Gang, I am giving serious thought to:
going BACK to IICRC OCT (I did it years ago and am told it is a lot different now, Then, going to meet Matt Hill at Crown supply in Orlando for odor removal chemistry training....and long story short, I then want to advertise and focus on urine stain/odor removal as well as Tobacco odor removal.

Then push the urine stain/odor thing to high-end residential and the tobacco thing to real estate agents and hotels and such.

Thoughts? Is there a real market for this type of specialized focus?

I don't see a market for those services around my area, but that might be a good way to market you company in general. Heck, you may get some benefit for your general cleaning business that way.

With proper marketing I think you can make a lot of money with any service.

Marketing is the key though it is even more important than how well you perform the service.

I assume your area has not pets?

I looked in my yellow pages, NO carpet cleaner offered "pet Urine Stain/Odor removal"

Many implied it by having a photo of a dog...

what about cats? I recall from IICRC OCT before that cats cant be ugly. Causing the need to rip out the carpet and replace. Costly. so, how can anyone NOT see a market for that?

Now Phil ... buddy ... if you didn't want honest feedback, and already knew what you were going to do, why in the world did you ask the question?

I agree marketing makes a difference, I had yellow business cards made up 2 sided pet stains and odor removal I supplied them to local vets along with Jon Dons giveaways of odor remover with my label, did pretty well with it. To add to the inspection of course I use a black light but also mositure meter so the customer can see the coverage in the pad and relate to waht you see on top is not the same underneath makes the point stronger and justifys the expense, and of course the water claw spotter makes a professional statement as well so far no customer has seen one till mine

For clarification, I am not certain if this is my area or not. Hence....the question.

But, I figured I was allowed to reply to the replies. That is kinda what we do on forums. discuss. exchange.

so, it seemed odd to me that you don't "see" a market in your area. either your area has pets that pee...or they do not. It might be a leap for me...but if your area has pets, then it might be safe to assume someone wants the pee out. But it is also possible that your area has pee stains yet no one cares. You never really touched on that.

what I was really wishing for here is someone who does see the market, and knows how to capture the market. Or, someone who saw the market but never figured out how to capture the market.

I recall reading somewhere the # 1 reason carpet gets thrown out is odor. #1 odor? Urine.

Is not pet odors, but because it uglied out from lack of maintenance, odors can be removed.

So then, how do we (I) alert the ones who currently think they need to toss the carpet?

My area of the world is in an economic crunch resulting from real estate slowing down, builders have laid off other trades etc. Yet...I see truck loads of tossed out carpet in front of homes for sale weekly.


the report I read was rather detailed about why carpet is tossed...and was one offered by the IICRC teacher. He was certain there was a market too....Of course he worked for Unsmoke.

"already knew what you were going to do, why in the world did you ask the question?"

 

Seems to be a lot of that going on, on these board lately.