Minimizing Risk, Maximize Profit with Repairs
Pre-inspection is a crucial time in the Rug Washing and Cleaning process. Your customer shows you a rug and wants your expert opinion. You need to ID the rug with at least measurements and determine the problems. It is at this exact moment that you can substantially increase your profit while decreasing your risk. The fine points of Pre-Inspection are outside the bounds of this article but I want to focus on damage, wear, and repair.
Obviously a loose selvage can get caught in a rotary brush and rip which would be a distinct liability to you. You need to note that damage prior to washing on your work order. But at this point you have the option to offer repair service to your customers. Before you say to yourself that you do not do repairs and click away think about the potential profit of booking your repair work and jobbing the work out to a qualified repair service. Your key to profit can be as simple as saying, “You have a problem starting here, shall I have my repair department take a look at that.” If your customer says no you merely note the problem on the work order and when they sign you are protected. However if they say yes as a good percentage will you can make a nice profit on someone else's labor.
Wade Shehady 3rd generation Pittsburgh Pa. rug restorer tells me that many of his jobs are from rug washers and carpet cleaners who find work and then email the images to him for an estimate. As Wade told me, “Barry it is simple, they lay a ruler across the damage, snap a few pictures and email them to me, and I can be back to them in a few hours.” Wade runs Shehady's Oriental Rugs on Freeport Road in Pittsburgh, Pa. Wade is a master restorer and he has a staff of 5 other restorers, Staff hmmm maybe better described as a family rather than s a staff since Wade works with his 5 sisters. They were brought up in rug repair by Wade Shehady Sr. a very dear friend of mine who passed a few years ago.
The key for Rug Washers is to learn the simple lingo so that they can talk repairs. Whether you use Shehady in Pittsburgh or someone else you should never tell your customers that you are out-sourcing the job. It is best to say that you will give it to your repair department. Once you start Shehady’s becomes your repair department.
This doesn't mean that Wade has to do all your repair work. The most profitable work is the easiest such as fixing selvages and stabilizing ends. Wade is glad to help you getting started doing your own work. If you can increase your profits by doing your own then you only have to job out the work that you cannot do in-house. Using a service such as Shehady Oriental Rugs can add thousands of dollars of profit to you bottom line at the end of the year.
Old link to the
The Great Pittsburgh RugLovers Tour
Where we will explore Rug Repair in detail:
