Erik Hiltz is a long time carpet cleaner and founder of Zipper Wands. He tells his start up story from the very beginning of how he got started and what motivated him to jump into manufacturing of his own brand of commercial wands and stare them with the industry. He started like most of us did as a technician working for a different company and learned to like this business and continued on and has worn a lot of different hats in his business career. From working as a SEARS carpe...

Keep It Clean! has Rob Hanks this week for a very entertaining story of an older brother convincing his two younger brothers to help him in his carpet cleaning business. They had little training and little support, but big dreams and a lot of drive. Those three brothers started one of the largest carpet and restoration supply businesses in North America. Listen to how their partnership worked, how they planned and looked for, but also created opportunity after opportunity throughout their en...

BK Semandic came to the US from Serbia and decided to make a life here. He has an appreciation for the land of opportunity. And what an opportunity it has been! BK applies himself through the power of visualization and creating a future that is attainable. He tells his startup story from learning the language to understanding how the cleaning and restoration industry actually works. Along the way he breaks many of the traditional rules that we commonly associate with operating and mana...

An Interview with Bill Yeadon, all around nice guy, lover of business books and one of the pioneers of the professional cleaning industry. Bill has been a carpet cleaner for many, many years and a pure lover of marketing this industry. Bill talks about his early days as a carpet cleaning professional in Florida in the early days of on-location cleaning operations, building a multi-truck operation and then working for Bane Clene Corporate showing others how to do the same thing in their marke...

Craig Jasper has spent a lifetime in the professional cleaning and restoration industry. Starting as a very young adult, he learned literally from the ground up to clean floors, carpets and fabrics. As most of us do, he then journeyed into the professional Restoraton industry and has become one of the most sought after instructors in the industry. His down home instruction style fits well with his Chicago upbringing. He tells it like it is. Listen to the story of his startup and the obstacle...

If you are in the professional cleaning industry and you have not heard of Courtney Lee, you have been living under a rock. This guy is everywhere on FaceBook and many different cleaning related pages. Always a positive person and always willing to lend a hand to fellow cleaning professionals, Courtney had found himself struggling with some of the same issues we all face, busy vs profitable. After coming to his own "moment of clarity", he completely changed his business model and is no...

Jessika James has been around our professional cleaning and restoration world for 37 years, seeing many new changes and challenges for the industry. She is a pioneer of contents processing from the middle 80's and a pioneer of contents processing education by recently organizing an IICRC class dedicated to this venture. Jessika got her start in the family business, doesn't that sound familiar? By working with her families cleaning and restoration business first as a carpet cleaning technicia...

There are few people we meet in life that will stand out forever in our hearts and minds. Kenway Mead was one of those people in my life. Always positive, always kind and an absolute class act. He was the face of IICUC and later IICRC as the Executive Administrator of the organization through his own company Kenway Consultants, Inc., or KCI. We called his office and spoke to his employees when we contacted headquarters office to deal with IICRC certification issues. Caller...

Dr. Dan Bernazzani discusses his start in the carpet cleaning/building services industry beginning in the late 1970's. Starting small during his college years, his operation grew to two locations and worked for some of the most well established family names in the New England area, mostly in Vermont. Dan spent years honing his craft by saying yes to many different types of clients and projects, all the while learning something new every day. His lifelong quest for knowledge also afforded him...

Reg Rogers shares with Keep It Clean! his transition from rock and roll drummer to carpet cleaner. No, we are not kidding. It really happened just the way Reg tells it! The music industry is just that, an industry. Just like any other industry, some talented folks struggle to monetize their dreams and search for new opportunities. Reg tells a motivating story of his startup in the professional cleaning industry, cutting his teeth on empty, nasty apartments like most of us in the indust...

Listen to this latest interview with special guest Barry Costa. Barry talks about his start in the cleaning and restoration world while working with his Dad in the 1960’s and 70’s as a helper and starting his own company while working as a school teacher in New Hampshire. He is an award winning school teacher and if you have had the great fortune of taking any of his restoration or installation classes, you know that this is a true statement. He is an outstanding educator and is ...

A true gentleman that reaches back in our industry over 50 years. One of the first education providers in the industry, and still going strong today, Ron Toney. Ron started back in 1969 as a high school custodian and over 5 decades later still has a passion about cleaning fabrics and working with current technicians to make the industry a better place. From shampoo machines to HWE and all processes in between, Ron has seen and done it all. He is even a certified tufting machine ...

Shawn Bisaillon has had quite a journey in the professional cleaning and restoration industry! Starting at age 18, for some 30 years has had several different views of industry roles from cleaning technician to manufacturer and many things in between. Shawn is most recognizable in his role as an IICRC Instructor, training thousands of technicians over the years with a level of passion and energy that always keeps students entertained and engaged. He continues to be at the ...

In the fall season of 1986, the professional carpet cleaning industry was challenged with a new stain resistant carpet product introduced to the public. This product was unlike anything else we had ever worked on. StainMaster nylon was produced and delivered to carpet manufacturers and advertised to the public...and consumers could not buy it fast enough!! DuPont had made arrangements with Stanley Steemer to be their warranty claim partner to service StainMaster carpets that were spott...

Mike Dunmyer, owner of Advanced Degree Carpet Cleaning, earned an MBA from Duke University, has worked as an executive in corporate America, and as a partner in a national non-profit organization that is helping to save our oceans. Then, he decided to become a carpet cleaner. Mike went from dining with US Senators and Congressional reps to cleaning customers’ carpets and loving every minute of it. He brings a unique perspective to our industry, one that I really enjoy sharing with all ...

Robert Falzone of Robert Falzone Consulting and Sales is our guest on this rip roaring edition of Keep It Clean. Robert is outspoken to say the least and got his start with cleaning and restoration refurbishing historical buildings in Brooklyn New York in the 1980's. He has a world of knowledge from his days in the field and brought that knowledge into his sales career in Las Vegas NV. The difference in restoring historical buildings to their grand luster in NY, versus the demoli...

Doyle Bloss of HydraMaster speaks about his early years in the cleaning business and his entry into the supply side of the business. He talks about the influence his father, Ralph Bloss had on him and our entire industry, about helping people, especially young couples grow their business and therefore their lives. He and I reminisce about early days without truckmount hot water extraction and how we were able to still make a living even without the best tool or information available.

Howard Partridge spent all of their wedding cash on a carpet cleaning machine and he is still married!! He struggled like we all did in the beginning of his career and turned it around by understanding the power of referral marketing. Howard now trains thousands of people all around the world on how to use his system of referral marketing. His company in Houston Texas, Clean As A Whistle, runs with his management team in charge so Howard can focus on helping others, in several differen...

Mike Pailliotet has been cleaning carpets for awhile and has seen every side of the industry. From high pressure sales processes in his early years, to the more consultative approach today, Mike still cleans carpet every day and has an army of cheerleaders as current customers. Mike started out learning from the internet and now has a list of other cleaning professionals he has helped, yelled at and nurtured into better professionals. He owns Mikey's Board, a forum where carpet c...

Claude Blackburn, Founder of Dri-Eaz Products, talks about his early days with carpet cleaning and operating his business in Northwest Washington state. It is an interesting story of overcoming, dedication, optimism, and downright stubbornness to keep the dream alive and then some. One man's take on pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and how to learn along the way. Claude's story is very inspiring.