Are You Selling a COMMODITY?
By Bruce Bennett
What does
a box of salt, a carton of eggs and a 2x4 piece of wood all have in common?
The are commodities. What are commodities? They are items that are all
pretty much identical. and when you purchase them you buy on the basis of
price.
For
example, say your wife asks you to stop at the supermarket on the way home
and buy a dozen extra large eggs. As you walk by the cooler you noticed that
one brand of eggs is priced at 89 cents a dozen and another at $1.30 a
dozen. Which one will you purchase? Naturally the eggs that are priced at 89
cents. Why, because eggs are eggs and there is no difference.
Lets look
at another example, you probably live in a wood frame home or apartment.
What kind of 2x4's are in the walls? Were they processed by Weyerhaeuser,
by Georgia Pacific or by Louisiana Pacific? Chances are you don't know and
you really don't care. You just want 2x4's that hold up walls.
How does
all this apply to carpet cleaning? When I was in a large northeast city, I
noted an ad in the local yellow pages. It was for carpet cleaning at
$8.00 a room with a 2 room minimum. In another city the ad was almost
identical with $8.00 a room or 5 rooms and a hallway for $40.00. You can
find ads like this in almost every area of the country.
The point
I'm making is this, do the homeowners in our area view carpet cleaning
as merely a commodity? I'm afraid in many cases they do. They feel all
carpet cleaners do the same quality of work and so they might as well get
the very cheapest price. How can we change their thinking? We do this by
educating them that there is a difference in cleaners. We do this by
demonstrating our expertise in stain removal and odor control. We do this by
showing them we are professional, not laborers, and we offer quality far
superior to the average cleaners. If we don't, the we run the risk of carpet
cleaning becoming just another commodity. When this happens, the customer
will buy the cheapest price.
