Joe Burnich

House Cleaning is a competitive market.  We Clean In Overland Park has really hammered in on the market and is putting in the long term effort of being the head of the game with a nice strategic focus on the industry.  We see a lot of people basically come into the industry whether it’s house cleaning or carpet cleaning but they end up quitting in only a few months because they’re not dominating the market.  Let’s be realistic and admit that nothing comes easy and nothing happens immediately either.  I love it when I see companies stick with it and plow forward focusing on being at the top of Google, being that go to person eventually, and networking constantly to make sure everyone knows who you are and what you do.

We Clean Kansas of Overland Park KS has a great business and they do everything from house cleaning to upholstery cleaning.  They work with local business’s and realtors and enjoy what they are doing.  They stay busy and trust me this company doesn’t solely rely on some SEO guy to make their phones ring.  They are out there networking and doing other marketing as well to ensure their phones ring.  Getting clients is hard work and to me getting clients in this business is one of the hardest because first and fore most these people have to trust you in their homes!  Marketing is a different game when you have to appeal to people in that sort of sense.  Marketing always changes and one thing I’ve found over the years and highlighting your family on your sites and giving them a reason to trust you.  For instance putting a video or picture on your site has become an important thing in this industry.  Let’s face it customers worry about who is going to knock on that door when you come and appearance is huge!

Technology and business have become interwoven. I hear from a lot of people that they’re scared of Facebook and Mobile Phones. They don’t want to do it and they don’t like it. Here is the problem with this. The next generation grew up with the internet, Facebook, had a cell phone by the age of ten and this generation is beginning to buy houses, have families, and become a large majority of your consumer base. Let’s look at some facts and let the numbers speak for themselves.

Individuals born between 1980 and the early 2000’s, meaning people around the age of 28, are buying homes! According to the National Association of Realtors they said 28% of the homes sold last year were to people in this age group.   I bought my home at 28 as well, and so did a lot of my other friends and I am 30 now and I’m the only one that hasn’t had a child yet. Thus meaning the majority of these 28 year olds are also starting a family after they buy. Of course, every area is different but why not cover all your bases and we should never ignore this younger crowd that could bring in income for you.

If you read study after study one thing people always agree on is that the digital age will continue to radically reshape and change business. I think business owners that are ignoring technology and that are refusing to learn or ask questions are being smug and neglectful. I understand people are frustrated with Social Media and the fact that people search for things on their smart phones rather than looking it up in a phone book but let’s face the facts we’re never going back to phone books and a world without Facebook and Google! That life sucked! I love my iPhone and I’m not afraid to say it.

So, I remember being a kid and we got our new computer and then Internet arrived and we hooked the phone cord up to this mighty Gateway. We installed the AOL cd and then anxiously awaited the Dial and the sound of the chhhhh—eeeerrrrrr—-and then “Welcome, You’ve Got Mail”. What! We have mail and have never been on the Internet yet? I’m so excited! Then to read the Welcome Message from AOL and then I was free to cruise the World Wide Web. What a dream? How was this suddenly there? How did this image appear magically in this space that was coming through a phone cord? It was utterly mind-boggling! I started playing around with web design with this thing called Angel Fire. I eventually got a fan base that wanted to check out photos of Hollywood’s Hottest Hunks. My website was not informational at all it just contained pictures of all the movie star guys I had crushes on. My mother said I was wasting my time and that the Internet will soon be an old fad that will lose steam. How wrong was she, the only thing that aged and lost steam was Jonathan Taylor Thomas and some of the other hunks that are dinosaurs now.

As I grew older my homework assignments contained Internet Projects. I loved “My Space.” This was a great way to check out what my friends and to see what they were doing and I could listen to their favorite song.

 “Why won’t you load My Space!? Why?”

And then in College I was taking classes in school and online. And then this awesome social club emerged and became a hit and it was so much better than that “My Space” that was now only for children.

Goodbye High School !

         Hello College Life!

 My Space is sooooo ancient and “un-cool“!

    Hello Facebook!

Where have you been all of my life?  

And within ten years I couldn’t imagine a life without the Internet. Once I graduated from college and began my day-to-day life cell phones were also changing. My first was a gigantic one that had horrible service and soon as things evolved I had a flip phone and then the evolution came to smart phones! Wow, I can be in town and check my Facebook! I can get an Alert that gives me breaking CNN News? I can Google whatever I want and need and receive an immediate answer! A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!

I guess what I’m getting at is that I’ve lived through this technological advancement that has changed the world! It’s progress and it’s going to stick around and yes SEO is something you need to remain on top in Google however I believe Social Media will one day be the arch nemesis you’ll be regretting that you ignored. My generation does not want to go back to a world without Facebook, Smart Phones, and Google! So, get use to it. And the ugly truth is the generations below me are even worse and are more dependent on technology than use 30 year olds.

My advice? Take Social Media courses and other technology courses that are offered at local community colleges in your area. Trust me, it will help and make you feel a little bit better about life and technology. And the majority of people in those courses are people like my mother for instance that shunned Facebook and everything social on the Internet and then suddenly as I showed her more and gave her some Facebook lessons she evolved into a witty savvy Internet and Facebook gal. And she loves it! I say stop shunning technology and embrace it!

Facebook
*Make Sure You Are Friends With The Person You Want to be an Admin Before you do the following
Steps.

1) Click On You Facebook Business Page
2) Click On Settings
3) Select Page Roles
4) Type in The Name of the Person You Are Wanting On as an Admin.
This is will make it so we can manage/post facebook page.

The following three key factors is what I am going to focus on:

1. Offer Value.
2. Be different.
3. Change Consumers Minds

This year we experienced a viral phenomenon that will be taught in Social Media and Marketing Courses for years to come. In the beginning the goal was said to be unrealistic and was viewed as just a joke. However, this unrealistic goal would soon raise over $100 Million dollars and it quickly became a Social Media gold mine. This is the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.   Many of you may have done it as well and know exactly what I’m talking about. Yes, you may be a small business and don’t believe you can acquire much engagement and don’t really know where to start with using Facebook but I’m going to make an attempt to get your hopes up.

Offering Value:

Offer Something! Make people feel like it’s worth it to Like the Page and to Engage in something. Give discounts! Go on Pinterest and find new fun homemade cleaners, spot removers, and projects and post the ideas on Facebook. Always remember to have photographs because that’s the first thing that will catch someone’s attention and remember to always add your website so people know where to go to find out more about you. You may say, “Well, that’s in the About Section so I don’t really need to worry about it.” Wrong! People don’t look for things and we all want instant gratification. That’s advertising right? Instant gratification and longevity is a successful marketing campaign.

One of the best marketing campaigns was in 1960 with the Volkswagen ad. People had a bad perception about the car being a “lemon” and about the group of people who liked the car. American’s were also buying big American cars at the time and they didn’t want a German vehicle. So, the ad came out and it was a little black Volkswagen towards the upper left of the blank background and at the bottom it read, “Think small.” This campaign changed the company and kept them going. This leads me into my Second point I want to focus on being different…

Be Different:

So, Volkswagen was facing a horrible time as a company. After World War Two nobody was going to buy a German Car right? On top of that cars at that time were peoples way of flaunting their money and success so they wanted big flashy American cars. That’s what every car ad was as well. Car ads depicted people in their big cars and focused on advertising the flashy and big American Car. Volkswagen did the opposite. The showed consumers the advantages of having a small car and they capitalized on it. We’re in a market where there are tons of other companies doing the same thing we are so research! Go to everyone’s Facebook pages that have the same business as you and look at what they’re doing right and what they’re doing wrong. And then do something completely different!

I use to work at an animal shelter and I managed their Social Media and they wanted me to post about the dogs that needed to be rescued and it was all very generic and NOT FUN! So, I went onto every animal shelter’s Facebook pages and they were all depressing! I was working at an animal shelter that was really focusing on changing their reputation in the community as well because they were only known for being the place that kills animals. The shelter wasn’t like that. The employees had a ton of fun and a lot of animals were being adopted but no body knew about it. So, I started taking pictures of people and their new pet and posting it on Facebook. All of a sudden the Post Likes and Page Likes soared because people would rather see happy endings than this “dog has only 12 days left”. So, think different!

If you want to participate in Social Media have fun with it and make it count.

Change Consumers Minds:

This “Think Small” campaign for an example did just that and Volkswagen became the best selling car of all time by 1991. So, lets take a carpet cleaner for an example and let’s find ways of changing people’s perception of this industry being a boring topic. I searched carpet cleaners Facebook pages and saw the majority of everyone is posting before and after pictures of carpet. What I saw mostly is no one had any Likes on any of their posts. I can kind of see that I mean I’m on Facebook and I see clean carpet and I think oh that’s nice and I probably am just going to keep scrolling down the page.

I know only 10% of your fan base see these posts but lets change this. I did see 30 Likes on a post of the company’s office dog. I’d probably think the dog was so cute I’d hit like on that. I did see 67 Likes on a post of the company’s truck broken down and they snapped a photo of the difficulty they were having. I’d probably say I’ve been there and I’d Like it. What I kept seeing is that people liked the posts showing the workers and owners throughout their workday. They liked posts of kids helping dad roll up a rug or vacuum.

So, let us change consumer’s minds if you will about carpet cleaners. What do people fear from this industry? They fear you will come into their home and charge them double what your estimate was. They fear they won’t be able to trust you in their home. They fear you don’t know what you’re doing. What changes people’s perspectives on this? I believe it’s appearance, reviews, and integrity. How do we delegate that to consumers?

Let’s face it people are Facebook spies and when I hired a cleaner I went to their Facebook page and attempted to go to their personal profile to see who they were. A lot of the cleaners didn’t even have a privacy setting on their personal profile so I was able to look at their newsfeed. I hired the family guy with pictures of his kids and animals. Who I didn’t hire? I didn’t hire the guy that had posts of hateful things about the president, posts of girls “gone wild”, posts with anything disrespectful towards women, animals, or our country in any way. Here’s what I’m getting at if you want to do those things have two different Facebook profiles (one for whatever you want and one just as a business owner) and set your privacy settings correctly!

Get over the attitude of Privacy and how everyone’s spying on you so you hate social media blah, blah…and blah! Let’s start at, guess what you are a business owner so act like an adult and play the game. Get over yourself and begin to realize that your consumer base wants to know who you are. People want to buy local and support companies they want to stick around. This is why your image is important. Social Media has changed the way we do business and we have to accept that. And I say Capitalize on it! Stop hating it and embrace it.

Follow these steps to ensuring not everyone in the whole world see’s you doing shots at a party last Saturday:

Privacy Settings:

• Log into your personal account and in the top right is a triangle pointing down – click on that.
• Select Settings.
• On the left Select Privacy.
• Follow/Answer the questions.

The greatest thing about this company that makes you want to support them and give them business is that the workers are all Veteran’s that have served our country.  Who else would you trust to come into your home?  The company trains there workers and helps people coming out of the military work and build a life here.  They want to help the community and make sure everyone feels safe and sound with them in their homes and handling their customers carpet and upholstery needs.  We like seeing people working on all levels in the marketing world.  For instance this company is great at getting out there and talking with people and they understand that is needed in such an industry where new people are coming and going.  If you want to stick around in any business networking is a huge “piece of the pie”.

Veteran’s Carpet Care is clearly shown they will stay in this business and be successful at it.  I think we all see the business’s that come and go and it’s nice to see these guys pull it together and make it work.  For me in marketing it’s important to bring together networking, strategic focus, and marketing yourselves not only on the internet but in other areas as well.  You can never depend solely on the internet and Google – yes it’s important and yes it gets you jobs but you can not succeed with only that.  So, it’s nice to see this company bring it all together and have success!  Congrats On Making Our Cleaner’s Spotlight!

Click this link to request information: 

Click Here to download the Job-Getter Blueprint

Click Here to download the sample Job-Getter Flyer

Here is something I used to use for my own carpet cleaning business to get referrals and set myself apart from the competition. Thanks to John in Australia for reminding me. Happy Labor 2014!!

Click Here To Download The FREE Graphic!

So this video is all about picking up your phone and booking more jobs. This is so so important…way more important that you think. What if you increased your jobs by just 20% because you tweaked for phone skills that could easily add up to an extra 5, 10 or even 15 thousand dollars per year depending on your volume, upsells pricing etc. So takes notes this is important stuff.

Real quick I want to tell you where I’m coming from. A while back I had a single day where I had to call 30+ carpet cleaners in response to a product launch I had on the ProCleaners Network. I was blown away by how poor the phone skills were. Only half of the guys even picked up their phone.

I’ve had several jobs in the past that involved Customer Service and Phone Sales and I guess I just took it for granted that phone skills were common sense. But when I think back on my old jobs we were always having some kind of training involving phone skills and the stuff really worked. So I’m going to break down what I’ve learned and what I applied to my own Carpet Cleaning business of 5 years.

1. Just Pick it Up – No excuses – if you need work then pick up the phone. I know you don’t want to pick up the phone during the job. Or if you in the middle of something else, but if your a one man show then you need to pick up the phone. Even on the weekends, even in the evening, even if you don’t feel like it. Of course if your spouse or business partner or someone else besides yourself can pick up the phone that’s ideal, but not always possible. I’ve seen the husband-wife team arrangement and that works really nice, but whoever is in charge of the phone needs to pick it up. The chances of closing a job decrease dramatically if they don’t get you right away. Many people won’t even leave a message. They will just call the next guy and if he picks up then the job is most likely his.

2. Voice mail Setup with a professional message. Now if you absolutely can’t pickup the phone then you need to have a professional voice mail message setup. Make sure you smile on the message– more on that in a minute. Keep it short — less than 15 seconds. VERY IMPORTANT Call people back asap. Check voice mail three times per day. If you wait too long they are gone… on to the next cleaner — I promise.

3. Prepare a simple answering script and stick to it. This will make you sound more professional, confident and get you on and off the phone faster. Have your FAQ ready to go. Having short consistent answers to questions will also make you sound more professional, confident and get you on and off the phone faster.

4. If you do price quotes then have a chart ready to go so your not fumbling for prices, giving inconsistent quotes. etc. I noticed that when I started doing this with my business people were much more responsive because they knew I was professional…giving them real pricing and not just quoting based on my mood or how well I liked their voice or whatever.

Also, If you are just pulling numbers out of your head on the fly then it’s hard to remember what prices you quoted and it just doesn’t sound professional. If you want to really take this to a new level check out my video on package pricing. There is a phone script and a pricing chart that you can download and customize for your business.

5. Smile when you talk. That’s one of the best and easiest things you can do. There have been countless studies by customer services experts and one thing they all agree on is that when you smile it comes through on the phone and ALWAYS ALWAYS results in increased sales and customer satisfaction. Some companies even put mirrors next to the employee phones as a reminder to smile while talking on the phone.

6. Use their name minimum of 2 times — This is another one that has all kinds of research behind it. Using someone’s name at least 2 times will instill trust and make them feel more comfortable doing business with you. After all we like doing business with people we know and trust. I like to use it at the beginning (I always ask there name as early on as possible) and use it once during the conversation and then at the very end “Ok Susan I will see you Tuesday at 1pm”

Ok This may sound like a lot of work, but it’s really not. Just implement these tips one at a time. Once they become habit you won’t even think about them and I promise it will make a HUGE difference.

If you have any tips on phone skills put them in the comments box below. I love to get feedback and know what you guys think. Thanks,

Joe Burnich

Hey guys, here is a real down-to-earth video for all the struggling carpet cleaners out there. The information we present may be “a hard pill to swallow”, but in the end it’s something we all need to hear (including myself).

So I brought on my friend and colleague Deon Bush from The Carpet Cleaning Academy. Deon has been in the business for over 17 years working out of the Los Angeles area. Listen to his NO BS approach to getting new clients.

His philosophy is: Work Hard — No Complaining, No Blaming and No Excuses.

Enjoy!