I was cleaning (HWE) a residential house and we were discussing what to use as a general spotter. Then it dawned on me, how about making bottles up using releaseit. I figure the product will accomplish the same thing but without leaving any dirt attracting residue that I usually have to contend with while cleaning. Also, I figure the custy just can't go to the store and buy the product...it's pretty unique. What you be the proper ratio?

Now THAT'S not a bad idea!!

So, Rick, can you make some up as leave behinds???

Or have em printed with our phone #??

Or something like that?

I do believe that would be cool.

first, is there , not a shelf life of mixed solution, but a useful life if you will??
does it lose its punch if it would sit on a shelf and not be used but every other month or so when the customer might think of it???
rick???? I thought about leaving it with my restaurant managers instead of the crap that they use. they buy over the counter stuff from walmart, etc. what ever and whenever they think of it. but too, that is my bad, i should have it there for them, be it Releasit or another more neutral, safe spotter. So I shoulder the blame to an extent.
thanks

steve

Steve Dobson
ProFloor
Custom Cleaning Services

You could have a screen printer make you some bottles or stickers for the bottles with your name and usp, phone # etc. Fill them with encap spot. Charge a little more for the job and advertise free spotter with every job. Give them to the customer, they always like free stuff

Steve Frasier
Drew and Steve's Floor Care
www.drewandsteve.net

I thought about the same thing several months ago. I asked Rick and he told me to get some bottles and do it myself. I went to www.spraybottles.com and bought some spray bottles for real cheap and printed my own label. Then I mix it up like I would if I was cleaning (4 oz of double strength to a gallon). I usually make one gallon at a time and then fill my bottles. I put my labels on and then give them out. We just had a Chamber of Commerce event which I had a booth at and I was giving away my spotter. I figure it cost me 85 cents a bottle so if I hand out a hundred or two no big deal. All I have to do is get one job from it and it pays for itself. We give them away for free to our customers after a job also. This way they will call us back. I guess I could sell them but I am looking to get my name out more and so I can do that by giving them away.

Kevin Pearson

I've been leaving bottles of free cleaner with my customers for the past 19 years.

It all started 19 years ago when I picked up the Suncoast Food Stores account. These are a chain of 17 Exxon/Convenient stores in our area that we picked up back in 1985. These stores are floor care not carpet cleaning. But I decided right from the start that they should receive a free bottle of floor cleaner each week when we serviced their store. I didn't want them to mop the floor with bleach or some other concoction and ruin my floor. So the alternative was to give them a bottle of floor cleaner. I purchased pint bottles and I had paper labels printed. We fill the bottles with a dilution of floor cleaner that they can use to mix in their mop bucket.

Well as I developed my carpet cleaning business I decided to do the same thing. I gave my customers a free bottle of spot cleaner with my own printed label. The customers love it! And it keeps my number in front of them.

This ain't rocket science. Just get yourself some bottles. Bottle prices run about 35 cents per bottle when you buy a case. Then make up some labels on your puter. Self stick labels are inexpensive. Or if you're really cheap (like I was with that floor care account) you can even print your label on plain paper and apply them with a glue stick. The least expensive component will be the 4 oz dilution of Releasit which will run 6 cents per pint (at that rate you could probably afford to splurge and mix it stronger). So your total cost could be under 50 cents per bottle. Or if you go with the fancier peal & stick labels the price may be an extra dime or quarter per bottle. Not a bad give away for well under a dollar.

We order 16 oz pint carafe bottles from...
All American Containers
2400 Gelman Place
Tampa FL 33619
(813) 248-2023

Now regarding the question above. Will Releasit retain its power in the diluted form? Yes in a sealed bottle it should last a good while. And if you choose to mix the Encap-Clean DS a little stronger at say 6 or 8 oz per gallon rather than at the normal 4 oz per gallon - you should see no problem whatsoever with reasonable shelf life in a sealed bottle.

If you decide to offer sample bottles to your customers there is one thing that you will want to be careful about. YOU now become responsible for the contents. If a toddler drinks it and gets a tummy ache - you've now become the responsible party. So make sure that you include all the pertinent safety data on the label. I can tell you two things in this regard. 1) We have given away bottles of free stuff for nearly 20 years and it has never presented a problem. 2) Diluted Releasit is probably one of the safest products that you'll find in the building - by comparison hair shampoo would be more hazordous.

So there ya have it. Providing bottles of spotter is easy as pie.

And here's one more alternative... Several of the cleaners are now selling the 32 oz bottles of Encap-Spot multi spotter to their customers. This is a serious full range encap spotter that the clients are not hesitating to pay for. I had lunch with a carpet cleaner from my area this past Friday who sells it to his customers for $12 a bottle. He says his customers love it and it's an easy sale.






Rick Gelinas

I did this for a lot of years. Made my own spotter, and gave it away.

Try this trick for filling the bottles.

The dilution for the spotter I made was 1 ounce of concentrate per quart.

It was easy to get a pump that fits a gallon jug and gives one ounce per pump. So I put 1 ounce in the quart bottles, then put them in the laundry sink, and with a hose attached to the faucet, I could fill a sink full of them- a dozen at a time as I recall, fill the bottle with water, and if there was any overflow, rinse it off with the hose.

Take them out of the sink, wipe off the outside, put the cap on, then the printed label. I do a dozen in a few minutes this way.

BUT!! The problem was as Rick sez. Potential liability. I am not up for a lawsuit if it is mishandled. Whaddami gonna do? Buy from a manufacturer (in this case it was Bi-O-Kleen products Spray and Wipe cleaner)

I am now retired from cleaning, so it is moot, but I think Rick is on the right track here about SELLING his Encap-Spot to customers.

Gary