Chapter 11: "The Secret in the Back Room"
November. 1982. Driving through the nation’s largest Crow Indian
reservation. Cold air. Dusky skies. Wet highway. Humming tires.
Wipers washing away the moisture. Car heater trying to keep up with
the winter.
My senses were engulfed with these conditions as I made the 137 mile
drive to Billings, Montana from my home in Sheridan. My anticipation
was high, as I was not sure what to expect when I arrived. The man
on the phone seemed pretty determined, speaking with an urgent tone.
I do not recall his name, but I do remember that his company was
called AmeriClean, which offered franchises for carpet cleaning.
At the time the company was an unknown, but years later it rose to
be in the top 500 franchises listed by Entrepreneur Magazine.
I arrived at my destination uneventfully, and went inside the one
level office building. I noticed a smell of cleaning products and
new carpet. I know it is strange, but the smell of cleaners always
excites me. I started helping my father with cleaning contracts
when I was a boy, and I always looked forward to the special time
with him. It seems that my brain related cleaning products to having
a good time.
A lady, apparently a secretary, came from a back room and offered
me a chair. She returned to the back of the building.
I could hear activity in the building, and started walking as far as I dare.
I noticed a small window in the hallway, that let me see into another room.
In this room I noticed 3 people dialing on the telephone, asking people if
they would like an estimate for carpet cleaning. This was a strange setup.
I noticed the lady that had met us at the end of the hallway working
on a large computer. I returned to the waiting room. Soon the man I
had come to see came out and introduced himself as the president
and founder of AmeriClean, and invited me into his office.
This man explained how he had a system which included an aggressive
marketing program that always beat out the competition. He explained
how he was able to go into any town, and put the existing competition
out of business. He told me that he had targeted Sheridan, Wyoming
as one of the towns to open a franchise, and was going to offer it to me
before coming in with someone else.
He told me that my choice was to join him as a franchisee, or be put out
of business when he arrived with someone else as the franchisee.
At first this seemed scary. But as he talked, I decided that if this man
had a system that would put me out of business, I needed to know
what this system was.
He took me around the building, showing how he had designed all
of his own cleaning products, which bore the AmeriClean brand name.
That was a pretty neat idea, you could sell your own products to your
own customers.
I wanted to see that room with the small window, but he did not lead
me there, we walked back to his office. "For $20,000 I will let you
have our franchise in Sheridan, Wyoming," said the man.
I asked him why I should give him $20,000 to do what I was already
doing in Sheridan. He said that he had a secret weapon, a marketing
technique that would make me the top carpet cleaner in Sheridan.
I asked him what that technique was, but he said I would have to
sign an agreement to take the franchise, before he would reveal that to
me. I told him I would not do that.
We negotiated for 2 hours. I was determined to find out what my
future competitor, or franchiser had in his pocket. I wanted to know
the secret before I agreed to anything, he insisted that he would not
tell me the secret before I signed.
Finally, in a lull of conversation, I asked him why he had people
in the little room in the back making phone calls. He looked at me
and smiled.
"OK, I give up. That is the secret. We use telemarketing to develop
our customers."
Telemarketing? I had never heard of that, what is that? He explained
that they would call people on the telephone to get more customers
than they could handle. But, I would have to sign to be a franchisee
if I was to learn the secrets of telemarketing.
I was exhausted, and told him I would think about it and call him
the next day. I drove back to Sheridan.
I thought about my first year in business as I drove in my car back
to Sheridan. It had been a pretty tough year, and I had tried all the
normal marketing techniques. I had opened my office on main street,
with a big sign out front to advertise I was in business. I had signed
up for a yellow page ad, 1/2 a page, that cost me $250.00 every
month, yet yielded only 3 phone calls for the entire year. I had joined
the chamber of commerce to network with other business persons.
I ate lunch at the Silver Spur restaurant where all the contractors
had lunch. I handed out business cards to everyone I met. I wore a
uniform with my company name on it. I had my company name on
my truck. Yet, all of these techniques brought in very little business.
The only thing I had done, that yielded much of an income was the
list of the 1000 local businesses in Sheridan that I would call through.
I had managed to acquire several monthly janitorial contracts by
calling through the entire list once per month.
I thought about the people in the back room of Americlean making
calls. I wondered exactly what telemarketing was? I wondered if I
could do it myself without giving this man $20,000 and giving up my
own company. I already had success with getting janitorial contracts
by calling businesses on the telephone, maybe I could get carpet
cleaning jobs by calling private homes on the telephone.
The next day I called AmeriClean back with my proposal. I would
open a franchise for them, but I would not give them $20,000.00 nor
would I give up my business. I would run both. The proposal was
not acceptable, so I hung up the phone after receiving the threat that
AmeriClean was to enter Sheridan, and I would be their number one
target for annihilation.
This was a rather motivating factor. I had a lot of people depending
on me to stay in business, including my mother and father who had
loaned me $3000.00 to purchase carpet cleaning equipment. I knew
I had to do SOMETHING DIFFERENT than I had been doing.
That SOMETHING DIFFERENT was to beat AmeriClean at their own
game. I had no idea what telemarketing was, but I was going to
figure it out.
I had very little money left. Christmas was coming, and although
I had no children to buy gifts for at this time, I knew that most
people would stop having any kind of cleaning done 2 weeks
before Christmas until after the holidays. If I were to have money
to pay bills over the holidays, I had very little time to bring it in.
I had enough to buy groceries and put gas in my truck for a week,
with $50.00 left over. I had no prospects for any income before the
holidays. I figured that I might as well use the $50.00 to get some
business. If I did not spend the $50.00 on something now, it would
be gone in another week anyway.
I ran an ad in the local Sheridan Press newspaper for office help
for $4.00 and hour plus 50 cents per lead. I had over 200 applicants.
The swarm of applicants coming into my office to apply for the
$4.00 per hour job confirmed my suspicions that finding a job in
Sheridan was not what I wanted to be doing.
I made a job offer to one young lady, and explained to her that
I had never done this type of sales before, and I did not know if
it was going to work. I told her I had set aside enough money to
hire her for 12 hours, after that if I did not have any sales, I
would have to let her go. She agreed.
I built small desks to fit in my 12 foot square office, and went to
work. I gave my new salesperson a phone book, and told her to
start calling people and asking them if they wanted a free, no
obligation estimate.
I micro-managed, setting at my desk waiting for something to
happen. After 1/2 hour we had our first bite! Someone said I
could come give them an estimate! I immediately drove to
the prospect's house, introduced myself, wrote up an estimate
for them, told them I would call back to see if they would like
to have me do the job, and said good bye.
I went back to the office and my salesperson had two more estimates
for me! The next trick was to see if these estimates would actually
turn into jobs.
The next day I followed up the estimates with a phone call,
and 2 of them confirmed a time to have the job done! I was
excited! I happily told my salesperson that I would be able
to keep her on staff, and hired two more salespersons! I
completed enough work to pay my employees, and to make it
through the holidays!
The first part of January I hired four more telemarketers which
gave me three working in the mornings, and four working in the
evenings.
The month of January, which was unusually cold, with thirty
below zero temperatures, and 2 feet of snow, all of the other
cleaning companies were holed up, waiting out the storm for spring.
I had so much work that I had hired a full time carpet cleaner
to help me for $10.00 per hour, a very high wage for Sheridan.
The events that happened earlier in Billings with AmeriClean,
changed forever the way I would go about contacting customers
for the rest of my life. Also, it started a strong desire to have
my own brand of cleaners, just like AmeriClean was doing.
We were going full blast and I thought it would never end, but I
did not have the foresight to see what would happen next. Something
so simple, shut down my marketing crew.
These stories are copyrighted by Timothy L. Drobnick Sr.
1995,1996,1997,1998,1999,2000. All rights are reserved.
No permission is given to reproduce any part of these
stories without express written consent from Timothy
L. Drobnick Sr.
