I understand that profiting through your connection to other businesses seems all too obvious. And I would agree, except that I’ve missed things through my career. And, after several decades in commercial cleaning and now professional coaching, I see newer business owners miss these opportunities.

 

The Most Obvious Connection

If you’ve defined your company focus and your target market, you know who your prospects are. Believe it or not, this step can be a challenge for many start-up cleaning businesses. If you’re wresting with this, listen to our podcast on finding new customers. That podcast will help you define and develop your sales.

If you’ve already developed that focus and you have an active commercial cleaning clients, the next step is asking them for referrals. You might be thinking, “Why don’t I just do that myself. I can canvass the neighborhood. We’re not opposed to that at all. But having a happy customer tell you about their business-neighbors will help you. Consider that the step of “gathering intelligence”. Your customer probably knows the other owners and managers in their area. They also know who’s complaining about their vendors.

 

Blurry Lines Business Connection

This is one of the unsung heroes of building business connection in commercial cleaning. By “Blurry Lines”, we mean businesses that service your customers but are not in competition with your cleaning business. In the following podcast, we provide an excellent list. Give this a listen, and please let us know how that worked for you in the comments section. We always appreciate a positive Google Review and comments on our YouTube Channel!

 

The “Not Those Guys” Connection

Connect with your competition. Yes, you read that correctly. Before you flip me off and close the page, hear me out. You know there are other cleaning companies that you are head-to-head competitors. Your companies and staff perform almost exactly the same type of work right now.

Look to the bigger competition. Almost every region has small, mid and enormous commercial cleaning companies. Start with those companies that are bigger than yours. Find a connection. Show your work. If they’re that much bigger, they’re probably not looking to steal your commercial cleaning customers. AND they likely have an opportunity to subcontract work out to you. This is an excellent and time proven way to grow your bottom line through developing a specialty.

 

Connecting but Need Help

When your strategies and tactics aren’t quite developing the way you want, contact DOC’S. We work with cleaning companies throughout the US and even some abroad. Every successful athlete and business person you look up to has worked with a coach. Some of them have multiple coaches with hyper specialties. The reason you look up to THOSE people is because they excel. And the reason they excel is because THEY have worked with (and probably continue to work with) a coach. Don’t you deserve that kind of success?

This Week’s Podcast transcript can be found below.

Ray

Joel, we’re back, and we’re talking about the power of connecting. This could go a lot of different directions.

 

Joel

You take a plug, you plug it into the outlet, and you get connection.

 

Ray

I’m gonna slap you.

 

Joel

So yes, the power of connecting. Well, you got to look at it from two different sides. We have a series called Blurry Lines. (We do.) And those are the types of people that you want that I would consider that are networking with people in a similar industry, maybe a company that lays new carpet, new flooring. They’re not going to clean the buildings, but they’re going to be dealing with the same people because, hey, a new building is going up, a new flooring is going in, or a client that’s existing that wants new flooring or carpet put in. And they may ask a question because they look around and they see the building is not so clean. Oh, who’s your janitorial contractor? Or, oh, you don’t have one? Oh, you do it in-house? Would you like a professional introduction? Or, oh, you have somebody and you’re not happy and you’ve been looking, but you can’t find anybody good? Again, here’s a referral. So, working with people in those blurry line areas. It might be a construction company, a general contractor.

It might be a company that only does windows, a company that maybe only refinishes floors or carpets, although you might be able to do it. They don’t do the janitorial side, so they don’t want anybody stealing their work. So, you have a friendly, let’s share clients.

 

Ray

So One of the other groups that we talked about was your head-to-head competitors or what seem like your head-to-head competitors.

 

Joel

Other janitorial companies.

 

Ray

Define that one for me.

 

Joel

Well, that’s what you have to do, is you have to define what is their ideal client, because every contractor should know what their ideal client is. There might be a Gigunda. Is that even a word?

 

Ray

It is now.

 

Joel

A huge company in your town that only does buildings that are of 500,000 square feet and up. But because they’re probably very active in the community, they’re well known because they do these larger facilities, they’re rubbing elbows with the rich and famous of your town. So everybody knows who they are. Then they get a call saying, Hey, I’m Corner Store USA. You know what? I don’t do those, but I know somebody that does. Building those relationships. And I have several types of relationships with individuals in my own town that maybe they just do retail establishment, and they don’t want to do anything else. They only want to work A shift, and they want to be done by 11:00 in the morning. And they don’t want to do any afternoon or evening work or C shift work, or they don’t want to do a seven-day-a-week account, or they can’t do a certain size building.

 

Ray

Another one that you discussed, actually, Joe, was perhaps not doing the regular service on a very large facility, but doing the construction cleanup on a very large facility.

 

Joel

I get a lot of referrals from one client because they will not do what in our industry would be called one-off jobs. Because just because you do a construction cleanup doesn’t mean that that company will become your customer. I get referrals from a company in town that don’t do one-offs. So, I might go in and take care of a construction cleanup for them. And then when you’re building the rapport with that client, which I just did this past week, you build that rapport, they see the work that you do with you and your staff, and they like the end result. Well, now that’s resulted in a reoccurring account. Because I I’ve now been given that opportunity. I made the opportunity for my company to shine. That client saw us and saw the final result, and it exceeded their expectations. So, they’re like, why couldn’t they do the regular work, too? And that is so important. So having relationships with bigger companies, smaller companies, mid-size companies, companies that do collateral work that you might do, but it’s not in your wheelhouse. Or they do collateral work that’s not in your wheelhouse at all, you don’t do. It’s a natural referral to give to them because your clients all have windows.

 

Ray

Looking at businesses that are in adjacent industries, let’s hit a couple of those.

 

Joel

Pest control is a good one. Disaster restorations, and we did a Blurred Lines one with Valarie, from Refined Restoration. So a fire, mold, flood restoration company. General contractor that might be doing remodel jobs for companies and or even additions or building a brand new design build building. HVAC.

 

Ray

Oh, that’s a good one right there.

 

Joel

Electrical contractors.

 

Ray

Your local business insurance agents.

 

Joel

That would also help because if they’re writing your insurance, they’re probably writing insurance for other businesses. And it doesn’t mean that they’re all cleaning companies. They might be manufacturers. They might be a store if you’re doing retail type stuff. But they all are writing for other people, too. So, when you get to know that person, you might be able to be referred because of the relationship that you’ve built with them.

 

Ray

Makes perfect sense to me, Joel. Thank you.

 

Joel

You’re welcome.