Growing your commercial cleaning business by communicating your value should be simple and straight-forward.

• You meet a few prospective customers
• Demonstrate that your company uses reliable practices.
• The prospect awards you the work and…
• Decides to write checks in advance from now until the end of time.

But since we KNOW that’s a fantasy, let’s deal with what REALLY happens.

Preparing Your Value Before the Prospect is YOUR Prospect

Since anyone and almost everyone learns some rudimentary cleaning practices at home, cleaning as an occupation in vastly misunderstood. Your job as the commercial cleaning company owner is to be educated on the chemistry of cleaning. You should understand which cleaning solutions and materials are safely used together. It’s equally important for you and your team leaders to understand what CANNOT be safely used together. For those who may not know, there are several household cleaning items that can cause serious and irreparable damage to your body, if used together. Those are just the basics of your value as a cleaning professional. And yes, if my clients aren’t clear on this, we cover them in training them and their staff & front-line cleaners. This should be done before they’re out in the field.

Communicating Your Value On Arrival

For cleaning company owners and salespeople, how you show up on site sets the stage. Confidence in your value doesn’t show up as being “cocky”. That attitude will turn off most would-be customers. Acting subservient will also diminish your perceived value. Those are among the reasons I frequently coach owners and sales staff. This is a mix of business, science and art.

Communicating Your Value When Disrespected

Nearly the only place that cleaning professionals receive respect is among other cleaning professionals. You can expect to have your patience tested, especially when dealing with a new customer for the first time. Even more so when your customer has a large group of employees. If someone’s had a bad day, they may take it out on “the cleaners”. When serving your customer, address issues for cleaning services by sharing how certain (AKA yucky) messes were dealt with using the correct chemistry. Don’t act smug. Just be friendly. You’ll be surprised at the results on your relationship with your customer.

Communicating Your Value When Disrespected

Ah, I have to admit, this is one of my favorites. I expect to receive some level of disrespect. So, taking the time to turn the tables and display knowledge is very satisfying. After you’ve displayed your grasp of cleaning practices by finding your customer’s pain points, offer a solution. That knowledge is your value. The capacity to listen, inspect, confirm, diagnose and resolve the problem that’s plaquing your customer is part of your value. And THAT part can make you a very good living. If you’re interested in learning the “Science & Theater of Closing The Deal”, contact me here.

 

This Week’s Podcast transcript can be found below.

Ray
Joel, we’re back, and we are talking today about helping clients understand the value of your company. But that, I assume, means not DOC’s.

Joel
Not Docs. Any company USA.

Ray
Now, you and I have both talked about the lack of respect in general for the cleaning industry.

Joel
All the time.

Ray
What specific challenges did you face, or maybe I should ask, your clients face, in just conveying, “We know what we’re doing, dear customer. You probably don’t.”

Joel
Do we have 10 years.

Ray
This is a five-minute podcast, brother.

Joel
Oh, boy. Companies that are in business, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s a school, a manufacturing, a church, retail, they do what they do best. They’re not cleaning people. A lot of us in our industry have our certifications. We’ve gotten additional education, things like that. We’re trying to do a better job in our careers, just like a retailer is going to understand what they have to do to market to get people to buy more product per square foot. We learned how to clean more square feet per hour at a higher level. We have the expertise where a lot of our clients don’t. Actually, I have several instances where things like that have happened in this week’s repertoire of things that I have gone and done already. I had a church call me. They were like, “Oh, we’re on our eighth cleaner in the month of January”.

Ray
Eight in January?

Joel
Just eight in January. They’re trying to train them in-house. Obviously, the pastor that works there, that’s not what he knows best. He’s preparing sermons. He shouldn’t be training the person how to go about cleaning a toilet.

Ray
The idea that he’s cleaned his own toilet means you can clean any toilet.

Joel
They’re having issues with the overall quality for obvious reasons. Because they’re not qualified. It’s not to say that that’s a bad thing because they do what they do. His job is to save souls. My job is to keep people healthy in a clean environment just like any other company. Another one was a manufacturing firm. They called me, scheduled an appointment. I got there. He came to the door and says, “Oh, my gosh. My HR department hired a new custodian today. I meant to call you.”

Ray
So, they went in-house?

Joel
Well, they were in-house, and they were going to continue to try to go in-house, I guess.

Ray
Okay, help me out here. You had an appointment. He was going to cancel. They hired someone on staff. Connect the dots for me on this one. I guess I’m a little lost.

Joel
Well, their thought process was it’s better to have their own employee do the work. (Okay.) They had been for the beginning of time, I guess. All right. They were looking to outsource it because they also have had a lot of turn-over in that role for the month of January.

Ray
So in the interim, they had someone, they went through who knows how many, decided this wasn’t the way to go. Let’s hire someone from outside. Someone decided to get another person. They hired them inside, forgot to contact you.

Joel
You got it.

Ray
Okay, so now your boots on the ground. What happened?

Joel
I drive there, and he says, “Oh, I meant to call you.” That’s some of maybe the disrespect in the industry. Sure. Oh, well, my time’s not important.

Ray
You wouldn’t do that to your dentist.

Joel
Correct. That is a moment of truth.

Ray
What do you do there, Joel?

Joel
What I did, and what most of you should do, is say, “Well, it’s not a waste of my time. Let’s still go on the walkthrough because you’ve had high turnover this past month. You called me out of frustration. Let me still walk the space because you’re telling me that this place closes at 3: 30 in the afternoon, and you called me at 8: 30 at night one night because you were having to do the work because the person had quit on you.”

Ray
That sounds like a great use of his time.

Joel
Exactly.
You could tell that he let the gears work a little bit. So we went on a walkthrough, and we’re measuring everything. I’m asking questions because he didn’t even have a scope of work. He’s basically, “empty the trash, fill the supplies. It just…” Yes. A lackadaisical approach. We all know that that’s not how it’s going to be if you’re cleaning it.

Ray
I wonder why it’s failing now?

Joel
While we’re walking, he says, Well, can you clean carpets and can you refinish floors? Well, yes. I also notice your facility has LED lighting. In some areas, not all areas, there’s still rebates right now in New York State that you can have and part of that get covered, as well as this is a manufacturing, and I can smell all the lubricants in the air. Plus, it’s cold and flu and COVID season. And, oh, boy, right now, there’s a big outbreak of TB out in Kansas, and there’s noroviruses.

Ray
What I’m hearing from you is, “Dear prospect, you were just about to blow me off, and I presented you a batch of information that there’s no reason you would know, but there’s every reason you should know. And now you know, and now you know I know.”

Joel
You got it.

So as we were finishing the walkthrough, he’s like, “I wish I hadn’t had HR hire an individual right because I’m blown away with the knowledge that you have, and I’ve never met a cleaning company or contractor that has been as knowledgeable as yourself.” This is why I press the importance of training and educating yourself as a business owner so that you can get over the hump and you can handle a situation where they’re going to turn you away at the door and turn it around into an opportunity.

Ray
You know, Joel, there’s a previous episode that we ran about how much should you give away? Some of that was service. More of it was communicating knowledge and expertise. We’ll link to that at the bottom of this podcast. Advice for the business owner who finds themselves stuck in this place where they’re met with disrespect or dismissed.

Joel
There’s so many different ways you can close deals. A big part of that is reading the person and the facility that you’re in. Find their pain point. Talk to them about their pain point. Point out obvious things that maybe are obvious to you. They might not be obvious to them because in this case, this gentleman has been covering two hats, two jobs and working double the hours in order to get everything done that he’s supposed to. If you hire a coach, particularly in the industry that we’re in, because we are a special breed in a special type of industry that a lot of the traditional sales books don’t necessarily work. Having boots on the ground and understanding facilities maintenance on top of custodial maintenance makes a huge difference in how you can sell a job to a facilities manager. Because their time is just as valuable as yours, even though they may not always see your time as valuable.

Ray
Joel, that’s great advice. I have said it before. I will say it again. You are one of the most resilient people I know. Folks in your industry definitely need that.

Joel
Thank you, Ray.

Ray
Thank you, Joel.

Joel
You’re welcome.