Mr. Clean becomes Mr. Lucky

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He works three or four days a week, makes $120K a year and has a flexible schedule with tons of time to play.

Is this the job of some high-paid executive consultant?  Nope.  He’s a carpet cleaner and he’s rocking it!

What does it take to rock a business that most people wouldn’t want to do? John Spears is thorough.  He’s uber-friendly.  And, he’s one hell of a marketer.
For starters, John keeps himself busy with a fat network of devoted customers.  He talks to everyone about his business and he gets them to talk about him.  He’s a talkative guy and he maximizes his love of people by chatting up carpet cleaning and life with everyone he meets.  He plays hard at adding new customers to his list and that translates into a steady flow of new clientele.  John does no traditional advertising and he even turns his nose up at the bread and butter of carpet cleaners everywhere:  the Yellow Pages.  Face-to-face keeps him as busy as he likes.

Once a new customer enters the fold, John really pours on the heat.  He gives care to the little things that matter to his clients:  he lays out blankets so his machines won’t mar the hardwood and stone floors, he places protectors on the corners of walls and stairways then he meticulously cleans the carpets.  When John leaves, the home is in perfect order.  In an industry where a customer is made to feel like the carpet cleaner’s doing THEM a favor, John creates tremendous value and asks only a fair price for his work.

Signature Carpet Care hits it out of the park in the two most critical areas of small business:  John works a proven marketing strategy and then he creates an overabundance of value for his customers.  It’s a winning combination and John’s earned the life of his dreams; plenty of money for his family and plenty of time for himself.  John attributes much of his success to his willingness to hire business and life coaches along the way.  Talking to John, one gets the impression that he’s thought more about carpet cleaning than any man in Salt Lake City.

He’s clearly rocking it, but there’s another challenge on the horizon.  John’s trying to figure out how to take his business to the next level.  Since his marketing depends so much on his gregarious personality, he has little idea how to duplicate it.  

I’ve seen many businesses try to go from “owner-operator” to “organization.”  There are dangers on the bridge crossing that chasm:  dwindling profitability, hiring problems, loss of the owner’s authentic touch and the hole it creates when the owner, the hardest working employee, pulls back.  Without a doubt, if John takes it on, the transition will be a one-year-plus, hard-charging work-a-thon that will take a serious bite out of his hunting and fishing.  But that’s a blog for another day.

Today, John’s killing it by marketing face-to-face and by providing superior value, all nudged along by a solid business coach.  Basically, he’s running his business by-the-book.  The story of John is the story of a micro-businessman who’s not making the typical mistakes. His brilliance comes not so much from what he’s doing, but from the pitfalls he’s avoiding.

Hats off to another great American businessman.{jcomments on}