How to Find New Cleaning Customers. Part 3 of 5

Episode 13.

Ray

Joel, continuing on locating customers and developing your business. I know one of the things that you’re passionate about is networking.

 

Joel

I am. And over time, and I’ve been doing sales for a long time for many different companies, I have found that networking the true bread and butter of business owner now sales person before, but not just kind of doing one type of group, but being a blended approach. And there’s several different types of groups. One such group is called a leads group. And it’s typically they meet once a week. They have it limited to one business category per seat. But the requirement is, is that every week you have to bring in two leads depending.

 

Ray

On what the group says, right?

 

Joel

But typically the ones I’ve talked to in the past have been a part of in the past. That’s that was the requirement. That was the minimum requirement. And it was like, well, what’s a lead? Oh, raise starting a new business. Okay. Well what’s raised last name I don’t know. What’s the name of the business I don’t know. Well where’s it going to be I don’t know. You have a phone number in email. Oh okay. But it was a lead, so. And then there was other ones that would be okay. You know, John Doe is starting XYZ company and it’s at one, two, three Main Street, Anytown.

 

Ray

Okay. So that’s a little more info.

 

Joel

So somewhere very very good lead. So with the two leads it wasn’t always good but it was not a warm introduction either. So now you knew the person to talk to or a person. So leads groups have value because you kind of know what’s going on in your community. Who’s moving in, who’s moving out, who’s hiring, who’s you know, who’s laying off new restaurants going up, whatever. Another type of group is, mixers just going to a mixer. Now anybody and everybody can go and they usually they’re dry as, hey, we’re going to have some finger foods. It’s a cash bar. You don’t really want to go by yourself because do people tend to cling to is, you know, oh I know so and so on. They just go over and they talk to them. But you want to bring somebody who is going to help introduce you to other people that they know. So you want to get somebody who’s slightly out of your normal circle, go and be introduced to other people, and you introduce them to other people that, you know, I kind of I see this as, uh, probably a Chamber of Commerce event. Something like that might not even be a chamber of commerce.

 

Ray

Okay. What do you think?

 

Joel

And they’re just mixers, and you’re meeting people from different walks of lives, different things. And what you do is you end up collecting a bunch of business cards at the end of the day, and you think that because you walked out of there, they, hey, I got 50 new business cards. I met 50 people.

All you’ve got is 50 business cards. So those two types of groups are not always the best way, but they do bring value, particularly if you’re a new sales person, a new business. You get to know other people. And then it’s what do you do with that information?

 

Ray

So what do you do with that information, Joel?

 

Joel

You better start calling the people, particularly if you go to one of those mixers, pick people that are in businesses that are either closely related to your own or might have contact with the people that you want to do business with. For instance, I’m a janitorial company and I meet an HR company that does HR consulting and helps companies. I’m going to sit down with that business owner or that salesperson. I’m going to find out about their business, and I’m going to find out who they might know that needs my service, and then ask them, as I develop a relationship with them, if they can make a warm introduction. Wait, Ray, isn’t that kind of how you and I originally met…

 

Ray

I kind of is actually.

 

Joel

You were a marketing company and I felt that, hey, marketing companies are working with. 

 

Ray

I did originally say I don’t see the synergy here, but.

 

Joel

You were doing marketing for companies that I might have wanted to do work. Very true. So that is how we met in a roundabout kind of way and developed that relationship. And it has lasted the test of time, helped each other, grow each other’s businesses.

 

Ray

And we have.