DC RugLovers Tour 2013 Rug ID is the Key to Marketing

Rug ID is the Key to Marketing

The more you know about Oriental Rugs the more your clients will trust you. That is why on the DC RugLoversTour we spend a day in Herat Oriental Rugs warehouse in Alexandria Virginia.

The DC RugLovers Tour 2013

Washing Rugs and Making More Money

Tufted, Hand Tufted, Gun Tufted, its all the same thing.

Earlier I was in a discussion about urine soaked tufted rugs.  It reminded me of a few points. Tufted rugs are a fact of life. But the more you know about rugs the better quality of rugs you will get to clean. The more Rug ID you know the more people will trust you with better rugs. But charge the same for tufted and machine made rugs as you do for hand woven Persian rugs. Among the other crap rugs you have a greater risk with rugs like rayon rugs. Why not charge more for them. In fact with the rugs Lisa Wagner calls “Rugs To Run From” you may as well charge for the risk and aggravation if you are going to clean them at all. People will pay more to clean a silk rug so why not the junk rugs. Quit discounting the crap rugs it only encourages more crap rugs.

A Rug Washers Best Friend

Then there is the delicate subject of urine soaked rugs. You should thank God for all those piss rugs. If it was not for urine this would be a much tougher business to make a buck in. Next time you smell that smell just tell yourself that is the smell of money. 80% of all rugs coming into most shops have pet contamination. That is a lot of rugs.

Now a little thought about money. You lose money on the first rug you wash every month and you lose money until you hit break even.  Don’t forget to calculate your pay in the break even calculation. You could lose money cleaning rugs at $50 a square foot if you only get one or two. Rent, water, chemicals, equipment, light, heat, etc… all have to be paid before you make your first dollar each month.  If you want to make more money then all you have to do is wash more rugs. How? We call that marketing.  If you need help on marketing call Dusty aboutRugLover Marketing or about the RugLover tours.  It is no silver bullet but if you do the work you make money far easier than you ever imagined. 

Easy Money or do you make things difficult?

We all want Easy Money don’t we? Then why do we make it difficult for people to give us money. I went into a Chinese Restaurant in Seattle and since I was on a low carb diet I ordered the beef and asparagus special. Then I said no rice please just add some extra asparagus. The owner told me NO She Couldn’t Do That. What she really meant was that she could not or would not do that at the same price but I never mentioned price. I looked at her and said, “You have food, I have money, so all you have to do is tell me what it costs and then make it.”  The confused look passed from her face and said "Two dollar more". Then she made me a great dinner. Think about it, I walk in as a paying customer and she refuses my order. I understand why but does it really make sense. We all do things that make it more difficult for our customers to give us money.

Don’t Assume I Known What You Do

My friend Stephen Dusty Roberts cleans rugs. His business is called Luv-A-Rug and when you go in it has rugs all over the place. Dusty also cleans Boat Sails but it is a small part of his business. One day one of his long time established Sail customers told Dusty, “I didn't know you did rugs too”. This man made checks out to Luv-A-Rug not Luv-A-Sail but it completely escaped him for years. We may think it was obvious and he should have known but here is a bigger question; how much money did Dusty lose by not telling him “hey, we do rugs too”.

Make It Easy To Call You

One of the things that drives me crazy it hiding your phone number on your website. I am not going to embarrass my friends by naming names but many of you don’t have easy websites. Your phone numbers should be at the top of the main page. It should also be at the bottom of every page with your address. If I have to search for a contact page you probably lost my business. But worst of all is if I get to the Contact page and all I get is a form for on-line response screw it I am going to your competition. Seriously I am not twenty something; I am old enough that I watched prime time in Black and White I have no interest in filling out your online form and no it is not damn likely I want to Chat either. On-Line forms are OK for some customers but offer a phone number and address for the rest of us.

Make Your Website a Good Experience

Tell me your name. I assume that if you do not say who you are you are either stupid or hiding something. Maybe I am a cranky old man but can you really afford to write off all the business from cranky old people.

Make sure it loads fast

Not everyone has a hot cable modem like your web guy has. I do not care about your pictures and graphics if the page is slow. Many of us go to our second choice when  the pages are slow. Keep in mind bargain basement hosting companies can be very slow. Don’t assume, test it yourself and also ask your customers what they think about your website.

Don’t Be a Wiseguy

I regularly run into businesses where the first person (and often the last) is more interested in being a wiseguy then in finding out my problem and making it easy for me to give him money.

Don't Scold Me

I walk into some businesses and instead of welcoming me they scold me. I don’t care if I came in the wrong door or put my rug in the wrong place or that it is closing time or anything else you want to scold me about. You are not my mother.  I am there to give you money. You are there to take my money. That is your job and it should be your goal. When I used to help out at Mark Keshishian & Sons a busy Chevy Chase MD Rug Store and Rug Cleaning company we used to watch the parking lot and as soon as somebody made a move to get something from their trunk or backseat we assumed they had a rug to come in and we went to help them.

If I Call I am Not Taking a Survey

If I call assume it is because I have a problem. If I start by asking the price it is only because I do not know what to say. Your job is to find out why I really called and offer a solution. We deal with this in detail in RugLover Marketing.

I will probably think of more of the stupid business tricks people do and I will let you know about them. Some people completely miss how difficult they make it for people to give them money. I know one west coast rug cleaner who trash talks his customers to anyone who would listen. To hear him talk his customers are stupid eBay pickers who bothered him about rugs. He is argumentative, arrogant and rude. I will grant he has a reputation for great technical skills but I know the rug biz was so rough that he went out and bought a Truck Mount so he could do in home carpet cleaning. Doing great work is not the way to make money in the Rug Washing business; it is just the first step. 

How easy do you make it for people to give you money?

The Value of the Rug Hub

When you need advice on Rug Cleaning the Rug Hub group on FaceBook is a great resource. Just this morning I saw a question and answer:

Victor M. Franco asked: 
How do you clean hemp rugs?

Paul Lucas replied: 
 Hi Victor.  I will give you a quick "how to" list; 
#1 inspect for browning, shrinkage, weak structural integrity, water marks.
 #2 Have release form signed. #3 dust or vacuum. 
#4 apply diluted Rug Soure solution front and back. 
#5 apply Sublime solvent (if heavy soil) from and back. 
#6 Shampoo with Cotton Rug Shampoo, front and back.
 #7 Rinse with Cotton Rug Rinse and cold water. 
#8 Extract or centrifuge to remover all possible water. 
#9 Flat dry face down with air movers blowing across back. 
#10 Optional - After rug is dry, Tea Dye to even out the final look. Hope this helps.

The feeling of brotherhood is very apparent in the Rug Hub. Men and women coming together to help each other, I am glad to be a part of it.

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Rug Lover Tour DC 2013

Barry O’Connell’s Rug Lover Tour DC 2013

Group Shot from the Pittsburgh RugTour

This year we are offering something very special: The RugLover 500% Club with Anthony Belmonte, Jan Sandler, Doug Moerschbacher and the guys from Glyndon Lord Baltimore. All 4 businesses have had explosive success of about 500% or more. All four are fairly recent start-ups and all are off to spectacular results.

Last year GLB did 40 rugs a week in a big week this year 200 is a good week and they are still growing!

Jan will talk about the profit in the add-on sales AND HOW TO SELL THEM. Including 6 rugs in the door this week for cleaning and the ticket price is $7,482 and that is before adding in the padding.  Jan will explain how this is not some up-sell trickery but how it is just serving his customer’s best needs.

Most of you know Doug and Anthony, two years ago they were cleaners who did some rugs and this year they are the dominant go-to rug cleaners in their area.  How they took a little sideline and turned it into the biggest part of their business. Anthony is from Naples Florida where he has tapped the well to do expensive rug crowd but Doug is washing rugs in tiny rural town in North Central Pa. This is your chance to learn the secrets of their success.

They will be doing small group sessions with you to show you how they did it and you can too.

Besides showing you how they did it the guys from Glyndon Lord Baltimore will show you the spa that can handle 200 Rugs a Week with only two techs and a delivery driver. In fact they feel they won’t have to add a part time tech until they are going over 250 rugs a week.

Washington DC 2013 Itinerary

Friday, June 7, 2013

Herat Oriental Rug Warehouse
106 South Early Street Alexandria, VA 22304
(703) 370-3902
A massive wholesale rug warehouse with more rugs than you have ever seen in one place.

9:00 am – Meet in lobby to sign in & pick up badges
9:30 am – Welcome speech with Barry O’Connell in hotel lobby
9:45 am – Carpool to Herat Oriental for hands-on Rug ID with Barry O’Connell, Dusty Roberts, and others (beginner, intermediate, advanced levels)
12:30-1:30 pm – Lunch (on your own)
1:30 pm – Back to Herat Oriental for more hands-on Rug ID (what you should know about an appraiser’s perspective)
4:30 pm – Carpool back to hotel
6:00 pm – After hours FUN & “Cigar Bar”

Saturday, June 8, 2013

Glyndon Lord Baltimore Cleaners
6 Central Avenue Glyndon, MD 21071
(410) 833-5200

8:30 am – Meet in lobby for Day Two events
9:00 am – Board motor-coach for trip to Glyndon Lord Baltimore’s facility
10:30 am – Interlink demonstrations & discussions with Scott Warrington, Doug Heiffermann, and Kim Stain, Q & A
1:00-2:00 pm – Lunch (on your own)
2:00 pm – Rotating Groups: RugLover 500% Club with Anthony Belmonte, Jan Sandler,  Doug Moerschbacher and the guys from Glyndon Lord Baltimore, Plant tour with John from GLB, Taking the Perfect Rug Photo. Plus more…
4:30 pm – Board motor-coach for trip back to hotel
6:30 pm – After hours FUN & Cigars, Bars, and best of all Networking Time with people who have been through what you are going through.

***PRICES***

Same as last time:\

·         1st attendee; $700

·         2nd attendee; $350

·         3rd or more attendee; $175.

Special Alumni Savings:

·         1st attendee; $600

·         2nd attendee; $300

·         3rd or more attendee; $150.

Sunday, June 9, 2013

10:00 am – Meet in the Hotel conference room for Day Three events
10:15 am – Hands-on social media workshop & website critique with Barry O’Connell.
11:00 am – Rug Advocate Software demonstration
11:15 am – Rug Lover Marketing – Foundations Program, Q & A
1:00 pm – End

We are back at the same hotel as last year:

Sheraton Suites Old Town Alexandria

801 North Saint Asaph Street

Alexandria, VA 22314

(703) 836-4700

Group name: Rug Lovers Tour OR copy and paste the following link into a web browser for the RugLovers Tour Page.
https://www.starwoodmeeting.com/StarGroupsWeb/res?id=1303218967&key=26DAA

The Law of Reciprocity

There is a law of human nature that if you understand it the power to change lives will be in your hands;

The Law of Reciprocity

This is as old as the hills and applies to everyone but most people never really think about it. It is so important that God even told us about it in the Bible for does it not say:

“give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.” (Luke 6:38, ESV)

This is one of the most basic building blocks of society. People like people who contribute to the common good. To put it simply people respond positively to people who give before they take. In fact the more you hold off from taking while you continue to give the receiver feels an increasing debt to reciprocate. The receiver feels an increasing need to do something for you. This to put it simply is the law of reciprocity or as God says “give, and it will be given to you”.

In my office building there is a small convenience store in the lobby. The owner is a friendly fellow who never charges tax and never gives pennies in change. Since the store stays open I can only assume he pays the tax out of the money he collects. Also he rounds everything you pay down. If it should be $1.35 for something he says a dollar and a quarter. By discounting his prices on every sale to me I feel like I want to give him all the business that I can. He also does things like alterations and shoe repair so I bring in things that normally I would just have done closer to home. But look carefully at this scenario; he is the owner. He sets the price. If he charges $1.25 for something marked $1.35 + tax then the real price is $1.25 (tax included). So even though I know it is a game I continue to play. He makes concessions and I reciprocate by giving him more business.

We see this in marketing opportunities. The perfect example is my good friend Anthony Belmonte. Anthony offered to clean rugs for a thrift shop that is run by a charity. By giving cleaning to a very worthwhile charity the charity sells more rugs for more money because they look great after being cleaned. Because it is a gift they feel compelled to reciprocate by letting their contributors know what a good man Anthony is. The contributors reciprocate by giving Anthony business. But here is a wonderful twist to the equation; the reciprocity is not even. Anthony actually gets 5 to 10 rug jobs for every free cleaning job he does. As the good book says “Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap.” By being a good and generous man Anthony reaps the harvest of his generosity.

Breaking the Law of Reciprocity at your own Risk

Just as society tends to reward the generous man who gives freely society tends to penalize those who take but do not give back.  Society has various names for this type of person. My favorite is Mooch but also Bum, Freeloader, Leach, Sponge and in Yiddish; Schnorrer.
I was going to illustrate this part with a story about a mooch from Southwest Virginia but I realized it would be unkind and besides he is so damn dumb that the point would be lost on him. So let me close this by saying be the first to give and the last to take and you will gain so much more.

My area is too poor, too small, too competitive

 Whine, whine, whine I hear it all the time: “My customers will never pay that” or “maybe in a big city but not in my area”.  It gets real old after a while and every time somebody starts with the excuses I know the odds are overwhelmingly that the excuse is bogus. What they are really saying is they don’t know how to make it work or they lack the confidence to try. Let us look at some of the examples

My area is too small to support a Rug Cleaner. Try telling that to Doug Moerschbacher he lives and works in Pleasant Gap Pa with a population of 2,879. Doug is succeeding in rural North Central Pennsylvania in a county of only 154,722 people. He also did it recently against stiff competition. Another small market success story is Scott Kentfield. He lives and works in Travers City MI the largest city in the 21-county Northern Michigan region with a population of only 14,674. Success anywhere takes hard work but population is not a limiting factor for most people.

My area is too poor to support a Rug Cleaner. Scott and Doug do not live in affluent high income areas but they do not have it nearly as tough as George Bell. George is from Jackson Mississippi the poorest city of its size in the USA but the suburbs are the 8th poorest in the country.  So can an 80% black very low income city support a rug Washer? No, it can support two and both of them eat regularly. Business is so good that George just put in his second centrifuge. But George Bell’s success is not enough to hold back Terry Wetzel’s business. The relative wealth or lack of it is not the limiting factor for most people.

My area is too competitive to support another Rug Cleaner. Big established Rug Cleaning plants that dominate an area are not to be feared. Remember Doug Moerschbacher? When Doug started there were two well established rug washers in his area. Doug is now #1 in his market and he is more expensive than all his competition.  Going up against the 3rd generation well financed well established behemoth is a great way to go. But don’t try to undercut they will eat you alive. Charge more, sometimes a lot more than they charge.

All his sounds counter intuitive to most people. What we have done in RugLover Marketing is to short cut the process and save you 10 or 20 years of trial and error. George Bell has spent his life building a great business. But guys like Doug Moerschbacher, Anthony Belmonte and others have short cut the process and are building best in class business in record time. 500% growth is possible and if you do the plan and really work it is a very realistic goal. If you want to charge far more than your competition, wash more for greater profits and see explosive growth you are our kind of cleaner.

For more information drop Dusty Roberts a line at Dusty Roberts (info@rugbadger.com) or

Stephen A. Roberts

1-866-885-7847

Cell 250-686-7847