Find the Right Cleaning Customers-Laser Focus on Profits
Find the Right Cleaning Customers – Laser Focus on Profits
Episode 17.
Ray
Joel, I think that we just talked about helping companies find clients. No shotguns, only lasers.
Joel
Exactly. The shotgun approach is nice because it gets you business. But the problem is that there’s no consistency to it. Your clients are all over in different verticals, different needs, different days of the week, weekends, holidays. It’s a recipe for disaster. So how do I know, that?
Ray
Maybe you’ve had a little disaster?
Joel
I’ve had a few disasters like that early-on in the industry. And that’s why I want to warn people, particularly new up-starts. Do not take everything that comes along your way. Find out who you are. And by that, I mean, what do you want your company to be defined as? Are you looking to be the best cleaning company in education, daycares, medical? Now, medical could be the small office, the hospital, specialties, Like OB/GYNs. Urgent Cares. It could even be senior centers. Senior centers being independent living, assisted living, memory care. So even within each of these verticals are several different things that in some cases require different training, require different types of equipment. So when you start doing the shotgun approach, if you need a wide area vacuum for one account, and you need a backpack for another, and you need an upright, or you need a canister vacuum, when you go out as a small business, you’re going to put yourself out-of-business because you’re buying everything and you become cash poor.
Instead of buying the same types of equipment and giving some leverage with vendors and even maybe some terms with vendors so that you can start off and start buying groups of vacuum cleaners all at once.
Ray
We have another episode. I will put a link in the transcript below about buying the right vacuum cleaner as well as a couple of other items. Joel, one of the things I want to hit there is the areas that you might want to clean. The types of equipment you might want to clean. One of the things that I think is buried in there is actually knowing the person you are. One of the things we talked about was there are plenty of new cleaning companies that are doing strictly residential. A valid vertical. Talk about that a minute, would you?
Joel
With the verticals of residential itself, you need a very-unique person. And you yourself have to be a unique person. Now, those of you who don’t know who I am or what I look like, other than the picture, I’m 6’1. I’m a fairly-large guy. There’s not a lot of people that want somebody my size coming into their homes to clean it. So residential was really, never on my radar because I’m not the guy physically that people want to see walking in their front door.
Ray
But you have someone in that vertical who’s probably very personable. They’re probably doing daytime cleaning because no one is going to want to clean her in at night. Good interpersonal skills. What about bringing in equipment?
Joel
Yes and no. They do not want you to bring in a vacuum because they don’t want you to bring in somebody else’s filth. Oh, wait, I clean it. Do you really take the brushes off and clean them out? No, they know better. No homeowner is ever going believe you. But even the knowledge. Because there’s so many more different types of surfaces within a residential house than there are in commercial. People have to understand that a lot of chemistry that we bring in to clean with, you can’t use on certain surfaces. You’ll damage their granite countertops. You’re going to damage their Pergo® floors. You’re going to damage the porcelain that’s in their toilets and the sinks and the tub.
Ray
There’s a lot of education and training here, too.
Joel
There is probably more, because of the different types of chemicals and the different types of surfaces, plus the level of detail in a person’s home is so much higher. That’s a “Ming Vase” sitting in the corner that has to be moved. That’s been handed down through 30 generations of family all the way back to the Ming Dynasty.
What are you insured for?
Do you have the right insurance?
Ray
Do you have the right insurance?
Joel
Do you have the right amount of insurance? There’s just so much more to think about. Every person that you have probably has to drive a vehicle. Do you have a company vehicles? Do you have the right insurance for those company vehicles? Are you requiring people to use their own personal cars? Are they being reimbursed for their mileage? Are you insuring their cars for above? Many people don’t have enough insurance. And talking to my insurance agent, I know that there’s something called Gap insurance that needs to be also had. So, there’s a lot of things involved in that residential cleaning that a lot of people don’t consider because (they think), “Oh, I’m just going to go and I’m going to clean”.
Ray
It’s something to keep in mind, and we’ll put this thing probably as a future podcast. The amount of information you have to carry. The safety data sheets.
Joel
Where they have to be and how close to the driver and how soon you have to produce them.
Ray
One more gem on finding new customers, knowing who you are and what you really want to clean.
Joel
I would say that 100%. Knowing who you are and who you need to service is key to success.
Residential vs Commercial Vacuum Cleaners