The first question I would ask is "Why would you want to become verified."
The Verified Chimney Sweep program is a state of the art program designed to bring home owners to your business. We absolutely guarantee to bring more leads and better cost per lead than any organization out there including CSIA, NCSG and Service Magic. If you don't believe us, just place tracking software (like Google analytics) into your website and let's see who can generate more leads. Further, the more links your website receives, the better it ranks with the search engines.
The next question I might ask is "How do we do it?"
This program is designed by a very successful chimney sweep. The basic principle is to get the word out to prospective customers at a very low cost. When you have a great company that runs 10's of thousands of radio and television commercials, hundreds of outdoor billboards, hundreds of full page ads in various telephone books than you are either going to go out of business or become very successful at advertising at rock bottom rates with top line effectiveness. In the next few years, the internet will dominate the service industry. Customers are looking for us by the key word "chimney sweep." ChimneySweep.org has a unique advantage over many other websites because of the name component of the url. Add the fact that customers will find the best chimney sweeps in the country and the program is destined to become very popular with our industry.
Do you qualify to be a verified chimney sweep?
1) Does you company have an A rating with the Better Business Bureau. This is one of our strictest requirements and only a small percentage of chimney sweep companies achieve this mark. You can check your rating at BBB.org
2) Does your company have liability and workers compensation insurance?
3) Are you and your technicians drug free with felony free backgrounds?
4) Do you have a strong understanding of the chimney and fireplace section of the IRC residential building codes?
5) Have you been in business for over 3 years? Even this requirement might appear to be a little unfair. The fact is that many bad companies change their business name to start a clean slate with their reputation. To be a verified chimney sweep, your company and yourself will need to have documented proof of where you have been working for the past several years.
Finally, the Verified Chimney Sweep program is a private organization.
It was founded by Ray Gessner who operates in Virginia Beach. You can check the BBB.org rating of his company, A Step in Time, where you will find an A+ rating. Ask to see his workers comp and liability insurance that is listed on his website. Come visit him at his office, and he has drug screen kits where you can test him. Ask him for his background results and he'll gladly show you a clean record. Ray has the largest chimney sweep company by footprint in the United States and has a masters degree in civil engineering with a professional engineering license. Ray is a real nice guy and you might want to seriously consider becoming part of the Verified Chimney Sweep program if you can.
