Thursday, March 29, 2007

Do you know....?

Whenever you try out a new cleaning product that you're not familiar with ALWAYS, ALWAYS pretest it on an inconspicuous spot. Unless you're familiar with it's usage and have used it on many surfaces many times before, pretesting is the "ounce of prevention" to equal the "pound of cure".
I've seen floors bubbled because the previous contractor used too strong of stripper for the floor.
I myself have a horror story of when I went to use a neutral cleaner on a rubberized gym floor.I used a green scrubbing pad and man, that thing foamed up like no ones business. I tried mopping it up because my autoscrubber vacuum quit on me (that's another story all together..) and ended up with a mess. In short, I called in a local rep and he helped me get it cleaned up with the right cleaner. No damage done,luckily. Just a big mess!
Same holds true if using a cleaner that has been sitting on a shelf for awhile. Compositions can change.
This applies to all cleaners - not just floor products. And above all remember these three words. READ THE LABEL. It's there to help folks...
Hope this helps!

Friday, March 16, 2007

OOPS!

I just realized I hadn't posted my cleaning tip this week. Sorry about this! It's been a busy week. Today's tip deals with the proper way to clean and care for your floors. Hope this helps.

Too many times I've been called to a customer's house or place of business to look at their floors and I go in and usually the story goes like this - they had a new floor put in X months ago and just haven't been happy with how it looks lately. They tell me they sweep and mop it but now it's dull,scratched up,etc. and want to get that "new look" to it again.
So I ask the $10,000 question - "Do you have a floor care plan?" 9 out of 10 times I get a "what do you mean?" response or just a simple "no".They get the new floor but have no idea how to properly care for it.
One thing I tell people is the floor catches everything. Therefore you must have a floor care plan in place to keep it looking good. Especially in businesses. They get high traffic and need constant care.
When you have a new floor installed or have a floor that needs attention - talk to local floor cleaning professionals about cleaning it up and get on a consistent program to keep it up. This will vary as to what type of flooring we're talking about. Different types of floor will require different types of care. Get more than one estimate - I recommend at least three.
I also don't advise on "doing it yourself". Too many times I have been called when someone tried doing it the way they thought it should be done and I had to redo it - costing them even more money. If you don't have experience for that type of floor. Call a professional. It will save you money and grief in the long run because they will know the proper way to care for it.
The main point is this - Your floor catches everything and says volumes about your business. It should be properly maintained and cleaned with a floor care program. If you have questions or have a floor cleaning horror story - please share. Thanks!

Thursday, March 15, 2007

The Secret To Success In Business

I recently received an email from a friend of mine, who is more like a brother, and is also in the business. He has been at it a little longer than me and has helped me tremendously in building my business and sharing his wisdom on lessons learned. His email said this -

"As I see it.. the best way to succeed in business is to create so much value for your service and go so far above and beyond what they expect, while not requiring anything in return."

That's pretty much the essence of business and keeping your customer. That's why this guy is successful. He busts his butt for the customer and doesn't ask for anything.

So in a nutshell, to succeed in business you have to give your customer more value than they expect and pay for. If you do that, you'll have a customer for life.

More later...

Wednesday, March 7, 2007

The Air That We Breathe

I am seeing more and more in trade magazines about Indoor Air Quality Standards and articles on improving indoor air quality. This is a part of building maintenance that is starting to get pushed to the forefront as workplace health care concerns are on the rise. In order to achieve this all aspects of building maintenance must be brought into play. This includes carpet care, hard floor care, air duct maintenance and constant detail dusting. Not to mention everyday cleaning.
I will be touching more on this in later posts. If you have questions or something to share on indoor air quality, feel free to post.
Have a good day!

Monday, March 5, 2007

Cleaning tip #2

Sorry so late in posting today folks - had a floor to do this am. Anyway hope everyone had a good weekend. Today's tip deals with saving time and energy in cleaning. Enjoy!

There is no reason to clean something that doesn't need cleaning. A mirror may just need hand prints removed. A carpet may just need spotted instead of a full on clean. Whether you clean for a living or just clean your own place - you can save your self time and energy by just doing what needs to be done. Not cleaning for the sake of cleaning. For some areas, a touch up is all that is needed. Hope this helps. Have a good day!

grins,
Chad