How Do I Find New Cleaning Customers?
Episode 15. Part 5 of 5
Ray
Next in the series of how do we find new customers for a young or fledgling cleaning company? Joel, you talked about exclusives. What do you mean by that?
Joel
Exclusive groups. That means that you have to actually apply for membership to the group. It’s not a guaranteed that you’re going to become a member of this group. It also means that there is exclusivity and that there is one company per seat. Let’s explain that a little deeper. The seat might be commercial cleaning, and there are people that sometimes think, oh, well, I can do, you know, home cleaning services, I can do commercial cleaning service, I can do karma. Know what they’re going to do is each one of those is a specific seat. So there could be a potential home cleaning service. There could be potentially a commercial cleaning service. There could potentially be a cleaning consultant, a chemical manufacturer, equipment manufacturer, a carpet cleaner, a disaster restoration company. For what you’re looking for, particularly in the exclusive places, is you want diversity within in your industry. A lot of these groups might be smaller. By smaller, I mean 20 to 25 people. And there’s some parts and there’s some, you know, people.
There might be a financial planner or a market or insurance agent, a real estate agent, a mortgage banker, a residential attorney. So you have some of the there’s.
Ray
So there’s a lot of industries represented in something like this.
Joel
There is. But the thing you want to do is you want to make sure that you’re building your platform within there. You want companies that are going to be going after the same types of people that you’re going after. So I happen to sit in one that I’ve been in about 18 years. There’s a couple members that have been there almost 20 years, and over the years the members themselves are the ones that are charged with building their, we’ll call it a power circle or a power team to help increase the revenue for what they’re doing. And I have seen people in the past sit in a group, and they want to hog all the seats in a category and wonder why nobody’s referring to them. I have worked very hard to find people in my industry that want to be a part of this and be able to build, and we can share clients, because I can’t be an expert at everything, right? If I’m an expert at one thing and can drill deep, I’m going to get a lot more oil right than casting a broad net and catching minnows.
Yeah. So the benefit of what I’ve been able to do is the last four years, I’ve been able to generate over a half $1 million of business to my business.
Ray
Okay, stop. Say that again one more time, a little slower. The last four years…
Joel
In the last four years, I have been able to generate over a half $1 million of business to my business because of these exclusive groups, because I have the right people sitting around me to share, and the individuals that are in the seats that we share customers with have been there now two and three years. So obviously they’re finding a similar benefit to me. I don’t know how much they make. I don’t ask that question. But because we’re able to share the same types of customers, we’re able to grow our businesses.
Ray
So if I understand correctly, part of the goal here is having people in adjacent industries who are either connected to or calling on your customers, but they’re not doing what you do.
Joel
Correct. Because we want to make sure that we’re becoming the expert in one piece of the entire pie, because I rather take 1% of something than 0% of nothing, or 100% of nothing. Because if I don’t have people referring to me, I can’t exist. Yeah, and taking a smaller piece, I’ve been able to do drill and be very good at what I do, and I’m the go to person. So other people in the group that when they come across a customer for us, they might not be a natural fit. They can still refer to our group, and we can help decide who would be the best person to go in and get the piece. If they’re looking for the cleaning company, we’ll give it to one person. If we’re looking for the chemistry person first, that’s who we’re going to send in first, because that’s what the client is in need of at the moment, and that’s what they’re going to purchase. And then when that person is able to make the sale, they can start talking about the other members.
Ray
Again, referring back to the group.
Joel
Yeah. And bring us in on their coattails, as we call it.
Ray
So what I think I’m hearing you say is taking all those different specialties and yeah, you want to close your sale, but putting the customer’s needs first, the customer’s needs first.
Joel
Absolutely. And it can even get outside of the cleaning realm, because maybe we get a landscaper because that’s a normal talking point. What we would talk to with the facilities manager.
Ray
Got it.