Dear reader

I hope you find this guide useful in your attempt to enter this highly profitable home based business. This guide is by no means a get rich scheme and you will need dedication and hard work to succeed. I made many mistakes when I began; the biggest was thinking I needed to spend a fortune on marketing and advertising. This guide will help you to avoid some of my costly mistakes and provide you with some useful contacts and information to get you on your way. If you do continue within the business you will need to keep yourself informed with the latest industry news and may need help with day to day issues, such as how to remove certain problem stains, how to price a big job, etc. The easiest way to do this is through the some of the many carpet cleaning web forums available on the Internet. They are free to register on and are a great source of further information, either by reading past posts or buy posting your own question or topic.

Two of the most popular are:                        http://www.cleanitup.co.uk/
                                                                        http://www.cleantalk.co.uk
                                                                         

In the early stages it was by no means a bed of roses, I was working long hours, wasting money on unnecessary advertising and took four times longer then I do now to do a job. However as I started to understand which were the best methods of getting clients and got better at using my machine and more confident, I was able to do more jobs a week and within the first year was able employ my early retired farther-in-law as I had to much work. I currently have three carefully chosen self-employed cleaners that work entirely for me under the banner of my company and I take a percentage of what each of them earn. I still clean carpets myself although not being too big headed I could employ someone else and not have to clean a single carpet. However I thoroughly enjoy the work, going out to people’s houses and continuing to build the reputation of my company. Remember a service business is only as good as its client base and reputation. Most of us want to build a company that is worth something to sell in the future, raise money against or pass onto our children; the only real value of any service company is its goodwill from its customers. You can’t just buy a name, you have to build it.

I started cleaning carpets myself working out of a small second hand sign written van with a second hand machine and virtually no knowledge of the industry.  My equipment, chemicals and van cost me £1800.00 in total and I spent many times more then this on initial advertising. It is very easy to carried away with spending on advertising and promotion. Remember there are experienced professional sales people out there working for newspapers, business directories etc. who are only after your money and will always tell you what you want to hear. I have helped friends and relatives who have started with virtually no capital by them hiring machines and working out the back of a car. They have all gone onto grow their businesses. I have a cousin in London who started this way and currently has seven full time operators working for him and hasn’t cleaned a carpet in ages.

My initial spend on advertising and promotion was completely wasted anyway, as I discovered after a month that the name I had chosen for my company was already being used by a local rival.  After some serious apologising and negotiation I managed to avoid legal action from the rival. Taking stock of the situation I changed the name of my company and decided to carry on, a decision I have never regretted. My initial advertising and marketing campaign despite costing thousands was very unsuccessful anyway and not having much money left I had no other option then to pursue a cheaper way of promoting my business.

• If you want to give your company a name rather then trading under your name. Then I would recommend that you check to see if your chosen name (or very similar) is not already being used. I would recommend that you either do a free web check with http://www.companieshouse.co.uk (which will give you UK wide details of every limited company) or www.192.com or www.yell.com which will list the names of both limited companies, partnerships and sole traders in your area.

• If you need further free advice on setting up your business, tax, registering as self employed and much more I would highly recommend looking at http://www.businesslink.gov.uk. They will also put you in touch with local small business meeting groups, which are an excellent way of meeting local business contacts who will use you and recommend you to others. The business link service is free as it is paid for by your taxes, so make sure you take advantage of their services. I have only recently discovered their services and I wish had known about them when I started up.

• If you currently are not self-employed, you will have to decide what form of company you wish to trade under. If you plan to start on your own the most common route is to become a self-employed sole trader. This is the simplest route and the cheapest form to administer. You could also consider a limited partnership or limited company.
• My top tip would be to make initial appointments with two or three local accountants, as most will offer you an initial 1 hour consultation if you say that you are considering using them. Use these appointments to ask their advice about which route they would recommend sole trader/limited company. If you are going to be a sole trader you will only really need the services of an accountant once a year to submit your annual return. You will need to keep the books for the company yourself. Therefore during the appointment with the accountant ask the account to give you spreadsheet or written template for how you should keep your In book (sales ledger) and Out book (purchase ledger).

You have three months in which to register as self employed and to pay National Insurance. Otherwise you risk a fine. Use the link below to register online.  

 Useful links from H. M. Tax and Revenue about being self employed:

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/startingup/register.htm   Registering as self-employed for NI
Registering for Tax and National Insurance Contributions as a Self Employed Person.
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/sa/selfemp.htm Check: does your work make you self-employed
It's important that you find out quickly whether or not you're self-employed. You may have to pay a penalty if you don't tell us soon enough.
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/startingup/index.htm  Starting up in business
These pages aim to help you understand some of the many things you need to think about when you're running a business, especially the main tax and National Insurance issues.
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/pdfs/ir56.htm  IR56 Employed or self-employed? A guide
This leaflet is to help you find out if you are employed or self-employed.
The hardest part of starting your new carpet and upholstery cleaning business will be getting clients.

Reaching Residential Customers

There is a huge market in your local and surrounding area for professional carpet cleaning. There are more and more two income and single parent families who don’t have time to clean their own carpets, a growing elderly population who simply can’t and always a large section of clients who always pay to have things done and done properly. There will always be people out there who will still hire ‘Rug Doctors’ from Homebase or use their own Vax or similar carpet cleaner. These people will always think that they are saving money and time and are the hardest of all to get as clients. These home use machines are however, false economy as they leave a sticky residue that increases re-soiling and carpets always dirty a lot quicker.  It is important that you always try and mention this point when dealing with your clients.

There is no single form of advertising or promotion that works the best. Some work well in different types of areas and some don’t work at all. The only way to generate a steady supply of jobs is to use a good variety and keep them going even when you have work coming in. Most clients will wait a couple of weeks to have their carpets cleaned if you say you are fully booked, this also portrays you as being highly in demand.

There are two main different types of advertising, direct and passive. The difference is like putting an advert in a directory like yellow pages to delivering a leaflet with a special offer. The first one (passive) you are waiting for the customer to come to you the second (direct) you are offering your service linked to some kind of offer.

Direct marketing works well and you are in control, and it is this control that makes some better at than others. That’s why it works for some and not for others. I have attached at the end of this booklet a guide to writing/designing leaflets that work. Also I have attached leaflets that do work. I know this as I have tried many designs including many full colour glossy professional designed leaflets and by far the best has been a mono printed leaflet on colour paper that we print ourselves. Customers like to use local companies and like to feel they are getting a good deal. The guide mentioned at the end, will help explain why this method works best. This type of advertising is also very inexpensive to start with.

In contrast passive advertising and promotion can be very expensive and can only be really good for name awareness.

Directories such as Yellow pages, Yell.com or Thompson Local fall somewhere in between passive and direct. Whilst the customers will be calling, most of the time they will be calling a number of similar companies wanting quotes, they are not the impulse buyers that are calling you alone to book up your special offer.   These directories are also hugely expensive, especially when starting up. In my local Yellow Pages there are 65 companies listed in carpet & upholstery cleaning. The section is also dominated by larger full colour ads from the franchises and more established companies.

I have seen many start up carpet cleaning companies book every bit of directory advertising and newspaper advertising they can and fail will heavy debts. If you work out what a small advertising campaign would cost then work out how many jobs you would have to do over the first year to pay for it, the numbers simply do not add up. These types of adverting campaigns only work if they are sustained over a period of time, which is very expensive. I am not saying these sorts of advertising don’t work, however they are best left until you have something to back it up with and are financially fit to be spending money building on your business name, not trying to buy a name.

I have tried local newspaper advertising and have had a reasonable response from it, however you will need to link the advert to some form of time limited special offer in order to receive a response. The cost involved for this type of advertising are high and therefore seriously eat into your profits. The classified section of your local paper is cheaper however you are limited to the number of words you can use and readership of these sections is relatively low. I have tried classified advertising and have normally also had a poor response.

The types of advertising that I have found that really work are leaflets, local community/parish magazines, target letters to home movers, letters to letting agents and emails/letters to local businesses.

My business is now established in my local area with three sign written vans and have tried virtually all types of advertising. However I still get 50% of my work from a very simple black ink printed A5 leaflet on colour paper that costs me £7.00 a thousand to have printed (leaflet printing is VAT exempt as they are information). Printing costs vary greatly from printer to printer and you can get excellent discounts when ordering large numbers. This leaflet was responsible for most of my work when I started up. However I now have a steady supply of repeat business and referrals form clients. The leaflet offered lower rates when I first started up, although I was still able to earn £700.00 + per week from it. I have tried to change it in the past however I keep going back to the original, as it has been so successful. I have had full colour professional leaflets printed on glossy paper, however the response from these were never the same. The leaflet I use has a small sample price list on it and I am certain this is what gets the calls. The leaflet offers low prices per room however has a minimum order/call out charge stated. This leaflet most importantly gets the call and I always earn more than the minimum call out charge by selling the client deodorising, rug cleaning, upholstery cleaning, stain protection, etc. I usually aim get a further job on my visit eg. to come back and clean their sofa.

I have attached a copy of this leaflet for you to use (as Word doc.), however you will obviously need to change company name and contact details. You may want to change the prices, you may think they are to low although bear in mind the total works you will get from it are normally much higher then the minimum order and it will help you get those all important first clients. Using the prices on the leaflet you should be able to get around £120.00 for an average three bedroom semi and £160.00 for an average four bedroom detached house. Most of the work however will be smaller jobs such as an example, lounge and hall, stairs and landing say for £70.00. Do stick to the minimum call-out charge and you will get the odd person ringing who hasn’t seen the minimum charge on the leaflet asking you to come and clean their stairs for £10.00. However explain their mistake and try and get them to have more done to make the job worthwhile to both of you.

When starting up, set yourself a minimum weekly target for the amount you want to earn. From this target work out how many leaflets you will need to have delivered to achieve this. We carefully monitor the number of calls and jobs we get from leaflets, other advertising and referrals. On average the number of calls we get from the attached leaflet is around 4-10 per 1000 depending on time of year. Therefore if you want to earn say £750.00 per week I would suggest you deliver around 2500 leaflets a week. The best way to have this done is to try and split this total between doing some yourself and some via leaflet delivery companies or have the leaflet placed in free papers and parish magazines. The best response rate will be from the ones you deliver on their own. The free papers are the worst response however parish magazines or do get a similar to delivering yourself.  Leafleting companies vary in price from £15-£65 per thousand. Be wary of these companies and never give them large amounts of leaflets in one go. Rather tempt them with a small amount to start with to see what sort of response you will achieve form them and use more then one.  

If you do a good job and are reasonably priced you will receive referrals from your clients, this is the best form of advertising as it is free!

We receive around 50% of our work from this leaflet and 30% from referrals, the remainder is made up from calls from directories, Yellow Pages, advertising, website etc. 

I use a variety of methods to get our leaflets out including delivering them between jobs. Delivering to apartments is very easy and they usually have a lot of rented properties in them so have a good turn round of occupants, we get a lot of calls form landlords and tenants (most apartment blocks will only let you in before 11am by pressing the automated trades button). Victorian terraced streets are also very easy to deliver to as the houses are so close together, you can deliver quite a few with minimum of effort. For the more rural and more affluent of areas of town we either use local/parish magazines who usually charge between £10-£20 per thousand to deliver with their publication, the Post Office charge from £20.00 per thousand with a minimum order of usually £500 (leaflet delivery is VAT exempt as they are information). In the more affluent and rural areas it is unpractical to deliver a large number of leaflets as the properties are usually spaced further apart and from experience it can take you a couple of hours to do only a couple of hundred leaflets.

Advertising within the local and parish magazines can also be very cost effective however we have found that a separate leaflet delivered with them far more effective. You will find Parish magazines quite affordable to advertise in however most book their advertising yearly and you have to wait for the next anniversary to get your advert in. It is well worth ringing them and asking to be put on their list to contact when they layout their next years magazine. You should definitely advertise in your local magazine as people definitely like using local services.

Yellow pages and Thomson directories are very expensive however we have found the vast number of calls we get from them are people that have been told about us and used the directories to get our number. The remainder are usually getting a quote from you and a few other carpet cleaners. Yellow pages will give you a 0845 number to use in them so you can monitor the calls direct from them. However I highly recommend that you ask callers where they received your number. My ¼ page colour advert in the Yellow Pages costs around £900.00 per year and I am in two minds as to whether it is worth the expense. I have however found their www.yell.com service to be worthwhile. We pay around £200.00 for the year to be a sponsored listing so we appear at the top of the search when someone searches for a carpet cleaner in our area. You are also able to include a link to your website and I think people like to read a bit about the company on the web before they make contact.

Another great way we have come to rely on is targeting people about to move. We use a variety of methods to do this. Firstly we use the Internet to find addresses of properties on the rental market. A great site is www.rightmove.co.uk or www.homesonview.com you can search for your area and say 5-10 miles surrounding. The site will give you the road name (not always the number), however you could spend a couple of hours a week driving around to the list of road names, find the estate agents board and hand deliver a touting letter addressed to the landlord/tenant. I have attached a sample tout letter for you to modify and try. My wife usually does this at least a couple of hours a week, it may take you longer to start with, however keep a record of the properties you have done. Then once a week check the Internet property portals such as rightmove.co.uk and change the search preferences to show properties added in the last week only. We get calls form landlords, tenants moving out and from new tenants. These days most letting/estate agents have a clause in their tenancy agreement requiring the tenant to have the carpets professionally cleaned on moving out.

A similar method to this is doing properties for sale at the same time. We have however found this to be a lot less effective. I have attached a template for this.

Another excellent and profitable way of getting this type of work is direct from letting/estate agents. I have found the only way to get in with agents is to offer a commission for every job they give you. Your local agents will have already have arrangements with local cleaners and you will have to persist with them until they start to give you work. I would start with a letter to all your local agents and follow this up with a call or visit to them. Try to always find out who the manager is and try and deal with them at all times. I have arrangements with six local agents in my area and receive thousands of pounds a year from them. Offering a commission of 10-20% may seem like a lot but bear in mind most work that you receive from the agents will be to clean properties where the tenant has already moved out. Therefore the tenant will have very little choice in the amount that is charged to clean the carpets and the agent simply pays you out of the tenants deposit. Therefore you can usually charge top price for this type of work. However remember to persist with the agents, offer to take them out for a drink or even a meal, as you will find they like dealing with people they can relate to.  I take a number of agents every year to horse racing at Newmarket. This is expensive but very rewarding and you will be surprised how quickly word gets around to other agents in the area.

Remember once you have customers you would have spent £’s and many hours acquiring them as customers. You therefore need to make sure you get the most from them. By far the best way of getting repeat business from them is to give them a courtesy call every 6 six months. Keep the call informal and start by asking how their carpets are looking, were the happy last time you cleaned them etc. Then ask if they need to book up again, they may have already answered this question for you when you asked tem how the carpets were looking. When booking you jobs make sure you get clear and concise details from them on the phone, such as postcode, more then one telephone number, future address if they are moving out. This will save you many hours of time later on, rather then trying to read badly written diary entries and trying to look up numbers for them in the future.

If you prefer not to call the customers or have already called them recently I would recommend you send out a letter with a special offer. When we are quiet we usually send out a couple of hundred to clients and usually get an fair response. A good time for this also is to send out a Christmas card as many households have family visiting and staying at this time and don’t want mother in law thinking they have a dirty house. Also include a special offer for friends and family that they recommend to you, as this works well. 

Letters to dry cleaners:

I have attached a sample letter for you to send to local dry cleaners in your area. Avoid sending this to the large chains, however it is best sent to local independent shops in a certain radius of your area. Use a service such as yell.com or 192.com to search for dry cleaners in your area. The letters offer them the chance to earn from providing an additional rug or carpet cleaning service to their clients. This has worked well for us, however the best way of getting them on board is to ring and try and find out the name of the manger or owner and see if you are able to set up a meeting with them. Always follow up any calls with a letter or alternatively send the letter and follow up with a call.

Reaching Commercial Customers

The best way we have found of getting commercial clients, such as pubs, care homes, offices etc. Is to send a simply letter to them (attached). Link this letter to a time limited special offer for best effect. The cost of second class stamp is still fairly low so a 100 letters will cost around £20 postage along with time, printing costs, paper and envelopes.  Use an Internet service such as 192.com or yell.com to search for certain sectors such as bookies, pubs or care homes in a 15-mile radius of you. Cut and paste the addresses onto labels and send out letters. Returns are normally good and some work well, some doesn’t. Pick a couple of different sectors a week and send them all a letter.

From experience keep the letters simple and easy to read. Don’t baffle them with the science or try and impress them with things they will not understand or care about. Most want to know such things as you will do an out of hours service and that their wet carpets will not affect their business.

Always include a couple of your residential flyers as well as you would be surprised how often the staff passes these around.

When writing to bigger organisations such as Supermarkets, Police, Hospitals etc. You will be unlikely to achieve much work from them, as most of their cleaning will be done by large general cleaning contractors who would have had to tender for the work. However write instead to the personal manager and enclose a small A4 poster offering their workers an exclusive special discount. Ask for the poster to be put up on the staff message board.

If you want to increase the commercial side of the business there are four main ways of achieving this.

• Method one is to write direct to businesses/organisations/shops. However you do need to have a sustained attack at this and it can be hard for your letter to reach the right person. As most medium to large companies have post sorting rooms, a secretary or an office junior who will filter all the advertising/junk mail before it reaches anyone of decision making powers. Along with the fact that they will probably have already an office cleaning service contractor and they will be the ones they ask about carpet cleaning first.

This form of approach works best with smaller office based businesses or shops, however when writing to shops don’t be afraid of writing to the bigger chains such as Estate Agents, Betting Shops, Chemists, Opticians etc.. Most of these types of set ups will employ a morning cleaner, small cleaning firm or do the day to day cleaning themselves. The decisions like having the carpets cleaned will be made directly by the local manager. Therefore address your letters to ‘The Manager’ if you don’t know the person you are writing to.

When writing to businesses try and address the envelope to the person you think likely to be the one that would make the decision. Eg. The Manager if writing to local Optician, The Landlord if writing to a pub, The Buildings Manager if writing to a local school, The Trustees if writing to a local social club, and so on. When writing to a bigger business if you put just ‘The Manager’, you will find they probably have 10 managers in the office and the Post Room, Secretary or Office Junior will open to see which one the letter needs to go to and it will be binned.

If writing to a bigger office based businesses try addressing the letter to ‘The Personal Manager/Director’ and run the letter with a headline such as ‘Fact, World Health Organisation studies have shown that dirty carpets are the biggest source of poor indoor air quality’  ‘Are yours carpets harming you and you staff?’ ‘Brighten your office up, Brighten your Staff up’.

These methods do work, however they need to be sustained and repeated over a period of time. Keep a record of were you have sent the letters and record the response you get. Use the label printing or mail merge features of programmes such as Microsoft Word to do the labels. Then save the labels for future use as this will save you many hours in the future.

• Method two is to attend business networking events or groups such as the BNI http://www.bni-europe.com/uk/index.htm or your local ‘Chamber of Commerce’ http://www.chamberonline.co.uk/ . There will also be a variety of other similar local business networking groups in your area. These groups do work, however you need to be aware that there will be membership fees involved for joining and before you join asked to attend an initial meeting to see how you get on. Both of the above and the many others groups out there are very helpful about joining and you will get work. However there will be people they’re trying to sell you their service or product, such as advertising, marketing services etc. In my experience there are good and bad groups, check the members list before you go and try and make an educated decision as to whether they are the type of group you would be likely to get work from. If the group is dominated by self-help practitioners, advertising sales people, alternative remedy sellers etc then avoid.

• Method three is to subcontract your services to other cleaning firms. By this I don’t mean your local Carpet & Upholstery cleaning rivals, rather small to large cleaning contractors in your local and regional area. Most offer carpet cleaning as part of their service to their customers, however too most of them carpet cleaning is not their core business and some but not all will have carpet-cleaning equipment. However their equipment, especially the smaller firms will have, will tend to be of the maintenance type. Such as small Numatic machines or bonnet cleaners. Therefore you offering something like professional hot water extraction cleaning to them lets them offer it as part of their service. Also many of the larger contractors will already have contacts lists for such things as carpet cleaners or window cleaners etc. If you are ringing regional firms ask if they have a local agent who deals with the contracts in your area.  The larger companies have contracts with Local Authorities, NHS, Police, Care Providers, National Firms etc. running into hundreds of thousands of Pounds. Whilst they will have many full time employees and agency workers, they will not have a carpet cleaner or window cleaner etc. employed in every town they have a contract in and the majority of their cleaning work will be sub-contracted out to smaller firms.

This is one serious way to take your business up to the next level, however you will need the experience, confidence, machinery and effort to make this happen. You may not feel that you have these when starting out, although some will never try this route and never take their business to that next level.
Letters work do work in getting this form of work, however by far the best way would be to call and speak direct to the companies. Making sure you find out who deals with the contracts in your area and keep calling them every few months, they may not have any work to start with, however if you have made regular contact with the right person you will be remembered when the work appears. Back up calls with a letter to your contact with the benefits of your service and a business card.
When writing or talking to smaller cleaning firms, offer them some form of kick back commission for every job they give you. Most of them will be unlikely to have carpet cleaning as part of their cleaning contracts and will most likely be asked from time to time to offer carpet cleaning by their clients. Many will offer this service themselves, however if they have the option of still earning whilst not doing the work you find you will be able to get a regular supply of work from them
Building these types of contacts will take years and the sooner you start to try the easier it will become.
You will be required on most of these types of jobs to provide a quotation or tender, some however will have their own forms for you to complete. Keep these as simple one or two page document and attach a copy of your insurance, references and a risk assessment and method statement if required. (Attached is some further reading to help with the health and safety aspect and insurance)

• Method four is to contact the relevant companies or organisations direct and ask if they tender out any carpet cleaning work, ask when the tender is put out and ask if they have a list for interested companies.

Unfortunately most tender all there cleaning work out together, therefore the previous method will get you better results. Government, Local Authorities, Armed Forces, Charities, Police, Health Providers etc. Have a duty to accept the cheapest quotation they receive, however this does not mean that if you are the cheapest you will receive the work. They also have a duty to be confident that you are able, experienced, properly insured and compliant with the relevant health and safety at work issues. In order for them to happy that you are they will usually ask for references for similar work that you have undertaken. Therefore the best method when starting up for getting this type of work is to follow the previous method and this will eventually lead to getting this type of work.
If you have just started up then this method will work to some sectors such as Charities or Care Providers.

Cleaning methods used and machinery?

By far the most common method in residential carpet and upholstery cleaning is hot water extraction, often mistakenly referred to as steam cleaning and is the cleaning method nearly all carpet manufacturers and carpet fibre producers recommend.
This is the only cleaning method classified as "deep cleaning". All the others are considered "light surface cleaning" because they are incapable of removing soil deep in the pile. Also, all other methods leave large amounts of cleaning agent in the carpet after cleaning.
The maintenance brochure published by the world's largest carpet manufacturer, Shaw Industries, recommends this method, because its own research indicates that it provides the best capability for cleaning.
This method is frequently called "steam" cleaning due to the fine spray of water used to force dirt out of the carpet that is sucked up by the vacuum slot immediately in front of the spray. Seldom is real live steam used, however. This process consists of spraying a solution of water and detergent into the carpet pile and recovering the water and soil with a powerful vacuum into a holding tank.
This can be done from a truck-mounted unit outside the home with only the hose and floor tool brought inside, or by a portable, system brought into the home or office.
From a health standpoint, the truck-mounted system is preferred because the dirty air and humidity are exhausted outside rather than recirclated around the house. Additionally, truck-mounted systems usually are more powerful than portable units and do a much better cleaning job and get the carpet dry more quickly. However a truck mount system is very expensive starting prices for a petrol or diesel run unit vary from £6000.00 to £22,000 and you usually need a larger van such as a Ford Transit or similar.
Recently however the specifications of many new portable machines have been greatly increased, this has allowed many operators the chance to van mount their portable machines. You will need a portable with at least 200psi although preferably a 400psi pump. Twin or triple vacuums. You will also need a water supply, normally via a tank and longer hoses. This type off set-up has become quite popular recently and you will find more details on how to do this from either the suppliers/manufactures or from other carpet cleaners on the Forums mentioned above. This method will give the ease of use of a truck mount and the flexibility of a portable should you ever need to accessibility or security.
If you are only just starting up you are probably much better off buying a second hand or reconditioned unit. There are many available on Ebay or on the carpet cleaning forums, however if you were not sure what you are buying I would recommend trying the manufacturers direct. Most of them will have second hand or part exchanged machines that have been serviced and PAT tested by them for sale. Many manufacturers or suppliers offer a finance service for their machinery, this involves paying a small deposit and usually the total VAT upfront. This can be a good method of getting a quality machine and is tax effective with the lease payments usually being 100% tax deductible. 
Attached at the end of this guide is a guide to the four main different types of carpet cleaning.

There are a number of common makes of hot water extraction machines and I have included a guide below to most of them. However the best way to find more information is to go onto the forums and search for previous posts or ask a question about any machine you may be interested in. It is best to get the opinion of a professional cleaner who has used the machine.  
If you buy a portable machine try and get one with at least a 30-litre fresh water tank and at least 20-litre dirty tank. You will find this perfectly adequate for most jobs and may have to empty and re-fill only two or three times if you were doing a whole three-bedroom house for example. Avoid what are seen as DIY machines such as Karcher, Numatic, VAX, Bissel etc. As well as looking like a chancer, you will not be able to clean the carpets to a decent standard and it will take you longer on most jobs and will leave there carpets very wet. Many households have a one of these machines in the garage and you turning up with one will portray a poor image and the results will show you up. 
There are different methods other then hot water extraction, however these are not usually considered as being deep cleaning and most domestic customers expect hot water extraction. The other major cleaning method is bonnet cleaning. This is however best suited to commercial applications where very large areas are to be cleaned and is not considered as being deep cleaning.
I have listed below the websites of UK based companies who supply both machines and chemicals. I would recommend that you request brochures from all of them as they will be helpful in understanding the different types of machines and cleaning techniques there are out there. We currently use Woodbridge Commercial (www.wcsuk.com) Truck mount machine and three Ashbys Ninja portable machines.  http://www.ashbys-uk.com

Some carpet cleaning machine, equipment and chemical suppliers:
Most of these companies will offer you free advice and some will even offer you a free trial or demonstration. You will also find their brochures, newsletters and introduction days very helpful and a good guide to cleaning carpets and upholstery. If you are interested in their cleaning chemicals ask for a sample before you buy, this will give a chance to try out the chemicals before you commit o buying.

Most also offer very competitive lease and purchase plans. The monthly amounts are usually very affordable; the ease of obtaining finance on these machines is easier then you may think. With some finance companies not requiring a business plan or trading accounts anymore if you are a sole trader.

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