contractor success Rental mats are hidden treasures Renting entrance mats can often be a source of additional income for BSCs. By: Mike Sharlow B BSCs are always looking for ways to add additional revenue to their service invoice. Some BSCs choose to supply towels, tissue and soaps for the restroom; others provide add-on services, such as stripping, waxing or carpet cleaning. What about mats? One idea that is gaining popularity is renting your customers entrance mats. “Many of our customers were renting mats from rental companies,” says Carl Probasco of Malvina Diversified Services, Beecher Falls, VT. “We were vacuuming these mats daily so that we always put our best foot forward with our client [and] one day we thought, ‘Why are we cleaning someone else’s mats? Why don’t we just rent these mats to our customer?’” Renting entrance mats to a customer presents a great opportunity for the BSC as rental mat companies typically provide ineffective mating. “Effective entrance mats need to per-form four very important steps,” says Scott Andersen, vice president of sales for The Andersen Company, Dalton, GA. These steps include: 1) Stop soil and water 2) Store soil and water 3) Minimize tracking of soil and water 4) Provide a safe surface. “Entrance mats provided by rental com-panies do not do any of these four steps very effectively,” says Andersen. soil and water further into the building, making more work for the BSC. Entrance mats provided by rental com-panies are also typically only available in one or two colors and are almost always the wrong size for the specified area. Rental mats are usually changed out once per week. During the winter months, in such areas as the Northeast, this frequency is often not enough. Therefore, we typ-ically see BSCs vacu-uming or even water-extracting these rental mats for clients between change outs. You can also present your client a mat in a variety of colors and styles that will bet-ter complement the facility’s décor. In fact, BSCs can often offer clients a mat with a logo on it. The benefit of a more effective mat not only helps keep the facility’s appearance up, but also ultimately makes your clean-ing job easier throughout the entire building. The better way Often, a better solution is to present your client with a more effective and better performing entrance mat. Mats that feature a bi-level surface that will effectively per-form the four important steps previ-ously noted and that will capture 85-90 percent of the soil and moisture at the door are ideal. Today, according to industry findings, facility managers can justify a solid ROI with effective matting. Shortcoming of typical rentals The typical rental mat has a nylon carpet top and provides very little in the way of holding and trapping soil and moisture. In fact, this type of mat actually migrates 40 CM/Cleaning & Maintenance Management ® • March 2009
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