Plus Sales Mean Profit

Most people detest the term “add on sales.” Yet, plus or extra sales can make a company highly profitable. A service vehicle should generate a reasonable profit just by doing the basic work it was designed to do such as clean carpets and furniture. But other sales made by that service unit can make the difference between a very mediocre company and a highly profitable one.

In the twenty years Bane-Clene® worked for L. S. Ayres & Co., a major midwestern department store, we reported to Salvatore R. (Sol) Petruzzi. We did all of the carpet and furniture cleaning for Ayres’ customers in the State of Indiana. Sol loved to use the term “plus sales.” He said it sounded much softer than “add on sales” and made extra profits for his company. Salespeople, he believed, must be taught to be ethical in the selling of extra services. Sol had two rules concerning plus sales that are worth repeating:

• Extra sales should be made only to the customer who has a need for the product or the service.
• The customer can afford to buy the product or service.

If fee structures are such that all expenses and a small profit can be made just cleaning carpets, a service crew can make extra profits for the company with only a few additional sales. These sales go almost entirely to the bottom line since the expense of going to and from the job are already amortized.

Carpet protectors are a tremendous profit generator. Profitable plus sales can come from furniture cleaning, hard floor care, brushes, spotters, door mats and sundry other items related to the cleaning business. If your profit margins are not what you think they should be, take a few days off, come to Bane-Clene Institute. Learn how to improve your profit margins!

Fall 2009
Cleaning Digest
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