Overcoming Challenges: Insights from a New Carpet Cleaner’s Startup Journey

The marketing landscape for a carpet cleaning business encompasses various channels, including online platforms like Google, Yelp, and social media, as well as offline strategies such as door-to-door knocking and cold calling.

John Clendenning [00:00:03]:
Okay.

Addison Lueras [00:00:04]:
My senior year of college. So while I was studying, he gave me an opportunity to join his business. Mhmm. And I was with him for about 6 months, had some good times, learned a lot. And then after that, I was like, you know what? I’m gonna start my own business. So, fortunately enough, 2 of my best friends were living in the area, and I was just like, hey. Do you guys wanna join join me and start this own business? So we’re all living together, and, we’ve been operating this business for the last year and a half and Sure. Just had so many adventures together.

Addison Lueras [00:00:37]:
And Sure. It’s been a lot of fun times, a lot of funny stories, going to people’s houses and seeing a lot of crazy stuff. And, we’ve learned a lot, and I think we’re we’re on the right track now.

John Clendenning [00:00:47]:
Hey, everybody. John Clendenning back again with another exciting episode of the Carpet Cleaner Success Podcast. We like to bring, great information to you all the time as you know, and we like to have interviews with people in the industry. We can pick their brains, learn from from them and stuff like that. Today, I’ve got Addison Lures.

John Clendenning [00:01:41]:
Did I pronounce that right?

Addison Lueras [00:01:43]:
That’s good. Yeah.

John Clendenning [00:01:44]:
Yeah. Okay. We just asked it. I just almost forgot instantly, but we we got Addison on the call. And Addison actually pinged me on on LinkedIn and

Addison Lueras [00:01:52]:
asked me

John Clendenning [00:01:53]:
a few questions. I said, dude, do you wanna hop on a, a a podcast? You’re new to the industry, and I think that would be a a a great interview and a great, segment for anybody else who’s new or, you know, some of the as old dogs have been in the industry for years and kind of remembering back and the way things have changed and the way things haven’t changed. So, anyways, Addison, thanks for jumping on. I really appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you, John. Appreciate this opportunity, and looking forward to speaking with you. Yeah.

John Clendenning [00:02:18]:
No. No worries. So let’s let’s kinda get in a little bit of background. So tell us a little bit about, you know, where you’re from, like, what city you’re running in, how long you’ve been in business, a little bit about the business, All that kind of stuff that you

Addison Lueras [00:02:29]:
Sure. Yes. I’m from Sacramento, and, I actually live in the suburbs of Sacramento, in a small area called Folsom. And I actually had an opportunity to get in this business with, my cousin

John Clendenning [00:02:41]:
Okay.

Addison Lueras [00:02:42]:
My senior year of college. So while I was studying, he gave me an opportunity to join his business. Mhmm. And I was with him for about 6 months, had some good times, learned a lot. And then after that, I was like, you know what? I’m gonna start my own business. So, fortunately enough, 2 of my best friends were living in the area, and I was just like, hey. Do you guys wanna join join me and start this own business? Okay. So we’re all living together, and, we’ve been operating this business for the last year and a half and You’re just had so many adventures together.

Addison Lueras [00:03:14]:
And Sure. It’s been a lot of fun times, a lot of funny stories, going to people’s houses and seeing a lot of crazy stuff. And, we’ve learned a lot, and I think we’re we’re on the right track now. So

John Clendenning [00:03:25]:
Oh, that’s perfect. So and you’re all still living together? Still in the same house? Or

Addison Lueras [00:03:29]:
Right now. So no. We’re actually we’re in Sacramento. We’re kinda back home. Okay. I I became an uncle, so that’s been pretty cool. Cool. And then, yeah, my buddy’s parents moved to, like, Florida, and so some life changes.

Addison Lueras [00:03:43]:
But Yeah. I’m I’m gonna be I’m operating businesses in Sacramento right now, and then I’m back in Orange County, where all my clients are pretty soon. So

John Clendenning [00:03:52]:
Cool. Cool. Yeah. Okay. So yeah. So, very, very fresh into it and kinda had a bit of a built in team there, which is, you know, the employee issues that we talked to some people about right now. There’s a kind of ways that, you know, that that a a difference in the industry than even, you know, 10 years ago and stuff like that. So it’s nice to have some people available as you grow, that are willing to work in, you know, in the company with you as as needed and stuff like that.

John Clendenning [00:04:18]:
So talk a little bit about the, you know, the the journey. What’s the name of the company, and how did you first start like, how did you start branding it? Like, what have you, what have you kinda put in place so far to get the, you know, the branding going?

Addison Lueras [00:04:30]:
Sure. So yeah. So our company is called Grand Slam Carpet Care, and so we operate in all of Orange County.

John Clendenning [00:04:35]:
Yep.

Addison Lueras [00:04:36]:
And, now right now, a little bit in Sacramento. But when we were first starting, we were mostly just doing Facebook ads and then Instagram ads, everything meta related. Yeah. And we didn’t have a lot of, success with that. It was very often John. You know, some of the challenges that we face, we had hired probably 5 different marketers

John Clendenning [00:04:56]:
Mhmm.

Addison Lueras [00:04:56]:
To run our products for us. And

John Clendenning [00:04:58]:
Yeah. And

Addison Lueras [00:04:59]:
we spent a lot of money doing that, like, just 1,000 of dollars, and we we kinda took a little bit of a loss at first. Yeah. And then other than that, what we’re what kind of we’re doing was, we would knock on doors, like apartments. So we’d probably knocked on over a 1000 doors, house to house, and had one lady slam the door in our face and was like, get out of here. And so that happens, and it builds resilience. And then other than that, we, I do a lot of cold calling. So I Okay. Carpet with, cleaning agencies, real estate agents, and then Yelp too.

Addison Lueras [00:05:34]:
So Yelp’s been huge for us. That’s been of our business. So that’s what we mostly do now, and then, that was the beginning, and now we’re doing a lot of Google. So

John Clendenning [00:05:44]:
Oh, cool. Okay. So yeah. So, I mean, a lot of stuff there, which is good. As like, a lot of stuff we can unpack there as well. If you had a couple of doors slammed in your face after a 1,000 a 1000 door knocks, like, think of the old days of the vacuum cleaner salesman and the encyclopedia salesman. That was the whole game is how many like, as long as it was, like, less than 20 or 30% door slammed in your face, you’re profitable. You’re gonna like, you know, it’s it’s gonna generate an awareness and some and and some business and some knowledge of who you Marketing in in that kind of thing.

John Clendenning [00:06:16]:
And then it all comes down to persuasion and sales pitch and why you’re different and all of the other stuff. So, yeah, a couple doors slammed in your face, yeah, by all means. It Yeah. The whole idea is it’s it should give you a little bit of thick skin and carry on with life. Right? So

Addison Lueras [00:06:30]:
Definitely. That’s a good point. Yeah. We definitely had a few funny moments with that, but we also were lucky enough to get, a few houses. I mean Yeah. I think probably a 10%, 5% success rate with the doorknob, but and that’s business. So

John Clendenning [00:06:45]:
That is bit yeah. Because, again, when you first start out, you have more time than money.

Addison Lueras [00:06:50]:
Mhmm.

John Clendenning [00:06:51]:
And, eventually, you have the goal is more money than time, and then you start you have a whole bunch of different challenges in life. And what I always say to people is, like, again, I started 1995 in a town of 30,000 people, and I again, a kid that, the only time I stood up in front of class and presented anything was the final year of high school, and I still didn’t present very well, and it was my buddy Scott that actually did most of the talking. I did the entire report so that he could do most of the talking, because I was just, again, painfully shy and then started a janitorial business because it’s nighttime. I didn’t have to see people. When I actually got into carpet cleaning, it was part of it was after reading Tony Robbins and, and, Napoleon Hill and and and that kind of stuff and just said, well, I’ve gotta challenge myself, or I’m just gonna be stuck as this, you know, you know, this the the the shy introverted kid. And so I kinda jumped off a cliff and just said, okay. That’s it. I am going to start a business, and I’m not gonna do it in the town I was growing up.

John Clendenning [00:07:50]:
And in case I walked into a door, went to somebody, I go, I know you. That’s now embarrassing. Right? So I went to town. I didn’t know anybody, which kinda good for me, you know, my personality. Bad for starting a business, but I did a $100,000 1st year in Amazing. In in 1995. Yeah. By just deciding, you know what? I’m gonna put on a shirt and a tie.

John Clendenning [00:08:11]:
That’s what I actually cleaned in. I wanted to look more professional. People go, is the cleaners coming after you? Nope. Nope. I run a professional cleaning company, so I wanted to make sure I showed up professionally. And our my crew and my guys, I was in the truck for 2 years. I grew the business and then bought other tech businesses. But my technicians up until maybe about 10 years ago, I sold the company 3 years ago now.

John Clendenning [00:08:31]:
Up but the 10, maybe even only 8 years ago, they finally convinced me that a really, really nice polo shirt, like, as part of the uniform, was worth the change. Up until then, they still went out in shirts and ties. And we just got them tie clips, though, when they bent over, it didn’t the tie didn’t flop John the ground. It was ties with our our business brand on it, the shirt with the brand on, white shirts and ties. They had extra ones in the truck, but they had to look professional going out the out the door because we it was part of delivering a unique experience. Right? We wanted everybody to see us differently.

Addison Lueras [00:09:00]:
So Yeah. Yeah. That is awesome. That’s a way great way to differentiate yourself. I mean, you see a lot of car carpet cleaners and stuff, and, I think it’s maybe it’s just this industry, but they’re not maybe the best put together. So that is, yeah, that’s a huge separation.

John Clendenning [00:09:16]:
No. You can stand out, and that that’s always been the case. You can stand out in this cleaning industry or anything with, a well wrapped van that has a a good branding on it, a good call to action. Like, what why are you different? Tell your different story. If you’re not different, you’re a commodity. Right? So now you’re, you know, your your pricing is low. We’ll actually talk a little bit about your pricing in a second as well. I like to know where you’re at, and where you started and where you’re at right now.

John Clendenning [00:09:41]:
But, and then also, if you’ve got that unique or that that branding and you’ve got that professional appeal You know? Like, you know, those, you know, the Geek Squad and Nerds On-site and all these other things that kind of, you know, and you think of any business that actually makes their employees, Servpro and all that. Franchises that make their employees all wear uniforms is not because they want to, you know, you know, put you under their thumb or degrade you or anything like that. They realize they understand that the perception is instant with the public. Oh, you work here. Oh, you’re the you’re the, you know, you’re you’re the person coming to do the service, and it’s easy to see when you just show up in jeans and a t shirt, and you look over and the van’s got a magnet on the side of it, maybe a little bit of John, and it’s like you instantly impress the customer in a different way. Like, you’ve created an experience. You just found a positive one. So Yeah.

Addison Lueras [00:10:31]:
I think that’s an exciting experience, and I think we’ve really learned that. You know, we talking about, like, shirts, we have, like, baby blue, polos, which Okay. Yeah. I love them, and I think they really stand out. And then we also have a black shirt. That’s kind of our everyday

John Clendenning [00:10:46]:
Yeah.

Addison Lueras [00:10:46]:
Go to. But, just really focusing on, like, being tucked in and Yeah. I think it’s all those little things that really add up, and I think it drives part of the experience for the customer. It’s like you’re stepping into their home. We wanna make sure, they feel safe. I mean, this is, like, their safe place. So

John Clendenning [00:11:06]:
It is. And you’re actually even invited into areas of their the home that sometimes their best friend has never been in. You think about it. We’re in bedrooms. We’re in closets, and we’re, like, all of that stuff. And, like, there’s there’s a people that that’s their private places, so we all think that everybody worries about the lowest price. Well, if you’re targeting the low price consumers, they do worry about the lowest price. Right? If you’re targeting the quality consumer, it’s not the lowest price.

John Clendenning [00:11:29]:
You look at the the, you know, the landscaping crew that might be out in their yard cut you know, cutting the grass and doing the Carpet, they’re also all in uniform in the nice neighborhoods, in the nice right? They’re not paying those guys the discount prices. And, you know, all you you think of the even the maids that come into their home are, you know, all well dressed or or or in in a uniform with a smock John, stuff like that. They’re not just you know, somebody kind of just rolled out a bed, showed up in, you know, a pair of track pants and a whatever. But there is a crowd that that’s who they hire. And you think about it, it’s the pricing kinda determines that. Well, it’s not just like all my customers are cheap. No. You market in a way that attracts cheap customers.

John Clendenning [00:12:06]:
So changing that message, kinda makes sense as well. You mentioned calling around, like, actually picking up the phone and doing cold calling and reaching out to referral partners. Again, it’s a lost art. One of the things I I love hearing from you is, you know, a young guy new into the business and understands the art of actually, you’re a business owner. You’re not you’re not a carpet cleaner is the guy you hire. Right? Hopefully, you end up not cleaning carpets yourself. We wear all the hats when we start the business, but the goal is to go, wait a minute. I bought the business.

John Clendenning [00:12:37]:
I’m now the the marketer of the business, the face of the business. I’m the brand ambassador, and I’ve gotta start learning how to stack more and more ways of delivering a better service, finding more customers, you know, getting the word out and and that and one of those ways is finding these people that can get one to many as they call it. Russell Brunson in expert secrets, learned John from Chet Holmes, the dream 100, but it’s the influencer. Can you find that person? That might only give you one referral. That might be their own home, but it might be 20. Like, we we we just target real estate agents and all of them. And the odd like, you know, we I would hit them up on a regular basis. I would speak in front of their their Monday morning meetings, and I did anything I could once I learned.

John Clendenning [00:13:21]:
Wait a minute. Wait a minute. These are these guys are good, and I Yeah. Can’t be able to. So talk a little bit about that. How it’s like so you’ve reached out to them. How what did you do? How did you start from going, okay. I don’t know what I’m gonna say.

John Clendenning [00:13:32]:
I’m gonna just start this to actually sort of Masters how many reps, kinda get a little bit better of a pitch going or something like that.

Addison Lueras [00:13:39]:
Definitely. At first, I was a little bit nervous. I’m not gonna lie. Yeah. I think everything is new and nervous at first, but, I what really helped me out was, to getting, like, a framework of understanding what I’m gonna say. Yeah. Writing it down and and, even at first, I would just write down what I was gonna say and then read it word for word Yeah. The first few times.

Addison Lueras [00:13:59]:
And then over time, just take that framework and just kinda memorize it. And, I mean, just go with the flow. So I would just pick up the phone and start, start dialing. I mean, I would mostly a lot a lot of cleaning, like, maid services. We John of them, and they’ve been great. They’ve given us a ton of business. And so that’s been helpful giving them, leaving them a review, and they they doing the same. So stuff like that’s been huge.

Addison Lueras [00:14:27]:
And then I I would say just getting out of my comfort zone, that that’s been the big part. At first, I would like I said, I was nervous, and now it’s just no big deal. Like, I actually enjoy cold calling and trying to overcome that stuff. So

John Clendenning [00:14:38]:
Isn’t that strange? So one quick question in the middle of all this. Yeah. What’s what what’s the latest book you’ve read on, or listened to on on business and mindset?

Addison Lueras [00:14:51]:
The latest book I’ve read. So there’s the book right now. It’s all about sales. I don’t know the name of it. I’m in the middle of reading right now. It’s, basically an intro to sales about gotta think of the name of this thing.

John Clendenning [00:15:08]:
I know. I put you on the spot. But

Addison Lueras [00:15:09]:
Yeah. No. I’ve read I mean, there’s a there’s a ton of great ones that I’ve read, like, how to win friends and influence people is a classic. Yeah. Love that book. I feel like I’ve read a ton of those. I know you mentioned, like, New Point Hill, Think and Grow Rich. That’s a great one.

Addison Lueras [00:15:23]:
Yeah. Yeah. There’s a sales book. I just can’t think of the name of it right now, but it’s it’s really about connecting with people

John Clendenning [00:15:29]:
Yeah.

Addison Lueras [00:15:30]:
And, kind of separating what sales used to be, the the miss of sales and how sales is really about helping people and connecting with them and being kinda empathetic. And that’s what I’ve kinda take with me in my business is having that connection to that with connection with business owners or or doing walking to people’s homes. That’s what I’ve Yeah. Been focused on. So

John Clendenning [00:15:53]:
So one of the reasons why I asked that question because some of the answers that you’ve you’ve you’ve given us some of the way you’ve talked, I’ve never met a successful business owner who doesn’t answer the question with, well, lately, I’m reading and but but I and and, like, you did. And here’s the other ones, and there’s a series of the same books we all know come up, and then there’s other ones that, oh, I’ve never heard that one. That’s that’s that’s a writer downer. There’s other people that go, I haven’t read a book since high school. I don’t listen to podcasts. I listen to Joe Rogan when I or maybe when I’m on the road between jobs. And it’s like, unfortunately, readers are leaders. And, again, if you don’t if you’re not good at read if you don’t wanna sit down and read a book, listen to the audio version of it.

John Clendenning [00:16:35]:
But there is distilled information in how we do what we do better and better and better and constantly leveling up our game. There is even it’s worth reading an entire book or listening to the entire book for 1 or 2 little nuggets of information that go, oh my god. That’s transformative. Or I knew that I forgot it, and now you come back to it and you put it in place. And it it just makes you better. So very similar to when you when when you’re saying that it was nervous you were nervous to make those cold calls, but you did it because you have a business to run and you’re the business owner, and you figure it out. You create a framework. You you create your script.

John Clendenning [00:17:14]:
You you and then eventually, it just becomes meh. I’m just gonna do another bunch of those because that works. Right? And and then, in my world, that’s called good, better, best. Everything I’ve ever done is good is the first step. And then once you get it good, you can circle back around again. You stack and you build more things, come back around and go, anything I can tweak and make better? Yeah. I call those call yeah. I I call those main services.

John Clendenning [00:17:44]:
What if I take some of we got re reviews for each other. Why don’t I get in a a letter of endorsement from a bunch of the ones we work with? Here’s why we use Addison’s company. Here’s here’s what we like. We’ve tried others. We love them. They guarantee their work. If there there was a problem in one job, he went back and solved it. Whatever.

John Clendenning [00:18:03]:
Like, you know, gave the money back. Did whatever the the customer thought it sustained, should have come out and didn’t. So they happily gave the money back, you know, no hard feelings kind of thing. So they’re honest and worth working with. A letter like that from 3, 4, 5, 6 other maid services on their letterhead could now be a mailing campaign to all the other ones. Wow. Hey. Really? We wanna be, you know, the carpet cleaner you recommend.

John Clendenning [00:18:28]:
You’ve tried other people, and maybe hit or miss which technician they send. Maybe, you know, whatever. If you got a good one, we just wanna be the backup. If they if they can’t make it to a John and you need somebody, Hubby would be the backup. By the way, here’s a whole bunch of of of other people in your industry in the local market who also love us and use us, give them a call. You know? Check us out beforehand. Have us come to your home personally, missus maid service owner, and let’s clean your home for you. We’ll do that for free just to show you our our system.

John Clendenning [00:18:59]:
Why would you do that? Well, free Cleaner? Because they could give you 10, 20, 30, 50, a 100 customers over the next year, 2, 3 that you’re and then those customers have a lifetime value. It’s not like, oh, I got 200, 300, $400 out of the job. No. Now if you did a good job, that customer is worth that times 10 visits over their life. So 4, $5,000 and every person they refer to you because you then good, better, best, start good enough and build a referral program. Then eventually you come back around to make it a little bit better, come back around to make it even better as you read and learn and talk to other people. And you just keep up leveling your business.

Addison Lueras [00:19:37]:
That is awesome. It’s kinda reminds me of, like, a family tree, and there’s a ton of different branches. And Yeah. I mean, even thinking about it now with the book that I’m reading, there’s a salesman. I think he’s considered, like, the most successful car salesman of all time. Mhmm. And he was saying, he’s you’re not just selling to, you know, your clients, but you’re selling to their friends, their family, and all that. I think that’s important.

Addison Lueras [00:19:59]:
I mean, with everything you do in life Yeah. It’s a fresh you make. It’s not just them, but it’s a reflection. Your character is a reflection of what everybody else they know.

John Clendenning [00:20:09]:
Yeah. Oh, for sure. And and, actually, I’m trying to remember his name right now. It might actually come to me while we’re Marketing, but I know I know the salesman you’re talking about. I probably know the book you’re talking about. But the other thing one of the other things he used to do was write handwritten notes to every single customer John a regular basis. They got a handwritten, like, little note card sent to them and stuff like that as as a way of staying in touch even between the like, you know, the average person doesn’t switch their car out every year, but he understood that his relationship with the customer they was more important

Addison Lueras [00:20:43]:
Mhmm.

John Clendenning [00:20:44]:
At least equally important, but actually more important than the relationship like, than the new person standing in front of him. Like, it’s like, yeah. Sure. We’re always chasing the new lead, the new lead, the new lead, but a lot of people don’t understand. Like, you’re mentioning Facebook early on. Well, it didn’t really work for me. Probably, and my guess would be your goal from Facebook was to get a lot of customers for a little for a little bit of ad spend.

Addison Lueras [00:21:07]:
Sure. That would. Yeah.

John Clendenning [00:21:08]:
Right? Sounds right. It sound oh, yeah. Of course, John. Like, there’s lots of Facebook advertising agencies that have popped up are young people who Cleaner a little bit of advertising, learned a little bit about Facebook, and, oh, I can help carpet Cleaner, and they know nothing about our industry, and they really have never run their own business and don’t know sales. Where the actual point of Facebook, if you think of it this way, we love doing Facebook ads, but we tell our clients 2 to 1’s okay. 2 to 1 return on investment. If you spend $1,000 and you got 2,000 back with good persuasion, good follow-up and chase, what you did is you broke even, and it’s like a rental property. You have tenants paying for the house, and you’re earning the equity.

John Clendenning [00:21:49]:
So half of it goes to pay the ad cost. The other half goes to pay the technician solution, the technician, the solution, and and the gas to get there to the job. You you broke even. Breaking even is how I built multimillion dollar businesses because now what we what you’ve done is somebody on Facebook isn’t looking for a carpet cleaner. Google, you’re right. Local service ads, pay per click, SEO rankings, Google Maps, They typed in carpet cleaner near me, tile service near me. They’re looking. They’re hot in the market, but they’re a smaller crowd.

John Clendenning [00:22:20]:
Who’s actually looking for carpet cleaning today in your area right now? But think of all of the people that are on Facebook that are your ideal demographic. 35 to 55 year old college and university educated, skewed towards women. Sorry, but they’re the ones that buy, you know, but also or skewed towards business owners who could refer you to other people. Now if you run ads there in front of that crowd, get their attention. Hey. You know? Hey. I’m Madison. I re I started this business.

John Clendenning [00:22:49]:
Here’s my reason why. Tell a good story. Create a a personalized message that, again, tells that great story. It’s gonna resonate some people. They’re gonna click through the ad. If you’re good at persuading, you show up, do an in home estimate first, then do the Cleaner. As long as it’s enough to break even, the other 15, 20000 people that saw the ad are going, and then a month later, a week later, whatever, they see the ad again or a different version of the ad, and they start going, I keep seeing this Addison and his company. What’s this all about? Right? And the algorithms, the people that click through go, that’s a really good story.

John Clendenning [00:23:25]:
Now the algorithm, this AI world we’re in, starts going, oh, these are the people that click through. If you run discount ads, oh, these low end people are the ones that click through. Let me start showing the ad to all of these discount shoppers. So if you run Facebook like the way we used to run flyers, where it’s like, we wanna hit a new town, a new neighborhood, a new area, it was like, okay, I’m going to put 20, 30, 50000 flyers into that neighborhood or 3 or 4 months before we even break even. And then for the next 3 or 4 months, we might break even. And but they’re just seeing us and seeing us and seeing us, and we went and called all the real estate agents and took all the to out for lunch, went to all the carpet stores, went to the real the interior designers and the maid services and and just met them all in the new marketplace. Right? And then by the end of the year, month 9, 10, 11, 12, all of a sudden you’re about 3 to 1 ROI because paid ads will always cost you the most. By year 2, we could slow down the the ads spend because now we’re doing door hangers and yard signs at every house we’re Cleaner.

John Clendenning [00:24:24]:
And we have a referral program. Missus Jones lives next to here, and her friend is 2 blocks over, and their kids go to karate together, and they they talk about this amazing carpet cleaning experience they just had. And because you stand out, you do more than any the normal portion Marketing in the home. All that, you wear booties, you roll the red Carpet, you do you you create an experience. Now you’ve tapped into a whole new marketplace that might have had somebody else already running in there, and everybody knows this other guy, Johnny Steam Cleaning, and you’re now the new guy on the block because you’re willing to spend money when it was not necessarily creating a return on on on on on revenue right away, but it was creating an awareness about you. And then you’re not discounted. You don’t have to be, you know, 3 of them in a hall for $99. You can be starting at 199, 250, whatever.

John Clendenning [00:25:12]:
You know, if you want it done right, call us. There’s lots of people that do it the other way. We do it right and blah. And you can tell a different story.

Addison Lueras [00:25:18]:
So Totally. Definitely.

John Clendenning [00:25:19]:
Yeah. So Facebook ads have a place, and they might actually start to have like, they they don’t necessarily have a place when you’re struggling for cash. It’s like, no. You hit the streets. You hit the phones. You knock on doors. You you build referral relationships, and and you go and do on-site quotes at every single, you know, home that even pops their head up and every single, you know, hotel if you’re if you’re going after that or even condo and you try and get the hallways of the condo. You go talk to every property manager.

John Clendenning [00:25:47]:
Right? Because now once you go to do those hallways, you offer a 350 square feet. Do a section of hallway. I wanna be your 2nd guy if you’ve already got somebody. If he can’t show up, I wanna be let me prove it to you. But when you actually get in to clean them because they like you and you go, you know what? I think you guys are better than the other guys. Let me give you a try. The we’ll get you to do the hallways. They’re coming up in, you know, a month or 2.

John Clendenning [00:26:05]:
Right? Well, okay. About a month before that, you say, you know what? I’d like to help you guys pay for this so you get your hallways for free. What do you mean? Well Right. If you could put this up in the in the community room, in the lunch room, or the, you know, whatever down in the laundry room John the bulletin board or whatever that, you know, while we’re in your building and on your floor, that will stop at your your apartment, your condo, and do some cleaning in there. Our minimum charges are waived, and we’ll give you a $20, $30 credit or whatever. Right? And you can come up with anything, any offer you want. If you can’t do it on the day we’re in the building, we’ll still give you the the savings, but our minimum charges will still apply, and we’ll come back. We’re the cleaners of your building now, and we’d love to help you out.

John Clendenning [00:26:48]:
You could we’ve done it where and we give the condo back 10% of anything that we get the customer because we’re just trying to land a new customer to come back again and again and put them in our database and market to. And we’ve had it where, you know, the condo’s paying us $3, and we landed $10 out of the John out of the from the the, the tenants. 10% of that, the condo got a $1,000 off their bill.

Addison Lueras [00:27:08]:
Yeah. That’s amazing.

John Clendenning [00:27:09]:
Right. So thinking marketing all the time. We’re marketers of our services, not cleaners.

Addison Lueras [00:27:14]:
That’s it. Yes. I did I do remember you talking about that in your podcast and Yeah. And even mentioning I remember I was listening to the podcast recently, and you were talking about the E Myth revisited. I believe that was Great. That was it. Yeah. So, I gotta dive into that, but it reminds me when you say, like, telling your story on Facebook.

Addison Lueras [00:27:33]:
I think we were too focused on getting the perfect video and getting the perfect shot. Yeah. And it was a big problem for us. Instead, you know, I think we should have just told our story.

John Clendenning [00:27:44]:
Grab this. Do that. Yeah.

Addison Lueras [00:27:46]:
You know

John Clendenning [00:27:46]:
what I mean? Like, seriously, like yeah. We don’t have to be that polished. Do you know what I mean? It’s just like right, so it’s simplify it. It’s Gary Vaynerchuk 101. Like, he’s the master of media. Look at Alex, these other marketing thought leaders nowadays. They just they’re just following in the footsteps, but, like, Gary Vaynerchuk just decades ago, 15, whatever it is, his family’s wine business, and he just decided, you know what? I am just gonna talk about it and and create this this little blog podcast thing about about wines. For my family, the the business blew up, but then he Carpet understanding the power of social media and how it’s just it’s it’s just real.

John Clendenning [00:28:28]:
Just be real. Right? So yeah. Absolutely. So, so on on, you you were mentioning Yelp, and I know people have a love hate relationship with Yelp. There’s been days or periods of time where, you know, it seems like unless you pay Yelp, all of your reviews get suppressed. And then there’s, you know and there’s even lawsuits where they they they kinda got dismissed saying, no. That’s not actually built into the algorithm, but it just kinda feels like that and and stuff like that. There’s there’s people that just avoid it like the plague, and there’s other people that lean into it and actually get Yelpers who use it religiously to go, okay.

John Clendenning [00:29:06]:
These are my guys. So, yeah, unpack that a little bit. What what do you found with Yelp? If it’s a strategy that’s working, maybe some of the, the other listeners would find a little bit of nuggets out of that. Yeah. So

Addison Lueras [00:29:16]:
at first, I was a little hesitant to to dive into Yelp because, obviously, like, I belong most of the Carpet belong to the truck mount forms and Yeah. People absolutely love it. Got so much information from there. Yeah. But I noticed a lot of people were kinda bashing on Yelp. Yep. So I haven’t had that experience. Okay.

Addison Lueras [00:29:33]:
I’ve I’ve said it multiple times, with my friends and family, but our business would not be alive if it was not for Yelp. They were the majority of I don’t know if it’s just a West Coast thing or if it’s everywhere, but I know the Masters region for our industry, it’s I I have a lot of I get leads all the time, and I feel like I constantly have a very high close rate. Yeah. But I think one thing with Yelp, I think you have to individualize it to the customer. Like, mention their first name. Hi, Stacy. I would love to help you out in that personalized message. Yeah.

Addison Lueras [00:30:05]:
And really give them an understanding of this is the service that we offer. We’re gonna do, you know, vacuum, a prespray agitation, full steam cleaning. So I think a lot of people can be misguided and say, you know, it might not work. Yeah. But they might not individualize the message, and I noticed that when we do that, we have a very high ROI. Yeah.

John Clendenning [00:30:31]:
And I do think it I think I’ve heard that, like, even I know a couple businesses in Seattle that just live on Yelp. Like, I mean, that’s that that grew their entire business and stuff like that. I know other people that in other parts of the country that just don’t seem to get traction John, but there’s so does that mean that’s you know, is it them? Is it the area? But then there’s Nextdoor, and that’s an again, a new plat or newer platform, but Nextdoor has, you know, the whole community feel around it as well. And I know some people that are just massively great on Nextdoor, and that becomes their platform. So, again, I think it is with anybody. 2 things come out of that. 1, it’s a great platform. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

John Clendenning [00:31:10]:
Make sure that you use it as it is to keep it growing, and now use the revenue and the to diversify because it is a we’re in a multichannel marketing world. It’s an all in perspective. Like, when you actually go and clean that customer, do the door Masters, and do the yard sign, and get some of that local awareness happening, as well. And, like, just make sure that you’re not just relying on just that Facebook if it’s working right now, local service ads if it’s working right now. It is maximizing your opportunity to generate an ideal lead. So where if you’re maximizing things, where are all the places they they might be? Right? Referrals, like we talked about. That’s maximizing, building referral, with strategic partners, referral reward programs, and stuff like that. Anything you can do to to continue to, again, stack and level up.

John Clendenning [00:31:58]:
But, yeah, you’re gonna find some of those things that work really well. And if they they will eventually wane or not be as strong as what they were if if they get oversaturated or if something changes. So all your eggs in 1 basket becomes a, you know, serious threat after a while. So it is a matter ride it while you can, but be planning your marketing diversification at the same time. So Yeah.

Addison Lueras [00:32:20]:
I think diversification is huge, I mean, in in any industry. And, I mean, there’s so many different ways to advertise, physical advertising, digital. I think that’s that’s key is just don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Yeah. Absolutely. Tell 1st year business owners like myself is,

John Clendenning [00:32:37]:
you know,

Addison Lueras [00:32:37]:
don’t just do Instagram ads or Facebook ads for the 1st 4 months because Yeah. It’s gonna take some time to learn, and you’re gonna have to put a lot of money. But try everything and, you know, see what see what works for you. So Yeah.

John Clendenning [00:32:47]:
Yeah. And as you said earlier on, get out of your comfort zone. Like, you’re you’re a business owner. Don’t, you know Yeah. Don’t hide behind a computer. I’ve had people going, you know, to me even say, John, I read your book. I’m I’m I’m studying it. I’m gonna put all that in place.

John Clendenning [00:32:59]:
I’m going, cool. And when you’re done, open a digital marketing agency, and we’ll talk, and then we’ll be competitors. And that’s fine. Like, there’s always room for be friends with your competitors. There’s another little piece out of that. Don’t don’t be or we hate each other. No. Like, take like, have a meetup group of all the competitors as well.

John Clendenning [00:33:13]:
There’s there’s enough business for all of us. Right? So, but yeah. Like, should you should you read my I’m not I’m not saying don’t go buy my book. You should probably learn what you need to know so that you know when you’re getting it done right. But if you spend all your time trying to build your own website and you’re not picking up the phone and making you know, knocking on a 1,000 doors and making hundreds of phone calls and talking to the real estate agents and the and the maid services and all that, you’ve missed the message. Because, again, your message was even like, hey. I did those things, kept growing and working struggle. You know, you kinda go up a bit.

John Clendenning [00:33:47]:
You’re gonna but the whole idea is up until the right in a bump bouncy, bumpy method. It’s chaos, but keep growing, keep learning, keep doing, and that doesn’t happen by sitting building your own website and going, should that be should that button move over a little bit to to the to the left? You know, that did not get you a customer. Right? So

Addison Lueras [00:34:07]:
Yeah. You can, there’s that saying, like, too much analyst, like Yeah. Analyst paralysis or whatever it is. Yeah. Like, you just gotta take take action. I mean Yeah. Just take massive action. I think that’s the one thing I’ve learned, in business is you just gotta go for it.

Addison Lueras [00:34:23]:
Like, there’s life is too short not to just go all in. Yep. And there’s, I mean, there’s just so many ways to get business. I mean, it’s just, like, having just having a great mindset and saying I’m gonna find a way to win is

John Clendenning [00:34:36]:
Yeah.

Addison Lueras [00:34:37]:
Is essential. Like, I’m not just a Carpet. I’m a business owner as well, and so I think everybody has to has to have that mindset.

John Clendenning [00:34:44]:
Yeah. You’ve gotta be a business owner first. Like, 90% of the garbage is between like, what happens out there is between our ears. We manufacture reality. It was, I was had a I I did an interview with a fellow I’ve known for years, John Wiley, Don’t Drive Naked. He it’s a great brand. It used to be Dreams Geographics. Now it’s Don’t Drive Naked.

John Clendenning [00:35:01]:
He’s in Indianapolis. He he does vinyl wraps. He can send them all over the country. He works for most of the franchise networks and stuff as well. And and it’s all about branding, though. His whole world has been in branding because and for for cleaning services and and and home services and all that kind of stuff. So really, really knows that industry, like, are are that well. And, yeah, like, I mean, during that conversation with him, same idea.

John Clendenning [00:35:26]:
It’s like you manufacture reality. The perception is is what you build it. Right? So if again, we talk about it in scripting. Like, when I learned a little bit of neuro linguistic programming, like, I was maybe 2,000, 1999, 2000, somewhere in there. It’s like, okay. All of our scripts are being rewritten because, like, all of our phones we had phone scripts. Start with that because I didn’t wanna, again, what am I what am I saying when I answer the phone? What is what is what’s Sheryl, the college student, was the first girl I hired. What she’s saying when she answered the phone, I don’t know what to say, John.

John Clendenning [00:36:01]:
Here. Say that. Right? And it’s like, okay. Now we gotta now we can actually get a little nuance. Now let’s use a little bit of persuasion in there so that because we have to manufacture reality in their heads. Right?

Addison Lueras [00:36:11]:
Yeah.

John Clendenning [00:36:11]:
One of the reasons why we can offer the very best guarantees and the and the very best Cleaner, and we know we do is because we don’t. And in neuro linguistic programming, doing a don’t and saying it a little bit louder and a little bit sharper, causes people to remember when their parents yelled at them. Right? Or that authority will like, you could they’re all I’m listening to you. Woah. Wait a minute. You said don’t. Yeah. Well, we don’t, and then you throw your competitors under the bus.

John Clendenning [00:36:38]:
Right? A little reason. Yeah. We don’t just, you know, spin a bonnet on the carpet. We don’t just whatever you John say there. What we do is our 12 step micro cleaning process. Why is it called a 12 step micro cleaning process? Because you made it up. Yeah. Because you get to manufacture reality.

John Clendenning [00:36:54]:
And we’re the only company that actually offers that process. We use a structured water cleaning. What is that? It’s a solution you poured in your rinse tank that is called structured water or whatever. Like, there’s a million ways you can make up your story on why you do your way, but you deliver you say it, you market it, you paint a picture in their head. You manufactured reality during the conversation, and you don’t say, well, if we if you end up hiring us no. On the day of the cleaning, when our technician shows up in your home, here’s what he’s gonna do. You’re painting the picture of them already buying from you, and you get the end of that. And you say, so does the morning or afternoon work best? Not how does that sound? Would you like the book? You change the tone all the way through, and you manufacture the and you’ll get more yeses.

John Clendenning [00:37:34]:
Your booking rate will go up. Right? There’s there’s ways to learn. And where do you learn that? By reading a book or going to a course or learning something. You do learn that from a carpet cleaner? Not necessarily. You might learn that from, you know, somebody who works at Best Buy and has learned how to, you know oh, I went through this persuasion class, and they taught me this weird thing called NLP a little bit. Oh, what’s that? Let me look that up. Right? And next thing you know, you’ve upped your game, and you can teach all your employees how to up their game.

Addison Lueras [00:38:01]:
Totally. And I think that’s amazing. Psychology plays I mean, it’s everything in life. Yes. Our mindset and how we can kind of alter reality by our thoughts. It’s pretty amazing and

John Clendenning [00:38:12]:
Epic. Yeah.

Addison Lueras [00:38:13]:
It’s a yeah. And Yeah. I I’m just kind of I’ve been diving into that for a few years now, but, you know, hearing that and stuff, it’s pretty inspires me to continue to learn about my book.

John Clendenning [00:38:26]:
So where so tell me a little bit about your, what services you guys offer? I’m sure the guys wanna hear that where you’ve got a bunch of carpet Cleaner. What what service you offer? What kind of price point are you at compared to competitors? How do you how did you pick that? Like, tell talk a little bit about the the nuts and bolts.

Addison Lueras [00:38:40]:
So we basically do carpet cleaning, upholstery Clendenning, and then area rug cleaning.

John Clendenning [00:38:46]:
Okay.

Addison Lueras [00:38:46]:
Soon to be tile and grout. I was

John Clendenning [00:38:48]:
just about to ask you what are what are you gonna add on next then? Because, yeah, you start, and then you can stack a bit as you learn.

Addison Lueras [00:38:54]:
Yeah. So that’s the next one. And then yeah. What was the second question?

John Clendenning [00:38:59]:
Price points. How did you how like, has your price point has your pricing evolved? How did you how did you pick your prices?

Addison Lueras [00:39:05]:
It it so it really has evolved. So when we were first doing it, we were making a lot of mistakes because we were doing $99 Yeah. Houses, 3, 4 bedrooms, and it’s like, we’ve gotten a lot of the, a lot of the customers were, just really, like, just it was just, like, really dirty, like, floors and stuff, and it was taking us a long time to clean. So when we upped the price to 120 Yeah. I set started noticing our quality of work went up. And then right now, I’m, I’m at 150. So Okay. Perfect.

Addison Lueras [00:39:34]:
150 is that’s where I’m at, and I think my goal with that is to get to 175 by the end of 2024. Okay. So

John Clendenning [00:39:43]:
And what does that get them? Well, so 175 and what how like, is there a limit of rooms or, like, a square footage? Or

Addison Lueras [00:39:49]:
So, yeah, I don’t really do square footage. It’s usually, like, by room or, like, by layer staircase. But, like, for example, like, each room would probably be probably be around $50. Yep. $60. But, yeah, I don’t do any square footage. Like, a It’s different. Stairway Yeah.

Addison Lueras [00:40:05]:
Stairway would be, like, $100. Yeah. But I feel like I’m pretty much flexible in my pricing. As long as I have my minimum and I could stick with that Yeah. Then I can calculate I think I can easily calculate more, like, my ROI and, kinda understanding where my finances are instead of just being like, okay. This is gonna be a $110, and this this will have so many rooms. So

John Clendenning [00:40:26]:
Yeah. So No. Fair enough. Well, what we always like to do is a couple things around pricing. And we have one of our new clients recently, Fred, reach out to us and say, hey, John. I wanna have a conversation about how we can price better. And I, you know, and I’m going, okay. Well, yeah, I’ve consulted on this for years in the industry as I ran my own business and then, you know, did consulting and stuff like that.

John Clendenning [00:40:44]:
And, yeah, I can hop on a call with you, but why don’t we just do a roundtable? Like, why don’t we just get a bunch of people on the call? Like, I know my perspective of it because pricing is what elevated and changed our business. So I started in 1995. By 1998, I understood pricing as a marketing tactic as well. Everything you do is a marketing tactic. Everything in your business has a marketing message to it. Anything that impacts the public, they see about your business is marketing. So how do you make your prices part of your marketing message? Well, the guys that do $99, as you know, that’s it’s like, hey. We’re a commodity.

John Clendenning [00:41:21]:
We’re same as everybody else, and we’re we’re we’re cheap. And we know we’re gonna get dirty carpets and, you know, and sort of lower income people. The people John Golf Course Road do not trust the $99 carpet Cleaner, by and large. Right?

Addison Lueras [00:41:36]:
Yeah.

John Clendenning [00:41:37]:
So we started going, okay. Well, who’s our ideal client? How many do we need? Where do they live? Who are they? How can I target them? And And what price point would be would make sense? And that’s when I I I learned from a book somewhere or training course, a little bit of packaging. So where McDonald’s wasn’t the first, but they kind of embraced it, when I was a kid, much older than you, McDonald’s didn’t have packages. Nobody had they didn’t have, like, the the small, medium, and large. There wasn’t where once they put that in place, they realized for a few cents more, everybody paid a lot more for at least the medium. It put it put a Carpet, and you still had a bunch of people of when it used to be something that you had to say, would you like would you like fries with that? Would you like to upsize that? Would you all that kind of stuff. Right? It was Marketing allowed people to self select ahead of time. So I went, well, that’s brilliant.

John Clendenning [00:42:28]:
Let’s put packages in place. Right? So we had a low package, a middle package, and a high package. And then now, okay, you don’t know what you don’t know. We called our low package the budget. Right? Sounded well, guess the budget. This one is the stain fighter, and this is the one’s the whatever. I can’t remember the names of them originally. And it was like, okay.

John Clendenning [00:42:48]:
A lot of people self selected to the budget. I’m going, even the rich people go, well, everybody likes to be on a budget. Right? So we changed the name of that one to the renter’s package. We just renamed it. It went instantly. It was just a thought process and go, okay. This sucks after months months months. And it’s like, okay.

John Clendenning [00:43:06]:
Let’s let’s try something new. We called it the renter’s package, and it was our clean with no protection. Right? And that was all of a sudden nobody wanted the renter’s package except unless they were a renter and about to move out and had to clean it just to get their money back. Okay. Well, that’s the right crowd. Right? They got their security deposit back. We cleaned it quickly, and that was good. But everybody else at least self selected into cleaning and protection.

John Clendenning [00:43:28]:
And we automatically had 80% protection sales Wow. Without even having to try. So what did we do next? By 2 1,000, I no longer had the renter’s package. I’m probably $218. I got rid of it. Every customer from that point forward to this day after Carl has bought the business and runs the cruise and all that, is the minimum package is cleaning and protection. A 100% of our clients get protection because it and that became part of our story on the phone. Yeah.

John Clendenning [00:43:56]:
You’re gonna get a lot of low prices from other people, and then when they show up, they’re gonna try and sell you their protection. You’re you know, if you say no, then you’ve got carpet that’s clean but raw and waiting for the next thing to spill on it to stain it because it’s a couple years old and that 6th generation protection is worn off. So, you know, that we we don’t play those games included in our pricing is our protection as well. And so as we clean your carpets, we’re we’re gonna protect them and it’s gonna be, you know, stain resistant like the factory did right after our Cleaner. And that’s our basic level cleaning.

Addison Lueras [00:44:27]:
Right?

John Clendenning [00:44:27]:
Yeah. We call it the, the the stain fighter. Now we’ve got our safe and healthy home, and then we started selling one called the always clean because you always need 3. And it was when when I sold the company, it was up to 97¢ a square foot. Carl’s taken it up to almost a dollar 20 a square foot. It costs 75¢ a square foot to replace carpet with the installer for basic level carpet and installation in this area. Mhmm. 30% of people take the always clean because they self selected their way up.

John Clendenning [00:44:53]:
Oh, no. I just want the best you guys got. You guys are made. I just want your best. And it comes with a free bottle of spotter refillable for life, comes with a traffic lane cleaning within 6 months of any or all of the same areas, 20% discount off of all of the other services the company offers. So you’re back in their home multiple times, and a v I they’re part of a VIP group for the for the year, and they get grandfathered into those pricing year after year as long as they book on their anniversary year. When I sold the business, I had we had hundreds of clients that were on the always clean that just cleaned every single year because they didn’t want their pricing to change because our price went up, and they were still grandfathered as long as they booked within that 12th month. Right.

John Clendenning [00:45:30]:
Right? Just a little bit more Marketing. So your pricing becomes all of a sudden a marketing angle as well. Yeah. So just different ways of that. So now, again, something else for you for you to think about and go, hey. Well, a year and a half in, by 2 and a half years from now, you and I can have a conversation and go, John, I’ve done. Now my pricing is this, and we target these better people. And the real estate agents and the maid services that refer us and all that are referring us into the nicer and nicer homes, and we’re cleaning Cleaner and cleaner carpet every day.

John Clendenning [00:45:55]:
Because that’s the other thing is these the people that maintain their carpets clean 2 or 3 times a year. They have the off white dog, the off white carpet, the off white upholstery, and they Yeah. The off white tile, and they clean it on a regular basis. Mhmm. And a couple of $100, you know, if your average job starts hitting 3, 4, $500, you’ve got a lot of wiggle room to market.

Addison Lueras [00:46:15]:
Totally aware. That is amazing.

John Clendenning [00:46:17]:
Right? So and it’s just a game. It’s it’s just a learning and do more. So cool. Thank you. Yeah. So, just you’ve gotta come through a bunch of challenges in the business. You’ve kind of got you still got more in front of you. You’re brand new.

John Clendenning [00:46:30]:
What would you say would be the biggest challenge that you that you kinda ran into you didn’t expect at all, that kinda showed up that you busted through? What would be sort of the, like, a big hairy challenge that you went, wait a minute. I didn’t even see that one coming.

Addison Lueras [00:46:46]:
Yeah. I think a lot of the challenges that we faced are probably really related to our pricing and Okay. Being able to get quality customers at a decent rate. I think I was so focused in some of my other business partners. So focused focused on getting the job Yeah. That we kind of just we were kind of scared to put, like, a us like, a reasonable price. So we’d offer such great discounts. And at the end of the year, we had we just had a ton of expenses too.

Addison Lueras [00:47:21]:
So, I mean, being a first business owner, just buying equipment and a car payment, car insurance, Yeah. Not being organized with our numbers, especially the 1st 6 months was a huge challenge for us. But, yeah, I would say it’s all mostly related to finances and then not adequately pricing, not making up the prices. So Yep. We we put in a lot of, change a lot. Like, the last 3 to 4 months have been Yeah. Pretty huge changes. I mean, I’ve been listening to your podcast.

Addison Lueras [00:47:54]:
That’s been great.

John Clendenning [00:47:56]:
Me too.

Addison Lueras [00:47:57]:
And really just trying to understand, more about business and Yeah. Letting go of those old ways. So

John Clendenning [00:48:04]:
Yeah. No. Good. No. That that and that’s that’s good information and valuable information for me because we don’t know what we don’t know. And then once like, again, once you start looking at a p and l statement, I I was I was away last week at a conference for agencies and, like, from Monday to Friday in Miami, One of the one of the speakers that did show, like, there’s a lot of masterminding and workshopping and sharing with each other. There was a fellow, that was there named Greg Crabtree. Book is called Simple Numbers.

John Clendenning [00:48:35]:
It’s probably 10, 12 years old now. Buy it if you don’t have it. It’s it’s all about the the like, he is a, teaches at Wortley Business College. Like, he’s invited in to teach, but he’s he’s an accountant. He hates accountants. It’s like they they complicate things too much. There’s a set set of simple numbers that you need to watch and manage to know if you’re profitable or not, And you can run that math forward and backwards and future looking and all of that. You can do it on a pen and a piece of paper, or you could open if you’re not to use a Google Sheet or an Excel spreadsheet, type the numbers in, but figure it out because, yeah, you don’t know.

John Clendenning [00:49:09]:
I I know a lot of people got into the Groupon game years ago and went, oh, yeah. We’re just gonna yeah. We’re gonna get a lot of customers. And it turned out the more customers they got from Groupon, the closer and closer to bankruptcy their business got. Because if it actually worked, you had to give a massive discount, then you had to give part of it almost half of it to Groupon, and then they doled out the payment back to you over, like, 12 weeks. So you didn’t even get paid on it, and you didn’t realize that, well, every mile you put on the truck has what cost? You gotta know. Like, if you work for a, you know, any any any corporation that says, hey. Drive your own Carpet, and we’ll give you a mileage allowance.

John Clendenning [00:49:46]:
Right? And, you know, it’s whatever the whatever it is now. I remember 20 years ago, it was, you know, it was, like, a dollar a mile or something silly. It goes in crazy crazy amount of money, and it’s like now it’s way more than that. And you’re going, I’m making money until you have to pay for the car repairs. I mean, so you have to pay for a new car because eventually, you have to trade it in or or, you know, whatever. And or if you’ve got leases on it, if you actually calculate how much every mile cost you on our work vans, how much every hour costs us on our truck mounts before you need the head job done, before like, whatever the the motor, you know, ratio is. And if you’ve got PTO, then it’s your engine of your truck. Right? It’s like you think of all of that.

John Clendenning [00:50:25]:
Everything has a dollar value. Right? So and if you don’t put those numbers in ahead of time, you’re gonna figure out as you guys did pretty quickly. Holy crap. There’s a lot of expenses to this business. Right? And when you do, you you have to raise your prices. And by raising your prices, you have to raise your game. You now have to learn how to sell better at higher prices.

Addison Lueras [00:50:48]:
Yes. I love that. That is exactly what I feel because, there’s so many unknown costs that we didn’t predict. Like Yeah. You that’s a great example with the car. I mean, there was a $600 car. We had to fix our car for $600, and it’s what the heck? Like, the alternator. So Yeah.

Addison Lueras [00:51:05]:
And then gas I mean, gas is, like, I’m in California, so it’s, like, $5, $6 in Southern California. So it’s crazy. It is. So

John Clendenning [00:51:14]:
Yeah. You don’t wanna make a a choice about a customer. Like, I wanna clean this customer, but they’re 2 hours or an hour and a half that way, And I don’t have any routes going that way anytime soon. Like and it’s like again, it’s if you did a $150 and you go, by the time I get there and back and whatever, I I, you know, I just put $30 in gas on the road in the of the tank just disappeared just from going there and back. So the job is just automatically discounted by $30. Right? Yeah. And, you know, those thoughts become relevant. But if your if your average job is $400, you know, that you know that you’re gonna get the neighbors because you’re gonna do the 5 rounds or the 20 rounds with door hangers and yard signs, and, you know, you’ve got another a couple of other strategies you’re gonna do, where you’re gonna while you’re out there as well and you don’t have a job the rest of the day, we called it our downtime routine because it was what I used to do when I had no work at all.

John Clendenning [00:52:09]:
I would just walk into, strip malls where there’s, like, the dentist and the chiropractors and the accountants and stuff like that. They had carpet. They had tile. They had upholstery. They had the stuff we did, and it was small. It was house sized. It wasn’t like I’m trying to do 10, 20000 square feet on an evening or a weekend and then having to sleep in because I I can’t get up for the residential clients the next day or the the crews couldn’t. So we taught our crews how to do the downtime routine.

John Clendenning [00:52:32]:
It was just like you’d walk in with your spotter kit, nicely dressed again, shirt and tie back in the day. Spotter kit was an over the shoulder bag, looked professional. Not much different than the medical reps that walk in these, you know, all day long and stand and wait for the receptionist to be done talking to the person to, you know, say, hey. It’s, you know, John here from from Acclaim Carpet Cleaning. Just happened to be down the hallway. That was always my line. Why? Because that’s where the door was. I was happy to be down the hallway because I had to open the door to get in.

John Clendenning [00:52:58]:
In. That was my like, I literally just stick as if I was in the building, but that was the way I worded it. Tapped me down the hallway and, just, I got a few I got a little bit of extra time, and, I wanted to see if there’s any spots or stains, any coffee spills, anybody been a little bit messy around here, that I could take out for you guys for free. We normally charge a $95 spotting visit. I just wanna I didn’t care if I got a yes or no. I started, you know, again, screw because I just wanted an intro and give. Like, I wanted to give be before I ask. Right? And sometimes you go take a spot or stain out.

John Clendenning [00:53:27]:
Other times, nah. I don’t really. So okay. Cool. Yeah. I’d like to leave some information. Who would be the person that would actually, hire the cleaning? How often do you guys get the carpets and the upholstery and stuff clean? Like, it looks pretty good. You know, whatever.

John Clendenning [00:53:39]:
And you just start your little script, and you just have something to say, and you’d handle, oh, that would be the doctor actually or the office manager. Oh, yeah. I don’t wanna bug them if they’re not around, but I wouldn’t mind if you can hand this over to them. That’d be great. Yeah. Thanks so much for your time, Janice. Do I’ve got do you have a got a card for Sally, the office manager? Yeah. I do.

John Clendenning [00:53:54]:
Okay. Great. Thanks so much. Make sure Sally gets that, and I’ll just follow-up with her in a couple days just to see. And if you guys already have somebody, we’d just like to be your backup. So, you know, come in and give you a free demo, do a couple of offices for free to show you what we’re all about, why we’re different, and stuff like that. But all that information is in that little kit I just gave you to give to Sally. Thanks so much.

John Clendenning [00:54:10]:
And you walk out the door with a business card, and that’s all I cared about is our guys. Here’s your script. We role played and trained it, you know, so that they knew how to say it. They go, oh, I hate role playing. Yeah. So do I. But carry on. Let’s do this a couple times till you get the marbles out of your mouth.

John Clendenning [00:54:24]:
I want you to come back with business cards. You got 2 hours or 3 hours before, you know, your next job. You know what you’re doing. You’re going into these places, and you’re going back to them if it’s been a couple of months because you have to be in the same neighborhood. But that’s how we would open up new neighborhoods. It’s like, go clean the one customer, do the 20 around, put the yard sign, hit a place to start talking to some people. Yeah. That’s just the game.

John Clendenning [00:54:44]:
Right? That is yeah. So we’re in business. Play the game. Right? So

Addison Lueras [00:54:48]:
Yeah. That’s amazing. That Yeah. That’s that’s pretty that’s, I think too many carpet cleaners, they think like a carpet cleaner. And so when you start thinking like a business owner, you you read books, you come up with all these solutions. And Yeah. I haven’t even thought about doing that, but offering I mean, who’s gonna say no to that? You go in and Right. You’re offering a free service.

Addison Lueras [00:55:07]:
I mean and then

John Clendenning [00:55:08]:
And even if you get a no because they feel skeptical, uneasy, whatever, still big smile on your face, you know, and you’re handing over some material and information. It again, good, better, best. The first ones looked like crap. I did them on my own computer. We’re talking 1995, 6, 7. Like, imagine what those look like. Right? Right? Eventually, they started looking nicer and more professional, but they were also still like, when the guys handed it out, it was my face. Then it was me and my wife.

John Clendenning [00:55:36]:
Then it was me and my wife and our first daughter, Caitlin. And me and my and it was our family. Hi. I’m John. This is my wife, Kelly, or sometimes, hi. I’m Kelly. This is my husband, John. It’s like, she never worked in the business, but sometimes she was the the author of the letter according to the letter.

John Clendenning [00:55:49]:
I wrote it. But, you know, this is a family run business, and here’s, you know, here’s here we take family values very importantly, like I’m sure you do as well. You’re you’re talking to the person in the language they wanna hear it. Right? It’s not like, oh, we use a, you know, an RX 20 extraction machine with, you know, hyper power and blah blah blah and a and a butler or whatever, and they’re going, what?

Addison Lueras [00:56:10]:
Yeah. They’re like, who cares? Yeah.

John Clendenning [00:56:12]:
Yeah. Like, again, I’ll we’re carpet cleaners, and we all love our equipment or and our products and our stuff like that. The customer doesn’t. The customer wants to know what what’s the benefit for them. Right? Here’s why a lot of dentists use our services. Here’s why and then you start getting these testimonials from them, and then you start saying, hey. By the way, you’re a chiropractor. Look at the 20 referrals and testimonials I’ve got from other chiropractors.

John Clendenning [00:56:35]:
Right? So not just other businesses, but other chiropractors. As you build that muscle up, now you’ve got you can prove that you’re the cleaner of the chiropractors in the area. Yeah. It’s played that you could just start and, again, that’s not a year and a half in, but two and a half, 3 years in, you might have a cup 2, 3 chiropractors you’ve Cleaner for. Get them to give you an endorsement. Doesn’t have to be a review. It could just be a testimonial, and, you know, an email that you can can I use that? Yep. Print that off.

John Clendenning [00:57:04]:
Hand that out over. We clean for a bunch of chiropractor just like you.

Addison Lueras [00:57:07]:
Yeah. You

John Clendenning [00:57:07]:
know? Ways to play the game. So cool. Thank you. That’s awesome. Yeah. So I I think we’ve had a good chat here about again, somebody new in the business, no actually taking action, actually running it like a business. And, again, you’re learning as we go. I like to as you know, I like to just consult and tell stories and to explain different ways to think.

John Clendenning [00:57:28]:
They open people’s brains up, because that’s just what gets me gets me going is like, hey. I learned something new. You know, 30 years later in business, I learned something new every single day. Right? So it’s like, can I use that? Can I do something with it? So I like to share. But in in that spirit, sort of Marketing advice, think of anybody who is a year and a half early. Somebody listening to this going, I’m listening to these podcasts. I think Addison’s awesome. He’s running a great business.

John Clendenning [00:57:53]:
I think I should maybe pull the trigger and actually jump into this cleaning business. What kind of parting advice would you give to a new business owner who’s thinking of actually going down this road in this industry?

Addison Lueras [00:58:04]:
Yeah. That’s a good question. For a new business owner thinking about getting in the world of floor cleaning, I guess what I would suggest is probably do your research before diving head first into it. Have these I guess, have, like, a framework of everything, whether it’s, like, your finances. Have that in order. Know how you’re gonna advertise, know who, like, your target audience is. But, basically, everything that encompasses floor cleaning from marketing to finance to really everything, I would say be prepared and have that ready to go because we just kinda dive in headfirst.

John Clendenning [00:58:44]:
Yeah.

Addison Lueras [00:58:44]:
We made all the mistakes. 6 months of I mean, the whole year, a ton of mistakes with, I mean, not even being super organized or having to buy new equipment. So I would say just really be organized and understand what you’re getting yourself kind of into, because it might sound great. Like, they might think, oh, I can make this much money this, you know, as a 1st year, but

John Clendenning [00:59:07]:
Yeah.

Addison Lueras [00:59:07]:
1st year business owner. But I think taking the time to be reflective, on your capabilities and understanding what you want out of this business, I think that’s gonna be huge. So I think it really comes down to taking time to reflect on on your business model and who

John Clendenning [00:59:23]:
I think that’s brilliant advice because, yeah, you you know, it’s sort of like, don’t do what I do almost sounds like, you know, the the message there in a little bit, but it is true. You’ve learned where you need to, and you’ve survived it. And there’s a lot of people that don’t survive that. They they they run into that alternator breaking month 3 and go, I don’t have the money. Or the transmission blows out, and I’m done. Right? Because there was no sort of Yeah. Okay. How am I gonna get this stacked up? How am I gonna actually plan ahead, Have some you know, what what from day 1, what am I hitting the market with? Like, how am I how am I reaching out? What is my daily plan? When you own a business, you know, like, again, don’t kid ourselves.

John Clendenning [00:59:59]:
It’s not an 8 hour a day, Monday to Friday, 40 hour a week job. You’re the business owner. Like, you’re putting in 60, 70, 80 hours. Some of it’s cleaning. Some of it’s running the business, growing the business, thinking of the business, doing the finances, running the numbers, and learning all the stuff you don’t know. Right? It’s just you’ve you you don’t know what you don’t know, so you you have to start learning. Okay. Now I I now know what I don’t know.

John Clendenning [01:00:25]:
That’s a better place to be. Now I’m gonna start learning some of those things or finding the people that can help me with that. Right? So a lot of that preplanning to get off the ground does make a a a lot of sense. So well, Addison, I really appreciate you jumping on. Thank you for responding back to, reaching out to me on LinkedIn and then taking the opportunity to jump on. I think that’s amazing. And, yeah, I just say to keep doing what you’re doing. You know, keep pushing yourself forward.

John Clendenning [01:00:50]:
Keep reading. You know, keep working on the business and finding, you know, other ways to mentors and, you know, oh my gosh. I’m at a $150. This guy’s minimum charge is $400. How is he doing that? Open your mind up because all of a sudden goes poof, and you go, wow. I can’t do that right now, but I’ve got that as a goal. You know? And it just gives you something to stretch towards. Right? So

Addison Lueras [01:01:12]:
well, thank you for this, wealth of information. Probably gonna probably gonna listen to these podcasts for as long as I can because this is just a it’s just an abundance of information, and it’s taking the time to take notes and really know what you want is huge. So

John Clendenning [01:01:27]:
Yeah. And we all drive around in our vehicles in early, so you’re Dan Kennedy taught me this when I was a kid. It was, drive time is is learning time, university time. Back in the day, again, let’s age myself, I put cassette tapes in on the seat beside me and listen to the next tape and the next tape and then on rewind until they eventually broke. And then eventually it became CDs. Right? Now we got podcasts, and we’ve got our phone, and it’s like everything is right at your fingertips. Right? Do not waste that opportunity. Like, once I got out of the truck, I had to find reasons to go driving because it’s easier to listen while you’re got something else to do.

John Clendenning [01:02:02]:
It’s easier to just consume the information. I do it while I’m cutting grass. John an acre and a half, I put we’re riding lawnmower, put the earphones on, and, I need time to listen to stuff. I I I find I’m actually running out of time to listen to stuff. I’d love to be back in the truck again and have, you know, 20, 30, 40 minutes between John. And, you know, I podcast off to the next customer kind of idea. So but yeah. So cool.

John Clendenning [01:02:25]:
Well, I really appreciate it, man. Thanks so much. Keep me posted on how the business is growing. We’ll be staying in touch for sure. I’m I’m positive with that. And, yeah, hopefully, everybody else Clendenning to this got a bit of inspiration and see your great story and how much you’re putting behind this. And, hopefully, you guys can follow Addison as well and go check out his business and keep an eye on how he’s improving and growing over time. So take care, everybody.

John Clendenning [01:02:47]:
Thanks so much for being on the, the show, and we’ll see you next time.

Addison Lueras [01:02:50]:
Great. Thank you, John. Appreciate it.