Last week was spent at the Building Owners and Managers Association’s (BOMA International) Every Office Building show in Philadelphia with the family “vacationing” around sessions. Anyone who has done a trade show or two knows that the days can be exhausting, especially when you are doing it solo. It's difficult to sneak away for lunches and/or restroom breaks, and, even with the benefit of carpet beneath your feet, standing at a booth all day takes its toll on your extremities. The only thing more exhausting than working a trade show solo, in fact, is taking your family along under the premise of a vacation...BOMA is one of those unique shows in that it brings together a lot of different people with a lot of different needs. From building owners to superintendents, facility managers to investment seekers, the show is all about people running buildings in the most productive and profitable way.
Most of the conversations I had were with people looking to improve on their carpet cleaning and maintenance efforts and those are always productive chats. I love seeing the light bulbs click on in their heads when I start talking about ways to save money and protect investments -- some of these folks have millions of square feet under their directive.
I had one gentleman who came by manages almost 1.5 million square feet of office space for his employer in New York City. As we talked about his usage of carpet in the facilities, you could almost see him doing the math in his head while I relayed some of CRI’s information to him.
I told him about a customer who had purchased 4,400 square yards of carpet at an installed cost of $183,000. The particular carpet had a design life of 11 years, but, because of poor maintenance and the use of 'bad’ products, the carpet lasted barely four years before it had to be replaced. The customer lost about $116,000 in value by having to replace it prematurely.
Poor carpet maintenance, by the way, consists of using improper cleaning methods, using the wrong products and cleaning carpet on an improper schedule.
Thanks to our good friend Lew Migliore (the self-billed industry trouble-shooter who has seen his share of poor choices leading to costly mistakes), I was able to provide the gentleman with a flier that detailed other such “horror” stories.
For instance, Lew once dealt with a customer who had purchased 4,000 square yards of high-end nylon and loop carpet at $32 per yard for a bank on two floors of a high-rise building in a major city. The customer spent $227,000 to buy it and install it and when it “uglied out” in two years of the seven-year design life, he called Lew to have him look at it. Lew determined that poor maintenance is what had cost the guy $162,000 worth of his investment by prematurely having to replace the carpet.
And when you add to these two examples the fact that by helping to extend the life of the products not only saves money, but also is good for the planet because it avoids unnecessary production and consumption, the conversations with the BOMA attendees really start to make sense. That’s where we offer the solution: CRI Seal of Approval services.
Products certified by CRI Seal of Approval have demonstrated they are effective at removing soil and do not harm the carpet’s appearance like some other products. We also tell them about using carpet cleaners who are Seal of Approval Service providers to ensure their carpet is being cleaned with quality products.
In the end, it’s always nice to see that folks get it. It makes all those long hours on your feet worthwhile! And in my case, it even leaves you with enough energy to enjoy a family vacation that included such things as running those Philadelphia steps in the evening where Rocky Balboa did in the first Rocky movie. Of course, carpet sure would have felt nice on those 72 steps!
~ James
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