We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful David Johansen. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with David below.

David, appreciate you joining us today. Can you share a customer success story with us?

One of the things that sets Carolina’s Choice Carpet and Upholstery cleaning apart is that we really care. I started this business because I wanted to work in a company that actually cares about employees, customers, and the community! I have worked for companies previously where that wasn’t the case. We don’t just make one pass through the space and call it done. We continue to clean until no more dirt comes up. And then we have products for removing or at the least lightening almost any stain that is left. Just this week a customer left us a review “We have used their cleaning services several times and are always pleased with the results. We have even seen them get up stains that are years old and the other carpet cleaners tried to get out but were not able to! They stand behind their work and are always quick to book as well! Highly recommend!”

I opened my business two weeks before Covid hit and at the time I was very worried about being able to compete in the Greenville SC area as there are so many carpet cleaning companies. I put my heart and soul into connecting with each customer and doing the best possible job I could do on each and every job. As word spread and expanding our team was necessary., I have been blessed to attract others with this mindset! It is so rewarding to work with a team that cares and works very hard to provide the best customer experience possible!

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I feel like I am finally doing what I was meant to do! My career path has been a meandering one and until recently I felt like I wanted more meaningful work but I wasn’t sure how to get there. I was a classical guitar major until my junior year in college. I was practicing for 3 hours a day and working at a manufacturing plant to work my way through school. I started getting pain in my hands but kept pushing through it. I went to management at the plant and was fist told to take ibuprophen to manage the pain. Then as it got worse and I was having trouble sleeping I was given a wrist brace. It got bad enough that I was unable to practice guitar and changed my major. It was a difficult decision and transition for me. I ultimately decided on a major in accounting because I wanted to learn how business worked. As I was finishing that degree, I realized that I enjoyed that knowledge but that I didn’t want to be an accountant. At this point I still had a lot of pain in my hands and typing and even writing was very difficult. So, I took a position at an accounting software company doing tech support. There was some typing, but I also spent a lot of time talking. In 2006 that company was bought out by a company in Canada and then in 2009 all of the US based employees were layed off. This was my first realization that what I had viewed as a safe, stable job was anything but. The 2009 job market was one of the most difficult I have seen and for 3 months I looked for work and didn’t have a single job offer. I knew that even if I took a position where I was underemployed I needed to get things moving. I took a position with a big bank doing phone customer service making 24k a year. My wife and I had 4 young children and that was a very difficult time. I focused all of my energy on performing as well as I possibly could so that I could move up. Within 6 months I was moved to a special team. Within 6 more months I was moved to a position in management. And then the housing crisis started hitting banks and the layoffs started. I made it through many rounds of layoffs but seeing the politics, witch hunts, fear, and so many who gave so much of themselves walked out the door, I knew I wanted to work in a better environment. I then started taking action that led me to start my own company. It has been the most rewarding work of my life. My journey was not a smooth one but my experiences have prepared me well to know what I don’t want my company to be. Thus allowing me to be very clear on what I do want it to be and to attract others with the same values! Truly treating customers right, doing outstanding work, having a focus on personal development, empowerment, and finding the joy in what we do have made us successful as individuals and as a company!

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

One of the biggest things that I had to unlearn is what networking is. For years and years I didn’t understand what effective networking really is and I hated every minute of it. I thought it was walking into an event with a stack of business cards trying to talk to as many strangers as possible. And then getting as many cards in return. I had to learn that networking is connecting one on one. Also, that it is not about telling everyone you connect with in this way about your company and what you need. It is about learning about them and their business, about them as a person, and then looking at how you can help them. Your own business and needs almost always come up in that conversation but if your focus is genuinely on them and how you can connect with and help them, then the relationship will be deeper and more impactful. And now that I understand this I LOVE networking! It is one of the most fulfilling parts of what I get to do! I go out and make friends and work to help them. This is the same mindset I have when I connect with each customer as well!

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

As I mentioned earlier, I started my business 2 weeks before the Covid shutdown started. I had received a one day training from a carpet cleaner that I bought my equipment from and that was it. I was planning on taking courses but as Covid hit those all shut down. So when I started my worry was that I didn’t know enough and I was really worried I wouldn’t do a good enough job. If I was unable to get a stain out or the results weren’t what I thought they should be I was obsessed with how to do it better. In retrospect I am really glad it happened that way. I think I would have relied too much on the knowledge of courses or a specific individual instead of diving in and researching on my own while consulting with experts I was able to connect with. For example, one of my earliest jobs was to help a friend whose wife had accidentally spilled a big cup of coffee and a blueberry smoothy on white carpet. I came over to help ready to be the hero. I cleaned the whole house and it was clean but the coffee and blueberry stains were still there. for the next two weeks I researched and researched until I found the products that would solve those issues. I went back out and this time was able to save that day and get the stains out. Because of my fear that I didn’t know enough and my research whenever an outcome wasn’t as good as I thought it should be; we now get feedback from overwhelmingly satisfied customers! We often hear that we were able to get out stains that other companies were unable to. And that our overall results of the cleaning are better as well!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.carolinaschoicecarpet.com
• Instagram: carolinaschoice.cleaning
• Facebook: Carolina’s Choice Carpet and Upholstery Cleaning LLC

Image Credits
Lindsey Wilkins took the photo with me running the buffer by myself