Growing your business and serving your customers is a mutual “good”. I understand that every so often you as the commercial cleaning company owner, salesperson or technician will suggest a service. Something like cleaning spring mud comes to mind. The seasons change and this is a predictable happening. Often, your suggestion is dismissed. The denials are predictable, “No Time. No budget”. Or even better, “I don’t want to take this to management.” If you want to take care of your customer AND your bottom time, please keep reading. If you find value in this, I’d appreciate your comments and your results on our podcast.

Push Back on Spring Mud Cleaning is Expected

Whether your client is the facilities manager, property owner or and Admin doesn’t matter. None of them want to spend precious dollars on cleaning. After all, your team is already doing that. So, in their minds, it’s your problem. What they don’t understand is what YOU need to convey. Your cleaning quote doesn’t and can’t cover everything. Learning how to present this takes time, practice and finesse.

Spring Mud Cleaning Refusal Won’t Last IF…

If you learn that finesse and are consistent, your customer will eventually understand. I stress that this isn’t intended to “manipulate”. As the commercial cleaning professional, it’s your job to educate your customer about good cleaning practices. When you approach them ahead of time with a suggestion about increased services, they may say “no”. Accept that. But don’t accept defeat. Respectfully describe that spring mud and salt can damage their facility. Put it in writing with a quote. If they say NO this year, it may lead to a YES next year.

Spring Mud Cleaning is Good for BOTH of You

Ultimately you know your customers who need this additional service. Some will take your advice early. Some will take it late, and others won’t accept your advice at all. That is until their flooring has to be replaced. When your customer DOES accept your seasonal service, you’ve both won. Your opinion becomes more valued. Your client’s facility is better cared for. And you get to increase your billings. If you’re not sure how to structure THAT conversation, contact me here. I work with cleaning company owners on a regular basis to help them grow their business and improve their professionalism.

 

This Week’s Podcast transcript can be found below.

00:08 Ray

Joel?

 

00:09 Joel

Yes, sir.

 

00:10 Ray

We’re in the northeast.

 

00:12 Joel

That is true. It’s a snowy northeast.

 

00:16 Ray

Well, right now, snowy.

 

00:17 Joel

Yes.

 

00:18 Ray

Cold, wet, rain, muddy. There are days it’s just gray from one end of the sky to the other.

 

00:25 Joel

Rock salt instead of ice melt because it’s cheap.

 

00:29 Ray

As we head into the springtime or even the back and forth that our region gets this time of year, a little thaw, a little freeze. It’s just sloppy, muddy crap at that point.

 

00:41 Joel

Potholes.

 

00:42 Ray

Hopefully not the at the entryway.

 

00:46 Joel

Sometimes.

 

00:48 Ray

Sometimes. What advice do you have for the cleaning company owner in being prepped for this. Either communicating to their customer or just being ready to serve?

 

00:58 Joel

Well, that’s it right there. Its “Be ready”. It’s just like when I was a Cub Scout, always be prepared. You have to think a few months ahead when you’re talking to your customers. Because not all of your customers are facility management type people. Smaller businesses, you might be dealing with administrative assistant, you might be dealing with an office manager. You might be dealing with a shipping and loading clerk. Something like that. Thinking for them and thinking about what’s upcoming. So yes, we’re in the midst right now of Winter Wonderland. As a comment about ice melt and rock salt. Most companies use rock salt because it’s very inexpensive. They can spread it, get rid of the ice so the ice slip and falls. Well, that rock salt does a ton of damage. It does damage to the sidewalks outside the building, to the grass, to the plantings, all that type of stuff. Well, as harsh as it is on the outside of the building, when it gets dragged in, it’s that harsh to the inside as well.

 

Ray

How so?

 

01:59 Joel

If you have hard surface as floors in your lobbies, or even if you have break rooms or kitchenettes that have vinyl composition tile because there’s still a lot of it around, it’s going to eat the floor finishes off the floor. And it’s going to dull that shine down. And it’s going to wear up because it’s going to just eat the stuff that’s there.

 

02:19 Joel

It’ll also get in your carpets. And your carpets start feeling oily and slick, and it builds up, and it can get crusty. And I hear so many people telling me, “Oh, I can’t sell carpet cleaning in the wintertime.” That is exactly when you should be selling it because you don’t want carpet cleaning to be done after you can actually see the soils and feel the carpet fibers stuck together like pavement.

 

02:44 Ray

Let me ask you about that. Oftentimes, on the client’s side, the sale is strictly dollars, dollars, dollars. I get that. Everyone’s watching their budget. Every business has a budget, an operational set of expenses. How does the cleaning company owner couch this, not to be manipulative, but to convey, “You are farther ahead if we do this at X date rather than not at all”. How do they convey that?

 

03:11 Joel

Most janitorial companies and custodial services this is even in-house operations because they also operate on budgets, needs to educate the people that they’re working for. Maybe it’s a blog. Maybe it’s face-to-face, maybe it’s a newsletter, maybe it’s a podcast. Anything like that to educate them because people are good at what they know and they do. When you’re working in facilities where you’re not dealing with a true facilities manager, most of the people that work in those roles don’t understand what the outside environment can do to damage the inside environment. Even a podcast that we did on walk-off mats. They don’t realize that increasing the number of walk mats, what they’re saying, “Oh, my gosh, that’s an increase in my cost!”. That is going to actually help reduce their overall cleaning costs by holding the dirt towards the front of the building instead of bringing it through the building.

 

04:04 Ray

I remember you talking about how long a walk space we need to actually get this soil off the shoes.

 

04:09 Joel

So that it’s not tracked to the back or up several floors or flights. These are the things that we’re educated on that we need to make sure that we’re letting our clients know that. We’re the expert. We’re the expert that we do. In our industry, we’re often disrespected because we’re not taking advantage of trying to educate people the right way. We just let them talk down to us. Then we’re frustrated. We’re sitting our vehicle on the way out of the meeting, and we’re frustrated. Like, “Well, they said this, and they said that about me and my company and my staff”. And we’re just as important. Were we not one of the industries that was part of getting things right after COVID happened?

 

Ray

You are an essential worker, Joel.

 

04:49 Joel

We are an essential worker. But we have to educate ourselves like we’re an essential worker and make sure that we are up to date on trends, on technology, things that are going make a difference to help facilities, in general, look better, be safer, be cleaner, and that things don’t have to be replaced as often. Because we’re taking care of them properly.

 

05:12 Ray

I think in particular, that replacement cost. I didn’t realize until you describe the damage that the rock salt is doing to a vinyl tile or other hard floor surfaces wasn’t just that haze that had become liquid and then dried. It was actually eating the finish. (It will.) If I’ve been sitting with you this long, and I didn’t know that, it makes me wonder what a customer actually knows.

 

05:38 Joel

It’s not to belittle them. Because they’re good at what they do. That’s why they’re a doctor, a dentist, a grocer, a manufacturer, a school, a church.

 

05:49 Ray

Joel, thank you.

 

Joel

You’re welcome.