Just curious, for the guys that just encap commercial carpet and consider themselves of making good money doing so, (I realize good money is in the eye and or pocket of each person) what size market do you work in, I guess population of your marketing area?

Thanks in advance for your input!!

Randy

This area covers VA Beach, Chesapeake, Norfolk, Suffolk, Newport News, and Hampton. Few other small areas around but this is most of it. Our market is between 1.2 and 1.6 million depending on who you listen to. Hope that helps.

Thanks for responding to my question. However, as a followup question, what type of account or accounts make up your basic customer portfolio and what is the average sq ft size of your average job.

I live and market encap commercial carpet cleaning in a rural south Georgia area and its tough to capture enough commercial business for me to stay busy. I have lived and worked through out the years as a Sales Rep in the Plumbing and have lived in Atlanta, Jax (FL) and Ft Lauderdale.

I assume that a larger commercial marketing area is better even though there is more competition. Thanks for your input!

I work an area of approx 125,000.

Rick may know, Mirriwinni to Cairns to Port Douglas.

This is less than 100 miles, north - south, and average two miles, east-west

Our city block is about half a mile square.

This is ten minutes from home.

This is where the majority of my commercial work comes from + one shopping center which is just five minutes from home.

At present, my furthest residential is twenty minutes drive.

I'm getting out of residential apart from the high rise apartments that I will clean with the Sprayborg.

I just intend doing commercial and leather, (with a few stain & spot dye jobs that others can't do).

Shorty.

Im out of Woodstock Ga and am kinda like Shorty (except taller). My accounts are from the smallest 15k to largest probably 80-100k sq ft. I only service a few accounts and there all over the place Atl,Ackworth,Alpharetta, Douglasville,etc.
I'm lucky in that this is extra money for me and I don't rely on it to pay the mortage, feed the family,etc and never has been. Some months I'll make $1500- $2000 others I'll make $10,000.
But I wouldn't have wanted to rely on this business to raise my family and put my child through college. But when I started my plan was to stay small and achieve certain goals and I have. I'm not saying you can't kill it in this business just that I never really planned on it.
Your lucky having a sales back ground as my best method of getting customers has been targeting accounts and going in and meeting with the decision makers. Can be frustrating when their carpet looks like crap and their not interested and you know you can take care of their problems but as you know sales is like that.
Also I've gotten accounts from other people in the business who I'm freinds with. You might want to consider coming to the upcoming Summerfest that Rick G is hosting, attend his seminar, and network with other cleaners. Not sure whose coming but Tom Cermak very successful out of Kennesaw and I will be there and we occasionally get request for cleaners south, which we don't cover and would recommend a cleaner we know. Plus it's nice to have poeple to call with trouble, or for advice.
Good Luck

My area is statewide for commercial. Residential is limited to a 25 mile radius that about 12k people live. We have only 1.1 million in the whole state. I put on alot of miles to turn a dime. I am condidering moving back down South.

My area is statewide for commercial. Residential is limited to a 25 mile radius that about 125k people live. We have only 1.1 million in the whole state. I put on alot of miles to turn a dime. I am condidering moving back down South.