Saturday, June 16, 2007

Things You Should Know Before Opening A Carpet Cleaning Business

With many companies downsizing and laying off employees there are many individuals out there in the prime of their lives trying to decide what they should do for a living. They often have a sizable amount of money from severance packages and are looking for businesses to invest in. If this sounds like you and you are thinking of starting a carpet cleaning business there are some things that you should know. Read this article to learn more.

Carpet cleaning is an attractive business for a number of people because of the high profit potential that seemingly exist. Many franchisers and equipment manufacturers will be quick to tell you that you can make a fortune in the industry. This is true but it is not as easy as it sounds. You can not simply buy a van with a cleaning rig and get a yellow page listing and expect to make a killing. If you think that you will probably soon be taking out a classified ad to sell your cleaning equipment. So how do you make money in this industry. The name of the game in this industry, and every other one for that matter, is advertising. Without a successful advertising campaign you will never make a dime. You have to get your name in front of the customer. You can do this several ways. One way to get customers is with a fancy yellow page ad. This is expensive and a full page ad can often run a thousand dollars a month and require a one year commitment. Another way to get customers is to use direct mail. This requires that you purchase a mailing list and send out multiple mailings to the same people. Customers usually need to see your name several times before they will usually so with direct mail you must be consistent. One final way I will discuss to find customers is to make a website. The problem with websites is making them rank well. This can be tricky and can take time and experience. Websites are well worth the effort however as many customers look to them instead of the phone book. There are several other methods of advertising to choose from including referral marketing, marketing to realtors and even billboard advertising. The choices are endless.

As you can see there are many different ways to advertise your company. None of them are perfect and they all require some level of commitment. It is well worth the effort however so be sure to come up with a good advertising campaign before you open the doors of your carpet cleaning company. Just remember to be creative and be consistent and you can have a successful and profitable business.

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