Take 5 With Cleanfax – an ISSA Podcast
Take 5 With Cleanfax is a video and podcast program from ISSA specifically for the contract carpet and floor cleaning and disaster restoration industries. The series focuses on management and marketing topics, technical tips, emerging news and more, all in five minute segments for busy business owners, managers, and technicians. Want to be a guest on the show? Connect with Jeff Cross, Cleanfax Media Director, at jeffcross@issa.com.
Episodes
89 episodes
Do Your Techs Pass the Front Door Test?
Your technician pulls into the driveway, and the homeowner is already waiting at the front door with her arms crossed. The last company she hired left a stain by the fireplace and another one by her husband's chair. Nobody from that company eve...
When Success Doesn't Feel Like Success
A full schedule and a wall of five-star reviews don't guarantee an owner who likes the life the company built.
They Are Watching You
Repeat clients may know your company, but they are still evaluating your crew on every visit.
The Competitive Advantage Your Rivals Can’t Buy
In a crowded cleaning and restoration market, every company is chasing the same customers—and making the same promises. Bigger ads, bolder truck wraps and claims of being “the best” may attract attention, but they rarely build lasting trust. Wh...
Why Good Customers Quietly Disappear
The job's done. The carpet is dry. The hard floor you cleaned is shiny. The invoice is paid. Everything looks fine. Then a year goes by. No call. No repeat booking. No bad review, no angry phone call, nothing you can point to and fix. The custo...
That Deadly Moment When You Stopped Learning
You have been doing this 20 years. You know the work cold. There is a real chance that this is the most dangerous thing about your business right now.
Procrastination Charges Interest
Procrastination in a cleaning or restoration company is rarely a calendar problem. It's a fear response, and it charges interest.
The Follow-Up That Doesn't Feel Like a Follow-Up
The moment a job ends is the one time a customer sees a company with nothing left to gain. Most contractors waste it on a text message.Two days after the job, the text goes out. “Hi, just following up. How did we do?”Across town, ...
How to Navigate Four Tough Conversations at Work
Nobody gets into cleaning or restoration because they love confrontation. But guess what — this business is built on tough conversations. Today, we will cover four conversations every owner and manager dreads... and exactly how to have them wit...
Not Every Customer Complaint Deserves an Apology
A customer calls three days after a carpet cleaning job, upset that the carpet smells like urine. The crew did nothing wrong—the dog came back to the same spot and had another accident. Nobody on the job cut a corner. So, does the company apolo...
Five Lies Cleaning and Restoration Owners Tell Themselves
Every business owner tells themselves an occasional lie—but those lies often sound so reasonable that they're easy to believe.
Is This the Most Expensive Business Mistake You're Making?
Are you stuck somewhere way in the past when it comes to pricing your services?
Margins, Money, and Manpower: The Pressures Squeezing Restoration Contractors
The restoration industry is facing some real challenges in 2026, but the latest Restoration Benchmarking Survey Report shows there is plenty of reason for optimism.
The Real Reason Customers Say, “Let Me Think About It”
You walked the job. You measured every room. You wrote a clean, fair, professional proposal. And then your prospect looked you dead in the eye and hit you with the five most expensive words in our industry: “Let me think about it.”
Autopsy of a Complaint
It is time to grab your gloves, a pen, a clipboard, and something sharp…because we are about to perform an autopsy.
Is Your Company Pretty on the Outside but Ugly on the Inside?
You are hungry. You walk into a restaurant that looks pretty fantastic. You glance at the menu, and there it is — a glossy photo of a burger that seems almost too good to be true. You order it with high hopes. Then the server sets down somethin...
The Danger of Comfort in Business
When business is steady, referrals are coming in, and the schedule stays full, it is easy to believe everything is fine. But comfort has a way of quietly slowing innovation, weakening culture, and making companies vulnerable to change.
What It Really Means to Look and Act Like a Pro
In the cleaning and restoration world, there are a lot of people who know what they’re doing technically. They have the skills. But knowing your stuff and being seen as a professional—those are two very different things.
The Race to the Bottom Has No Winners
Ever had a customer hear your price and say, “Oh… that’s it?” That’s not a win. That’s a warning sign. In this Take 5 With Cleanfax, we dig into one of the most common traps in the cleaning and restoration world: pricing too low and ca...
The Fine Art of Mansplaining
In this episode of Take 5 with Cleanfax, we tackle a common—and costly—habit in the cleaning and restoration world: over-explaining to your clients.
The Real Cost of “I Will Deal With It Later”
There’s a small sound in the Jeep. Just a little tick. Nothing urgent… until it is. In this Take 5 With Cleanfax, we turn a simple (and expensive) lesson into a bigger conversation about something every business owner deals with: tolerating sma...
The Silent Killers of Your Business
Think about the last time you ate at a restaurant where the fork had something crusty on it you couldn't identify. Then you headed to the restroom, and it looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in a year. You back out slowly from the restaurant, to...
You Don’t Need to Be Bigger—You Need to Be Faster!
Why do small companies lose jobs to bigger competitors—even when they know they could do better work? In this five-minute episode, we break down the one advantage small companies have every single time… and why most don’t use it.