Low Risk, High Reward Duct Cleaning

What if I said you could potentially double or triple your profits on each job? Would you be interested?

How about if I told you that in the process, your clients would be even more satisfied with your services and your referral rate would skyrocket? Would I have your attention?

Over the last several years, I’ve had the pleasure of interacting with literally thousands of carpet cleaners who are enjoying the benefits that come from adding duct cleaning to their service menu.

While attending cleaning conventions like Connections in Las Vegas, I am consistently approached by people excited to tell me about how much more successful they have become by simply adding duct cleaning to their arsenal of services.

It’s true – with the right equipment (which can cost considerably less than you probably think), effective duct cleaning is very simple to learn and perform. There are no pH levels to monitor, no drying times, no colors/dyes to bleed, and, no matter what you do to them, ducts will never shrink. With duct cleaning, you’re basically taking a bunch of dirty tubes, and turning them into clean tubes – it’s not rocket science. With an awareness of the importance of indoor air quality heavily increasing on a national level, homeowners are seeking out this service like never before, and it’s showing no signs of slowing down. In fact, duct cleaning is expected to continue to explode in the years to come.

Along with being very easy to learn and perform, duct cleaning can be extremely profitable, often yielding $250 or more per hour.

For example, a medium sized house with 14 supply registers and two cold air returns will yield about $465. A house this size, being cleaned with a modern duct cleaning system available to carpet cleaners, should take an hour and a half for a single operator or one-hour for a team of two. This equates to between $310 and $465 per hour!

Just as a stain guard application is an easy, profitable add-on to carpet cleaning, dryer duct cleaning can be a very simple, lucrative service to offer as well.

With profits ranging from $90-$120 (and taking 5-10 minutes to perform), asking your clients if they would like their dryer duct cleaned is a very worthwhile question to ask!

Free dryer duct cleaning – a $90 value, when you schedule a home carpet and/or duct cleaning is also a very attractive pitch in your advertising.

Okay, so duct cleaning is easy to do, and yields big profits, but how easy is it to market your duct cleaning service?

If you already have a customer base for carpet cleaning, you have a perfect opportunity to promote your duct cleaning service. A letter, postcard or e-mail to your existing clientele is an easy, super-effective way to successfully advertise your duct cleaning.

Offering duct cleaning to your clients during appointments is also a very effective marketing strategy – and it doesn’t cost a dime. You can easily give them a quote for getting their ducts cleaned right then and there. And being that you carry your duct cleaning equipment in your carpet cleaning vehicle, you can very easily double or triple (or more) the invoice during that appointment.

Home builders, real estate agents and home inspectors are great sources for referrals. Many builders are now having the ducts cleaned as soon as they finish building a home. Heating and cooling installation companies in your area can be a valuable resource for referrals as well.

Our company has made a habit of providing a free duct cleaning for the owner or manager of such companies in order to show them the quality of our work – and in the process, we have been repaid many times over with referrals from these individuals and their companies.

In short, duct cleaning, with its low start-up cost and extremely high profit potential, may be just what you need to take your cleaning business to the next level.

So the next time you write up an invoice for a carpet cleaning client, pause and look at the bill’s total. Then, in your mind, double or triple the dollar amount and ask yourself: What am I waiting for?”