Pittsburgh with People who can Teach Me Something.

One of the best parts of the Pittsburgh RugLovers Tour is the people. Some of the very best people in the business including Mike Reed, Lisa Wagner, Paul Lucas, Nathan Koets, Mark Kennedy, Anthony and Shannon Belmonte, Doug and Amanda Moresbacher, Jan Sandler and others. Many are good friends but some will be newbies. One of the newbies is one of the oldest and best established hand washers in the country. It is quite an honor to have George Bell of Jackson Mississippi coming to the tour. George is said to be one of the busiest if not the busiest hand washers in the country. I really want to talk to George; he grew up in a Moore plant, switched to Ausheralian and now runs two Rug Badger Rug Revolution Centrifuges just to keep up with the work load in his plant. George is the only dual centrifuge rug washing plants in the country. So I want to know how a semi-rural small market cleaner can live the dream that eludes most major market cleaners.
That is the thing about the RugLovers Tour; we pull together the best and the brightest and make them available to the group. I know a bit about rugs but it is exciting to me that there will be so many people on the Tour who can teach me something.

Info on the Pittsburgh RugLovers Tour

Four Steps to Building a Rug Cleaning Business - REVISED

The foundation of a Rug Cleaning business is you have to be able to safely and effectively wash a rug. If you cannot wash a rug safely and effectively then you are not a rug cleaner. You can take classes, clean for someone else with their tutoring or even buy thrift store rugs and practice until you get it right. But washing a rug is the ground floor of a rug washing business. It sounds obvious but this point is lost on some people.
The Ground Floor Step
The cheapest way to wash a rug is with a brush, a hose, a floor or driveway and a beater bar vacuum to dust the rug. You can do a great job but this is slow. I have washed rugs with a scrub brush and it is hard backbreaking work. To fully dust a rug with a beater bar vacuum can take up to 4 hours on a 9 by 12 rug. So here at the ground floor stage one 9 by 12 rug a day can be a full days work.
Step One
Marketing is the first step. The whole exercise is pointless unless you keep the rugs coming in. Realistically most obvious marketing is either expensive or very time consuming. I have worked with Dusty Roberts to develop RugLover Marketing. It is not free but Dusty has easy inexpensive ways to get started in his program where he shows you highly effective and very inexpensive ways to grow your business. Whether you use RugLover  Marketing or grab your checkbook and do it on your own you need rugs to clean.
Step Two
As soon as you get over 500 square feet of rugs to wash a week time becomes your biggest enemy. To grow you need to speed up your process or cut corners. One of the first places cleaners cut time is on the dusting. Dusting is 80% of getting a rug clean. So instead of taking up to 4 hours on a 9 by 12 they dust for 10 minutes and call it good enough. Doing “Good Enough” work is not the path to success so the smart cleaner looks for equipment to speed up the process. Scrubbing with a brush is brutal so most cleaners look for something like a rotary scrubber to speed things up until they can move up to something like a Brush Pro Industrial Counter Rotating Brush Machine. Dusting usually gets pushed back so cleaners learn to set a “Clean” rug down carefully in front of a customer so that the tell tale puff of dust when you drop a rug doesn't tell the customer that the rug may look clean but is still dirty. Cleaners with Pride and Integrity have the choice of the ever so time consuming beater bar vacuum as a duster or they look to an air dusting system or a Rug Badger. Air dusting has some good advantages but it is expensive. Since it takes a 100 CFM compressor or bigger to do the job getting into Air Dusting can be 4 times as expensive as a Rug Badger Cub and more than twice as expensive the top of the line Rug badger. A Rug Badger can do in less than 30 minutes what might take you up to 4 hours on a 9 by 12 with a Sanitaire Vacuum.

Step Three
As soon as you start cleaning rugs faster you need more drying capacity. If you have the room you can flat dry your rugs. If you live in a hot sunny southern state flat drying is a viable alternative. But since not all of us live in Death Valley or San Diego most of us have to look to hanging rugs as volumes increase. A word of caution. If you are scrimping on the dusting stage hanging a wet rug that you did not get the dirt out of will cause the dirt to turn to mud and cause the mud slide to show up in the fringes. So the first choice drying method for cleaners who do not really get the rugs clean to the foundation is to flat dry the rugs upside down so that the mud slide wicks to the foundation rather then the fringe. This is a cleaver trick but do you want to trick your customers? The cleaner the rug is the easier it is to hang dry a rug.
So cleaners have to turn to drying rooms, drying racks, drying poles or the very popular drying towers. I am partial to the drying towers with wheels. In many parts of the country it is a huge advantage to be able to wheel a rack of rugs out into the sun and roll it back in if the weather turns. There is no one answer but drying becomes a crucial point as volumes increase.
Step Four
At a certain point rug cleaners begin to outgrow their capacity to hang dry. The next step is something to speed drying up. The old standby is a Moore style compression wringer that squeezes the water out of a rug like the wringers on an old fashion wringer washer. The pros are that they do a pretty good job for antiquated technology and allow you to decrease hanging time. The cons are that Moore wringers are no longer made so you have to buy used. A used wringer is very expensive to move, and rust is a major problem so if you find one it usually needs to be rebuilt which adds to the cost. (After I wrote this a company in Michigan has resurrected the MOR/Moore brand and old fashioned methodology. Time will tell if they can do anything meaningful with it.)

The newer alternative is a spinner or Centrifuge as they are called. By spinning the water out of a rug the drying time is decreased dramatically. Rugs are still hung but using a centrifuge allows you to get the rug cleaner and flushing and spinning is a major time saver in urine decontamination. Many of the cleaners I work with find a centrifuge a necessity when they start to move towards 100 rugs a week.
Where you are in the process of building your business volume has to determine what equipment you purchase. Marketing is the key determinate. The greater the number of rugs through your door the more you need to incorporate the time savers. A great place to be is where you are so busy that you either need to increase capacity or cut back on marketing.
As a final note of caution buying equipment you do not need is a bad move. Marketing is the key and scale your business to meet the demands of your customers.

Authority Marketing Part 1

Authority Marketing Part 1
If you clean Oriental Rugs, who are you? Are you a professional, an expert; are you someone who commands and demands respect? Or are you just a flunky who does a dirty job.

More than four out of five rugs to be cleansed in the average shop have some sort of pet contamination, usually urine. That may be how you make your money but if you allow that to define you professionally then you are at a severe disadvantage.
(Looking back at this article after 14 months I find it interesting that the nice young lady who insisted that we don't need Rug ID launched her own moderately successful Rug ID program on-line with a live portion at her shop. She is not the only one since I started pushing Rug ID several courses have been launched.) 

Rug ID opens doors and causes your customers to trust you with their better rugs. My good friend Dusty Roberts of Rug Badger and Lov-a-Rug in Victoria British Columbia tells the story of a customer who trusted their lesser rugs to Dusty but would send their better rugs to a local Oriental rug shop to be cleaned. What the customer did not know was that Dusty did the cleaning for that shop. The customer had greater trust in the store because the store had that aura of authority. Over time Dusty earned their trust and got their entire rug cleaning business but it took work. Nathan Koets a Michigan rug washer tells me that Rug ID is his most important form of marketing. If you know the rugs your customers recognize it and your business will grow.

Many rug washers have come to rugs by way of Carpet Cleaning. But if you look and act like a Carpet Cleaner it is harder to grow your business. How you brand your business will dictate how easy it will be to grow your business. Using my name as an example, customers will be less trusting of Barry’s Carpet Cleaning for their fine rugs than they would be for Barry’s Rug Spa. Spa and Salon are very popular right now for rug cleaners but frankly when I recently renamed my rug cleaning business I chose “Barry O'Connell Oriental Rug Cleaning”.  I am well known so I used my name but if I was less well known I might have chosen “Baltimore Oriental Rug Cleaning”. With length a consideration in a name did I need to include” Oriental”? I did because Oriental Rugs are the top of the heap. By saying Oriental I am making it clear that I clean the best. I am willing to use a longer name to increase my authority.

I have a friend who dresses very casually to do his pickups and deliveries. When I told him I thought it was a bad idea to dress like a Carpet Cleaner he corrected me and explained that he does not even dress up that much. I think it is the wrong message. I used to help out my friend Harold Keshishian with his shop and when dealing with the customers I usually wore leather dressy shoes, wool slacks and a starched shirt. They never asked me to and it was not part of my job but one of the very first things I would do was check the rest room and tidy it up before the customers got in. My rug knowledge, the way I dressed, the appearance of the shop down to the tidiness of the restroom set the tone for how we dealt with our customers. God help anyone who ever talked down to Harold Keshishian in his shop. At least once or twice a year I would see him tell a customer to take their rugs and get out of his shop. I remember him throwing out one customer because she said, “Now don’t lose my rug.” Harold let he know we don’t lose rugs as he ordered her out.

I am a firm believer in selling from a position of authority. I equate it to moving water on a hillside. Selling from a position of low authority is like carrying 55 gallons of water from the bottomof the hill to the top of a hill. But when you master selling from a position of Authority it is like standing on top of the hill and knocking over that 55 drum of water and watching the water flow down hill. Being the authority does not happen over night but the better you get the more it helps your business.

The Real Rug Tour in August is in Pittsburgh

Our Rug Tour this August is in Pittsburgh. It is a worry that people I care about are saying that they are going to our event in Hollywood.  We have no association with that other event.  

First of all the crew from RugLovers College on ProCleanersNetwork Wednesday night, Dusty Roberts, Paul Lucas, and myself BarryO’Connell are having the “go to” rug event in Pittsburgh.  

If you want PowerPoints and Videos in a Hotel Ballroom this is not your event. If you want top experts in a hands on format in a real rug repair facility then you want Pittsburgh. 

Barry O'Connell
PS. Experts include George Bell, Wade Shehady, Lisa Wagner, Mike Reed, Lynn Tall, Mark Kennedy, the Wednesday night regulars and too many more to list.

The Great Pittsburgh RugLovers Tour

O'Connell's Great Pittsburgh RugLovers Tour

August 3, 4 & 5, 2012

For detailed information on this tour be sure to visit:
http://procleanersnetwork.com/rugsupersuccess.html

Shehady’s Oriental Rugs

135 Freeport Road, Aspinwall, PA 15215

(412) 782-2020 ‎

Friday Aug 3

• 9 am to Noon & 1pm to 4pm
• Rug Repair Workshop at Shehady’s Oriental Rugs
  We will break into small groups and learn rug repair, conservation, and how to sell these services. The groups will be divided into skill level appropriate. We will cover everything from How to Thread A Needle on up to Advanced Rug Repair. We will have at least 6 Master restorers on hand to help.

Saturday Aug 4

• 9 am at Shehady’s Oriental Rugs
• Bleeders: Learn to be fearless with Crocking and Bleeding rugs with, The master of Disaster, The man, The Myth, The legendary Mr. Nathan Koets.
• Nathan is widely recognized as one of the Top 5 Rug Washers in the world (We would call him #1 but it embarrasses him). Nathan will be assisted by his faithful friend Paul Lucas inventor of the Chem Max Oriental Rug Cleaning Products and keeper of the LST Formula.

Topics will include, Dye Tests (Dye Tests? We don’t need no stinking Dye Tests), Washing them wet Washing them dry all the major cleaning methods. We will also cover dye striping so that you can fix the disasters of people who don’t come to this program.

Sunday Aug 52

• 10:00 am:  Marketing Secrets with Dusty Roberts and Barry O’Connell

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COST

• 1st attendee; $700
• 2nd attendee; $350
• 3rd or more attendee; $175

For reservations call Sue at Chem Max Phone: 231.798-7980   Fax: 231.798-8080  1.800.ULTRA DRY   1.800.858.7237

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When reserving a room please let them know the block of rooms is setup under the Rug Lovers Seminar.

Comfort Inn & Suites‎
180 Gamma Drive
Pittsburgh, PA 15238

(412) 963-0600

We have reserved a small block of 15 rooms for this seminar

• Free deluxe hot breakfast buffet
• Free daily newspaper
• Free high-speed Internet
• Exercise room
• Heated indoor pool and sundry shop

Pittsburgh RugLovers tour is filling up

The Pittsburgh RugLovers tour is filling up nicely. One reason I keep hearing is the feeling of community, a feeling of Brotherhood. We don’t try to control every minute of your day. It would be so simple to sit everyone in a Hotel Ballroom and show Videos and PowerPoints. But that is not how I learn, it is a great way to control people but unless the speaker is spectacular it makes me sleepy.

We get people who would feel swamped if 10 rugs came in and others who if it gets under a hundred rugs a week they get nervous. Many of the folks were not washing rugs three years ago and a fair number are over 20 years in the business. 

So why do they come?

We structure the event so people form into groups. We don’t assign the groups they just form. Mark Keshishian and Sons hosted a reception for us at their gallery and without planning a Rug ID class broke out. Suddenly Mark Keshishian and Dusty Roberts had a whole group going through the stacks looking at rugs and comparing. Or at the Rug ID seminar Lisa Wagner had a crowd around her talking shop and picking her brain. Poor Lisa came for a social weekend, after all what are we going to teach her? But instead she coached and tutored a constant stream of people about a wide range of problems. Nathan Koets tells me he gets the most out of the off time talking in the bar after class. Nathan is sharp enough to know  that even after 20 some years in the rug washing pit he can still learn. In fact a lot of our experienced cleaners come to hear how others are doing it and what chemicals and equipment is working for other people.

What is the value of getting one on one time to discuss your issues with Nathan Koets, Mark Keshishian, Dusty Roberts, Lynn Tall, Paul Lucas and so on. But for some crazy reason it does not end on the last day of the event. We make the ties that continue after we go home. Have a problem? Now you have a new network of friends to call when you need them. My mother had a way of mixing metaphors and one of my favorites was what she called, “Out of the frying pan into the fan.” When we get to that point we are not alone any more.

On Friday in Pittsburgh we will have at least 6 restorers showing us how to do the repair and getting us started. Some of us will need the “How to Thread a needle” tutorial and that is OK. You will learn some basic skills but moere importantly you will learn to talk the Talk so that you can sell it and job the work out to someone else. The more your shop does the more your customers will trust you. If you cannot offer repair or appraisals and have to send your customer away you will find a number of them never come back,

On Saturday Nathan Koets will have a new strategy with Bleeders. At my urging Nathan will do as little work as possible. Why? Because we want you to do it for him. Bring your rubber boots because we need you on the wash floor under Nathan’s careful instruction. . It is one thing to watch an expert deal with a bleeder but it is much better when the non-experts jump on in and do it. This is the full gamut from Testing Colors to Cleaning, Remediation and even Dye Stripping.

Sunday we will launch a new idea. Well actually it is an old idea that no one talks about and most people have to learn it the long, hard, painful, expensive way. We will have a special panel presentation of Authority Marketing.

Then we will follow up with the wildly successful RugLover Marketing. Dusty Roberts will show you how to generate substantial business and positive growth for very little cost.

This is where the best get better by coming together. I hope to see you there.

To Dye Test, or not to Dye Test

 To Dye Test, or not to Dye Test: that is the question. When William Shakespeare wrote “To be, or not to be” (from Hamlet 3/1) he was writing of the question of doing something or doing nothing and then suffering the consequences;

To be, or not to be: that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

When we turn to the question of Dye Testing Rugs we are not confined to a simple choice of testing or not testing and then suffering the consequences. There is in fact a third alternative which methinks may be the wiser course if you can manage it. So when the pundits demand that everyone must dye test every rug I think they are offering a false dichotomy.
The point of Dye Testing an Oriental Rug is to determine if it is likely to bleed or crock so that they can prepare to handle the dye migration. Some would have us believe that everyone MUST do a 10 minute hot water crocking test. The problem with the 10 minute Hot and Wet Crocking test is that it is a crocking test and may or may not catch all dye bleeding. To properly dye test one is then compelled to use the Overnight Press Test. There are variations but normally you put a little surfactant on a white cloth or paper towel and hold it to the rug overnight. This is often done with a clamp or brick and obviously it means that you cannot inspect and wash on the same work shift. This has a host of problems, it slows down production, it is space intensive and it is not suited to a volume shop.
So then if you are not satisfied with either the risky Hot and Wet test or the slow Overnight Press test what choice do you have? Well if the point of the dye test is to determine if it will bleed so that you can then prepare to deal with it why not bypass the test and treat every rug as if it is a bleeder. Obviously this is not for everyone. Some washers test and take the bad ones to a more experienced cleaner. Others do the best they can hoping not to buy the rug. But experienced rug washers have the option of assuming that every rug will bleed and act accordingly.  So let me put it this way, “Dye Tests? I don’t need no stinkin Dye Tests”.

A word to the wise, if you go this route you had better know what to do when the bleeding starts but that discussion is for another day.
N.B.  In a thread on facebook Thea Sand of Emmanuel's Rug & Upholstery Cleaners made some pertinent comments.
 “Eventually you recognize them by sight”
“You'd get nothing done sitting around waiting for test results.....swilling coffee and swapping lies.”
The important part is that Thea and her staff know how to handle every situation. In fact Thea is the GOTO person for other cleaners who make a mistake and need it fixed,