I would say the biggest takeaway from all of that, at least for me, was the head game up here with all of that. Because, back to those first few years in business at 16¢ a square foot, I think you could you could get, like, really deep psychologically here. I think I had some programming from early on.

John Clendenning [00:21:42]:
Okay.

Brent Versendaal [00:21:43]:
Because I still remember, you know, working out the price per square foot for some customers. And it and if it was over a $100, I’d find some way to discount it down to, like, $97 or $96 because there was something in my head that was telling me, you know, I don’t know. Maybe I’m not worth that. Maybe I’m afraid to offer that price, something like that. And if you

John Clendenning [00:22:08]:
pay that myself, so why would this person we start projecting. Right? Yep.

Brent Versendaal [00:22:11]:
Yep. All of that kind of stuff, I think is, probably the biggest lever if if you’re a person who’s got those kind of issues like I did to work on, to get over that. And I did start raising prices. We did do that eventually. Yeah. But we never actually made the big leap like we made this year Yeah. And saw what was possible with what we’re doing this year.

John Clendenning [00:22:34]:
Yeah. And part of it again, what’s possible what you’re doing now is because you also you also learned that, you know, service is an experience. So the people you hire, it’s not about whether they’re technically good on the wand. We’ll train them on that and stuff like that. They have to be great in front of the the homeowner in some way. They’ve gotta come across as honest and heartwarming and and and capable to the consumer, because if they’re just guys in jeans and a t shirt hat on backwards and, you know, tongue of their shoes hanging out, you know, they might be the nicest person on the planet, but they’re not, you know, the

Brent Versendaal [00:23:12]:
Right.

John Clendenning [00:23:12]:
A lot of times, they don’t they’re not necessarily the the most the the most well spoken. They they don’t kind of enact or interact with the consumer in a in a way, and they don’t deliver a service experience. So, that was one of the first things I learned. I read the, the experience economy. I think it was 2,001 to first time I presented, like, I skipped out of every presentation in high school. Those days I skipped out. The days I had to redo my remake, I skipped out as well. I had teachers trying to figure out marks for me, like, in English class, in history classes, stuff like that, all the way up to my final year of high school because I was just I was fear of public speaking was a huge part of my problem.

John Clendenning [00:23:52]:
And then I actually bought my carpet cleaning business to, started it to force myself to be in people’s homes. And Tony Robbins, 101, wake the power of the wind, one of the I’m thinking to grow rich and all that stuff, had learned my realized, can I put on the suit of somebody, like, pretend to be act as if, I was, you know, this this person that could speak in front of people that could deliver the service and stuff like that? And I I wrote scripts because I needed scripts. Like, it it was like I I got good at writing scripts. I learned neuro linguistic programming. I wrote scripts for call centers and stuff since. I got because I needed the scripts because without it, I’d have no clue what to say or be so nervous the words wouldn’t come out of my mouth. And then I would get better at making scripts sell, and I get better at making analogies that, hey. Your traffic lanes are like the easier genes.

John Clendenning [00:24:45]:
Let me explain kind of idea. And I’ll, oh, you know, and all of a sudden you get these little these little light bulb moments that sold protector, that upsold a package, and and and things like that. And that, that allows you to now hire based on attitude, teach them the skills because as long as they can sit in an interview, talk well, show up, have a good, you know, or clean-cut, good good well mannered, you can teach them the rest of the stuff. And they should enjoy the job because they’re there just helping people, helping people all day long. But then they deliver this great service experience. You can now start layering on the booties and the red carpets and having a service experience that makes people go, wow. That was amazing. You know, that’s better any any other cert not just carpet cleaner, but service provider I’ve had in my house.

John Clendenning [00:25:31]:
You’ve got things dialed in, and you almost kinda franchise the again, E Myth 101 franchise it. When you get to that level and you know the quality of what you’re delivering and the the education that you can educate the consumer with and your technicians and everybody are all up to speed, then it’s still a mental leap for you and I as owners to go, can I really go, like, that big in the marketplace and at that price point? But you’ve already built

Brent Versendaal [00:25:59]:
Mhmm.

John Clendenning [00:25:59]:
A system that means you don’t have to be the guy always out doing it. You can actually have technicians that buy into and do, and then they start seeing the paychecks that come from from that. And they’re like, you know, you know, they kinda kinda get a bit of a swagger in themselves as well around it. So

Brent Versendaal [00:26:15]:
Yeah. It’s true. I I’ve always told my guys when I I hire them, especially, I said, I you can be the greatest carpet cleaner technically in the world, but if you don’t create that rapport Yeah. With the customer, if you can’t do that, we’re not gonna be successful. Because you could if you can create the rapport and the customer really loves you, you don’t have to be that great of a carpet cleaner. It’s not that we’re trying to find ways to not be good cleaners. But that’s just the truth of the matter, and they’re gonna use us again

John Clendenning [00:26:42]:
Yeah.

Brent Versendaal [00:26:42]:
Because they like you. Yeah. They like

John Clendenning [00:26:44]:
Oh, you get away with too much. Unfortunately, you got you got I’ve had technicians that are so good at that that it’s like, okay. But you stop using the, the freeze phrase and the and the CRV’s. And they’re like, no. No. No. No. Run the whole system.

John Clendenning [00:26:58]:
You know, like, I used to do mystery shoppers on our own clients or our own our own clients because I would take somebody that knew me from the day or was a family friend that our technicians didn’t know. And I would say when I see them in the schedule, I would call them up and say, hey, Annette. So the boys don’t know you and I know each other. I’ll give you $50 off after the fact or a gift certificate for the steakhouse or whatever. I’m gonna just keep eyes on it, watch for this stuff, and I’m gonna send you, an email with a survey to do afterwards of what, you know, you know, I don’t need to take a picture or something like that. Just what color was the machine that was brought in? What was, you know, this kind of that kind of idea? Because was it the little portable spot extractor that used on the upholstery, or did they actually bring, you know, the full into things like that? Because when they’re really good at conversation, they know they can get away with a lot. Right? And it’s you gotta you gotta make sure that, you know, like, who was it that used to say, the quote was, you know, I trust you, but I’m you know, I trust you with with with but I’m gonna I’m gonna check and and Trust but verify. Trust but verify.

John Clendenning [00:28:07]:
Exactly. Right? And it keeps me so honest. Right? So Yeah. Right? So, so, again, part of this whole marketing journey in business is making sure that you come across as unique. We as business owners and this is another thing that I think some people forget when they’re in that technician mindset. I just a carpet cleaner. It’s just a commodity. Of course, my people only care about price.

John Clendenning [00:28:28]:
Right? But, no, you and I get to manufacture reality. Business owners get to manufacture the reality of what they are selling. I learned this from infomercials, Dom Lapre, and tiny classified ads and all that stuff decades ago. Ginsu knives at 2 o’clock in the morning and got the ranker and all that stuff. They didn’t sell anything different than anybody else. They packaged it differently. They they told a better story. They had a better unique sales proposition that resonated with the client and stuff like that.

John Clendenning [00:28:57]:
So what would you say in your business is the uniqueness that you push into the marketplace that tells people that, hey. If you want it done the other way, yeah. But when you get it done our way, here’s what you’re gonna get. Again, that you get to enhance pricing by having my manufacturing reality, in in your marketing and your and and your process or your your description. What is some of the things that you’ve added into yours that sort of help you elevate that reality?

Brent Versendaal [00:29:26]:
Yeah. Well, we’ve, I mean, you’ve been a big part of that this year with a new website and getting that that message out there that we’re projecting a premium service. And and I I still think the old headline, the most thorough cleaning ever, it’s free. It still works to some degree in different marketings or different variations of that. We use that for years. In fact, one of my competitors stole it without without, you know, paying for it like we did.

John Clendenning [00:29:53]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Brent Versendaal [00:29:54]:
And started using it. But, things like that, like, not having pricing in our marketing

John Clendenning [00:30:02]:
Yeah.

Brent Versendaal [00:30:02]:
Because we’re not about we’re not about price. One of the things we’re still getting good at that I wanted to I wanna pick your brain about offline more is the scripting because I think we can get way better at that when we are taking the calls because we still versus I I had to make me on the phones last week for days because I had some guys at the training, and, I I was surprised at still how many calls I got with people saying, I want a price. I want a quote. You know?

John Clendenning [00:30:27]:
Yeah.

Brent Versendaal [00:30:27]:
And I’ve got I’ve got a way to talk to them about that and talk to them about our value that we bring

John Clendenning [00:30:32]:
Yep.

Brent Versendaal [00:30:32]:
And all the ways that we do that, you know, the 16 point process that we have for our cleaning system.

John Clendenning [00:30:38]:
Now do you have a name for the 16 point process?

Brent Versendaal [00:30:41]:
We call our VIP.

John Clendenning [00:30:43]:
There you go. Yep. Exact. Yeah. It’s the

Brent Versendaal [00:30:45]:
16 point cleaning process.

John Clendenning [00:30:46]:
Name things. You become your own. Like, it’s like That’s

Brent Versendaal [00:30:49]:
good. Yeah. Yeah. Come with a more exciting name.

John Clendenning [00:30:53]:
Yeah. And you can iterate, but it’s sort of like, if you give it a name that nobody else has, you know, or that kind of idea, then, again, it’s just another anchor because you’re manufacturing reality. It’s we used to have the new mothers or the expecting mothers package because, you know, I somebody told me to try well welcome wagon at one point. We tried welcome wagon. Didn’t do anything. Right? And then we took one of our our standard packages. What I’d heard and I’d from my own wife, I learned what a woman, whether it was somebody who’s pregnant and how everything has to get done. Can you that squeak everything had to be fixed, everything, especially at closer things got.

John Clendenning [00:31:29]:
Everything had to be clean. Everything may be painted. Everything had to be ready, all that kind of stuff. And it’s like, cool. Well, there are lists for those people. There are you can buy lists. Welcome wagon buys those lists and stuff like that and and and does those introductions and things like that. So what we started, we created instead of just, oh, we’re carpet cleaners.

John Clendenning [00:31:47]:
It was like, you know, I I can’t I’m trying to remember the name of it right now as we talk, but, we had a name for the package, and it was just about creating a safe, healthy, clean environment for mom and babe when you come home from the hospital. Right? So let’s get that done

Brent Versendaal [00:32:03]:
you know,

John Clendenning [00:32:03]:
ahead of time. Right? And it was never about, oh, can you just do the baby’s room then? It was like, you’re doing the whole house. You’re doing the carpet. You’re doing the tile. Like, they were 1200, $1500 jobs because it’s like and husband’s going, here here’s the credit card. Here’s the check. Remember the day everybody paid by check. Here’s the check kind of idea.

John Clendenning [00:32:21]:
He’s rolling his eyes, and she’s going, thank you. Thank you. Oh, it smells so nice. And, you you know, and all that kind of stuff. And, you know, well, if you get any spit up, here’s my branded all season spot remover, you know, free free real refills for life. Right? Again, we don’t have to do any of those things, but you hand those out. You do these things. You have these packages.

John Clendenning [00:32:39]:
You give these names, and it feeds into a conversation already going on in the customer’s head. Can you tap it? That’s which is good marketing. All it does is tap into a conversation that’s already going on in somebody’s head. Right? So when you’re trying to manufacture, manufacture the conversation, we got we know lots of people. Like, for example, some people say Facebook ads only work if you run it like Groupon. Discounts, bait and switch, all that kind of stuff. 3 rooms in a hall for, you know, 99, 139, whatever. Yeah.

John Clendenning [00:33:12]:
If you’re trying to get Facebook to generate, you know, a whole bunch of low end leads, if you’ve got an inquiry system with, again, a good website that tells your story, you’ve got good marketing, you’re in local service ads, you’re in Google Ads. You’ve got door hangers in neighborhoods. You’ve got real estate agents referring you and interior designers, and you you’re just out in the public and people know your name and all that kind of stuff. You got a referral program for your client base. You got a reminder system for your client base and all that kind of stuff. Facebook then becomes, why not tell your business story in a bunch of different ads at 10, 20, $30 a day? You would pay that $30 a day, $20 a day, $600 a month Yeah. For a billboard. Right.

John Clendenning [00:33:54]:
You’re not gonna get to that price. It’s it’s 3, 4, 5 times ever, but you’d pay that for a billboard or the back of a bus or something like that in your ideal neighborhoods in, like, the golf course, road areas and stuff like that. You’re not even gonna get flyer distribution out like that, but you can actually be on Facebook and target those ideal people that are business owners, that are career oriented corporate, and say, hey. I’m Brett. This is Brett. This is my my wife. This is my family. This is my kids.

John Clendenning [00:34:20]:
You know, 2nd generation blah blah blah. Here’s what we do differently. If you want it done properly, you want this this this feeling, this sense sense of done well, clean, healthy, 16 point process, all of that kind of stuff. Give us a call. You never mentioned the price, and you’ve attracted the right person. If your average job is 4, 5, 6, $700 average job because you’re attracting the right person, one person a month pays the Facebook ad, the $20 a day ad to brand, and you’re being seen by 20,000 ideally targeted consumers every single month with a slightly different message, but it’s a message of you in the marketplace. Now you’ve got marketing that that feeds on everything else. Now they end up to go, who is this guy? They go to the site.

John Clendenning [00:35:04]:
Oh my god. There’s a story there too. They start, you know, they get they get into your world. They start getting retargeted by happy customers telling happy customer stories, not discounts and deals. And now your whole world starts aligning with the people that want the better who are willing to pay more to get it done right, maintain their stuff, and they’re gonna have friends like that. They’re gonna have, you know, they’re gonna they’re gonna want you more often. The person that thinks it’s been a year since their last cleaning has been 3 is different than the person who calls you every 6 months because it’s off white carpet, off white upholstery, off white tile, off white dog. They wear off white clothing.

John Clendenning [00:35:40]:
You know? Or you know? And they just everything needed to be cleaned kind of idea. Right? So, that kind of thing. So, yeah. So we we’ve kind of woven a little bit about marketing, which is a big part of what I talk about a lot. Operational efficiency and stuff like that with the technicians, keeping them, hiring and finding good technicians and keeping them is another big thing that we’ve always run into in the industry. And it ebbs and flows at different times of the economy, you know, and stuff like that in different generations as we’re moving into, you know, your generations y’s and x’s and all that kind of stuff. Little bit of insight for the crowd. Your philosophy around finding good technicians, keeping them around long enough that they can finally really get it and learn it and and deliver that value.

John Clendenning [00:36:27]:
What would you say is a bit of an insight in that?

Brent Versendaal [00:36:31]:
I could talk a lot about that and the changes we’ve made recently. What but if you want just a quick insight, it would be read, Patrick Lencioni’s ideal team player

John Clendenning [00:36:41]:
Okay.

Brent Versendaal [00:36:42]:
That that we’ve used. We use that now, and they have materials online that are free resources for hiring, to use during hiring. I mean, are you familiar with that book?

John Clendenning [00:36:52]:
I haven’t. No. I haven’t heard of that one at all.

Brent Versendaal [00:36:54]:
I mean, it’s it’s really simple. If you’re familiar with Lencioni, the books are easy because they’re stories. Okay. And not just academic stuff.

John Clendenning [00:37:01]:
Sort of like the e myth. It’s a story of somebody running a business. Yeah. Yeah.

Brent Versendaal [00:37:04]:
Yeah. Or the 5 dysfunctions of a team. Yeah. You heard of that one? Yes. He wrote that also. Okay. So but he breaks it down and says, an an ideal team player, which is what we all want, is hungry, humble, and smart. Mhmm.

Brent Versendaal [00:37:16]:
It’s part is emotional intelligence, not Yeah. Not intellectual intelligence. So, and then there’s there’s ways that it gives you those pretty straightforward and cut and dry to ask questions to try to figure out if the candidates we’re looking at are ideal team players. And and it’s interesting in the book. Like, if you’ve only got 2 of those categories, which I can look back on our history and see people that only had 2 or only had 1 Oh, yeah. Easy to identify, and then it’s easy to if you read the book, you could predict, you know, what are the issues that this person

John Clendenning [00:37:47]:
That’s awesome.

Brent Versendaal [00:37:48]:
When they when they’re like that. And Yeah. We’ve used that, just for the last, like, year and a half

John Clendenning [00:37:53]:
Oh, cool.

Brent Versendaal [00:37:54]:
Hiring, an office manager and then a couple technicians. Yeah. And it’s been I find that very helpful. But Well,

John Clendenning [00:38:00]:
that’s great advice. No. Anything like a because, I mean, now that I’m out of the cleaning world as of 3 years ago, fine like, all the businesses have been sold, and do the just the digital marketing online stuff. We use the Colby index for determining which is again, I’m I’m gonna read that book for sure. I’m I’m a voracious reader. I just love reading new stuff. So, and see how it you know, the disc profile, then the Colby, then and things like that and how you can really you can go back once you learn it as you said and go, yeah. That’s obvious now in in hindsight.

John Clendenning [00:38:30]:
What’s what’s

Brent Versendaal [00:38:31]:
your Colby score? Do you know what it is?

John Clendenning [00:38:33]:
What’s that? Do you

Brent Versendaal [00:38:34]:
know what your score is?

John Clendenning [00:38:35]:
I don’t have it up in front of me. I can’t remember right now. So Curious. Yeah. I I’m

Brent Versendaal [00:38:39]:
I am very into that one too. So

John Clendenning [00:38:41]:
Yes. So, but yeah. No. And we just we just made a couple new hires recently, a director of, an actual account like, an accountability coach that we’re adding into our services to help our clients stay for the ones that need sort of a, like, a a little bit more pushing on up in getting their database marketing out the door and getting and all that kind of stuff. It’s sort of like, you know, here’s what you need to do. Here’s the big stack of stuff to eventually knock off the list to to run a really good service business of any kind. I don’t care if it’s carpet cleaning or what. Right.

John Clendenning [00:39:09]:
And what causes 10%, 15% to do that over the course like you did. Like, I, you know, had to because I decided I don’t wanna be in the truck, so I have to I’m gonna spend all my time working on the business, not in it. And then I became you know, I had to learn all this stuff to be able to have a paycheck and not be one of the guys in the truck when we only had 2 trucks on the road back in the day, like, early on and stuff like that. Right? So, but, yeah, we we find our our why, and we put it in place, and we learn it, but some people just stay in technician mode. And because this all the rest of the seem too daunting. So we use the Colby to find somebody who’s on our team now, Fabio, who is doing exactly that, because it’s you know, I would have just hired on personality before. He seems like a nice guy, but now you do the Colby and the disc and all that stuff and going, oh my gosh. You’re you’re a high fact finder and you’re, like, you know and and it’s, like, it’s the right person for the right role to be empathetic and help and then but still be strong enough to direct and and that kind of thing.

John Clendenning [00:40:09]:
And you wouldn’t have known it otherwise. So so you’ve got something in place, which is good. I think everybody should pick up that book and read it for sure. Where are you finding the technicians now versus, say, 10 years ago? What is working now? Is it, like, I mean, Indeed and things like that? Is it, I’ve talked to Jeff Cross from CleanFAX ISSA recently. He does a lot of training around helping to find the ideal technician and that kind of thing. But, where do you guys finding it working in the Rockford area right now?

Brent Versendaal [00:40:39]:
Well, that I can’t speak a whole lot to recently because, like, I’ve got a technician that I’m looking to hire right now, but he’s one that had worked for us in the past. Yeah. And I liked him, and he’s interested in coming back. It’s a longer story for different reasons that could work out well. Okay. So, and we’ve used Indeed over the last few years

John Clendenning [00:40:57]:
Yeah. Because

Brent Versendaal [00:40:57]:
that’s what everybody goes to that I know of. So that’s all I can speak to

John Clendenning [00:41:01]:
Okay.

Brent Versendaal [00:41:02]:
At this point. But I would say touching back to that and the previous question about the mindset around it, I’m also been really influenced by, Tommy Mello’s, elevate book

John Clendenning [00:41:13]:
Yes.

Brent Versendaal [00:41:13]:
Which is a great book. Several times, and, I really appreciate that book and the message regarding hiring and how to treat your team members and coworkers.

John Clendenning [00:41:23]:
Yeah. Todd, that that one and, what’s the other, anything by Tommy Miller is great. Follows podcast as well, everybody. Anybody knows Tommy well enough, I’ve I’ve got feelers out. I’d love to get them on the podcast here. So, but, yeah. No. Tommy is is great in home service.

John Clendenning [00:41:38]:
Like, he just understands and teaches well how to and explains well how to do the job of a business owner again and and the different aspects that you need to be focusing on, and and simplify. Right? So, so we’ve talked about a bunch of stuff that has worked well. We we all do things that were crappy that didn’t work out that we try until we get to good. Is there anything that you can just just, you know, again, everybody likes to look at the the car accident as you drive by. Is there anything that you like, just one or two things that might have stood out as something that you tried over the years, thinking it was gonna be a great idea and, like, maybe a new service you tried that on or something in the marketplace, a partnership, or anything that that just, there’s lessons learned now that that you know, in hindsight.

Brent Versendaal [00:42:30]:
Oh, yeah. Wow. I got a laundry list of things for that, John. But, the things that are top of mind as I look back is I well, going back to Colby, I’m a 9 quick start.

John Clendenning [00:42:43]:
Okay. So

Brent Versendaal [00:42:44]:
I’m I’m easily distracted. And throughout all the years, I know I wasted so much time, looking for other services to add on when I hadn’t maximized, you know, just carpet cleaner. Yeah.

John Clendenning [00:42:57]:
Go deep. Just just run your channel. Yep.

Brent Versendaal [00:43:00]:
Yep. So I I know I wasted a lot of time doing that. I bought an air duct cleaning trailer. Yep. I’m staring at

John Clendenning [00:43:08]:
one out the window, though, when I sold the business. Carl has not driven it once. Like, it’s just exactly. Yep. So I mean

Brent Versendaal [00:43:13]:
and it’s a it could be a valid add on, but at the time, it was a distraction for me. And there’s so many of those that have been distractions. And so I need to, what is there? There’s a Steve Jobs quote about that. Like, he’s more proud of the the thousand things they said no to than the 1 or 2 things they said yes to. And so I I need to take that to heart more. So that’s one thing that,

John Clendenning [00:43:34]:
Oh, good advice. I I think I think a lot of our listeners, it’s, don’t depending on your marketplace. Again, if you’re in a town of 10,000 people, 15,000 people, and a whole county of 70,000, you’re probably going wide. Sorry, dude. And maybe, know, get really good at this marketing thing and buy out the competitors and own the pressure washing business and be a mogul of the cleaning industry. If you’re in a town, you know, couple 100000 people or more, you can go deep. I I was just talking to a guy the other day. They were trying to, he might end up becoming one of our newest clients.

John Clendenning [00:44:01]:
He’s only he only does upholstery cleaning, only does high end upholstery cleaning. He’s in, Florida. He’s so he does boats. He does yachts. He does condos. All the the high end, prop property managers and, interior designers use him. Haitian cottons and silks and all that stuff that nobody wants to touch. He delivers a beautiful service experience.

John Clendenning [00:44:25]:
He lays his drop sheet out. He puts his table up. He’d like, he just he puts the gloves on. He has a he actually has a bit of a show that he you know, the whole bit. He does a little bit of aromatherapy in the room while he’s doing the cleaning. Really cool thought process. Never wants to touch a carpet cleaning, wanted to save his life. So his average couch is about $800.

Brent Versendaal [00:44:43]:
Wow. Right? His average

John Clendenning [00:44:45]:
glove seats, 500. Armchair is 300.

Brent Versendaal [00:44:48]:
Yep. He owns the niche. He’s got a niche. He’s probably got no competitors. Yep. Going talk about going deep. He’s he’s epitomized that. So Yeah.

John Clendenning [00:44:56]:
I’m just like, wow. Even even from me that thinks this stuff through and overthinks it and feels like you the wrong way and then comes back and some of that. It’s like that was like, wow. There’s an eye out there. It makes you it it it adjust your perspective and you go, gosh. Yeah. There’s something to that too. So so yeah.

John Clendenning [00:45:13]:
But cool. So, so we talked about a bunch of of of of again, a little bit of pitfalls, a little bit of marketing direction, stuff like that. On your cleaning business journey, what do you see is what do you see developing? What do you see is we’re we’re gonna be we’re we’re almost in 2025. If we’re looking back just a bit of a crystal ball direction of the company, what do you hope the next 5 years like, beyond 5 years, it’s it’s almost impossible in our world nowadays. It’s changing so fast. But over the next 5 years, what are you kind of seeing as trend? What are you aiming at, doubling down on? Obviously, going high end was something in the last year and a half, and it’s working out for you. And we do know from our world that middle income and lower middle income are finding it harder and harder and harder to pay the bills, make truck payments. There’s more foreclosures coming.

John Clendenning [00:46:07]:
You know, they’re kinda hiding the data because of election year, but there’s a lot of noise in in the economy. And the upper middle and upper class, the affluent, they don’t care if they pay 800 or $1200 for a carpet cleaner to come in. You know what I mean? It’s like that extra $400 didn’t break the bank, on 30, 40, $50,000 a month income kind of idea, and and their stock market is going crazy anyway. Some of them finally got into crypto, and that’s doing their thing. They’re not the worried crowd. Right? So that seems like one thing that you’ve made an adjustment around in our economy and, you know, you know, kind of as things flesh out. Any other couple other things that you see that’s going on?

Brent Versendaal [00:46:47]:
Well, yeah, that’s the big one. I mean, moving towards that type of, almost recession proof

John Clendenning [00:46:52]:
Yeah.

Brent Versendaal [00:46:52]:
Type of, client base that we’re working towards. And we’re still building on that. I still feel like we’re in the early stages of that in what we’re doing. So that’d be that would be critical. I like to look at the the tech side of things. I’m a gadget guy. I like toys and things like that. So I’m, even though I I did get away from that for a few years, back to it this year, and I like to be on the, maybe not the bleeding edge, but the cutting edge of the industry.

Brent Versendaal [00:47:18]:
And, I can’t help but thinking that, robotics are gonna be coming into it. Like, my wife and I drove by this weekend a commercial property, and they had an electric lawnmower out there

John Clendenning [00:47:29]:
Yep.

Brent Versendaal [00:47:30]:
In the lawn form. Some more and more

John Clendenning [00:47:33]:
of those.

Brent Versendaal [00:47:34]:
I’m sure and I know that’s out there for carpet from Yeah.

John Clendenning [00:47:37]:
From a

Brent Versendaal [00:47:37]:
different standpoint for large quantity areas, large quantities of square footage. So that’s something to be, keeping my eyes on and and how to implement new tech into the business.

John Clendenning [00:47:49]:
Neat. Yeah.

Brent Versendaal [00:47:50]:
So to be more efficient, to to help marketing, maybe that’s the case. Different way angle to look at that.

John Clendenning [00:47:56]:
Yep. And you use ServiceMaster, I believe, is is the platform you guys use. Do you have the technicians on tablets, or are they still writing paper invoices? Like, are you have you moved tech into the one

Brent Versendaal [00:48:05]:
Yeah. We went paperless Yep. Years ago with ServiceMaster. I’ll try not to disparage them too much. I mean, we like the platform, but Yep. They they need some help still, improving some things. But Yeah. They do provide there’s a lot of data you can get from it.

Brent Versendaal [00:48:20]:
So we we are, paperless there. We, we take a lot of pictures, add them to work orders. We’ve used company cam in the past. We’re probably actually gonna bring it back on again more so for our rug cleaning and commercial accounts, actually, for providing value.

John Clendenning [00:48:35]:
Yeah.

Brent Versendaal [00:48:36]:
Using company cam as a way to document what we do and document condition visual condition of carpets and report that back to our commercial accounts as a value add, actually.

John Clendenning [00:48:47]:
Yeah. That makes sense.

Brent Versendaal [00:48:48]:
I know nobody else is doing something like that.

John Clendenning [00:48:51]:
No. And who was it years ago that even, like so way before company cams and things like that? I think it I was it Jim Woolverton? I can’t remember who it was, who had talked about his, like, even just area rugs in his area rug room, which wasn’t anything impressive. He actually had to clean it up to make it look good, but had a security camera in the corner and had it put on the website. You could watch your rug being cleaned. You could watch the the rug room being good and stuff like that. Just as a neat little again, another value, like, a value add using technology to, you know, in today’s day and age, you could probably even integrate some automation and AI that when that rug, you know, maybe a little QR codes and stuff like that, scan that rug. And when that rug gets scanned, they get an alert. Hey.

John Clendenning [00:49:30]:
Do you wanna watch your rug getting cleaned? You know? That, you know, things like that. Maybe maybe not now, but 12 months from now, you’ve got, you know, stuff like that going on. And if they happen to be live on it, the technician can, hey. So I see you on there. You know, like, you know, like a tablet and, oh, she’s hey, missus Jones. Yeah. So, you know, I’m gonna take out this spot right now, and I’m gonna do whatever. And, you know, can you imagine the amount of value that would put to a job for the people that cared? Like, it’s their $30,000 person or it’s grandma’s rug or great grandma’s rug, and they just, ah, right? Hey.

John Clendenning [00:50:02]:
Sure. We’ll ping you when we’re ready to walk to clean it, and you can live interact with the technician as he does it. Yep. Thanks for that. That’s great.

Brent Versendaal [00:50:09]:
I think we’ve talked about that. Your, yeah, what are the the web like, webcam, essentially. You know, you can see that the the top of the top of the tallest building in your city, but you can also see rugs being cleaned at the local rug cleaning shop.

John Clendenning [00:50:22]:
Yeah. That’s awesome. So cool. Well, I think we’ve gone we’ve got a lot of advice. We’ve just near the top of the hour. So, like, they they move people on with their day, and hopefully, they listen to us more than Joe Rogan in the trucks and learn some stuff about running a business as they’re driving around and stuff like that. So, I always like to end with, any parting advice to, cleaning business owners either new to the game, like some of the younger crowds, the 25 year old, 30 year old, or somebody who is kind of been added an old dog added. They’ve been 5, 10, 15 years, 20 years, but just kind of seem to be spinning their wheels, doing the one guy in a truck sort of same thing, and can’t really get out of the rut.

John Clendenning [00:50:58]:
Both people have the same sort of problem. Just any sort of parting advice on what to aim at most, what they aim their attention towards, to kinda get the lifestyle out of owning a business instead of just the pain in the butt of owning a business.

Brent Versendaal [00:51:13]:
Yeah. I think and I learned I didn’t talk about this when you asked me about pitfalls. Mhmm. But, I had a rough couple years, and for different reasons, it’s on a different a different recording that I can go into. But one of the big lessons I took from that that would apply to all those different categories you talked about is getting connected with a group of colleagues that have the same kind of mindset that you do.

John Clendenning [00:51:38]:
Like a mastermind group almost. Yeah.

Brent Versendaal [00:51:39]:
Yeah. I mean, Napoleon Hill sure you yeah. You’ve heard Jim Rohn. You know, you are the average of 5 people you spend most time with. And, in retrospect, I could see that I wasn’t being diligent about monitoring that for some years. And if you don’t if you’re not diligent, you can you can slip. Yeah. And, so a little about 9 months ago now is when I joined that, Michael’s group here that you know about.

Brent Versendaal [00:52:02]:
And being part of that, all those guys are getting after it. Positive mindsets, you know, might have some setbacks here and there, but, you know, we pick ourselves up and dust ourselves up and Yeah. Help each other out with some, encouragement. And I think that it might sound cliche, but I think it’s really critical to have that.

John Clendenning [00:52:21]:
No. I think that’s yeah. That being in the right rooms and the right group of people and is like, you’ve you’ve always gotta be a student of life. So I always used to say student of your craft. No. No. It’s like you’ve gotta be a student of everything.

Brent Versendaal [00:52:36]:
Like, you

John Clendenning [00:52:36]:
know, as you get as as as we get older as people, it’s like you start learning, you know, gotta be a little bit student about your health and your you know, and, you know, what you’re eating and things like that, or it’ll catch

Brent Versendaal [00:52:45]:
up with you.

John Clendenning [00:52:46]:
You wanna be a student of keeping this thing same so you don’t be a workaholic. So between the how do you like, you know, everybody used to think meditation and mindfulness and all all, you know, was was woo woo stuff. But you realize how burnt out you can get if you don’t take that that restful time. And, again, in groups of people where they’re all after the same goal and help each other out and are just giving, giving, giving. Like, they’ve somebody in that group has already run into the problem you’ve run into. They help you. You’re looking to give back to the next guy then going, this is just a give, give, give group. And, yeah, you can’t help but sort of lift everybody up and and that kind of thing.

John Clendenning [00:53:26]:
And if you’re not in that group, being in business being a a business owners is is, like, very lonely.

Brent Versendaal [00:53:33]:
Only. Yep.

John Clendenning [00:53:34]:
Right? It’s like Yep. You can you can read all the books, listen to all the podcasts, and stuff like that. But if you if you go home to your spouse and you’re trying to tell them what you think, well, I don’t have a clue what you just said. You know, anyways, you wanna watch, you know, you know, law and order, you know, kind of ideas. So it’s like, you know, it’s it’s it’s great to be around a bunch of people that you can just geek out on some of this stuff too and just really go, wow. I wanna give that a try. Have you tried oh, I tried that. I did I don’t do it this way.

John Clendenning [00:53:58]:
Aim slightly that way. See what happens because I tried that what you said, and that didn’t quite work out right or whatever. Right? And, and those and it’s just yeah. You can shorten the learning curve and shorten the growth. So cool. Great advice. So no. Thanks for hopping on.

John Clendenning [00:54:10]:
I really appreciate it. Anybody in your local market area, we’re gonna share this out as well. You’re gonna you know, obviously, the Rockford area, we’re gonna look up up all seasons. Carpetcleaning.com, and, phone number, 519 or 5 or 8 1 5. Oh my gosh. I’m 519 area code. Sorry. 815-399-8690 is one of the numbers that rings through to you guys.

John Clendenning [00:54:34]:
And, yeah, everybody who’s listening to this who, is is interested, definitely reach out. And, if you have any questions for Brent as well, definitely send them into the the show. We do share all of the questions with guests and, and can put some show notes back together and stuff like that at the end as well. So, well, I appreciate you jumping on. I think people are gonna get a lot of value out of the journey from dad to you all the way to this, and now that this new iteration going forward for the for the for the next version of of all seasons as well. So really, really appreciate it, man.

Brent Versendaal [00:55:06]:
Appreciate it. I had a good time.

John Clendenning [00:55:08]:
Alright. Thanks so much. Take care, everybody. Until next time, happy marketing.