Many professional carpet cleaners end up in the water restoration business kind of by accident.

Let’s continue on our journey to discover how to generate $400,000 in sales using one truck with a helper, working Monday through Friday, 8 am to 5 pm, by adding anti-allergen cleaning and treatment services to your offerings.

Let’s see, what should we look at this month? How about how to get started on a step-by-step plan developing your anti-allergen business that will allow you to generate $400,000 per van?

I had the great privilege of knowing Earl Nightingale. Many of you will recognize the Nightingale-Conant Co. as one of the largest sellers of personal and business development programs in the world.

Last month I explained how offering two carpet protectors, one with a warranty and one without, was the secret to selling protector on 80 percent of your jobs-guaranteed. Now I’ll explain how the warranty program works.

The biggest challenge in terms of selling more protector (and anything else, for that matter) is our own mistaken beliefs about what our customers think. Somehow, we cleaners have come to believe that we have some sort of special mind-reading powers.

One of the most important concepts to understand is how you can easily apply protector on 80 percent of your jobs without trickery, arm-twisting or pushy selling.

Many cleaners don’t know where to start when it comes to developing relationships with carpet retailers, and that’s understandable.

I am constantly on the road teaching, and during the last three months or so I’ve been hit with many questions about two issues that are raising serious concerns among carpet cleaners.

I present more than 100 seminars across the country each year, and so I get the opportunity to speak with a lot of carpet cleaners. In the last couple of years I have noticed a recurring theme coming from cleaners large and small all over the country.