Raising Prices, Retaining Clients: The Power of Pricing for Carpet Cleaners with Michael Clevenger

Initially, the notion of higher prices as a deterrent might be common, but insights from industry leaders suggest that strategically raising prices can attract better clients and significantly enhance the profitability of businesses.

Michael Clevenger [00:00:00]:
So they had done a lot of old school, stuff, middle of the road pricing, but they did very good work. Right? Yep. And so they had a very loyal clientele. Well, here I come, and I’m the young young blood with all these wild ideas. Right? And they’re constantly having to keep me at bay. Right? Some of this stuff, they would let me try, and it worked. Yeah. And some of this stuff, they were like, you know, take it easy, Tiger.

Michael Clevenger [00:00:28]:
So it it it became apparent pretty quick that I was probably gonna end up going off on my own.

John Clendenning [00:01:10]:
Hey. Welcome back to another exciting episode of the Carpet Cleaner Success podcast. Your host, John Clendenning here. We bring exciting information that you need to know how running a cleaning business, interviews with cleaners, which we have today, and all that kind of good stuff to help you navigate the crazy world of owning your own business and in this cleaning space in general. Today I’m very pleased to have good friend, Michael Clevenger. And, Michael’s gonna tell us all about his business and gonna get a little bit of, some some coaching and training that Michael does now as well for the cleaning industry, as well. So we have that conversation. Well, welcome, Michael.

John Clendenning [00:01:47]:
I really appreciate you jumping on the call today. How are things going?

Michael Clevenger [00:01:50]:
Things are going great. Thank you for having me, John. It’s been a I’ve been excited about this.

John Clendenning [00:01:55]:
Yeah. I have too. So we’re just talking a little before we started here that I’m staring out a window at a snowstorm, and Michael’s not gonna explain how sunny and balmy and lovely the weather is in Arizona. So Right. With that said, tell us a little bit about you, the business, how long you’ve been in business, like, what got you into this? Like, just a little bit of a background story. Let’s just kinda start with somewhere about you.

Michael Clevenger [00:02:19]:
Yeah. Absolutely. So I have, 2024 marks 28 years of cleaning. Wow. Yep. Quite quite a quite a little tenure there. It also marks the the same year I got started cleaning, which was in 1996. Yep.

Michael Clevenger [00:02:38]:
Was the same year Heather and I got married. So, we’ve been married, and I’ve been cleaning for 28 years. This this summer will be our anniversary.

John Clendenning [00:02:48]:
Congratulations.

Michael Clevenger [00:02:50]:
When you do something that long, the same thing, you get really good at it. And so how I got started though was I, Heather and I were dating, matter of fact. And in one of our in my the congregation I was in, there was one of our the members of the congregation owned his own carpet cleaning business. So Yeah. I, I was working at the room store at the time Marketing 7.50 an hour, which was at was, was, minimum wage at the time. Yeah. And wasn’t really happy there. And he offered me a position as a tech.

Michael Clevenger [00:03:30]:
And so I jumped on it. I was really green. Mhmm. Him and I didn’t, I’m the type of person that takes a long time for me to learn something.

John Clendenning [00:03:38]:
Okay.

Michael Clevenger [00:03:39]:
But once I learn it, I get really good at it. Right? Especially if it’s something that that I like. Yeah. I’m super competitive as well. So, I always wanna get good at whatever it is that I’m doing. Right?

John Clendenning [00:03:52]:
That’s a good training path for sure.

Michael Clevenger [00:03:55]:
It took me a it took me a little while. He this particular person that I was working for didn’t have the patience that I needed. So we parted ways.

John Clendenning [00:04:04]:
Okay.

Michael Clevenger [00:04:04]:
And then I was hired on with another, company, a sister company, in another congregation, actually. We we kinda have a network. And they actually became my carpet cleaning parents, Marketing and Shirley. Marlon was, similar personality to me, really low key, very, calm, not not too high, not too low. Yeah. And was just exactly what I needed. And so I worked for them for 3 years, and I had all these wild ideas. And they celebrated their 25th anniversary in business while I was working with them.

Michael Clevenger [00:04:45]:
Okay. So they had done a lot of old school, stuff, middle of the road pricing, but they did very good work. Right? Yep. And so they had a very loyal clientele. Well, here I come, and I’m the young young blood with all these wild ideas. Right? And they’re constantly having to keep me at bay. Right? Some of this stuff, they would let me try, and it worked. Yeah.

Michael Clevenger [00:05:11]:
And some of this stuff, they were like, you know, take it easy, Tiger. So it it it became apparent pretty quick that I was probably gonna end up going off on my own. Yep. So at the time, Heather and I were newly married, and, that’s that’s ended up what happened. We parted ways, as friends. Yeah. My in laws my in laws, helped me financially get started with my first truck, And that was in 1999, and the rest is history.

John Clendenning [00:05:40]:
And that was, the Cleaner monkey? Was that the the was the name started at that point as well?

Michael Clevenger [00:05:45]:
That wasn’t. Okay. I was a division of my father in law’s business Okay. Which was his acronym was SCI, which was Shaughnessy Contracting Incorporated. Okay. And so I Cleaner division of that. Yes.

John Clendenning [00:06:02]:
So I

Michael Clevenger [00:06:02]:
ended up using the same acronym, and we were Steam Cleaning Incorporated.

John Clendenning [00:06:08]:
Okay. So Yeah. So it works.

Michael Clevenger [00:06:10]:
We were doing it. It was a DBA sort

John Clendenning [00:06:12]:
of thing.

Michael Clevenger [00:06:13]:
Yeah. In in 2007, I decided to break off completely on my own. Okay.

John Clendenning [00:06:20]:
And

Michael Clevenger [00:06:20]:
2007 Marketing be the birth of the Cleaner monkey. And Gotcha. The way that name came about, everybody always likes to know.

John Clendenning [00:06:29]:
Yeah. That was gonna be my next question. I have never heard this story, so I get

Michael Clevenger [00:06:33]:
Yeah. Is when the kids were little, I always call them monkeys.

John Clendenning [00:06:38]:
Like, if

Michael Clevenger [00:06:38]:
they get something fast or good, you’re a monkey. You know? Yeah. And so we we were trying to come up with a name for the business. I wanted it to be easy to remember first

John Clendenning [00:06:48]:
Yeah.

Michael Clevenger [00:06:48]:
But I wanted it to be professional. So all the ones that I was coming up with were already taken. I wanted healthy home Cleaner. That’s been

John Clendenning [00:06:57]:
Yeah. Long since gone. First.

Michael Clevenger [00:06:59]:
Yeah. All all kinds of different ways. And so I jokingly suggested, what do you guys think of the cleaning monkey to the family during a Sunday breakfast? Still remember the morning. Oh, that’s awesome. The kids just absolutely loved it. Who who doesn’t love monkeys, monkeys, especially you’re you’re little. Right? Yeah. My wife, Heather, loved the idea because it was so unique.

Michael Clevenger [00:07:21]:
Right? Yeah. And I told her, I am not gonna be called the cleaning monkey. That is too silly. It’s not professional. And I was completely against it. Right? And so for about 2 weeks, we went back and forth. And the idea started leaning you know, she started leaning into me about it. Yeah.

Michael Clevenger [00:07:40]:
I checked, and the cleaning monkey.comandthecleaningmonkey.net Cleaner both available. Imagine that.

John Clendenning [00:07:45]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Michael Clevenger [00:07:48]:
And so I I reserved those domains Yeah. And begrudgingly moved forward with the idea. And it was one of the best decisions we’ve made because it’s taken on a life of its own. And all that gives us that

John Clendenning [00:08:03]:
Like yeah. Sorry to interrupt, but it stands out. Like, the branding, that’s one thing that I some people get right. I’ve heard, Mark Sager talk about this on some of his, live interviews and stuff like that as well. It’s like, you know, in our industry, you know, there’s a lot of sort of well, there’s the crowd that does the white van and a magnet on the side, and we can all we can talk about what that means and and, you know, stop that, please. But then there’s, like, you know, people that brand, but they brand sort of around a corporate look. And it’s like you like, again, you added fun and whimsy into it. You added something that’s memorable.

John Clendenning [00:08:36]:
You added something that would stand out with really good Marketing. You know. So you you created that brand awareness just by being a little bit disruptive. Right? And and kinda just a little avant garde, but still still kosher, still, you know, again, nothing too shocking. You’re not, you know, you’re not you’re not trying to push the envelope, but it is a little makes people go, wait a minute. What? You know, kind of idea. And there’s a, you know, in hindsight yeah. Definitely.

John Clendenning [00:09:02]:
Love your wife to death for do for for talking you into pushing in that direction because it’s like Yeah. It is it is Carpet of the thing that makes businesses stand out is how can you think of your brand well and then build around it. Yeah.

Michael Clevenger [00:09:16]:
Yeah. Yeah. And that is true because even though it is a little silly. Yep. And and it doesn’t, project how, like, super good we are at what we do Yeah. It is very memorable. And

John Clendenning [00:09:31]:
Yeah. You can always put all that other stuff in a tagline. Like, really, like, that’s that’s there’s multiple levels of your of your brand awareness. Right? We all I talk about is the 4 foundations of, of building a cleaning business and or building any business is one of them is is is your brand identity. Right? So founder’s story, brand identity, risk reversal guarantee, and compelling sales proposition. Build those outright, and the rest of your marketing can use that foundation to adjust and adapt and grow and stuff like that. So you’ve got the ability to go into, hey, I got the brand identity, it it stands out, and now I can say what it stands for. Now that becomes your sales propositions, your bullet points, your all of those kinds of things and get into that whole cleaning for health and superior quality as the message out of that or from there.

John Clendenning [00:10:19]:
Once they’ve got your attention, you go, what’s that band, John Mayer? Yeah. You know, what’s that door hanger? Why I got a monkey on it? You know? And then they now they can read the part of this.

Michael Clevenger [00:10:26]:
And you’re right. It it has worked because there have been customers when we when we didn’t have our stay in touch program dialed in, which is part of my coaching program now. But they would forget about me except for they remembered monkey.

John Clendenning [00:10:40]:
There’s something

Michael Clevenger [00:10:41]:
to do with the monkey and this guy. Yep. They remembered cleaning.

John Clendenning [00:10:44]:
And so as

Michael Clevenger [00:10:45]:
long as they Google those two words, hey. My stuff pops up.

John Clendenning [00:10:49]:
Yeah. No. Yeah. In today’s day and age, like, again, 2007, we were like, the iPhone only got released and invented 2,000 7. And a year later, we’re in the beginning of, you know, a serious recession. Right? So it’s like the Internet sort of what to do online or even that kind of thing, and people googling you came 2, 3, 4 years later before that really became the mechanism everybody chose, versus the yellow pages when that finally died and and and that kind of thing. Right? So so no. That’s yeah.

John Clendenning [00:11:24]:
So so we’ve got we’ve got a really good brand identity. You’ve obviously talked about delivering a high sir a high end service. So right from right from the, you know, starting with that first company then then your parents in in in carpet cleaning as you called them, having taught you, you know, even that level of so you’ve been indoctrinated all the way through to not be, by the sounds of it, the $99, you know, splash and dash cleaner right from day 1. And you understand the value of that. Yeah. So when you brought that into your own company first, you know, under the DBA and then transition into the, the cleaning monkey, what were some of the things you thought of early on? What are some of the things you’re you’ve adapted even further? Like, you know, again, around that sort of higher end appeal and doing doing the job right, you know, for the right clients that are John hire you back, you you know, multiple times a year, year after year until, you know, until they’re in the old folks’ home. Like, how do

Michael Clevenger [00:12:22]:
Yeah. Absolutely. That’s a great question. And and it was a migration for sure. Like, the 1st 10 years, I thought like everybody else did. In order to be competitive, you have to you have to offer a as good or better service for a cheaper price. Right? And that is a death by a 1000 needles,

John Clendenning [00:12:40]:
I suppose.

Michael Clevenger [00:12:42]:
Because you don’t stand out. You don’t, have the profit margin to have a healthy company, financially. You don’t have it doesn’t afford you the time to wow your client. Like, everybody loses on so many levels. Right? You’re You

John Clendenning [00:12:55]:
can’t hire us. You can’t hire a quality technician because you can’t pay them the right wage. Your van ends up being a bit of a rust bucket because you never thought of the life cycle of a vehicle that needs every single day and every single job needs to pay for the replacement of the truck mount, the truck, the equipment, and all of that stuff that you won’t see for another 5 years or whatever. Yeah.

Michael Clevenger [00:13:14]:
Yeah. And and so everybody loses. You’re in the land of average. You’re you’re stuck on the island of average. Right? I I call it.

John Clendenning [00:13:22]:
Yeah.

Michael Clevenger [00:13:22]:
And so what I what I did pay attention to is that there were clients that were super, super silky smooth and easy to deal with and clean floors. They didn’t question the price. They were close to home. And I thought and then there were the campfires, I call them, where we have to work so hard at restoring these pathways. And customer just you no matter what

John Clendenning [00:13:49]:
still not happy with the results. Yeah.

Michael Clevenger [00:13:51]:
You can you can you can pull off a magic act, and they will not appreciate your hard work. Right? Yep. So I I started paying attention to these two groups and everybody in the middle. And I thought, you know what? What if we could find a way to have a business that was just full of and attracted only those top end VIP clients. Right? So I started doing a ton of research, a ton of, like, mindset, hiring coaches, like, personal development stuff.

John Clendenning [00:14:22]:
So you went all in on this idea. Like, this wasn’t just a, hey. Let me think about it. Let me pray on it. This is like, hey. Let me actually do the work on it too.

Michael Clevenger [00:14:28]:
Yes. I like I like deep dive on the psychology behind becoming a premium company. Right? And it and it doesn’t apply to just our cleaning business. Yeah. This applies all to all kinds of different industries, but especially to the home service business because, what I what I call the VIP client, they don’t want just anybody in their home. Right? And so they have certain buying habits, and they they want certain things, and they don’t want certain things. Right? And so I spent a lot of money and time and and learning this whole thing, and I realized that what we had been taught was completely wrong this whole time.

John Clendenning [00:15:13]:
Okay.

Michael Clevenger [00:15:13]:
And that is the the concept that a premium price actually attracts a premium client was completely foreign to me. I thought there’s no way I can raise my prices to uncomfortable level Yep. And and and not lose business. Yeah. Right? My business couldn’t survive doing that. Right? That was what I thought.

John Clendenning [00:15:40]:
Very common thought. Yep. Completely wrong.

Michael Clevenger [00:15:43]:
And so the more I learned and the more, like, specialty coaches I I talked to, I learned that not just in this industry, but in a lot of industries that you can be on that top level, and it actually separates you.

John Clendenning [00:15:59]:
It does. Yeah. Like pricing pricing is a marketing piece.

Michael Clevenger [00:16:02]:
Yes. Before you even talk to the client. Yeah. The the rumor the rumor’s about about your reputation.

John Clendenning [00:16:11]:
Yeah.

Michael Clevenger [00:16:12]:
And I get customers now coming to me that I’ve never talked to, and they say, I was referred to you by my friend, and they said, you’re not the cheapest company Yeah. But you are the best. Right?

John Clendenning [00:16:24]:
We we used to put that right in our yellow page ad. If you’re looking for a cheap brush the dirt off the surface cleaning, there’s lots of other cleaners on this page. And And that was the exact wording on the yellow we actually had to get it signed off by the Elevage company. But if you want the job done right, you keep reading. Right? And it was I would prefer phone calls from customers that said, okay. I get the I get the fact from everything I’ve looked at, and we’re talking mid 2000 even. So pre Internet really and not a lot of people are checking yellow pages, but they’re whatever research, you know, do your own research. They’re doing some of it wherever, asking friends, talking around, all of that kind of stuff came across the advertisement.

John Clendenning [00:16:58]:
And they would call up and say, so I get that you guys are a little bit more expensive. How much extra do I have to pay to get you? And instead of how much does it cost to get 3 bedrooms and a hallway and a flight of stairs done, you know, can you be here today and is it under a $100? It’s like, how much extra do I have to pay to get you? And that is a whole different place to start a conversation. Yeah. And that’s actually where you wanna be. Yeah. And I I learned as well from I can’t remember who taught me this, but it was it might have been like a Dan Kennedy something or whatever. Because I like, I I was deep into the Dan Kennedy world early on in my twenties, kind of stair step my way and go, oh, this is the guy that’s teaching a lot of these people. And Jay Abraham and, Michael Gerber, the e myth, and stuff like that.

John Clendenning [00:17:42]:
Again, I didn’t know what I didn’t know, and I was smart enough to realize, at least give me I’m driving around every day. Give me a university in my cassette tapes and, cassette tapes and, you know, then CDs and joining coaching programs and doing all that kind of stuff. And I somebody ran the math for me once and it was an eye opener, like, the moment you had that if you raise your price by 10% and nothing else about your the finances of your company changes, So 10% went straight to the bottom line in profit. You would have to lose almost 40% of your clients in in a normal cleaning business with the cost of, you know, gas and leases and and solutions and technicians and office staff and and what just the normal the overhead to run the business, you would have to lose almost 40% of your clientele before that extra 10% of raw cash started affecting your profitability. Yep. Right? So I’m going, I could get rid of half my clients and make the exact same money. Well, that’s, you know, I don’t want that to Carpet, but if that happened, that’s that’s that’s a worst case scenario is not a bad place to go, you know, and be a better company. Right?

Michael Clevenger [00:18:44]:
So Right.

John Clendenning [00:18:45]:
Yeah. Totally. You obviously learned that message from you your coaches and consultant in a in a different way, but the same kind of thing is raise your prices, you get a better clientele. The person that lives on Golf Course Road has a 3,000 square foot home with an off white dog, an off white couch, off white tile, and off white of, you know, carpets, and is gonna clean 2 or 3 times a year, some or if not all of it, is not looking for the $99 cleaner. And in fact, they are worried about the $99 cleaner. Yeah. If you go look at their gardeners, I talk about this, like, they’re the uniform company that shows up in a in a nice trucks and, you know, they’re made service that they have. They’re in uniform.

John Clendenning [00:19:23]:
Somebody has thought through the business, whether it’s a franchise or an independent, they have they’re delivering a client experience that befits that client because that client has the money to pay for experiences. Right? So if you can deliver the best, not just cleaning company experience, but the best in home service experience that somebody’s ever gotten from the moment they reach out to you all the way through to the moment you show up, to the moment you’re done the job saying, bye, missus Jones. We’ll see you next time. And then the follow-up routine is this. They just go, oh, this is amazing. It’s like you’re remarkable as I like to say, which means they’re gonna remark on you when they’re talking with their friends and family. They’re gonna go to the bridge club if people still play bridge these days or whatever, but they’re gonna go to their, you know, their whatever their lawn bowling and their golfing and their pickle balls and all that kind of stuff and go, oh, my god. Are these guys over the other day? And I mean, you know, and they talk about you.

John Clendenning [00:20:17]:
And that loan in their circle creates a unique marketplace of 1. You your competition proved by that point.

Michael Clevenger [00:20:26]:
Yeah. You are. You make your competition irrelevant. You do. You’ve taken that customer off the market Yeah. And you’ve built them into your your annual income.

John Clendenning [00:20:35]:
Yeah. And that’s a brilliant point there too as well because a lot of cleaners that we talk to, you and I both, they do believe this whole 90 9, 89, 79 race to the bottom thinking, because that’s just how you get customers. And they don’t realize the value in business is the list. So your customer list, your leads list, your referral partner list, your you know, build lists that you can put a fence around and market to, and and and that’s the value of the business when you go to sell it. It isn’t the truck mount and the the the wand. It is the value of your database. Hey. I’ve got, you know, 4,000 customers in my database and 21100 come back once a year, every single year based on my database outreach and Marketing.

John Clendenning [00:21:18]:
And they were their only company. They don’t even consider the the anybody else because we do a great job and we fall we do we we say what we’re gonna do and we do what we say we’re we’re gonna do. And, we do it really well. And because of that, they don’t just they don’t go shopping. But the $99 guy goes looks for the $99 deal next time.

Michael Clevenger [00:21:36]:
Yep. And I’ll I’ll say this, John. I was it was very scary making this migration. Like like, I remember, the the first real price bump. So I had I had offered 3 packages at one time. And my top package and I gave a 20% discount on everything always. Okay. So my top package started at 55¢ a square foot.

Michael Clevenger [00:22:00]:
Like, I called it the presidential package.

John Clendenning [00:22:02]:
Okay.

Michael Clevenger [00:22:02]:
Yeah. After the discount, it was in the forties. Right? Yeah. And so I remember moving that up to 70¢

John Clendenning [00:22:12]:
Yeah.

Michael Clevenger [00:22:12]:
A square foot out the door. Right? I was gonna I was gonna, not do the 20% discount. It’d be 70¢ a square foot out the door and see what happened. Right? Yep. And so all the packages moved up. So I tried it for 30 days, and no no customers had a problem. So I thought Isn’t

John Clendenning [00:22:32]:
that crazy when that happens? It’s like, it’s all between it’s between here. Yes.

Michael Clevenger [00:22:36]:
And if

John Clendenning [00:22:37]:
they did have a problem, why couldn’t like, if you really went, oh, crap. That didn’t work. Lower the prices of it again. Find the sweet spot. Like, why do we care so much? But we do.

Michael Clevenger [00:22:47]:
Yeah. We we panicked. My next breakthrough was that, instead of I noticed that that people, for the most part, on averages, bought the package in the middle. Okay. I was I was having a smaller percentage than I wanted buying the presidential package. So I thought, what if I only offered the presidential package? Like, across the board, 70¢ a square foot. I was Yep.

John Clendenning [00:23:12]:
Scared to death. Right? That’s another big jump. Yep.

Michael Clevenger [00:23:14]:
But I committed for 30 days, and only one customer had a problem with it. Yep. So that that was how it happened. All the way up to now, today, I charge a dollar a square foot

John Clendenning [00:23:27]:
Yeah.

Michael Clevenger [00:23:27]:
Carpet cleaning and a dollar 50 for tile and grout, which, according to averages, is definitely on the higher

John Clendenning [00:23:34]:
Oh, you’re definitely pushing the market. Yeah.

Michael Clevenger [00:23:37]:
Yeah. And and we’re averaging a 130, 100 and $40 a room. Some of our jobs are over $200 a room. Yep. And the same thing is happening. Like like, these customers aren’t flinching. Now I I did have to learn this, that if everyone was saying yes to my price if everyone was saying yes to your price, you’re priced too low.

John Clendenning [00:24:01]:
I was I knew where you’re going with that this day. I started smiling and say, yeah. It’s how many times have you heard from from from other Cleaner, stuff like that? Well, I tried to do this and, you know, I tried to send an email. I tried and one person messaged me and said, stop. So we can’t run this anymore. Right. And I’m like Yes. You only got one? How many did you send? Why is that? A 1,000.

John Clendenning [00:24:21]:
Yeah. So you get about a 100, maybe 200, I’d be concerned. But that means even the other 800 still were okay with it. Right? So it’s like yeah. No. Exactly.

Michael Clevenger [00:24:30]:
So so the few the the the less than 20%. Yep. So it was more like 10%. Yeah. I had a problem with the price, and it would have been a deal breaker. Right? Was confirmation to me, and this only happened through my coaching. I never would have had the mindset and discipline to realize

John Clendenning [00:24:49]:
Yeah.

Michael Clevenger [00:24:50]:
That that was proof that I was priced where I should be. Yeah. Back the in the old days, I would have been like, okay. I’m priced too high. I gotta come back down. Right? So be so because I had that proof of concept Yeah. I realized that I had to find a a spot where I was getting some noes

John Clendenning [00:25:10]:
Yes.

Michael Clevenger [00:25:10]:
But that the majority were yeses. And the here’s the other baffling numbers. And I tell my new students this. As a one truck owner operator, if we’re gonna offer a wow service experience

John Clendenning [00:25:24]:
Yep.

Michael Clevenger [00:25:25]:
We can only service 1 to 3 customers a day. I mean, there’s only there’s only 8 working hours in a day. Yeah. If if we don’t wanna work nights and we don’t wanna work weekends, which I consider a balanced work life Yeah. Balance. Yeah. Then we can only service 1 to 3 clients a day Monday through Friday. That is if you take a 2 week vacation, that is 500 to 750 job spots Yep.

Michael Clevenger [00:25:51]:
To fill our whole year.

John Clendenning [00:25:53]:
Yes.

Michael Clevenger [00:25:54]:
So if 500 to 750 jobs will fill our entire year as a one truck owner operator, let’s be picky as to who we put in those spots.

John Clendenning [00:26:06]:
And let’s have our average job turn out to be about 500 to $700 in average John. So you need 25100 or 250,000, which is I’ve been saying for years. An average one truck operation should be 250 to 300,000. And you can get away with that with, you know, with 1 guy or a guy and a helper if he needs a whatever, but in a truck. And your next truck should be starting at a 150 to 200,000 and growing to the 250. And then you you know, Marketing dependent, you can scale from there. But yeah. Absolutely.

John Clendenning [00:26:36]:
No.

Michael Clevenger [00:26:37]:
So and and so that that that was an eye Cleaner. And that’s what I tell my my new students that Yeah. We’re small, so act small. Yes. Embrace the fact that you’re small

John Clendenning [00:26:48]:
Yeah.

Michael Clevenger [00:26:48]:
And be picky. Just come up, find systems, which is one of the things we coach Yep. On how to attract those VIP clients.

John Clendenning [00:26:57]:
Yep. No. And I think that’s I think that’s brilliant because, again, the Marketing is there. It’s a couple things that to John, to to kinda just highlight and put a pin in on what you’ve said there. You’ve mentioned, you know, the fact that you’ve had coaches all the way along. I don’t know anybody, Coaches and and mentor groups and all of it. I don’t know anybody who has been successful in any business without having a mastermind group, a board group, a Masters, you know, coaches and things like that. I just got back a week ago from from Florida.

John Clendenning [00:27:29]:
So I’ve been a carpet cleaner all my life. Finally sold my my brick and mortar business, done marketing consulting, and now digital marketing and and and that kind of thing for for for consulting for 15 or 20 years. Digital marketing as carpet cleaner marketing masters for the last 5 years. So, obviously, I’m in mastermind groups and board groups and and coaching and consulting on the agency side and just came back from a meetup that we do every 4 months in. We meet every month on Zoom once once every 4 months, fly into Miami and have a Marketing of some of the smartest agency owners in the room. One of the things we just learned, which is interesting is there is a lot of people in the business world today that need to hear this message and need to hear what you’re saying, because we have been in this since the 2008, 9 recession, quantitative easing, money Marketing, everything kinda is going up into the right. You know, the money supply is expanding, inflation expanded, the cost is expanding, and people are spending discretionary income more and more and more. They were.

John Clendenning [00:28:31]:
And this was this was going on because of massive money printing and the the way the economy was and all that kind of stuff. And there was an economist actually speaking at our group, 2 weeks ago in in Florida, and one of the things he was showing is the wheels fell off in 2019. Then we had this grand distraction in 2020 for a couple of years that took our minds off of it, threw more money into the, you know, into the mix and created the hyperinflation that we’re dealing with and interest rates going up and stuff like that. But what it’s done is in that window of time where all these new business owner the the guys are in their twenties and their thirties. All they know of is I just have to jump into the market, get my share. Let me run Facebook ads. Let me run Google ads. Let me run local service ads.

John Clendenning [00:29:14]:
Let me do whatever, and I just need to get my share of this growing pie. Well, we’re now back in the world that I remember from the nineties, and 2000. I remember from my father telling stories of business in the eighties seventies sixties. We are now back in that that realm where the discretionary income being assigned to things like cleaning or what is now being allocated more strategically by homeowners again. I don’t care if they say inflation’s only at 3% or 5% or whatever. We know our grocery bills have doubled. We know our van lease payments have doubled. We know our mortgages have gone up.

John Clendenning [00:29:54]:
We seal. We know the cost of labor has gone through the roof because we’ve got a shrinking we’ve got a growing older population, baby boom, first time in human history where the actual bubble is in the middle and moving its way to older age. So we’ve now got a labor shortage problem that means prices of labor go up even if we’re not as profitable. And we’re really running into a situation where it is survival of the fittest. You survive and thrive by really dialing in, like, in the message. Like, the people with the affluent people with more money have less issues whether they paid $500 for cleaning or $1,000 for cleaning because it happened once a year, and they bring home 20, 30, 40,000 a month or whatever. You know, just household income. It’s an entirely different conversation than the family that lives on 60 or 80,000 a year, take home after taxes is a percentage of that.

John Clendenning [00:30:49]:
And all of their other bills and mortgage included went up. They have to still think about Tommy and Sally’s college or university education and wedding and, like, saving for those things. And they’re going, where’s the money coming from? Let’s not worry about the carpet cleaning. And it’s becoming more of a doggy dog, and we’re starting to see it. And I think it’s just gonna get worse because this isn’t a temporary transition. This is a massive shift back to the way things kinda worked where the best win, and you fight for for setting your company apart, and you can’t get away with showing up John and a t shirt with a magnet on the side of your van anymore, and just saying, well, my my my Facebook ads work. It’s just not sustainable.

Michael Clevenger [00:31:29]:
Right.

John Clendenning [00:31:29]:
Right? So speaking of that, if we like, so you obviously have a different message. You have a different clientele. You’re in a marketplace that has a good, like, again, retirees and good volume of them, and you like, everything aligns beautifully well for you, and you teach your students how to do that in their marketplace as well. What does what did the transition of marketing as you started finding these better clients? How did how did the transition into, not the everybody everything for everybody marketing, but to, hey, this is a unique crowd and marketing is still the same thing. I get to get the message in front of my ideal target in the medium that they see it in. Referrals, referral partners, neighborhoods, you know, more of that personal touch and less of that mass plaster touch. What how did that look prior to the you thinking through this process of changing your pricing and moving through to just that one high end package? And how does it look now as a marketing mix that that really keeps that crowd knowing who you Carpet? And only that crowd and the rest of them could you could care less about.

Michael Clevenger [00:32:37]:
Yeah. It’s all in the language, that you project Yeah. Through through your marketing, but then also how you how you talk and how you even attract those clients. So in this migration, in this learning process, I got to, and, actually, I’m I’m developing a module in our training program called the VIP client anatomy

John Clendenning [00:33:05]:
Okay.

Michael Clevenger [00:33:06]:
Which is going deep John what it is that the VIP client wants, where they live, how they buy, where they shop, all all of that stuff.

John Clendenning [00:33:16]:
Their fears, their desires Yes. Things to keep them awake at night. Yeah. The whole client avatar really dived.

Michael Clevenger [00:33:22]:
Yeah. Absolutely. And price is so far down the list on on on their their minds that a lot of us carpet cleaners have a hard time even relating to that type of thinking. Right? Yep. So, I found out that by advertising alongside the Masters, which I call the red ocean. Right?

John Clendenning [00:33:45]:
The difference

Michael Clevenger [00:33:46]:
between the red ocean and the blue ocean. Yeah. Advertising in the same medias, the same language, price advertising, 20% off this, trying to to bait them, I I call it Yep. By throwing out these deals. Right? Offering deals. Yep. I found that that is the type of client you’re gonna attract. If you win a client over on price or a deal Yeah.

Michael Clevenger [00:34:11]:
You’re gonna lose them on price or the next great deal. Right? So start speaking the language of the type of client you John attract. Yes. So I figured out that the VIP client wants to be referred to us by a trusted source. Yep. They some of them do go on Google, and you can develop a great footprint as you have mastered. Right? I e, perfect cleaning masters.

John Clendenning [00:34:41]:
Yeah. Yep. Your your your reputation like, we we start with I and again, years ago, we start with reputation marketing because it was what I I realized the exact thing you did through the 2000 and then, like, the the mid the early 2000 and then the after 2010 to 2020 and the the dawn of the Internet as the as sort of, like, the place that has people’s attention. Okay. Where do again, you and I align on so many things. It’s like, where do you find that ideal client in this medium? How does it play into the mix? Because you still need the interior designers, the maid services, and all these referring you. I have a big part of the marketing that that I’ve always done in my own business, was for me to go for lunch and go to the BNIs and the chambers and find the people that actually have a congregation of my ideal client around them that they can then speak about me to their to their audience because they’re like I even found it down the road. It became the, I am trying to remember the name right now, April.

John Clendenning [00:35:43]:
And it was she owned a, a hair salon. And I met her at a at a an event. She’s, oh, John, I wanna try you guys out. Blah blah blah. I came to realize she owned a hair salon in the high end area of town and was charging, like, massive prices and had all the, you know, the the housewives of Beverly Hills crowd kind of as her clientele. And I went to her and said, you’re never paying for carpet cleaning for me again. Like, we are cleaning your house for free. Why are you doing this, John? Because and I’m honestly gonna give you money because you’re gonna refer us.

John Clendenning [00:36:14]:
You love us. Right? Yeah. You love the experience. We roll out the red Carpet. We’re the booties. We we do built a client experience in your home. We have our risk reversal guarantee. If there’s anything they’re not happy with, not only they get a Cleaner and their money back, if they can find anyone else to get a cleaner, we’ll pay their bill.

John Clendenning [00:36:27]:
We go over and above, a, because our prices are high enough, we can easily afford that. But also and afford the best technicians, but you have no risk referring us at all at all. And you know that. So can we put a little sign by your till? Can I start putting some things in your your mailings, in your handouts, and all of that kind of stuff that you Carpet referring us as your choice to your clientele? And if they anybody brings it up while the you know, in the room, the girls are cutting hair and you’re you’re in there doing some hair and somebody says, oh, yeah. I’m looking for a carpet cleaner. Mention us. Absolutely, John. Right? And that became just outside of the norm of carpet flooring stores and interior designers and real estate agents that work in that that realm.

John Clendenning [00:37:09]:
Now it was like, okay. Can I think of other people that have my crowd? Yes. Elves. Right? Became Mercedes dealerships and

Michael Clevenger [00:37:16]:
Yeah. You you’re right, though. You have to speak that language.

John Clendenning [00:37:19]:
Yeah.

Michael Clevenger [00:37:20]:
Like you like you did with your your yellow page ad. Right? You right from the gate. Right? So you you get a a cleaner to to raise their hand through Internet Marketing. Yep. And the minute a client clicks into their world Yep. The the language needs to speak that I’m different than the rest of the group.

John Clendenning [00:37:43]:
Yeah. Absolutely.

Michael Clevenger [00:37:44]:
Yeah. No price advertising. No talking about discounts. It’s it’s starting with why. That’s one of the things I teach my students is how to effectively tell your unique story through your marketing and communicate your why you’re in business. Because like Simon Sinek says in his book, Start With Why Yeah. People don’t buy what we do. They buy why we do it.

Michael Clevenger [00:38:09]:
Right?

John Clendenning [00:38:09]:
I call that the founder story. It’s the exact same thing, but it’s like, what is your I and sometimes some of our clients going, well, because I had Stanley Steemer in the house, they Carpet me a $120 and I went, that guy was only here an hour. I wanna make a $120 an hour and I go, okay. We’re gonna have to come up with a totally different story than that because that was not a good one. But there’s God, did your father do this? Because we literally unpack it and all of a sudden there is actually a story you can pull out. But you had you better come up like the the the fellow that says my daughter had allergies. I like we had a new baby in the home, and by the time she was 3 or 4, she was on puffers and meds and all this. She had allergies.

John Clendenning [00:38:43]:
And I started learning about cleaning for health. And I started hiring and interviewing cleaners that knew about it and hiring people in that would clean the home. I put an air purification system in and stuff like that. And I got to the point where realizing that if I kept the, you know, kept the carpet in the home, but let it collect the, you know, and because I started learning about that, and all this, and did a proper cleaning process and all this. I she could be on less medication and less puffers, and she was a healthier child. And it got me thinking. I I ended up getting laid off from my Carpet, and I decided I needed to do something else. And I thought, why not cleaning? Like, I’ve literally heard that story.

John Clendenning [00:39:18]:
It wasn’t it’s not one of our clients, but I’ve heard that I remember hearing that story, like, a decade ago from a a fellow in the industry. And I’m going, that should be like, he wasn’t telling it other than the odd person that asked. And I’m going, that is your marketing message. That is your home page of your website. That is your door hanger. Not 3 rooms in a hall for $99. Hi. I’m a dad just like, you know, and a father and a husband.

John Clendenning [00:39:39]:
Just like, you know, you know, and a family man. Just like you in the home here. I John tell you why I wanna be your carpet cleaner. By the way, you’re not gonna notice any discounts or prices, you know, price adjustments here. I actually do the job right. I guarantee this, and we do it at a reasonable price. Give us a call if you John know what that’s all about. We’ll come into your home.

John Clendenning [00:39:54]:
We’ll measure. We’ll talk about it. And if you’re a good fit for us and we’re a good fit for you, we wanna be your cleaner for life. Yeah. How is that not a totally different message in the Marketing? Totally. Right?

Michael Clevenger [00:40:04]:
Totally different feel. Totally different message. And you they you give them that, and this is the other thing that Simon Sinek talks about. You give them that visceral feeling

John Clendenning [00:40:15]:
Yeah.

Michael Clevenger [00:40:15]:
That will will cause them to stay loyal to you even to the point where they’ll suffer inconvenience Yep. To stay your client. Right? I tell this story all the time. If you do everything right, you hit the ball out of the park even if you charge a premium price

John Clendenning [00:40:33]:
Yeah.

Michael Clevenger [00:40:33]:
But you you click all the boxes of of delivering your why and an outstanding or, the book that’s that’s called Unreasonable Hospitality. Right? If you deliver that to the client, that experience, then the next time they call, it could literally be this scenario where someone is calling. You’ve you’ve let them up to their cleaning anniversary. It’s month 11. Yep. You’ve you’ve set them up that next month is their cleaning anniversary, but they have company coming. Yeah. So they call and get on your schedule a month early, and some emergency happens in your life where you can’t go out to do the cleaning.

Michael Clevenger [00:41:14]:
Yeah. If you’ve set everything up correctly, they will suffer inconvenience, which which means they’ll put off the cleaning till after their company’s gone to stay with you.

John Clendenning [00:41:26]:
Yeah. Because they respect you so much and what you’ve built

Michael Clevenger [00:41:29]:
by the end of the day. Yeah. That Harley Davidson created.

John Clendenning [00:41:37]:
Yeah.

Michael Clevenger [00:41:37]:
It’s the same experience that Southwest Airlines created.

John Clendenning [00:41:41]:
Yeah.

Michael Clevenger [00:41:42]:
It’s that visceral feeling that they will stick with you and suffer inconvenience.

John Clendenning [00:41:48]:
Yeah. And that’s so a couple things come out of this that absolutely come out of these these interviews, and one of them is you’ve mentioned, you’ve mentioned several books already. And one of the big tenants that I realized is, you know, we know readers are Cleaner, and learning from the experience of others and not being you know, it’s a terrible word, but, marketing incest. Not being so transfixed about your industry that all the all my competitors are doing this. I have to do this. Outside of it, you know, what’s the guy that’s selling lobster from Maine all the you know, to the coast of California doing to get, you know, people buying, you know, at 3 times the price, or it’s 5 times, 10 times the price of the grocery store because of story they’re telling about why they should ship this cooler pack. What’s that guy doing that you can learn for your carpet cleaning business? You won’t know until you read and learn and study and ponder. And we are the owners of the business, not the technicians.

John Clendenning [00:42:50]:
If you wanna work at a carpet cleaning company, you’ll probably make a pretty decent income being a carpet Cleaner. In today’s day and age, we we’re paying our guys $70,000 a year with bonuses and commissions. Nowadays, that would be close to 80 or 90. Just as a technician. Right? If you wanna make that money, go work for somebody else who runs a good company. If you wanna build a carpet cleaning business, you have to think of being the visionary, the marketer, the strategist of the cleaning company. You gotta be the entrepreneur. You gotta read the books.

John Clendenning [00:43:19]:
You gotta put the tapes in or the CDs or podcast nowadays and listen between jobs and, you know, you go out for a walk with, you know, on your own to reflect at night and with the dog or whatever, by all means, you better be listening to something that is feeding your brain, personal development or business development because it all just starts weaving together and you get these light bulb moments that would never have happened. So

Michael Clevenger [00:43:44]:
Absolutely. Totally totally agree with you.

John Clendenning [00:43:47]:
Yeah. So let’s, let’s talk about I think we’ve we’ve again, there’s been a lot of golden nuggets, and, hopefully, the people listening to this really understand that, again, we didn’t know each other until about a year ago. Not maybe not even that. Not like that. I’ve I’ve seen you around in circles and stuff like that, but didn’t kinda get a chance to touch base. And when the first time we talked, it was like, dude, dude, we’re, like, so aligned. It’s like it’s, you know, it’s brothers from a different mother. But, explain a little bit about explain a little bit about, so the the coaching program you keep talking about is Rising Academy.

John Clendenning [00:44:15]:
Right? And

Michael Clevenger [00:44:16]:
Rising Cleaners Academy.

John Clendenning [00:44:17]:
Marketing Cleaners Academy. Talk a little bit about that for anybody who’s interested as well. Because again, yeah, we do marketing based on this premise always because we want our clients we take there are clients we have that are our lower end, and we work on them and work on them to move it up and stuff like that. It’s totally different marketing. When it’s a higher end client, like even something as simple as Facebook ads, if you’re doing a discount ad, Facebook’s algorithm knows who slows down, who clicks on it. And next thing you know, your ads are being shown to that. The AI is going, oh, it’s this end of town. It’s these rental people.

John Clendenning [00:44:49]:
It’s these you know, they all just want discount, discount, discount. And everybody goes, well, why are my ads getting all these tire kickers and and and this kind of stuff? If you run Facebook ads the other way, where you’re telling your founder story, where you show pictures of your family, and you’re just it it it again, do you turn the ad on and get calls day 1? No. It’s now you’re teaching the algorithm to go. No. My clients are over there, and the ones that slow down and read the story and click through and wanna learn more end up on my website and get followed up with messages. Hey. Thanks so much for opting in for that guide on how to have a healthy home or whatever. Let me tell you why I started this business, why we’re different, and why we wanna be your cleaner.

John Clendenning [00:45:27]:
And you speak that language. You can still do that with good marketing. It’s just you dial in the algorithms. Nowadays, we can’t pick the audience any as easily anymore. So you let the algorithm go, oh, the person that actually clicked and clicked through, we just keep teaching it as a marketer. This is the better crowd. You know, you upload a list of your clients and say, find other people that look like them. There’s there’s ways you can still play with these platforms a little bit.

John Clendenning [00:45:51]:
Even local service ads, you can play with the platform a bit that it only shows your ads to the better and better and better client over time. So it’s not a one and done fix. There’s no rescuing a business, but 3 months, 6 months, 9 months, 12 months, you know, 15 months, 18 months, 24 months, it is just getting stronger and stronger and stronger till it becomes, like, just a pipeline to the very best area in John. And that’s the only one that sees your ads.

Michael Clevenger [00:46:12]:
So Exactly. It’s it’s like a it’s like a ship getting out of the the harbor, like a cruise ship. Right? Yep. It it takes a lot of time and inertia and the most energy Yeah. Getting up to speed. Right? But but once you get through that initial, tough part Yep. You know, you you have to experience a little bit of altitude a little bit of, turbulence before you come to a comfortable altitude. Right? Yep.

Michael Clevenger [00:46:42]:
Once it gets going, then then it’s like a flywheel. You you can’t stop it, and it’s running on its own.

John Clendenning [00:46:48]:
And then you sell the flywheel. The flywheel is the thing that you can exit.

Michael Clevenger [00:46:51]:
You can. Yep. Or pass it on to

John Clendenning [00:46:53]:
Or pass it on to a family member or whatever with the next

Michael Clevenger [00:46:56]:
what I’m doing. I’m passing my business onto my son. He’s gonna be getting married in October. Yep. And so Aiden is gonna be taking over the cleaning monkey, and how proud this make me as a dad, right, that I that all my blood and sweat has created

John Clendenning [00:47:12]:
A legacy.

Michael Clevenger [00:47:13]:
Life for him. Yep. So I wanna pass that John to other cleaners, but it does come down in the trenches to how you communicate with your audience. You want your marketing to be attracting the VIP client. Yeah. While repelling the pressure.

John Clendenning [00:47:32]:
Yeah. Yeah. You actually you actually don’t even wanna have the conversation if if at all possible. Yeah.

Michael Clevenger [00:47:36]:
A lot of people don’t realize that you don’t have to fishnet everybody. Matter of

John Clendenning [00:47:40]:
fact, you can’t. Good.

Michael Clevenger [00:47:42]:
Yeah. You can’t fishnet everybody. Right. So the the program that I’ve created, it’s not for everybody. Yep. It is for that cleaner, that is either a single truck owner operator or a multi truck family business. Yep. 3 of our students, own, multi truck family business.

Michael Clevenger [00:48:04]:
K. K.

John Clendenning [00:48:05]:
One

Michael Clevenger [00:48:05]:
of them is the general manager of a 3 truck operation. In the 1st 6 months on the program Yeah. They added added 6 or a a $100,000 in revenue Mhmm. With our strategies, just just our price strategies. Right? And they were able to buy a brand new truck and truck mount cash. That was one of our greatest success stories, and we’re only a year old, the the coaching program.

John Clendenning [00:48:31]:
Yeah.

Michael Clevenger [00:48:32]:
But it’s for it’s for cleaners that want to break out of the land of average. They want they’re they’re committed to being different, raising the bar, being will being coachable. That that’s the other thing that our industry has an epidemic of is so many guys think they can do it on their own. And if you look at any like you had mentioned in the outset, if you look at any extraordinary successful person, they have a coach or a mentor. Yep. Michael Jordan had a coach or a mentor. Yep. Grant Cardone has a coach and a mentor.

Michael Clevenger [00:49:10]:
Yep. Great Tony Robbins of all people has a coach and a mentor. Right? So so there’s not one person Yeah. That has achieved ultra success and did it all on their own. Yep. So so who are we Yep. As little carpet Cleaner think that we could do that. Yeah.

Michael Clevenger [00:49:33]:
Right? So even

John Clendenning [00:49:34]:
those eye opening moments that you had in your whole story that we talked about to this point was you kind of fell backwards into coach and mentors and and and then realize what you didn’t know and needed to hire them and kind of your whole journey has been around learning new things from people that can impart the knowledge to you. So it makes sense that you’ve come full circle and going, you’re now at a position to be one of those.

Michael Clevenger [00:49:57]:
Yep. Yep. Absolutely. And and that and that’s what that’s what has given me such satisfaction. I mean, it’s very satisfying running a successful cleaning business. Yeah. But to teach others how to

John Clendenning [00:50:11]:
Oh, yeah.

Michael Clevenger [00:50:12]:
Changes their lives, that that has been amazing. So pretty much, it it it works the strategies work for really any company that services the residential customer.

John Clendenning [00:50:24]:
Yeah.

Michael Clevenger [00:50:25]:
Marketing, though, with the carpet cleaning and the floor cleaning crowd. Yep. And we’re we’re we’re establishing social proof. We’re establishing that the program works. And now we celebrate our 1 year anniversary actually this month

John Clendenning [00:50:40]:
Oh, perfect.

Michael Clevenger [00:50:41]:
Which is very exciting. And, every what we’ve proven is that every student that commits to the program Yep. Does does and I and I have exact scripts on exactly how to talk to the client from the initial phone call. Yeah. First of all, your the language in your messaging, Yep. And then even

John Clendenning [00:51:10]:
your follow-up, you’ve got, like is it weekly, I think, is your once you’ve got once the client’s locked in, people go like, I used to say that we talk to our a list clients 40 8 times a year in our marketing with different message, different this is even before the really before the days of email. It was like there was mailing, there was phone calls and stuff before text messaging even. We would our a list clients, we divide our clients, and we knew which you know, the ones that we wanted to stay in touch with were almost weekly in the different campaigns and the different and the monthly print newsletter that showed up that had nothing to do with carpet Cleaner, but and it was from me, the desk of John Clendenning, not from my business. The business was just the byline at the bottom, but let me tell you good helpful tips for around the home. Like, we called a bathroom reading, but people would when they got kicked off of our newsletter list, they cried. We get people going, I know I haven’t used you in 3 years or 4 years or whatever our kickoff point we’d send them a letter. This is your last edition. We haven’t seen you, you know.

John Clendenning [00:52:03]:
And it’s like, I’d really like to stay on the newsletter, Lo. And it’s like, yeah. Sometimes we just okay, missus missus Jones because she’s 90 now, and she really didn’t want the the the the sofa Cleaner this year or whatever. But more often than not, yeah, just get it back in the home, do a cleaning, and you’re back on the list again. Right? So, those kinds of things. So, yeah, like, your message comes from tip to tail. Right? So

Michael Clevenger [00:52:25]:
All the way all the way to to your stay in touch program. Yeah. We we teach, cleaners how to separate themselves

John Clendenning [00:52:34]:
Yeah.

Michael Clevenger [00:52:34]:
Be different So essential. Give give that home run service experience to where, in 2, 3, 5 years from now, your business is full of VIP loyal clients that are using you every year, and the majority of your income is coming from repeats and referrals. Yeah. Yep.

John Clendenning [00:52:55]:
Brilliant. So how do they get a hold of you? Where where do you get them to go to just kinda learn a little bit about rising, Rising Cleaning Academy?

Michael Clevenger [00:53:02]:
Rising Cleaner academy.com

John Clendenning [00:53:05]:
Perfect.

Michael Clevenger [00:53:05]:
Is, that is a sort of an intro Yep. Audio video that talks about the 3 main mistakes that most cleaners are making and how to fix those. And then it allows you to book a call with me if if they want. Also, I’m on social media, Michael Clevenger. I’m in Cleaners Connect. Yeah. They can message me. They can they can, message me privately or they can call me even right on my cell phone, 623 229-1032.

Michael Clevenger [00:53:38]:
I’m a transparent

John Clendenning [00:53:40]:
keep the book open. Yep. Yeah. It’s awesome. Well, I appreciate I’m glad we jumped on this call. I’m sure we’ll have many more because we could unpack any one of those topics probably for hours. Yes. And it’s just helpful to the industry at large, the ones that tap into what we do, the ones that tap into what you do.

John Clendenning [00:53:56]:
We’ve got there’s some clients that have, you know, found us and found you and found you and found us and stuff like that because we speak the same language. And we’ve just got a I’ve I’ve done it for 30 years. We got a digital way of helping out in the in the marketing as well, but we do tell them go back and start with your foundation first. Like, you’ve gotta start filling getting your language right and getting your scripting right and getting because it the marketing doesn’t doesn’t work without that. And if you can raise your prices, Dan Kennedy has always said as well, he who can, you know, spend the most to maintain a client, get a client to maintain a client wins. And you can spend the most because you’re making more and more and more, and it still becomes a smaller and smaller fraction of your your revenue, to to key land and then build the fence around and keep those clients. And you’re do every like, I guarantee there’s people listening to this going, I can’t believe that you would be marketing people that much or you’d be you know, your database and, you know, mailing and there’s some people that don’t even I when’s the last time you mailed your database, called your database today? Yes. I don’t know.

John Clendenning [00:54:57]:
So let alone, they don’t even realize the database is the most important asset they have. Yes. And then now, they don’t even understand how how many touches people get before 10, 20% or less get annoyed. And again, that benchmark, all those little nuggets we shared. So yeah. By all means, reach out to Michael. Go check his stuff out. See if it’s right fit for you.

John Clendenning [00:55:16]:
It’s the message we’ve always said, and I think the economy is changing to the point now where it sounds a little harsh, but it is kind of back to punch your competitor in the throat and steal their customers kind of economy a little bit. At least target your crowd that you want and make sure that nobody else goes after them. And that’s how you will survive any changes in the, you know, in the discretionary income of the middle, you know, the lower middle class and the middle class because you’re targeting the upper middle and upper class. And that crowd will be more than enough to sustain you through any hardships. So anyways, thanks, Michael. I really appreciate you jumping on. Hopefully, people got value out of this. As always, kind of, you know, give us a comment and then whatever platform you’re listening to this on, let us know what you thought.

John Clendenning [00:56:01]:
And, and I’ll I’ll pass it on to Michael as well. Anything that comes in on those platforms, and we really appreciate everybody jumping on. And thanks so much. Take care.