Use Consistent Marketing to Win More Commercial Cleaning Business

Episode 36

 

Ray

Joel, we’re back, and I understand we are talking about branding and sending the right message. I love this topic.

 

Joel

I figured you might be a marketing guy that you might like this. Business owners, we have a very interesting twist on what we think our business is. And in our mind, sometimes we build it up as it’s the Taj Mahal. And then we turn and look and say, “Okay, this is the money I have for branding”. And it ends up being a shanty. And when you hand over a business card to a prospect where it is falling apart in their hands, or the ink is sticking to plastic paper, or there’s coffee spills on it with little perforation holes. And you’re trying to tell your client that you are as good as the Taj Mahal. There is no commonality in that brand. You’re trying to brand yourself as something that you obviously are not. And I’m not saying that’s not how I necessarily started out. But I’ve kept my branding consistent since the moment that we got our logo design, and we felt it was very powerful in and in color. And therefore, when we started our first round of business cards, they weren’t the thickest cards on the market, but they were substantial, and we had glossiness to them, so they stood out.

 

Joel

They’ve evolved into a thicker card where their color on the edges, and we do advertising. Well, it is advertising on the front. Our logo, our name, the company, our contact information associations we belong to. And then on the back, it’s a bullet point of everything that we do. I know companies put the faces of their employees on them sometimes so that it makes it more (personal). I know that some companies put a QR code so it can be scanned and either download it right to their phone or go right to their website. So, there’s different ways of doing it, but you want your brand to be consistent with what you’re trying to tell your clients that you are. So, if you want to go out and market yourself as the low price in town, again, you don’t want to come with all the bells and whistles because they’re going to say, Okay, I’m paying for the low price. How is this being paid for? It doesn’t make sense. Is it money laundering? Is it what the… Again, branding can go the wrong way the other way, too. So, you want to be consistent. And then when you start buying the giveaways for your company, maybe you decide to do pens.

 

Joel

And everybody who does pens, sometimes they rush out and they buy the ones that they can get sent through the mail for pennies per pen. And you hand them over to the person and the ink is all over their hands. And the first time they go to use it, it falls apart or does not write properly or well. Those are all the things that you have to think about. Every part of your business is going to represent your business, the type of apparel that you wear. If you’re presenting yourself as an average to high-end type of a company and you show up in flip flops and overalls, you might not be taken as seriously. So again, you decide as the business owner, how you present yourself. Do you drive up in a jalopy? When I started my business, I had used cars, (with) 150,000 miles on them or whatever. If they were really bad, I’d park way back in a parking lot so the client wouldn’t see what I was driving. Or the lot over and walk to the clients. But I also don’t want to drive up in a Maserati. Oh, my gosh, this is a high-end service I can’t afford.

 

Ray

And I’m paying for that car.

 

Joel

Yes. You have to look at what you’re doing because everything that you do and how you brand yourself is going to be a direct relationship to what they expect the final service project to look like.

 

Ray

How you’re acting and what you hand out and the that you communicate with are really a full expression of the personality and the stature of your business.

 

Joel

Absolutely. If you’re not good at that, you need to work with somebody or a company that can help you so that you tell them what you want your brand to look like and feel like, and they can help guide you as you make the different choices between your brochures, how maybe your websites are set up, the leave behinds, your clothing, the apparel you wear if you’re doing trade shows, and they can keep that brand consistent for you from the moment you walk in to the moment you walk out. (Great advice, Joel. Thank you.) You’re welcome.