Business Talk
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Business Talk
Secrets to Removing Stubborn Stains and Offering Effective Odor Treatment
Ever wondered how a simple shift in career paths could lead to groundbreaking success? Willie Santiago, the owner of GSJ Services LLC, reveals how he transitioned from a nine-to-five travel agent gig in Manhattan to a thriving entrepreneur in Florida’s cleaning industry. Discover his innovative encapsulation system for quick dry carpet cleaning, which not only speeds up drying times but also tackles even the toughest stains while being kind to the environment. Willie’s journey from working night shifts with a few cleaning accounts to making more than his day job is an inspiring tale of entrepreneurship and innovation.
Join us as Willie shares some of the most challenging—and often bizarre—situations he's faced, including cleaning up after exploded copiers and tar-tracked model homes. With his expertise in removing stubborn stains and offering effective odor treatments, Willie boasts an impressive 99% success rate in stain removal. Listen in for practical tips on regular carpet maintenance and learn how to keep your floors looking fresh year-round. From pet accidents to paint spills, Willie’s wealth of knowledge provides valuable insights to both consumers and budding business owners looking to make their mark in the cleaning industry.
Hey, welcome back everybody. I am very delighted to introduce Willie Santiago. He owns a company, gsj Services LLC. How you doing, willie?
Speaker 2:Hey, doing awesome. Didier, Glad to be here.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Good to see you again, Good to have you on this show for our first time, Just so for our listeners. This show is all about where we dive into stories you know and talk to successful business owners like Willie and bring you insider tips straight from the experts that it doesn't get any better than that, right, and I'm your host, DDA, and every episode we sit down with business owners from diverse industries to uncover what makes their companies thrive From behind the scenes. Insight to practical advice. This podcast is your go to resource for learning about the services you use every day and discovering ways to get the most out of them. So, whether you're a curious consumer, a budding entrepreneur or just love learning about the business, you're in the right place. Let's go ahead and get started. By the way, if you do like this content, please feel free to subscribe, like and comment, as this will be pushed out in the algorithm, the YouTube algorithm. So, with that being said, let's talk to you about your background.
Speaker 2:Talk to us, Willie said let's talk to you about your background. Talk to us really. Oh, it's funny, I'm uh, I was born on the beautiful island of manhattan.
Speaker 1:You can't beat that way back when.
Speaker 2:uh, I lived there for 30 years and I moved to florida in 89, so I've been here almost 36 years. Um, the reason I got into the business I'm in is because I was a travel agent in a previous life. When I moved to Central Florida, they said I needed to. I transferred with the same company, but they lowered my salary, so I purchased three cleaning accounts to make ends meet and pretty soon I was making more money at night working a few accounts than I was during the day, and that's how I got into the world of cleaning.
Speaker 1:Wow, that makes sense, and the world of cleaning can go so many different ways, right, whether it's pressure cleaning, dry carpet cleaning there's just an endless towel and grout cleaning as well, but we want to focus this episode more so on, you know, talking about the quick dry or regular carpet cleaning. Can you share with our listeners? How does quick dry carpet cleaning, what makes it unique compared to the other carpet cleaning?
Speaker 2:unique compared to the other carpet cleaning. Well it's called. It's an encapsulation system that I use. It's so much better for the carpet and for the environment rather than the wet system With the wet system. Hopefully, when they clean your carpet with the wet system, they clean your carpet with the wet system. They don't over spray it. So a lot of times you'll have to wait maybe a day or two before the carpet is completely dry, whereas with the encapsulation system I spray the carpets lightly. The brushes on the machine clean, they push the chemical down to the bottom of the pile and then, once I'm done cleaning all angles of the carpet, then I suck it up and by the time I'm gone, most of the time your carpet is dry and I treat all types of different stains separately, all types of different stains separately. Whatever the encapsulation system doesn't get out, I'll have sprays for various different types of stains.
Speaker 1:And those stains can be pet odor stains, right Dirt stains like all different types of stains which you have an application for to treat correct.
Speaker 2:Right, I've done offices where the uh copier has exploded and there's been ink everywhere wow then, uh, that I deal a lot with uh builders and I clean the carpets in the model houses and so I've gotten calls for that. I've gotten calls for painters knocking over cans of paint so I've had to extract paint from carpets. I've had roofers walk in through the windows and track roofing tar on the brand new carpet and I've been able to get that out. And then I normally get out urine stains from kids, from pets.
Speaker 2:And I have odor treatments as well, and so I get out about 99% of the stains that I have to deal with well, that's pretty awesome.
Speaker 1:You know, um, when you is there any types of tips you could provide our listeners when it comes to regular maintenance, you know, for your carpets.
Speaker 2:Um, you know I've done thousands of houses over the years. I've been doing this basically full-time since 2000 when I left my corporate world employer and I've seen the cleanest houses are always the ones where they take their shoes off when they come into the house.
Speaker 1:That's great advice.
Speaker 2:Exactly so. If you can keep your shoes off the carpet, that'll help keep the dirt out, because most of the time the dirt is bought in and it's on your shoes.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So, if you have, what I would suggest if you don't take your shoes off is to have a wet carpet for the outside of your house. So when it rains, you want that because you can dry off some of it, and then when you walk into the house, you need a dry carpet, a mat, and that'll help keep your. You can finish drying off your shoes there and walk into the house. If you don't take off your shoes.
Speaker 1:Well, that's great advice, willie, and you don't think about that too. You know you're bringing in so much dirt from the outside and you bring it in. And if you do have carpet in your house, that, just you know, brings that dirt inside too as well. And it can what's the word? It can continue to build up over time. Oh right.
Speaker 2:You see traffic paths all day. When you're cleaning carpets, you can tell where everybody walks the most, which is normally like from the bathroom, if they have carpet in the bedrooms. You can see the path from the bathroom to the bedroom and especially the kitchen to the living room, and unfortunately those are always the highest traffic areas where I see the most dirt. And again, some people put down mats like runners and that also helps keep those type of areas clean.
Speaker 1:In terms of preventive maintenance. I love that you know. Using mats, what are some common cleaning mistakes homeowners make when it comes to cleaning their upholstery or cleaning their carpets and we'll talk about upholstery here in a few minutes.
Speaker 2:When I clean the carpets, I've always advised people to use a sort of spot remover with, with, like say, an oxy clean type of peroxide based cleaner. The mistake I've seen is when they've used the cleaner too much, and so you really should try to spray it on lightly, or spray it onto a piece of white cloth white terry cloth and dab out the spot, rather than, you know, spraying massive amounts of OxyClean on a spot and then leaving it there and then it doesn't all come out, and then that's when you get like circles around and constant re-wicking of the spots.
Speaker 1:And especially if you have pets. I've noticed this too that when you run that vacuum cleaner on a rug, say, for instance, a rug underneath a coffee table of you know in your living room, it is amazing what one week of pet hair can build up in your, in your, you know your carpet.
Speaker 2:One of my daughters. I have four daughters and a son. One of my daughters has a German Shepherd. You have to run it every day. If you don't run it every day, that dog sheds like crazy.
Speaker 1:No, that makes a lot of sense. Are there any specific signs you know, speaking with our listeners or kind of educating them that indicate it's time for professional cleaning? Anything that stands out running around.
Speaker 2:I would suggest every six months If you don't have children running around, if you don't have pets. A year is most of the time is sufficient to keep your carpet clean, because my machine really, you know it goes out to the bottom of the pile. It really brings out a lot of the dirt and if you don't have much of it you should be fine with a year. If you do have children and if you do have pets, some people have me clean every three months, just because of the amount of shedding that their pets do.
Speaker 2:They call me in between to help with that. I've got different cleaners. I have an enzyme-based cleaner which is excellent for carpet cleaning, for getting rid of urine spots, because the enzyme will keep on killing the bacteria. That's in the order causing agents I I.
Speaker 1:That's very interesting. Um, and you know there's upholstery, you also do upholstery cleaning. What challenges come with upholstery clean versus carpet cleaning?
Speaker 2:the main challenge with upholstery cleaning challenge with upholstery cleaning is the pet hairs getting stuck in the fabric. I mean leather is a piece of cake. I mean I really don't do leather because it really doesn't need to be cleaned Most homeowners. They have a cream that they can get at the store and do it themselves.
Speaker 2:Now if they haven't done it in years, then they give me a call and then I apply the cream and basically it's apply the cream, wipe it off with a microfiber and you're good to go. And I have a steam machine that I also use in conjunction with those for leather cleaning, but with the fabric, fabric furniture. I suggest you get leather furniture because if you have pets it takes me forever. I had a dalmatian and her little white hairs would get into every single piece and it would take me forever to get. No matter how much I brushed the furniture, it would get stuck in there. So the main thing is, when I was growing up back in the 60s it was it was uh, I don't know if you remember. You know my mother used to put plastic coverings oh yeah, the furniture.
Speaker 2:So the only thing is, you know you're sitting on plastic you're sitting on plastic and then you get up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you get up, and you're actually taking the plastic with you out the room.
Speaker 2:Right right. But if you have pets, definitely get. And if you have fabric furniture, you probably want to look at getting that professionally cleaned every six, six months. Uh, you know you, because you'll, you're always gonna have spills. You know a cat will get on and spray their the furniture, or a dog that that uh will walk by the furniture and on the side of it they'll leave like a pound of hair that makes a sense you know, I really think good and I was gonna say so.
Speaker 2:It's much tougher to to do the upholstery then then the carpet, the brushes do all the work. And but on the upholstery, basically. I do it manually. I have a pet brush and then I have an upholstery cleaner that does a pretty good job vacuuming the stuff out, as well to be able to share your insight and your business with our listeners to kind of help.
Speaker 1:you know, help them prevent some of the things you know when it comes to pet dander, when it comes to all the other like dirt that comes from the outside and what you have to actually help clean the upholstery as well as the carpet cleaning. Can you, as we wrap up here, can you provide our listeners with your phone number and a way to get ahold of you?
Speaker 2:Sure, my phone number is 407-538-7159. That is the. That's the only number I have because I don't have a website, but I do have an email. Willie W I L L I E at destroyer of dirtcom.
Speaker 1:It doesn't get better than that.
Speaker 2:I made myself a superhero.
Speaker 1:I actually liked that.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, Willie, thank you so much for your time and hopefully we can have you back in the near future.
Speaker 2:All right, yeah, we can talk about pressure washing as well. Absolutely, Thank you sir, all right, take care Love it.
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