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Marketing Bits eNewsletter

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Welcome to the second edition of the Marketing Bits eNewsletter.

In this issue: 

A revolutionary telecommunications device that can bring in a dramatic increase in winter time business! By Randy Rovang

Yellowing on carpets and rugs? Some answers...  By Gary Heacock

Ask CleaningSuccess.com. By Ron Meyer

Special Features:

The Big Bang Bargain Bin - Special deals on featured products... only available to our subscribers!

Something for Nothing - Selling Packages, from the CleaningSuccess.com Marketing Manual!

What's New? - Big Bang's New Newsletter Content CD!

A revolutionary telecommunications device that can bring in a dramatic increase in winter time business!  By Randy Rovang,

Many successful carpet cleaners across the country are already using this device to find past residential and commercial customers who are once again in need of their services. The device isn't new. You may already own several of them. It's called a telephone. Those that use it properly are already reaping the rewards of it's amazing potential.

You probably already mail postcards, reminder letters or newsletters to your customer list. But did you know that if you follow up the mailing with a phone call, your response will increase dramatically? I know of one carpet cleaner who mailed out 45 postcards to their past commercial customers, then followed up the mailing with a phone call. The result? Over $11,000.00 in extra sales booked for the month. Incredible. It sounds so simple, because it is.

A program of making friendly, casual telephone calls after your reminder mailings is like a faucet that can be turned on or off whenever business is needed. Sales and customer loyalty will increase dramatically. 

Make no mistake though. Calls of this nature are a numbers game. Not everyone that you call will be in need of your services at this time. But, for every "no thank you" you should simply ask when they think they'll be in need of your services in the future. Put their names in a reminder file and call them later.

So, rather than waiting for the phone to ring this winter, pick it up and proactively harvest the business that's already out there. The results will shock you!

If you have any questions about this article, email me at Randy@BigBangMG.com

A Clean Joke...                   

My father and mother were recently celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. While cutting the cake, my mother was moved after seeing my father’s eyes fill with tears.

Mother took his arm, and looked at him affectionately. "I never knew you were so sentimental,” she whispered.

"No, no,” he said, choking back his tears, "that’s not it at all. Remember when your father found us in the barn and told me to either marry you or spend the next 50 years in jail?"

"Yes," my mother replied. “I remember it like yesterday.” 

"Well," said my father, "today I would have been a free man."

Yellowing on carpets and rugs? Some answers.  By Gary Heacock


I have seen yellowing on carpets of all types- 5th generation, of course, 4th generation Antron type, olefin, polyester, acrylic, and on wool. The yellowing appears the same on all types of fibers, and has been removed by me with the same procedure- an acid rinse, and de-foamer, basically. Sometimes followed by bonnet cleaning, sometimes followed by a steam cleaning.

What with seeing the same condition on all types of carpet fibers, I would not call it "dye blocker yellowing," as there were no dye blockers on these other fibers.

Let me separate the two types of yellowing into two separate categories. One appears following the application of water and detergent, or water and some other substance. So I refer to that as "Water Type." It is usually a legal pad colored yellow. The other type appears covering a larger area, and is usually darker yellow than the water type. This second type usually appears under an item sitting flat on the carpet such as a throw rug, or coffee table. I refer to this yellowing as "Fume Type".

Either type can appear on any fiber.

In one case I have seen, with "Water Type" yellowing, where another cleaner cleaned the entire house, and water type yellowing appeared in all of the rooms, and hallways, but not on the stairs.
I examined the flooring under the pad in every room where the yellowing appeared, and it was the same sawdust kind of chipboard. However, because the yellowing did not appear on the stairs, where the flooring was regular plywood, the only answer I see is that the yellowing has only been created where the sawdust type of chipboard was the flooring material.

Therefore, there is something in the sawdust type chipboard flooring that is contributing to the yellowing, that plywood is not.

In these cases, the yellowing is usually heavier lines at the front and back of the wand strokes, and lighter in between the lines, or perhaps does not show at all.

In locations where either the cleaners or the customer used a detergent based spot remover, the yellowing is greatest- usually round, as evidenced by either a spray pattern or poured pattern, with definable edges.

It does not seem to matter if the overall cleaning detergent, or the spot remover is either alkaline, neutral, or acidic. These differing appearances lead me to believe that while the detergent or other chemical applied (even plain water spilled will dissolve some of the soils present, and can change the basic composition of whatever is there) is not the actual cause of the problem, but does bring it to light.

To remove this excess detergent, apply de-foamer, rinse, apply acid type spotter, such as tannin stain remover, rinse, apply carpet protector.

With "Fume Type" of yellowing, if the throw rug or coffee table is simply left off the carpet, or blocked up, to let the fumes escape for a few weeks, the yellowing dissipates without chemicals or other action of any kind.

I think it was Sherlock Holmes who said- "When you eliminate the impossible, what remains, no matter how improbable, is the answer."

Therefore, as I see it, the term "Dye Blocker Yellowing" is impossible if the same yellowing appears on all other materials.

What may seem improbable is that the yellowing is caused by the off-gassing of fumes from the sawdust type of chipboard.

As further apparent proof, I have seen fume type yellowing on a white wool Berber glued directly down to a concrete floor in a basement playroom. The cause here was from the base of a coffee table that was sawdust type chipboard. I instructed the customer to leave the plastic blocks under it, following cleaning. The yellowing dissipated in about six weeks. There were no dye blockers here.

A customer of mine whose business is Indoor Air Quality, and his business deals with the fumes off-gassed from sawdust type chipboard. He is quite familiar with the yellowing problem in other areas. He told me that this kind of chipboard off-gasses for it's entire life. The glues used are based on certain resins. You can smell the gasses given off by this chipboard, if you put your nose close to it.
Therefore, as we learn in the odor control classes- if you can smell it, it is giving off a gas.

Assuming all this is correct, we need to answer three questions.

1. What is the ingredient in the yellow that is common to all cases?

2. Where does it come from?

3. Why did it appear where it did?

I think the answers are-
1.The ingredient common to all cases of yellowing, is the chemicals in the vapors given off by the sawdust type chipboard.
2. Vapors tend to rise and dissipate, unless blocked or made to adhere by some process, to other materials.
3. The fumes or vapors when blocked, build up and become visible, then dissipate when allowed to, by removal of the object blocking them, or build up on material that attracts and holds them such as excess detergent or other chemical residues applied to the fibers.

The excess residues need to be neutralized, and rinsed away, to remove the yellow, and to prevent it's re-appearance. It reminds me of plant washing loose rugs which were rinsed with a soure solution prior to drying.

The only answer I have found to be common to all cases that I have seen is the flooring, or item sitting on the carpet with a chipboard base, which will off-gas the same as the flooring.

On the wall of my living room, where a plaque hung for several years had the identical fume type yellowing from the plaque base, which was the same type of chipboard.

Has any laboratory examined yellowed fibers, looking for the cause from the flooring? I have not heard of it.

Got a yellowing problem? Look at the flooring. I will bet anything that the flooring is sawdust type chipboard. Check it yourself, then call me, or e-mail me. I hope this helps the puzzle somewhat.

A recent case is typical of the fume yellowing. I had lifted the carpet and pad, for a cat urine decontamination job about 4 to 5 feet wide, and about 15 feet long. The flooring was the sawdust type chipboard. It was partially saturated with urine from the cat along the wall, about ten feet long, and 8 to 10 inches wide. The pad was rebond type without a plastic skin, stapled to the floor, without tape between the seams. The carpet was a light blue polyester. There was no yellowing on the face of the carpet.

The back of the carpet, and the top of the pad showed clearly visible yellowing everywhere EXCEPT where the carpet seam tapes were. The seam tapes prevented the gasses given off from the flooring from collecting in these locations. Under the carpet's seam tape on the padding, it was the normal coloration of this type of pad.

Therefore, the yellowing cannot have come from the carpet, as it was not nylon, and there was no protector of any kind applied to it, so the yellowing cannot have come from that, and since there was yellowing on the bottom of the pad, next to the floor, the ONLY place the yellowing could possibly come from IS THE FLOOR.

Gary Heacock, one of the most respected icons in the cleaning industry, can be reached by email at dfrif@juno.com  Visit his website - The Interstellar Crossroads of The Universe - at http://www.heacocks.com for Bio-O-Kleen products, and accessories for the professional carpet cleaner, and for expert cleaning advice.

A Clean Joke...

A man took his Rottweiler to the vet and said "My dog's cross-eyed, is there anything you can do for him?" 

"Well," said the vet, "lets have a look at him." So he picks the dog up and has a good look at its eyes. "Hmm," says the vet, "I'm going to have to put him down" 

"Just because he's cross-eyed?" says the man. 

"No, because he's heavy," says the vet.

Dear CleaningSuccess.Com,

I am considering sending out a thank you letter to residential customers. What should be some key points in the letter?

Thanks,

Leonard B.

Leonard,

Here are some key points to cover -

1) Express your thanks for their biz.

2) Reiterate exactly how you cleaned their carpet and why your cleaning is different and better than your competitions.

3) Remind them to call you immediately in the event they are not happy.

4) It doesn't hurt to suggest they refer you to their friends and neighbors. One thing I've discovered in my biz, though, is suggestions and monetary incentives don't significantly increase referrals in thank you letters. I've been testing this for quite a while, and plan on removing the language encouraging referrals soon. My conclusion is, if a customer is happy with your service, they're gonna refer you anyway, irrespective of whether you suggest it or give them an incentive to do it.

5) One thing you absolutely must do is include a refrigerator magnet in your thank you letter, even if you've already left one on their fridge. That's my honest opinion. Fridge magnets are a large source of business for me, and I like to get as many of them out as possible.

Good luck.

Ron Meyer
www.cleaningsuccess.com

Interested in attracting all the customers you’ll ever need for your carpet cleaning business? Click here…http://www.cleaningsuccess.com/page1.htm

The Big Bang Bargain Bin - Special deals on featured products!

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How are we doing? How can we make it better? We would appreciate your comments - good or bad - about this eNewsletter.  Please send any comments and suggestions to: Randy@bigbangmg.com  Thanks, now go get yourself a cookie!