Starting a carpet cleaning business

[savefox]

Ah, that explains why it's so close to what we do!



We mostly do one keyword per adgroup.

If you served four cities then I'd have 5 campaigns like this:

View attachment 47104

You might find more keywords to bid on, and there's canabalisation with Google's fuzzier keyword matching.

Add negatives of course such as:

• "job"
• "jobs"
• "course"
• "courses"
• etc.

Meh. I don't care about Google's warnings. We have one ad in the ad group and often have 15 headlines, but we pin "SERVICE LOCATION" and "LOCATION SERVICE" to headline 1, and maybe pin CTAs to headline 3.

I did an experiment and tried to get a rating of Excellent for our ads instead of our usual Poor ratings. CTR fell off a cliff so we reverted back. Bear in mind this is a sample size of one and we didn't run the test that long (since the client's visitor volume dropped too much).

thank you, that's very helpful. Do you create a separate landing page for each headline or do you use dynamic keyword insertion?

 

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[Paul David]

It's winter time and the business is super slow right now. The ads that were bringing several customers per day just a couple months ago aren't really working. Nobody wants to have their carpets cleaned right now, so I'm only doing 2-3 jobs per week. Got my hours cut at my job, too. Should I still try to advertise a lot? What do you guys do when it's slow? Go door knocking? Send postcards?

Send me your ads and I'll take a look, the 30 carpet cleaners I work with are all busy.

 

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[Parks]

I will do Amazon flex deliveries until carpet cleaning picks up so I could work whenever I want and make more per hour.

Are you only doing Google ads for advertising? Have you tried knocking doors yet or fliers?

That could be one skew right there in a way. If your only waiting for Google ads to get your customers, then they will be exposed to all the other companies with higher reviews when their searching for that service and exposed to your ad.

Versus if your the first one at the door you will be the only one in their mind at the moment

 

[savefox]

@Andy Black the lead form didn't work for some reason. I think I only got 1 lead from it for the week

 

[Andy Black]

About 50

Are the search terms visitors used good?

How many people started the leadform vs completing it?

How many calls did you get in that time period?


Tip: Don't say "The leadform didn't work". Say "Only 1 out of 50 visitors completed the leadform". This will get you to take a step back and thinking about your visitors.

 

[savefox]

Are the search terms visitors used good?

How many people started the leadform vs completing it?

How many calls did you get in that time period?


Tip: Don't say "The leadform didn't work". Say "Only 1 out of 50 visitors completed the leadform". This will get you to take a step back and thinking about your visitors.

I think the conversion rate of the form was about 15%. Actually 2 visitors with hopes and dreams completed the form, but one of them was a repeat customer. I also got 1 call from the website. As soon as I returned online booking I got 2 leads so maybe people want to see the prices before contacting us.
I'll probably leave the online booking feature and add a "call us" button right beside it

 

[fosterzz]

It's been a challenging two months. Spending $100 on ads every single day while working for 12 hours without any return was pretty depressing, but the hard work is finally beginning to pay off. Something changed. The phone started to ring. I've been consistently making $500-$800 every day 5 days a week for the past couple of weeks. If this trend continues, I'm on track to hit at least $10,000 in April, which was my goal for June.

What I've improved:

Pricing. I was pulling prices out of my a$$ and didn't have any system in place. Now they are set in stone. I offer 3 tiers of service. When offered 3 options, customers are less likely to shop around for a better price, and most often choose the middle one. You just have to clearly communicate the value of each option. When you give them only one price, they'll keep searching and getting bids from other companies. I was able to increase profits by 20-25% by doing that, and there's still plenty of room to raise my prices.

Follow ups and customer retention

Every customer who gets a quote and doesn't book right away receives 7 emails and 2 text messages over a 20 day period with a personal message and a link to book their appointment.
Every customer who books an appointment, receives a confirmation, a reminder one week prior to their appointment, a reminder one day before their appointment, an email requesting a review after their appointment, as well as follow-up messages at 3 months, 6 months, and 1 year to get repeat business. I'm giving out 3 $30 dollar gift cards to every customer that I like that can be used towards future purchases or shared with friends and family as a way to encourage referrals. I'm also going to mail a gift card to every customer that I've had who paid more than $200 for their service.

Google my business, website, ads, etc

Post an update or upload a picture on your business profile every day. Make sure to get reviews and reply to every single one. Don't just say "thank you", you have to use your keywords in your replies. Download a QR with your review link onto your phone and have the customer scan it before you leave and then email them a link to leave a review. I'm getting reviews from 80% of them that way. Just asking to leave a review doesn't work that well.
I also improved the speed and design of my website, uploaded a bunch of real pictures and a video. You have to build trust and pre-sell them before they call you.

Quality of service

I got some new tools and YouTube training to make the work easier and get better results. I'm actually doing what I'm expected to do. Providing a quality service. You have to be at least decent at what you were hired to do. Be friendly, polite and personable. Get some uniforms and wrap your truck to look legit. Walk in with a nice tool bag and a tablet to show them their estimate and get a signature. Do a good job, get a review, give out gift cards. Repeat. If they really liked the service, your business will grow exponentially just from that

Don't try to sell your service to everyone. Focus on your target audience. Don't waste your time on cheap asses. Their houses are the dirtiest and they don't want to pay anything.

Boom @savefox absolute golden to keep getting updates from you and see how much sharper your thinking process is becoming.

Honestly really appreciate you sharing all this, looking forward to see how you keep scaling the business, keep it up mate and much love from Scotland.

 

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[Andy Black]

What kind of promotion would you run if you wanted to attract high end and middle class customers with google ads? What headlines should I use? I've tried focusing on premium services, high value, good reviews, quality work etc, but it didn't work at all. 0 conversions. Visitors didn't want fill out the form. The only campaign that did ok was something like "$149 for 3 rooms special ends in 5 days" and upsell from there, but I don't want to focus on the price in my ads and there's a bunch of people in my area who are using the exact same special right now. I've tried doing "1 room of carpet cleaning for free just to see the results and decide if you want us to do the whole house" and got a bunch people wanting us to do the 1 room for free and it's the only room in their house lol. I'm targeting top 50% earners and mostly middle class neighborhoods

Run ads targeting those locations only and see how that goes?

 

[Andy Black]

does it make a difference if I target a specific zip code only, or if I target the whole area and exclude everything except for that one zip code?

I don't know. I've only ever targeted zipcodes or areas. I wouldn't think it would make any difference, but haven't tried it and can't imagine what the difference would be.

Don't forget to run ads for "carpet cleaners <location-name>" and target a much wider location, like the whole state or country. Your only worry is duplicate placenames.

 

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[Subsonic]

yeah, I skipped the door knocking part because it's not scalable and I didn't have time for that, and started focusing on internet marketing right away. It took me about 6 months to figure out what to do, and I'm still not there yet. Like @Johnny boy said, you need to be your own lead gen company. You can make 10s of thousands in revenue per month with an optimized GMB, Google Ads of Facebook ads, LSA, referral program for your customers, getting repeat clients etc. Are you doing just window cleaning? Can you buy a pressure washer and add that to your services? Or gutter cleaning? Roof cleaning? Combine them in packages (good, better, best) and upsell

Yeah I'll do that when I can.
Since I have no clue about websites and online backend, that stuff will take me another week. Also flyers have proven to be alright but it's starting to get expensive now.

The upsell thing is great. I am gonna look for a safe way to work on roofs, since that has a high barrier to entry and I can charge way more money for that.

 

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[piano]

Man, I've only read everything until now.
You're doing amazingly bro!
I love that you're learning and improving in certain areas, "getting the hang out of it"
Good job!

 

[savefox]

Have you tried Facebook Ads? I don't do them but hear they can work well for carpet cleaning.

Yes, honestly it was like talking to 4 year olds every time I tried it. I was targeting top 50% income women with pets and gardens and all I got was a bunch of "1 room how much" or "shampoo sofa I have 70 dollars" replies or something of that nature. So I guess I was doing something wrong

 

[Paul David]

Yes, honestly it was like talking to 4 year olds every time I tried it. I was targeting top 50% income women with pets and gardens and all I got was a bunch of "1 room how much" or "shampoo sofa I have 70 dollars" replies or something of that nature. So I guess I was doing something wrong

Probably. I do Facebook ads for around 30 carpet cleaners. Most have been with me since before covid so I guess we do something right!

I have a new DIY Facebook ads program for carpet cleaners, its super cheap at £150/$170 a month. You can launch proven carpet cleaning ads in just 3 clicks without even going into Facebook also. You just pay Facebook for ad spend. Also you get access to our platform with helps bring in more jobs without ads. Hit me up if you'd like more info.

Congrats on growing!

 

[Andy Black]

I'm getting a bunch of clicks on my google ads from India and all over the world even though the location setting is set on presence only. I'm gonna block the whole world except for my town and see if it helps!

View attachment 48609

The location setting should be the middle one. We sometimes exclude everywhere else too.

 

[savefox]

The location setting should be the middle one. We sometimes exclude everywhere else too.

Would you recommend using any fraud blocking software for Google ads?

 

[Andy Black]

Would you recommend using any fraud blocking software for Google ads?

We don't use any tbh. Google is pretty good at blocking fraudulent clicks, from the Google search engine anyway. I think most clicks from other networks are fraudulent... but then I'm a cynic.

 

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[2legit2quit]

man this thread makes me so happy, im so happy reading this

 

[Fasted]

Made $10k in May and quit my 30k a year job yesterday! Hit a new record of $1300 today from 5 jobs. Should I invest in a truck mount? Would you care what method of cleaning your carpet cleaner used? I'm using a $500 floor buffer and it cleans pretty well as long as the carpet is pretty clean to begin with, just doesn't look professional. Truck mounts are around $10-20k

Dope! I’d aim to look more professional, probably not yet though £10-20k is no joke

 

[savefox]

Pretty sure the guy who cleaned ours didn’t have one, I didn’t pay enough attention. I really don’t think anyone would care or even know what a truck mount is.

Has anyone said something?

Are your clients people who get them cleaned regularly or is it mostly 1 off jobs?

You’re getting paying clients and making money, unless it’s going to make jobs significantly easier and faster and mean you can get more done, I wouldn’t. Just keep your head down and keep stacking money.

I wouldn’t care if my lawn care guy used a hand mower or a ride on. Johnny seems to be big on using cheap mowers until they break and then buying new ones. You could probably take the same approach and scale that way.

10k is enough to buy another van and carpet cleaner and probably pay someone’s wages for a month.

Also if you are still looking for up sells, the guy who did our carpets upsold us cleaning our floor tiles, he just did the grout by hand with a grout brush and then run over the tiles with a machine. I was super happy with how they turned out.

Pressure washing could be another upsell. People that are in let’s get the carpets cleaned mode are probably also open to having a nice clean driveway and paths too.

Some people ask if I have a truck mount when they call, but they usually have the dirtiest carpets and are price shoppers. Rich or middle class people usually don't care. I've only had 2 repeat customers yet, but I'm getting good reviews

 

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[Spenny]

That's a good idea, I just went and bought a pressure washer. I will add pressure washing to my services and if it goes well, I'll probably create a pressure washing and soft washing company, because carpet cleaning and pressure washing sounds kind of weird together
View attachment 49160

Oooh what GPM is it? Did you get any nozzles to go along with it?

If you're doing drives & patios, you'll want a surface cleaner. Cuts washing time by loads. You'll also want to get a downstream injector or a spray pump (NOT BACKPACK TYPES) for sodium hypochlorite & surfactant mixes.

Fences, walls, decks & can cleaning are fantastic too, another great upsell. Even cars if you have a wide angle fan tip.

If you need any help on soft washing & pressuring washing drop me a DM, I've been doing a tonne of research into this stuff & plan on buying equipment soon.

 

[Fasted]

but it wouldn't be fair

oh yes it would be

you're killing it man

 

[perfectdownside]

Here's some stats for June. About $22000 in revenue, all the leads came from google ads and google local services ads. There was a couple of referrals as well. Doing the work while answering the phone and giving quotes every minute sucks especially when English is not your first language. I'll try using another answering service and if it doesn't work I'll probably hire a VA or something.

Apart from that, the business is running almost automatically. I haven't had to intervene with the ads this month, and they're still performing well. The booking software automatically sends email and text sequences to people who haven't booked, and they actually think I'm sending all those messages personally.

I'm one of the most expensive companies in the area. I don't know how people are paying $700-800 to have their carpets cleaned, but they are. The secret is in offering 3 packages. Most people will choose the middle one, which is already more expensive than what most companies offer, but some of them will choose the most expensive one. It takes only 20 minutes extra to do the third package and it doubles the profit

The goal is to have 2 vans working full time 6 days a week bringing in about $35-50k per month. I just need to double the lead flow somehow. I could probably open a couple more "locations" on google maps in a different parts of the city and run google local services ads from there as well, but it wouldn't be fairView attachment 49819View attachment 49821View attachment 49820

This has been a fantastic read: I started from your first post and read all your updates, fantastic work! Thank you for posting the updates, you really followed through.

 

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[Keith.Buhler]

That's great, you might want to get a few dozen customers this way to really know what your customer is like. 1 data point isn't enough to know.

Also, maybe you could raise the price to $120 and make the "discount" down to 110.

I used to clean carpets for a start-up and the "$100 intro price!" only attracted cheap clients. We were clearly the "Want cheap service? Choose US!" option.

Price communicates value. Saying "I will do it for $99 AND give you a discount!!!" screams cheap service / newbie / possibly desperate.

Raise the price to $150 (for one set of ads, one day) and then $119 (for another set, the next day) and do your own A/B testing. See if you don't ironically hook MORE fish with the bigger price because they want to know you're confident in yourself and can do a good job.

Also... most importantly... make sure you do a good job.

 

[perchboy]

Find an Uber driver for part time work. They’re already on the road all the time and have maximum flexibility with their hours

 

[savefox]

Before switching from mCPC to tCPA (October):

After (November):

Everything else is the same.
CPL doubled, lead volume went down, closing rate from those leads went from 50% to like 15%. Never listen to what google recommends

 

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[Paul David]

I heard a lot of complaints from carpet cleaners that agencies send them fake leads, and complaints from agencies that carpet cleaners can't close the leads that get sent to them, because they don't contact them in time, don't follow up etc and cancel the service eventually.

So I'm considering not only sending them leads but also closing them, following up using an automated system, and scheduling appointments with software that calculates distances between job sites and the time needed to complete a job. My VA does all of that for my company, and I'm sure she can do the same thing for at least 3 other companies at the same time. And I could scale by hiring more VAs

I've had something similar to this in the past.

I'd run Facebook ads under my own carpet cleaning brand and find a carpet cleaner in each area to partner up with. I'd pay for the ads, and book the jobs with a team of VA's, the carpet cleaner simply did the job and paid me 30% commission after the job was done.

Easy to sign up carpet cleaners but the problem was that some cleaners didn't do the job properly and the complaints were against my brand not theirs, and some made excuses why they couldn't pay even though they'd been paid by the client.

Final nail in the coffin was covid when hundreds of booked jobs got cancelled and I was left with a large Facebook ads bill and no income to pay it.

Model is great on paper but in reality when you factor in human behaviour - not so good!

 

[savefox]

It doesn't seem you have a USP problem. It seems your problem is not closing sales.

If you are unable to answer your phone due to work, could you hire someone for cheap? For instance a virtual assistant. Another option could be that you hire one of your parents or relatives or someone who either works at home or doesn't currently work.

What is the point of running ads if your can't close because you are busy with your slowlane job.

I was looking into getting a call answering service. Just need more leads to pay for it. I don't know why they need to call when they can just book online and even get a discount for it.

 

[Mikkel]

I was looking into getting a call answering service. Just need more leads to pay for it. I don't know why they need to call when they can just book online and even get a discount for it.

You can ask people to fill out survey's for a discount if you really want to find out why people call rather than message online, or you can save the money and cater to those who call.

Personal, I would rather call. More personalized and I can get things scheduled quickly, and I can ask all questions right away.

What is cheaper? Hiring someone you know, or a service? Which ever is the best service for your money is what you should probably choose.

 

[doster.zach]

Got my first lead through Google Local Services ads, got charged $22, not too bad

lead or sale?

 

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[savefox]

lead or sale?

Sale. Only $99 dollars, though. Need to target people willing to pay more than the minimum price somehow. Or upsell on-site