Protector Sales Declining?

In my conversations with cleaners, and my observations of current trends of protector sales and purchases, its become clear to me that the sales of protector after carpet and upholstery cleaning continue to decline.

Some industry persons point to current economic conditions, but based on what I’ve observed, I believe its much deeper than this.

Consider the events of the past decade. Could it be . . .

Health Issues?
* A “warning letter” is sent to consumers nationwide from a labor group that had a conflict with a major protector manufacturer. Regardless of the motive, it put fear and doubt into the consumers’ minds about protector safety. It also created fear and doubt in the minds of many cleaners!

Lack of Clarity From Carpet Industry?
* Carpet manufacturers state that carpet protector is no longer necessary on carpets made from their new fiber technology, and/or that they incorporate new protector technology at the manufacturing level.

Inferences were made in print, and said verbally by uninformed carpet salespeople that the application of protector might even void a carpet warranty. This obviously impacted consumer purchases of protector, and also frightened cleaners into not offering protector at all; since trying to determine what type of carpet anyone owns is nearly impossible without exhaustive research and availability of documentation.

Cable Advertorials, Pitchmen & Super Guarantees?
* The prevalence of consumer owned carpet cleaning machines and spotting machines have lessened the fear of spills and soiling between professional cleaning.

Changing Marketplace?
*The higher percentage of hard surfaces in homes, thus limiting the amount of available carpet that can have protector applied.

While many of the upscale consumers are experiencing real or imagined financial pressures, I won’t accept the “bad economy factor” as a major contributor to this trend because of increasing sales of hard surface cleaning services, rug cleaning services, and deodorization and decontamination services.

These are, of course, simply my observations and opinions gathered from my experience and perspective. I would appreciate feedback from those who read this regarding your observation of trends in your market area.

Please feel free to email me with the form below:

Not All Upholstery Is Worth Cleaning!

(Don’t Waste Time and Money on Cheap Furniture)

I recently had a discussion with a lady who was preparing to have a sofa reupholstered.  The old fabric was worn and faded, and surely not worth having cleaned.

But neither did the lady want to replace the sofa.  She rightly noted that the furniture itself was solid and well made, and only needed new fabric.   She so loved this piece of furniture that she intended to keep it for a lifetime.   She also felt, based on some shopping she had done, that she could never find another sofa so well made.

She is going to spend much more to reupholster this fabric today than the piece of furniture cost her when she originally purchased it!

Conversely, I also recently noted sofas for sale for only a few hundred dollars.

Such furniture might not last more than a few years before falling apart.  But many consumers who are price oriented and who do not think ahead when they buy are filling their homes with furnishings that cannot be described as anything other than cheap.

What does this mean to you, the “Fine Fabric Care Specialist“?

Customers who will pay a fair price for taking care of their carpet may NOT see the same value in your upholstery cleaning service!

The investment of time, products, and skill in cleaning upholstery fabrics is such that some cleaners struggle with the fact that they can’t seem to get paid enough to make upholstery cleaning as profitable as carpet cleaning.  Its easy to say that you should just “raise your prices”, but if you do so without recognizing that some furniture can be replaced for not much more than you might have to charge to clean it, you will likely become frustrated with your prospects objections to your pricing.

You need to find customers such as the lady that I know who is having her furniture reupholstered.   People who see their home furnishings as a long term investment, and who are more concerned with décor than function are very often your best prospects for “fine fabric care services”, as well as related carpet, rug, and hard surface care in their homes.

When you seek to establish your pricing for “fine fabric care”, bear in mind what your service is worth, and what profit you deserve.   That price will be one that will be very well received by the type of customer who values their belongings, and wants to preserve their investments for years to come.

5 Keys You Really NEED to Become an Upholstery Cleaning Pro

One of the most important exercises that I have gone through as a trainer occurred when I made the decision to cease teaching certification courses and craft a course that taught what a cleaning professional truly needs to know about fine fabric upholstery care.

What surprised me was how much shorter the class was!

This isn’t to say that learning fine fabric care is easy, nor that you can really learn everything you need to know to be an expert in just a day.

What it did reveal is that most training formats focus on “nice to know” things that have little, if any, impact on the real world experiences that fine fabric upholstery cleaning technicians and owners face.

These are the things every technician MUST know.

1. Communication: If you can’t talk to your client intelligently about the existing condition of their belongings, and what you can (and can’t) do to make them look better and last longer, there isn’t much need to go further. Communication skills are critical.
2. Inspection: Knowing what to look for as well as understanding how “use” and “soiling” influence the outcomes and risks in cleaning, then using the above mentioned communication skills will make satisfied customers and keep you from paying big claims.
3. Testing: You need to know two things to be able to choose the best cleaning method and assess your risks in cleaning an article of furniture: What fiber family or blend of fiber families are present, and if the fabric is colorfast. It’s that simple, but if you can’t or aren’t willing to do that, each cleaning job you do is a gamble with high risk and very low return.
4. Choosing Tools and Cleaning Products. You don’t need to understand the complex chemistry of your cleaning products anymore than you need to know what metal or plastics are used in your tools. What you need to know is what tools and products need to be used, and how to use them.
5. Cleaning Methods: You must know what methods work, and have the opportunity to use them yourself, not just see them demonstrated. Having methods taught to you other than those that are proven to work on today’s 21st Century cleaning challenges is a waste of your time.

As I’ve developed our Fine Fabric Care Workshop, there have been times I’ve wanted to add information and unnecessarily complicate the procedure. What I am always brought back to are these five points. If the information doesn’t address these points, its likely not needed.

By keeping the training of yourself and your staff focused here, you can become very skilled at being the best Communicator, Inspector, Tester, Product Assessor, and Cleaner you can be.

Nothing else matters.

If you’d like to know more about the Fine Fabric Care Workshop, I have a very short video (3 Minutes) click here.

Detergents – (powdered and liquid) Pro & Con

For nearly four decades I’ve worked with both powdered and liquid detergents, and it occurs to me that there remains a great deal of confusion as to which make the most sense for cleaners to use.

I’ll begin by sharing some general “pros and cons” of each category, then share my experience as to what we are experiencing today in our industry.

POWDERED DETERGENTS:

PROS:
Cost Effective
Work Well in Hard Water
Work Well on Oily/Greasy Soils

CONS:
More Difficult to Mix than Liquids
If Mixed Carelessly Can Cause Equipment malfunctions
May Leave a Harsh Hand on Carpet

Owner operators who are careful with mixing, and any cleaning company who cleans restaurants and rental property, usually prefer the aggressive cleaning power and cost effectiveness of powders.

LIQUID DETERGENTS

PROS:
Easy to Mix (Saves Time)
Minimizes Chance of Clogging or Damage to Equipment
Leaves Carpets Softer

CONS:
May be Less Cost Effective than Powders
Less Effective in Very Hard Water Areas
Potentially Less Aggressive on Oily/Greasy Soils.

Larger companies will often choose liquids where its important to save time and prevent equipment malfunction, increasing efficiency and labor savings.

Detergents – (powdered and liquid) & Advanced Technology

Changes in cleaning technology over the past two decades has changed the playing field a bit more between these products, however.

With the advent of high performance traffic lane cleaners, and the cleaning industry’s greater understanding of the need to leave as little residue as possible, many cleaners are finding liquid detergents more than adequate for all of their cleaning needs. Instead of relying on the “power punch” of a powder, they now choose to use a “multi- purpose” prespray on most work, and then resort to “nuclear presprays” for the occasional filthy restaurant or “trashed” rental property.

This change of attitude has simplified cleaning for cleaning professionals. Of course, many who use high performance presprays use acidic rinse agents or even clear water, but lately many cleaners have moved back to liquid detergents for that little bit of extra punch an alkaline cleaner can give that an acidic agent or clear water rinse cannot.

I’ve been very impressed with a revolutionary new liquid detergent that has recently been introduced known as “VersaClean”. VersaClean has all of the above mentioned advantages of liquid detergents, with the added benefit of leaving carpets as soft as an acidic rinse leaves carpet, but also having anti wicking characteristics that many wish to have when cleaning olefin berber and commercial olefin carpet.

If you’d like to know more about how “VersaClean” can help you to create a VERY effective, simple, and customer pleasing cleaning system…

Triexta, Part 3

It is only appropriate (for now) to conclude this discussion on “triexta” (better known as “SMARTSTRAND tm”) with some thoughts on how it will and is affecting you as a professional carpet cleaner. We can do this by first looking back to a another new fiber development in the 1980’s – stain resistant nylon carpet………

While many of you reading this message weren’t even in our industry in the 1980’s, stain resistant nylon carpet has had a profound effect on the way our customers and prospects perceive carpet cleaning, as well as the way we actually clean carpet today. The advent of stain resistant carpet has encouraged consumers to choose lighter colored carpets because they mistakenly expected them to stay clean longer because of their stain resistant treatment.

This increased use of lighter colors has placed carpets into a more regular cleaning cycle, which in turn has created more work for our industry, and with more regular cleaning cycles, more customer contact as well as long term loyalty with deserving cleaning firms.

Carpet cleaning chemistry has changed as well, in some ways for the better, in some not so much for the better.

To simplify my point, and for the sake of brevity: stain resistant nylon carpet caused our industry to pay more attention to the pH of presprays and detergents, and created some of the initial interest around using lower pH rinses, or for some, clear water rinses.

Now we have this new “triexta” fiber, along with its very similarity to its “older brother” “polyester”, beginning to
dominate the market. …….keep reading

Regardless of the debates about resiliency and the need for after market carpet protection, it is clear that both “triexta” and “polyester” are more oil loving than nylon, and will require products and procedures that more readily can break the oil bonds that inevitably will occur if this carpet is neglected and/or subjected to abuse.

There appears also to be some concerns about difficulty in removing detergent residues from this fiber as well, but this information has not yet been documented well enough to discuss in detail. As I have more feedback from the field, I will share it with you.

Please feel free to contact me here, or by email, if you have feedback regarding your experience with this fiber, or would like more information on how to care for “triexta” and “polyester” carpet.

Call: 1-800-342-2297
Local: 412-751-3700
e-mail – jimpem2@comcast.net

Triexta Update

I received a call today from a well informed and customer service oriented carpet cleaner I know, and the story he related spoke to both technical and marketing issues we must all be aware of.

This gentleman sends a newsletter to all of his customers, including the carpet retailers who refer him. In it, he made a point of warning his customers that the new Triexta fiber that is being so heavily promoted today may not live up to the expectations the retailers are creating.

It seems that at least one of the retailers he sent this newsletter to became very upset at his sharing this information, and confronted him about it when he met with her. While his initial reaction was irritation at her support for what he (and likely you) consider to be an inferior fiber, his “business head” thought about it a bit longer.

In our discussion, we both had to agree that Triexta does solve two problems that nylon (the cleaner’s favorite fiber) does not:

1. The Triexta fiber is inherently resistant to red dyes. Unlike Stain Resistant Nylon, which loses its stain resistance over time from abrasive soil and most cleaning processes, Triexta does not.
2. Triexta fibers also resist color loss from urine stains. Since most homes in the US today have more than one cat and/or dog, this issue is powerful, and should not be overlooked.

There remains little doubt that Triexta will continue to have the “oil loving” characteristics of its better known cousin, Polyester, but that’s why professional cleaning is needed, isnt’ it?

The cleaner is going to visit his referring stores and discuss his more balanced view of Triexta, which he should. He mentioned how annoyed he gets when retailers make comments about carpet cleaning that don’t really address the “whole story”, and he recognized that perhaps he did the same.

The lesson for you (and for me)? There are several:

1. Triexta is here to stay. Go to most carpet stores, and its “everywhere”. Its surely better than Olefin, and likely better than Polyester. The fact that we don’t like it as much as Nylon is more our issue than it is our customers, after all.
2. We might not like “oil loving fibers”, but our customers aren’t as worried about Oily soils as they are bleach and dye stains.
3. Let’s keep our dialog with those stores that gladly refer us, and make sure that while we need to serve our customer’s needs, we also need to make sure we understand the whole story.Having an open minded attitude that listens to the views and needs of all parties will keep your business not just the one your customers wish to use, but that retailers will gladly recommend!

For more information on Triexta, see my article at
http://tinyurl.com/cleantip6

Freeze Warning!

As we move toward the end of October, temperatures in the the northern part of the US and all of Canada will begin to drop below freezing at night, and in the next couple of months perhaps during the day.  Cleaners are aware of the need to protect their equipment during this season, but often overlook the damage that freezing might do to their cleaning products.

While most products will work as well after freezing if they are thawed out, there are a few categories that may be permanently damaged if left out in the cold overnight.  These includes:

• Carpet Protector
• Liquid Enzyme products
• Floor Finishes

Some of these products, especially protectors, are sold as “freeze/thaw stable”, but most are not.  Leaving such products in an unheated vehicle overnight when temperatures go below freezing risks a loss of the product’s performance.

Even though most other cleaning and spotting products do not lose effectiveness when frozen, the fact that you’d start your day trying to pour a frozen bottle of prespray (as an example) into a measuring cup is not likely going to be pleasant or productive for you.

If you cannot store your vehicle in a heated garage overnight, remove all of your cleaning agents and other treatments and bring them inside for the night.  It will protect those very important (and expensive) protectors, deodorizers and floor finishes.  It will also make the use of all of your other products easier and less annoying while you cope with the unavoidable annoyances cold weather brings to us all.

FYI – Hidden in the Ductwork

FYI - Hey Jim  .  .  .

I just cleaned the ducts in a house I was preparing for a new tenant  -  and was I ever shocked! OH MY! I had cleaned the ducts last year as a practice job, so I had no idea I would find anything amiss.

However, after the practice job last year, I let a contractor into the house to do some remodeling. I felt it would make the house a better rental unit.  But, what a mess he left hidden in the ductwork!

I guess registers make good dust pans when nobody is looking!  It was a good training for my new employee. He had to make 3 passes in one duct!

The insulation pieces were flying around in the clear view vac box like crazy. Fun to watch, but certainly made me angry.

(People enjoy seeing the junk coming out of their ducts.  Makes them feel the money is well spent, but this didn’t make me too happy.)

Any how, he removed nails, saw dust, and even wood chunks.  The filters in the system were plugged solid!  Even a couple dead mice.  Must have gone in there after some food they swept in there.

Dead though….hmm. Contaminated ducts must not be good for mice either!

FAQs – “Triexta” Carpet

Question –
Hey Jim,
Do these new “Triexta” carpets clean better than the regular polyesters? The dealers seem to think it’s the new miracle carpet fiber!

Answer -
Glad you asked about this new fiber.

Following my comments is a press release you should read & keep a copy.

But first, just why is this press release of importance to you, the carpet cleaner?  Simply this: “Triexta”, often marketed under the Mohawk brand name “Smartstrand ™”, has and is promoted as a “new and better” carpet fiber. While this product is partly made from sustainable resources, and has been claimed to have superior resiliency than the original “PET” polyester fiber, it is important to note that no claims of superior oil resistance are being made for this product.

You should, of course, work as closely as possible with any manufacturer’s directions if asked to clean a carpet while its under warranty, but do not be overly enthusiastic about stain resistance claims made about this product.

It is true that “Triexta” has superior WATER BASED stain resistance, and that even stains that contain dyes may be easier to remove, but there is no evidence that this product is any less oil loving than “PET” (polyester). For that reason, you may need to use preconditioning agents designed to break the oil bonding that occurs with such fibers before you can successfully clean this carpet, or any other oil loving carpet such as “PET” (polyester).

Feedback on your experience with this new fiber and how it has responded to professional cleaning is welcome.

PRESS RELEASE:
A New Carpet Fiber!

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has issued a final rule, effective March 26, 2009, that establishes the subclass name triexta as an alternative to the generic name polyester for a subclass of polyester fibers made from poly(trimethylene terephthalate).

The petitioners who sought this designation stated that PTT fiber, while having the same general chemical composition of polyester, has distinctive features of durability, resilience, softness and ability to stretch with recovery that make it significantly more suitable than conventional polyester for carpet and apparel.

The FTC has concluded that each of the four criteria for creating a new generic fiber subclass have been met:

1. PTT has the same general chemical composition as an established generic fiber category
2. PTT has distinctive properties that make it suitable for uses for which other fibers under the established generic name would not be suited or would be significantly less well suited
3. These properties are important to the general public
4. These properties are the result of a new method of manufacture or PTT’s substantially differentiated physical characteristics.

(Source: Centexbel website, www.centexbel.be)