BlogVIDEO BLOG: What’s Happened to the Cleaning Business? Tuesday, March 9th, 2010  Are you an independent cleaning business? If so, don’t miss this video! We come out ‘blasting with both barrels’ revealing WHO we think is ‘killing’ the cleaning business with their slick talk, empty-promises and low-ball prices…and what we intend to do about it. Cleaning Prospects Want YOU To Remember…And They’re Right! Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 Quick story… Early on, when we first got started in cleaning, I had a painful experience that taught me a valuable lesson. I hope you’ll learn the lesson and save yourself the pain. It starts with me taking a cleaning proposal out to Mary, the office manager at a steel processing company near downtown, one day. Things went pretty smoothly. We sat down together and went over everything in the proposal, talked about why they should choose us over our competitors, and ended up with me asking Mary if she’d like me to follow up in a week or so. Mary responded. “No, no need for that, I’ll look it over, and then call you back.” Fine, right? Uhmmmm…no – not fine. You see, I didn’t hear from Mary in a week. I didn’t hear from her after 2 weeks. In fact, I didn’t hear from at all. So, after a few weeks, I called her back saying, “Hi Mary, this is Dan with the … How “No Problem!” Can Be A Problem In Your Cleaning Business Friday, February 12th, 2010 You hear it all the time. People toss the phrase around so casually, thoughtlessly and often, it quickly begins to lose any real meaning, or value. And that’s the problem. What do I mean? When you spit out a fast “No problem, no problem” to nearly any, and every question asked by your customer or prospect, you can, if you’re not careful, begin to come across as simply trying to pacify the person asking the question rather than really giving them real, thought-out answers. Can you make sure you gather all the coffee mugs in the building, wash and dry them, and then return each of them to the desk they came from. No problem! Can you have one of your cleaning people stop back out to our building about 10:30 PM, just to touch up the lunchroom for about 45 minutes? No problem! Really?! How can everything be – “No problem!”? It’s ridiculous to think so. Your … Can You Give People What They Want? Tuesday, January 12th, 2010 Gravity, taxes, and oh, yeah, here’s the other seemingly immutable law – So, why even mention it? Well, because lately, we’ve been hearing some so-called cleaning experts say things like… “Customers don’t know what they’re talking about half the time. You’re the cleaning expert… You’ve got to tell them what they need and how much it’s going to cost; cased closed. That’s the only way to make money today. And, if they don’t like it – just wait; they’ll get tired of those cheap, fly-by-night cleaning company soon enough… and then they’ll come crawling back.” They’re frustrated. It’s understandable; it’s tough out there. But, to simply decide in the face of these challenges, to “take your baseball mitt and ball”, quit and go home…isn’t the answer. And even though it may feel good, temporarily, it misses the point, which is… It’s not about them. And it’s not about you or me. … “Bonded and Licensed and Insured”… Oh, My! Monday, January 4th, 2010 It’s got to stop. Really; overused phrases like the one above have been used so often and with so little affect that they can barely be called marketing messages anymore. The only thing worse might be… “FREE estimates”. When’s the last time you came across business prospects willing to pay for you to prepare a cleaning proposal? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying you can’t include them. There’s nothing wrong with pointing out, for example, that you’re insured. It’s fine; prospects want to know they’re dealing with a cleaning professional that protects his workers and customers. So, it’s not that. It’s just that those worn- out promotional lines are thrown out and highlighted in janitorial, office-cleaning brochures and marketing pieces as if they’re somehow ‘magic’ words to instant credibility, proof of your professional cleaning status, as well as the short cut to inspiring prospects to want to hire you. Sorry, but marketing slogans like that are likely too flat and too boring to get even one prospects to sit … |
“CleanBid allowed me to go online, change the terms of a bid, print it, and get it signed… without leaving the customer’s sight! Recently, I bid an 11 story building in Texas against several other companies. The facility manager had a one-page spec sheet, and was blown away at the benchmark bid I was able to produce… within hours of landing in town!” Al Olsen Next Level Services Millville, MA
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