Stains are a fact of life for people in the cleaning filed. I'd love to say I have some great, super duper stain remover that will take up all stains on all materials with not problems. Sorry, ain't no such beast. But there are a few simple rules that will take care of most situations and keep you out of trouble most of the time.

First, there are several very common pieces of advice you will come across for dealing with all stains. They are very common advice because they are very good advice.

(1) Time is not on your side. The sooner you deal with a stain the easier it will be to get it gone.
(2) If possible clean a small inconspicuous spot first before you attack the whole stain. This can save you from all sorts of problems if your approach to removing the stain doesn't work.

There are all sorts of online sources of information on stain removal that you can make use of.

For example, I have a brief stain removal guide on my site that covers around 40 or 50 common stains like catsup, blood, and ink. My information is supplied by the University of Illinois. You can find it on my Free Info page.

Sometimes you can find sites that will give you information on removing stains made by specific consumer products. For instance, the Crayola crayon company has great information on how to clean stains made by their crayons, colored chalk, dry erase markers, and other items in their product line.

The link above directs you to their online guide for stain removal. It has three steps.
Step 1, pick the type of stain you want to remove.
Step 2, pick the surface you want to get it off of.
Step 3, tells you how to remove that particular stain from that particular surface.

For instance, you can pick crayons for your stain in step 1. Pick durable cloth car interiors for your surface in step 2. Then click step 3 for specific cleaning advice.

If you do residential cleaning you will eventually meet up with crayons stains so you might want to keep their site in mind.

Next, most manufacturers of professional cleaning products provide either online help or an 800 number help line with their products. Recently a lady contacted me asking how to remove streaks caused by a well-known cleaning product on stainless steel surfaces. I recommended that she contact the manufacturer of the cleanser for expert advice. This is a good approach for you if you are having problems with streaks or stains caused by a cleaning product.

 Be prepared! 

It's not just good advice for Boy Scouts. It pays to study up on the cleaning products you use before you have a problem. The manufacturer will often have warnings to help keep you or your people from misusing their product and staining or otherwise damaging your customer's property. For instance, a cleaning product that works well on walls might not be recommended for use on wood surfaces. It's a lot better to learn this by reading their information before hand than it is to find out the hard way by using it on wood.

 Follow the rules 

I've talked about following the manufacters rules for diluting cleaning products and also not playing amateur chemist by mixing two or more cleaning chemicals together. But I was dealing with safety issues before. Using the right dilutions and not playing mix and match with cleaning chemicals is not only safer for you, it's also safer for your customer's property.