I just got my new Cimex Machine. I have been doing residential for a while and decided to get into commercial. I have been reading this forum for a while, so with all the good praise about the Cimex I decided to buy one and start marketing to different commercial businesses. My question is what is the best way to approach them and what info should I give them. I thought about hitting funeral homes, assistant living centers, churches and hotels.

I have a small list of benefits that I'm still working on.
Here it is:

Cleaned while you work
Doors in business don’t have to be opened
Earth friendly
Employee’s background checked
Lower rate than any other carpet cleaner
As low as .09 per sq ft
Free demo

Congratulations on choosing the Cimex machine. You're gonna love it. But I'm looking through our sales record for the past month and I'm not seeing where we sold a Cimex to anyone named "Richard".

One of the advantages of buying a Cimex machine from us here at Excellent-Supply.com is that we're here to assist our clients every step of the way. Our customers can call anytime and put my 24 years of experience in the cleaning industry to work. And I'm always happy to asssist our customers with marketing ideas that have worked well. In other words, our customers get more than just the lowest price on a Cimex, they get a whole lot of technical advice too. In fact, that is our niche --- great prices and plenty of freindly advice and practical help.

I hope you don't take this the wrong way. But I'm thinking shouldn't the folks who profited from your sale be assisting you? Perhaps they're not in a position to do so.

At any rate... All of the things you mentioned above are fine. What seems to work best is getting in front of the decision maker in person and push the Free Demo. This should help you to make the sale. And if you want to do a search on this message board on the word "marketing" and "prospect" you should find some good info.

Wishing you success with your new Cimex.





Rick Gelinas
encapman

I would personally shy away from advertising price.I have yet to price 2 commercial jobs the same due to the many variables.Just something to keep in mind.
Patrick

hi Richard

i agree with Patrick wholeheartedly. i used to try and give the cheapest price just to get the job. sometimes i'd get it, sometimes not. now i price much fairer (for me that is) and i still close the same percentage of jobs.

certainly SOME of the high-end clients you seek will be turned off by advertising low price...not all mind you, but some.

they are calling you and are interested in your service, because they want clean carpets. that's the bottom line (or the top of the list if you prefer).

thanx --- Derek.

Hi Rick,
I am just thrilled with the new Cimax system I purchased for you. I have a question.
What spare parts for my new Cimax should I have in stock? I know things break down and I want to be ready. I'm sure a belt would be good to get. What else do you recommend? Send me parts numbers and information to order.
Thanks for all you do for the industry.
Jamie Menard
Menard's Carpet Care

The belt will normally last for at least a year of heavy usage, and in many cases even longer. The belt will start to slip before it wears out completely, so wait to till you need it order a belt.

Aside from that, there's very little that ever goes wrong. The machines are built like a tank, as you can see. So there really isn't a need for keeping an inventory of parts on hand.

If anything does break just contact me and we'll get you taken care of right away; we can even get a part sent overnight. Bottom line: Hold onto your money, we can address replacing a broken part if and when the time comes. My guess is that it will be a very long time before you'll ever need to consider parts.

Go make some money





Rick Gelinas
encapman

Thanks Rick. My belt slips when I first start cleaning but the pads may be dry.
whould gthat cause slipping?
jamie

I'm sorry Rick, I actually bought this Cimex at Jon-Don in Dallas, Texas. It was a Demo that they were selling at a reasonable price. As for being a customer, I have bought Releasit Encap-Clean from you in the past and was in the process of buying several more cases. So, I did consider myself a customer.

Please don't take this the wrong way, but I didn’t realize that there is a purchase amount that I had too buy, before I could post.

I will have customers lined-up in no time there’s no question about that. I just wanted some simple advice from some veterans that have used this machine. Next time I will keep quiet and just read.

I really am sorry if I came off the wrong way Richard.
Please try to see it from my position...

It all started off when I bought a Cimex for my carpet cleaning business. At that time Ed York was the only one in the country promoting the Cimex machines for carpet cleaning and he was selling it with a weird cleaning concoction made out of river mud (yep river mud).

Well I had heard about what DuPont was starting to do with a polymeric detergent. So I found a crystallizing detergent and started playing around with the Cimex. And the results I got where impressive!

After I saw what this new system was capable of I made a post about what I had discovered on the ICS message board. This post was the FIRST POST EVER MADE ON THE ICS board with the word “encapsulation” as it relates to this type of cleaning. In fact Bob Wittkamp awoke the next morning, read that original post, and called Evan Kessler and said they need to write a story about this. Encapsulation was born...
http://www.icsmag.com/CDA/Archives/7c4d6bc768d88010VgnVCM100000f932a8c0

At that time practically no one had ever even heard of a Cimex, and this idea of "ENCAPSULATION" was considered insane by pretty much everyone in the industry. I got my butt kicked on the message boards as I defended this "crazy" cleaning system with the Cimex and crystallizing detergent.

Little by little the industry came to recognize that this wasn't "crazy" after all. They came to appreciate that this system is perfect for so many of the problems relating to commercial carpet cleaning. To show you how far encap has come, just take a look at the CleanPros article that was e-mailed out just this morning...
http://www.cleanprosonline.com/Encap.html

During that early period of time I became a distributor of the Cimex machines and found a way to formulate what has come to be regarded as one of the best encap detergents in the industry. I have worked hard to bring this cleaning method to light in our industry. And in 2004 I was nominated to the Cleanfax magazine's Dream Team for my involvement in the industry...
http://www.cleanfax.com/article.asp?indexid=6634440

Long story short: I feel like I have done a lot to promote this method of cleaning and the Cimex machine in particular. Cimex has continued to add more and more and more dealers till we've reached an over-saturation of the market. I can assure you that some of these BIG players would not now be Cimex distributors if it weren't for my awakening the industry to the potential of this system (after all it was a TOTAL sleeper when I first got involved with it).

Can you see where this is all kind of disheartening to me? I’ve poured myself into this and I've worked very hard to bring this system to light. Every day I do everything I can to assist anyone who might benefit from this system. I share what I have learned with everyone I can. And it's a little disappointing when the reward for these efforts is a sale that goes to someone else. So hopefully you can understand a little better why I get just a little bit miffed about all this. But I guess this is just the way business gets done these days.

Again I apologize that my comments came across the wrong way. I truly hope you’ll understand a little better why I responded the way I did.

Thanks for reading this.





Rick Gelinas
encapman

I agree with Rick. I bought my first three Cimex;s in 1995 and became a Distributor because of Ed York. He recommended using LST (Low Surface Tension) product that looked and felt like mud.It was formulated by Kieth Williams and after his death the formula was bought from Kieths widow by Ed York and he eventually sold it to Paul Lucas at ChemMax who I believe still sells it. It is a great product on fine furniture like silk. But at the time I had 350000 square feet of carpet to clean. Try as I might I could not make it clean (the system-Cimex and LST) so I got discourged and after selling 9 machines I gave up and cancelled my Distributorship around 1998. A few years back, I was sitting up in bead reading one night and I got a call from Rick Gelanis (who I had met at the first VLM Fest in Macon, Ga.) asking me all kind of questions about the Cimex. After we hung up, I thought Rick is going to find out like I did that that system won't work. I really thought he was nuts. Rick had a passion for what we all know now as Encapsulation. He has worked hard at this and helped us all along the way, and I really dislike seeing the big boys profit from Ricks dedication to this system (Encap/Releasit) I am sure one day we will be calling Rick, the Father of Encapsulation as we now know it.

Rick Gelinas "Father of Encapsulation as we now know it". Well said Rambo.

I have been using Rick's products for twenty two months now. My work consists of about 90% residential. At first I was unsure and only encaped commercial and tried it on some rentals. As I used Releasit my confidence became stronger and discovered that the cleaning results were outstanding. I mainly settled in the "padcapping" method. I found that I could clean more carpet in a day and didn't have all of the maintenance costs associated with keeping my portable up and running. My cost of doing business went down and my productivity went up. That's a good combination. To put icing on the cake, I raised my prices and started offering a new, hi-tech, fast drying, cutting edge technology cleaning system with a specially designed carpet protector. It is specifically designed to work in conjunction with the my cleaning solution. Even when I get that portable out of the van (not often) I utilize encap-punch and it's encapsulation technology.

I truly appreciate what Rick has done with his hard work and dedication. Before discovering Releasit and studying this message board I cleaned carpet with my portable extractor waiting for the day I could afford a truckmount to step up the production numbers. Now I have no desire to spend 30K+ for one, I DON"T NEED IT NOW. Rick has helped me completely change my business for the better and he doesn't even know me.

I was at our local Interlink Supply the other day buying some Stain Magic and I saw a Cimex sitting there in the showroom. I couldn't believe it.

Rick, I know that I'm not one of your large accounts but I do appreciate what you are accomplishing and use your top notch products exclusively every day in my encapsulation adventures.

I encourage everyone to purchase from Excellent-Supply. Rick and his staff will go out of their way to exceed your expectations. PRICELESS!!!!!!!

Rick, a sincere thank you.

I bought my first Cimex in 1982 from Barrett Supply here in Indianapolis. We used it to strip floors. I was told it was the best carpet scrubber made, but I didn't start using it on carpet until about 1993. We did some maintenace cleaning with it using Formula 161 from Chemspec, but primarily used it to pre-scrub for HWE on commercial. I bought my second machine from Paul Lucas and had them serviced by a dealer in Hamilton Ohio who has carried them for years. The Cimex was my secret weapon.

I read the article that Bob Wittkamp wrote in 2002 and called Rick about the new chemistry. My Cimex machines have been heavily used in commercial maintenace ever since. I guess I would have liked to keep the Cimex to myself, but Rick has done too good a job of promoting it. My local supplier carries them now too.

In a competitive, free enterprise system, it's hard to have an exclusive. Hopefully Rick, you have been well rewarded for your efforts in promoting the Cimex.

Though more distributors are carrying them, you have the Releasit line that they won't have. In the last 6 months I have tried some other encap products. They did fine. But, we ran out of them recently and my son threatened me if I didn't get him Releasit again. I ordered more Releasit. We just did a couple good size jobs last week and we were delighted to be back to Releasit. My opinion, for Cimex encap work, nothing works nearly as well as Releasit and they can't take that away from you.

I bought my Cimex 4 years ago from Rick, and some chemicals before Rick had finished developing Releasit.Rick spent several hours on the phone helping me get started with my business, sent me information on marketing, strategy ect., even lists of books to read .I have ordered products from Excellent -Supply ever since. I can only speak for myself, but I know Rick has helped many more people than just myself. That creates LOYALTY to me. I would not even think of buying a new machine from anyone else, even if it was for less, which it won't , since Rick won't be undersold, I believe. I would not be modestly successful in this business if not for Rick. I realize other company's are now selling Cimex machines, but when you need advice , "Who you gonna call?" I would encourage any new machines purchased , to be purchased from the company that promotes encapsulation and helps all of us.
Craig

Thanks guys!

I really appreciate your comments.

Rick Gelinas
encapman

Met Rick in Nashville. What a pleasure it was to have seen the passion to his product. You sold me right there Rick and i have no regrets. I started using the encap. products and i love it. Tomorrow or the day after i'll be getting my new Cimex 19 and i can't wait any longer. I have friends in the business lined up to see the new baby.
Tony.