The commercial market for carpet cleaning service has literally exploded in the past ten years.
Building managers recognize the advantages of carpet.  It's quiet, safe to walk on and adds to the aesthetic qualities of a place of business.

Carpet has become much more expensive in recent years and there is concern about protecting this larger investment. We've cleaned everything from the Indianapolis Colts artificial grass in the RCA Dome to the NCAA's new headquarters building in Indy.

With all the doom and gloom about mold and mildew in recent years, I've got to admit I get a little squeamish when we clean for two large law firms. But lawyers are just like any other consumer....if we do a good job for them they refer us to their friends.

Given all of the talk about the web, it's time to put the web phenomenon into a consumer context. 

How do you go about getting information about a purchase?  Do you get into your car and drive to a handful of stores gathering details?  Or, do you sit down in front of your computer and type in a search term in Google or Yahoo!, or perhaps Amazon?

The more complex the purchase, the more research I do, and the more I prefer to do that research on my time, on my terms, without being hounded by someone who doesn’t have my interests at heart.  I distrust hard sells and marketing pitches that are too biased.  I seek out reviews and perspectives from peer consumers; I follow people [virtually] whose perspectives I respect.  I value corporate sites only if they offer me relevant information and act/feel like real human beings. 

Does it sound familiar?  If it doesn’t, it will soon because this is the new world order where consumers call the shots, ignore traditional push marketing communications, trust others before we trust organizations and their marketing messages, and immediately start the purchase process searching online.

Think of that.  Before going to a company website for information, we type our query into Google and then examine the results delivered.

That goes for carpet and flooring, too. 

The funny thing is that the new world order results from technology – easy-to-use technology that enables search, engagement, conversation, interaction and community-creation.  That's the web.  It’s a democratic tool breaking down geographic, educational, cultural and personal boundaries.  It allows like-minded individuals to connect and share information; it facilitates crowd-sourcing, co-creation, unexpected problem-solving and amazing cooperation.  It also allows corporations to engage in conversations with customers.

For you see, the people taking part - in blogs and wikis, photo-sharing, online reviews, help boards - are no longer at the fringe.  They are you and me.  Entrepreneurs, corporate business people, retirees, school teachers and operators. Men and women.  Especially women.

Although the conversations happen on an individual level, they increasingly affect large organizations which are made up of individuals.  Traditionally, corporations have formed walls around employees and brands while issuing carefully crafted and controlled messages to end users or customers outside.  Those walls are becoming more porous, disintegrating before our eyes, all for good reasons.  Not only can we now communicate directly with our consumers, our end customers, but our organizations can now be appreciated for the sum of the individuals making them up.

Individuals who are consumers and endusers and the ultimate customer, too.  Individuals with passion and perspectives to share, eager to take part in meaningful conversation. 

If the new world order is about engaging those interested in the conversation, regardless of corporate affiliation, how can corporations and brands participate?  After all, if they don’t, how will they remain relevant to customers?  How will they develop meaningful solutions?  How will they be found? 

Welcome to the New World Order!

Does  anyone in Washington know what they're doing?  I have a terrible feeling that they do. They're bailing out irresponsible financial institutions and people who have hocked their homes to pay off wanton credit card bills. The losses on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's $5 trillion loan portfolios are mostly high risk mortgages and congress says $25 billion will fix the problem.

$5 trillion in High-risk mortgages and only $25 billion to save the system? Citigroup alone wrote down $18 billion in just one quarter. Do you think the banks that sell mortgages to Fan and Fred might cherry pick a little bit? You know...keep solid loans for themselves. Republicans and Democrats alike are conspiring with the financial  industry and the news media to sell the idea.

Even this old carpet cleaner who doesn't comprehend billions and trillions can see the percentage is way out of balance. I believe losses to taxpayers will be much higher. But the worst part is that some real heavy-duty pigs are lining up at the trough to get even fatter.

 

Remember the blog I posted about cheap carpet. A national carpet franchise ran a commercial on TV in Indianapolis that very same week advertising carpet at 49 cents a square foot.  Now that's cheaper than some of us charge to clean it. Could it be BS advertising or is it really cheap stuff?

A trip to a big box store demonstrates "How not to sell carpet." If a store clerk shows up at the carpet department to answer questions, they have little or no product knowledge. For DIY carpet shoppers, they don't mention a power stretcher nor its importance to a satisfactory job. These big stores push cheap, DIY cleaning equipment and cleaning agents, too.

Is it any wonder carpet sales are suffering? Carpet makers should not sell carpet to these mass marketers since most complaints about carpet originate with them.

 

The mentality of consumers continues to amaze me. Maybe P. T. Barnum was right! Forget all those dumb conservation promises. Stop thinking about independence from foreign oil. Quit talking about off-shore drilling and get that old SUVout of mothballs. Happy days are here again.

The drop in oil prices occured from only talking about slowing our reliance on foreign oil.  Imagine how low the price would go if we actually put a drill in the ground and had the guts to do some of the things we talk about, like conserving energy.

Most companies don't understand the importance of a web site's Title Tags and Meta Descriptions Tags. The Title Tag and Meta Description Tag are located in the top of a web page and contain words describing the content for the page. They often contain targeted keyword phrases to help improve search engine ranking position and are very important for Search Engine Optimization. Unfortunately, most companies are unaware of this fact and don't have a clue how to find and review what words the web site developer inserted in these important two HTML tags.

So I wrote a simple web application to help companies review the Title Tags and Meta Description Tags for any web page in their web site. Just click the link below...

SEO - Examine Web Site Title Tags and Meta Description Tags for Better Search Engine Optimization

Price, Perception and Performance... Price is often the hook in advertising. For years carpet ads have stressed price instead of quality. There is a certain Perception of value anticipated by the buyer regardless of what they pay for their carpet. Performance does not always meet their expectations. The 3 'P's are followed by the 3 'R's.

Results, Regrets and Retaliation... Results such as bad installation, especially when there is seam peaking, take time to show up. Slow delivery or product substitution cause immediate Regrets. Next time around the disappointed consumer will buy from another store or worse yet, they will buy hard floors.

I believe there is a whole lot of pent up Retaliation in the dose of bitter medicine the CRI calls "de-selection." They say the carpet cleaning community is at fault, not shoddy carpet sales practices, faulty installation or manufacturing defects. That probably makes the folks in northwest Georgia feel better even if it's not true.

In an online article on eMarketing.com titled "Gas Prices Boost E-Commerce"they state there has been a boost in online sales because of the higher gas prices. That would not surprise me. What does bother is in the chart it Shows the decline in purchase of luxury goods and fewer major purchases. That strikes the heart of the flooring industry, not just new home construction but also the remodeling projects are probably being put off by many homeowners too. Click here to read this full article.

 

One of the reasons Webstream Dynamics creates custom web sites is so we can optimize the images for the search engines. Images are used on web pages to support the page's message and if done correctly can also help with search engine optimization (also called SEO).

Text and graphics within images are not easily intrepreted by the search engines spiders, so we need a way to describe the image to the search engines. Luckily, the HTML Image tag has a property called the ALT TAG. This is where we add a few words that accurately describe the image in text words.

For example: See below the image from  Glueless Floating Hardwood Floors.

Notice the text within the image. That is great for the user looking at the page, but not for the search engine spiders. So with the HTML image tag I inserted the ALT tag and it says ALT="Glueless Engineered wood Plank Profile" Now the search engine spiders have some text content that describes what the image is about. Also, the text I inserted in the ALT tag is relevant to the page content so the search engines will see I am not spamming them with keywords not relevant to the page.

 

Carpet is being used less in new homes and older ones, too. Carpet is not used much in kitchens, bathrooms and entry ways. Sometimes we only see it in bedrooms. But even with limited usage, there's almost as much carpet in the homes we serve today because they are so much larger than when we started in this business.

But, carpet is used in areas that don't soil as rapidly, so we don't get the repeat business we used to get in the good old days. To deal with this challenge we've gone back to our roots in the cleaning business... the maintenance of stone, tile and wood floors. Oriental carpets and area rugs have become a good profit center in recent years. Furniture cleaning and Teflon sales have also helped augment revenues.

Special classes four times a year at Bane-Clene Institute teach the techniques and recommended products for hard floor care. Doing this work for customers is appreciated and can be very profitable, too.