How Clean Carpets, Fast Dry Times, and Odor Removal Help Real Estate Pros Sell Homes Faster | Ed Quinlan

Share via:

• Facebook
• X (Twitter)
• LinkedIn
• More

Subscribe via:

Show Summary

In this episode, Quentin interviews Ed Quinlan from ChemDry, exploring the company’s innovative cleaning solutions, growth strategies, and how they turn adversity into opportunity, especially during COVID. Ed shares insights on building community, the importance of mindset, and future goals for expanding services in residential and commercial markets.

Resources and Links from this show:

• • • Investor Fuel Real Estate Mastermind
    • Investor Machine Real Estate Lead Generation
    • Mike on Facebook
    • Mike on Instagram
    • Mike on LinkedIn
    • ChemDry’s Website
    • Ed Quinlan’s Phone : 435-890-1007 – Alicia Gifford

  Listen to the Audio Version of this Episode

  Investor Fuel Show Transcript:

  Ed Quinlan (00:00)
  These are the last things you want a buyer to think about, right? Like, don’t even allow it to enter their mind. Let us take care of these problems before they even come up so that they can come in and they can look at the structure and they can look at the space and they can look at how beautiful it is rather than trying to pick apart, whether it’s upholstery, whether it’s carpet, whether it’s the wood floors, like just let it all be its best. And then you’re now talking about.

  about other issues rather than having to deal with those small weird things that just might actually really damage a sale.

  Quentin Edmonds (02:05)
  Hello everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I am your host Q Edmonds and I’m excited to be here today. You probably heard me say I probably sound like a broken record when I say this, but I absolutely love this. I love when I get to listen and learn from different people about their perspective feel. Like even if we were all doing the exact same thing, we ourselves are unique. And so we’re hearing people talk about what they do, even if it’s the same thing, you’re always going to learn something different.

  And so I am thinking, I think this gentleman may be the first of his kind that I’ve had the privilege to talk to. I’m pretty good at archiving information. I really can’t think of somebody in the space that he’s in that’s been on. And it’s beautiful because this gentleman, this company has been doing it for a long time. ⁓ They are very good at what they do. They are the biggest, if I recall right, at what they do.

  I’m excited for him to talk to you about what it is. You’re going to learn a lot and you’re going to learn that it’s so many different avenues that he has that he’s really helping investors and people with the selling of their homes. mean, like I’m just excited. listen, this is what we’re going to do. I want to introduce you all to Mr. Ed Quinlan Mr. Ed, how you doing today, sir?

  Ed Quinlan (03:16)
  Thank you.

  Hello Q, so good to be with you today. Really excited to be here and share with you a lot of good ideas. Yeah.

  Quentin Edmonds (03:27)
  and see you.

  Absolutely, man. So glad that you’re here. And listen, I want to dive in, because I just know people are going to love this episode. So I want you to tell people what your main focus is these days. If you don’t mind, tell us a little bit of an origin story, kind of how you got started in this space. We love the hero’s journey. And then tell them where you are in the world, man. People love to know where you are geographically. so, Mr. Ed, sir, you have the floor.

  Ed Quinlan (03:54)
  All right, all right, all right. Well, so good to be here with you and excited to share with you a little bit about our story at ChemDry. And personally, for me, I’ve been with the company for 20 years. And so great to be a part of this world-class organization. part of an organization called the Belfort Franchise Group, which owns, at the current moment, 14 different home service brands. And so our mission as a franchisee and organization is really, do we help our franchisees

  you know, be entrepreneurs and achieve success in their local markets. And we have different verticals that we do that. ChemDry is is our 49 year brand. Next year marks 50 years for the ChemDry brand. We are the world’s largest carpet and upholstery cleaning company. Started in 1977 in Sacramento, California, of all places, off of a really innovative idea. In fact, some of the beauty of ChemDry, you’re going to find it. Many people know ChemDry, but for those who don’t,

  ChemDry really has this foundation on doing things in a better, more efficient way and really thinking of how do I help things go fast for the consumer without sacrificing quality?

  And that innovation, whether it’s through chemistry, ChemDry, Chemist for chemistry, really sets us apart. For instance, our core cleaner, it’s called the Natural. It’s an EPA Safer Choice Certified product. And it allows us to go in and we use the…

  natural, it’s called the natural because it mimics Mother Nature the way that she carbonates water, right? If you think of carbonated water and soda water that comes out of the earth, well, we have a process that in essence carbonates the water as it hits your carpet. And that helps us clean the carpet faster. And we do that for carpet and upholstery. And then over the last handful of years to help our franchisees support their customers in the local markets, we’ve added in hard surface cleaning like

  LVT and LVP wood floors, engineered floors. We’ve even extended into granite countertops and really finding ways to help franchisees take care of their customers in a better way. yeah, 1977, 500 locations across the United States and Canada. We’re in 29 countries. a lot of franchisees, a lot of technicians going out every day, making homes and businesses cleaner in a more healthy way.

  I could go on. I could go on and on and on.

  Quentin Edmonds (07:04)
  Yes. Absolutely.

  I love it, But listen, take me back 20 years, man. I know you said you’ve been with the company 20 years. Take me back 20 years. What was it about this company that attracted you? How did you get involved? Tell me a little bit about your journey.

  Ed Quinlan (07:15)
  Yeah, so for me, I started with the company on the marketing front. I was the marketing manager, marketing director for the ChemDry brand. And we were two brands then. Now we’re up to 14 as part of the Belfort Franchise Group. And ⁓ really with this vision around how do we make a difference for the consumer? And that really resonated for me, that idea of… ⁓

  I mean, cleaning, how could carpet cleaning be interesting? And as a young marketing mind, I was like, gosh, how do I really get engaged with this? And when I found out how ChemDry does it in such a unique way and that our carpet, when we clean carpets, they’re dry in one to two hours, where usually if you hire a steam cleaner, it’s going to take a day, maybe even two days for those carpets to dry. So you’re like closing the space down for an entire weekend if it’s a commercial property or if you have a showing

  Quentin Edmonds (07:56)
  Hmm.

  Ed Quinlan (08:08)
  You need your carpets cleaned the night before and they’re soggy, wet the next day when you’re bringing a client through. That’s a giant disadvantage for you. So you want it all dry. So it’s one to two hour dry time. And then with the method that we use, we call it hot carbonating extraction. Well, that lets us get a really deep clean with those really quick dry times. Really unique. We have multiple patents. In fact, ⁓ the majority of the products our franchisees use

  are manufactured by us. have giant quality controls on all that just to make sure that everything we do is as safe as it can possibly be, as healthy as it can possibly be, and as effective as it can possibly be.

  Quentin Edmonds (08:48)
  Yeah, yeah. I love it. I love it. So Mr. Ed, in this world, in your world, everybody, we all face adversity in whatever field we in, right? Like, and it comes in different ways. So how has adversity kind of shown its head in what you do and how have you kind of overcame it?

  Ed Quinlan (09:07)
  Yeah, gosh, know, it’s hard to forecast the surprises, right? It’s hard to forecast. And so, you know, we always do our best to be agile and to navigate when they hit us. And it’s important, I think, to number one, is have the right attitude for that. know, recognize that it’s going to come, it’s going to happen and prepare you and your teams for that. Don’t be afraid of it. Embrace it and then take it with the logical approach of

  Quentin Edmonds (09:12)
  Yes, indeed. Yeah.

  Ed Quinlan (09:34)
  how am going to get through this? Because in every instance, when we’ve been up against a big obstacle, a big challenge, and I’ll use COVID as an example, right? A lot of times, those turn into an opportunity. For us, we really expanded our sanitizing service offering during the COVID time and really helped our franchisees go out and find new customers. People were so afraid to leave their houses. so by empowering our franchisees with the tools to go make commercial spaces safer,

  Quentin Edmonds (10:03)
  Mm.

  Ed Quinlan (10:03)
  and

  home safer. Now people are willing to go into those spaces because they know they’ve been taken care of and they’ve been taken care of with kit gloves in a very professional way. We just really quickly just chased right after that, made sure we were meeting all the right standards and delivering that to our franchisees. In fact, we developed, I’m going to call them business kits to help teach the franchisees how to do it and then replicated that across the network as quickly as possible.

  That was great for our franchisees because you know they’re small businesses, entrepreneurs in their local markets, similar to how most real estate professionals are, but also for the consumer, right? And whether it’s a real estate agent trying to get a house shown or whether it’s know business trying to keep the stores open.

  Quentin Edmonds (11:22)
  Yeah, no, it sounded like COVID actually was a massive opportunity for you guys. Cause at that time we wanted to sanitize everything. mean, if you can remember, we didn’t know, we was wiping out groceries. didn’t know what is going on. So that was a great opportunity. And I love how you talked about having a right attitude. know, one of my mentors told me, and I still don’t like it, but it’s so true. She said, you gotta expect the unexpected. Like you have to leave room.

  Ed Quinlan (11:33)
  We did it now. We did it now. did it now. Yeah.

  Quentin Edmonds (11:49)
  for the unexpected, you gotta leave room for that. For somebody that don’t.

  Ed Quinlan (11:51)
  Gotta leave room for

  it. Those are great words. Those are great words. You gotta leave room for it because it’s gonna come. It’s gonna come.

  Quentin Edmonds (11:57)
  As sure as we alive, it’s gonna come. So just have the mind set ready that the unexpected is gonna come. And man, if I’m being honest with you, man, that’s hard for me. My wife tried to coach me through it all the time and say, babe, you know, you gotta know this, prepare yourself, like, cause it’s gonna happen. And I’ve been alive long enough, you would think I would stop being surprised, but I’m always surprised when the surprise has come. So it’s just, yeah.

  Ed Quinlan (12:00)
  Thank

  I

  tell you, that’s another great piece of advice is make sure you’re surrounding yourself with the support group and the type of people who are gonna help you through those hard times and know who’s gonna help you with what piece. I think the networking is so key. And my franchisees are a big part of their local real estate groups, whether it’s BOMA or NARPAM or whatever different programs. Now those are usually, and BNI and those kinds of programs as well.

  Like getting connected with local professionals, chambers of commerce, all that. Those connections are key, mostly so you know what resources to use when you need them. And if you don’t need them, obviously, you just, we often become great friends with these people. And that’s also great value too, but like understanding where people can step in and help. And one of the pieces really is just with attitude. Surrounding yourself with people will help you solve problems, connect you with other people who might give you something more tangible.

  or even just help you talk through it because we can get in our heads and feel like, gosh, can I really get over this hump? You can with the right help. Sometimes that fence is pretty high, so we need somebody to boost us over. It’s okay to get that boost, right? And in my business, across all my franchisees, I have a group of coaches here at corporate.

  And then we do a lot of events and a lot of ⁓ support to try and help franchisees network with each other. But my coach, their job is to really connect down with the franchisees at the local level, learn what’s going on and seek out those best practices so that if we can find opportunities to improve, whether it’s on the technical side and improve our performance or whether it’s on the efficiency side, or maybe it’s in business operations, right? Like, how do we help those franchisees so we can

  so we can win more in the marketplace and deliver more for our customers. I have a team of coaches, that’s all they do all day long. I think they have the best job on earth.

  Quentin Edmonds (14:17)
  Man, so well said and it’s interesting, because I always do a segment when I talk about relationships and you just went naturally into it and just talked about, you know, just, I love how you said, some of us do need a boost over the wall or over the fence and we can’t be afraid to help. I I’m sorry, afraid to ask for help, but have you built up the relational equity to have the person there to actually ask for help? You know, have you went out into the forest

  Ed Quinlan (14:34)
  The mask. Yeah.

  Quentin Edmonds (14:46)
  by yourself and then came to a wall and now you’re looking around like, well, I didn’t even tell nobody I was here. So, so no, I absolutely love that man. I absolutely love that.

  Ed Quinlan (14:57)
  So true, and then

  once you’re on the other side, reach back and help that guy join you, right? Like this is all about how we help each other. It really is.

  Quentin Edmonds (15:05)
  Man, so wonderfully said. That’s beautiful. You should be trying to build community and culture. That’s what we should be doing in our life, in our business. We can’t do life alone. We can’t do business alone. So yeah, I love that. Once you get over it, turn around, help somebody up, build the ladder. I often say there’s pathfinders and there’s trailblazers. Some people jump on a path. There’s somebody already been blazed, but sometimes you have to blaze the trail for somebody else so they can come behind you.

  find your path. And so, no, absolutely hear you, man. So for Kimdra, tell me, sir, what is some of your next goals? Like, what are y’all looking to solve at Scale Next?

  Ed Quinlan (15:36)
  That’s right.

  You know, I think some big opportunities for ChemDry is around the commercial space and around multi unit space. So our franchisees right now, 80 % of their revenue is coming from residential or domestic carpet cleaning and upholstery cleaning. But there’s a lot of opportunity even there and just expanding services and making sure that we’re that we’re for homeowners taking care of their wood floors and their tile floors and their LVT and LVP and all that. On the.

  On the commercial side, there’s a lot of opportunity because most of the commercial spaces, they’re at a big disadvantage with long dry times. Right. And then many of our competitors are not very good at stain removal. And I probably should give a shout out because, you know, part of the chem and chemistry for chem dry chem dry for chem chem is for chemistry and chem dry is is really like if you have a problem, we’re going to be your source. Like, I tell you, if we can’t get that stain out,

  No one can. My franchisees are just the best in the world at taking out spots and spills and mishaps that happen. And rather than replace all the carpet in the house, right, or even having to give an allowance to be able to pay ChemDry a small amount of money and have them come just take care of it for you. ⁓ How convenient is that? Not to mention the quick dry times and all the advantages of a one stop shop, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Right. But like we really want to present those

  facilities in the best way moving forward, whether it’s we’re dealing with a real estate agent and all their properties or whether we’re dealing with a multi-unit facility. Maybe they have new construction and they’re trying to fill it and they want us to come in and do a final cleanup or maybe it’s, you know, turns in between, right? In fact, ⁓ I have franchisees who will go into these multi-unit spaces and they’ll say, hey, I know you want to offer pets, right? We have a product called Pert, pet urine removal treatment. This is crazy cool product.

  And it, we literally can guarantee that we’re going to get the odor out of the carpet. Like phenomenal. It eliminates and annihilates the odor. ⁓ Really awesome technology in the chemistry that we’re using. Our franchisees do a great job at delivering this. Well, now all of a sudden I took a space where I wasn’t allowing people to have pets. I’m now, you know, charging them a fee upfront and having Kimbride come in and make sure that they get rid of those odors for me at the end. And at a turn you’re able to.

  really make some money on that. There’s a bunch of different pillars where our franchisees have those kinds of advantages for you. And if you don’t have a camera in your B &I or in your local networking group already, then let’s get one in because they’re going to create great value for you.

  Quentin Edmonds (19:00)
  It’s interesting man because I think you are, I think you are really going to be an answer for somebody. I think somebody then came over here and they had no idea like, this is exactly what I needed. And I’m just, I love, I love.

  Ed Quinlan (19:12)
  Let us

  solve your problems. Let us solve your problems. It’s what we do. It’s what we do. Yeah.

  Quentin Edmonds (19:17)
  Boom. And you’ve been doing it for a long

  time. You yourself 20 years, the company itself 49 years. Stay in power. You guys know what you’re doing. I would say you are expert at what you do. And even the way you deliver it, it sounds fascinating. I’ve never given this much thought to a poultry cleaning and getting rid of odors, pet odors. But when you, the way you said it makes total sense, this is a much need in your Rolodex for sure.

  Ed Quinlan (19:42)
  These are the last things you want a buyer to think about, right? Like, don’t even allow it to enter their mind. Let us take care of these problems before they even come up so that they can come in and they can look at the structure and they can look at the space and they can look at how beautiful it is rather than trying to pick apart, whether it’s upholstery, whether it’s carpet, whether it’s the wood floors, like just let it all be its best. And then you’re now talking about.

  about other issues rather than having to deal with those small weird things that just might actually really damage a sale.

  Quentin Edmonds (20:16)
  Absolutely. So with that being said, yeah, right? With that being said, Ed, tell them how can they reach out to you if they wanted to collaborate, hire, franchise, like they wanted all the things. How do they reach out to you, sir?

  Ed Quinlan (20:17)
  Or at least delay it. Yeah.

  Well, so Chemdry, I’ve got great coverage across the USA. So if you if you have a Chemdry in your market, you’ll find them at Chemdry.Com, C H E M D R Y dot com Chemdry@com. That’s my national website. And our franchisees will have local websites that will show up on Google and whatnot. But if you go to Chemdry.com, I’ll give you a link directly to them and you can reach out to them and connect and build a relationship. If you’d like a handoff, you could call us at corporate.

  And we’d be glad for local handoffs. Our corporate numbers, 1-800-CHEMDRY, 2436379, 1-800-2436379, pretty easy. But maybe a lot of people also, they have multi-units, right? And so if you have multiple units across multiple markets, then we’d want to establish with you what I call a national account or regional account program. And Alicia Gifford is my gal who does an amazing job at taking care of

  So it’s centralized billing and all that, trying to make it really easy for you. And Alicia, you can reach out to her. We’re at 435-890-1007. And we’ll get you in contact with Alicia and we’ll set up a program for you. How often you need your cleanings, all that. All the stuff that you need, whether it’s tied to a specific property or it’s tied to future properties, we can help.

  Quentin Edmonds (21:47)
  And sir, man, let me say three things to you. First, thank you for your time, right? You could have been anywhere in the world, but you’re here with us. So time is very valuable. That’s our most precious commodity. So thank you for your time. Two, man, thank you for your story. Thank you for the way you presented Kim Dry. Thank you for enlightening us and really giving us some nugget stuff that we never thought about. And so I love this story. And I tell people all the time, stories have a way of planting a seed in us, and we never know when it’s going to grow.

  Ed Quinlan (21:49)
  Yeah. Of course.

  Quentin Edmonds (22:14)
  but that seed is planted. So I think you gave enough seeds that literally this may be what somebody’s been looking for. They didn’t even know, or somebody might be looking for something like this. Like, wow, this is just what I needed. So thank you for telling your story. And lastly, man, thank you for your perspective. Thank you for the way you think your mindset and bringing that mindset to this platform. I appreciate you today.

  Ed Quinlan (22:21)
  I so.

  Of course. Hey, everybody, let’s have success, right? And when we help each other and we do good, we’re gonna move forward. And that’s really what this brand is about. And I know that’s what you guys are trying to do out in your local markets. Let’s do it all together. Let’s help each other out.

  Quentin Edmonds (22:49)
  Well, listen, that’s what I call the mic drop moment right there. So listen, thanks, man. Listen, check him out. Look in his show notes. His information is in the show notes. KimDraw information is in the show notes. Please connect with them. But definitely make sure you are subscribed here because I keep telling you, we’re going to bring up amazing people just like Mr. Ed. And so, sir, thank you again. And everyone else, listen, y’all have a fantastic day.

  Ed Quinlan (22:52)
  Ha ha!