Cleanfax - January 2012
COVER STORY Marketing For more information on this topic visit www cleanfax com Marketing For more information on related products visit www cleanfax com select Supplier Search from the main navigation bar John Downey is the owner operator of Downeys Carpet Care of Granville in Granville Ohio When hes not scrubbin rug his wife Cecilia lets him help out his brother Tiger owner of Perceptionist an appointment scheduling service for small service businesses www MyPerceptionist com or assist Dr Michael Berry in his efforts to bring science based environmental management practices to the cleaning industry John can be reached at JDowney@ JohnDowneyCo com upholstery cleaning and so on Goliaths business model depends on two things Upselling and a relatively high sales volume Goliath doesnt do the work himself He employs technicians He needs to get enough work to keep several technicians busy in order to earn a good living This means he needs to generate 20 to 30 jobs per day minimum Now lets look at the owner operator David I understand David pretty well because I am he I was also a Goliath at one time Davids business could best be characterized as high touch David is chief cook and bottle washer He schedules the appointments does the work perhaps with a helper and follows up to ensure satisfaction David is of course also in charge of marketing Once an appointment and sales When hes busy he often neglects this aspect of the business which means that he usually only focuses on it when hes not busy Its really not a very has been made the upselling begins good way to handle marketing and sales and he knows it Well return to this aspect of Davids business shortly In contrast to Goliath David only needs to do three or four jobs per day to make a reasonably good living because he does the work himself and consequently enjoys a very high gross margin Most of his business is repeat or referral Once an appointment has been made the upselling begins You see Goliath has no desire to do the job for the special price that prompted the call to schedule the appointment Goliaths office staff and technicians are trained to sell value added services such as deodorizer protector Continued on next page If hes good at what he does hes often booked a week or more in advance M ost experts will tell you that in order to survive in todays carpet cleaning business world you must offer specials and discounts in order to compete with the big boys whose ads dominate the various media Experience tells me that if you are an owner operator hereinafter David the experts would be wrong Not only will that strategy not work it might just cripple your companys ability to effectively set itself apart from the competition especially the big boy competition hereinafter Goliath Business models and differentiation The key to understanding why this is the case is to understand that the Davids of the industry are not in the same business as the Goliaths The Goliaths of our industry for the most part operate a commodity bu s i n e s s m o d e l They know that for many consumers a low price is a strong incentive to buy so they cater to that demand They advertise low prices offering specials sales deals and bargains to entice priceconscious consumers to schedule an appointment CLEANFAX COM JANUARY 2012 CM Cleanfax 25
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