Why Janitorial Businesses Shouldn’t Ask Me What Cleaner To Use

You shouldn’t ask me what cleaning products to use. Here’s why:

I’m focused on one thing – seeing you grow quickly and profitably – and sorry, but spending (wasting) a lot of time talking about which cleaning products to use… isn’t going to get us there.

Be offended if you must, but it’s the truth.

By the way, it’s not exactly that I don’t care about which cleaning products or equipment you use – I do, but ONLY to this extent – are they a safe, effective, convenient and affordable?

Yes?

Fine, that’s it. Case closed – now, let’s get on building a fast growing, profitable and fun-to-run cleaning business.

By the way, just to be clear, until just recently Tony and I ran our own janitorial business…so, yes, we used cleaning products.

And, yes, we made sure the products we gave our cleaners were both safe and effective. It’s what you do when you care about your staff and customers.

It’s just that I’m just sick and tired of so much of what we see and hear from our industry today be about the latest cleaning product or equipment.

Let me ask you a question.

Ever heard a fellow janitorial contractor joke how the real money isn’t in the actual cleaning – but, rather in the chemical and equipment biz.

It’s supposed to be funny. It’s not.

Whose ads dominate the contract cleaning industry magazines? Well, JanSan manufacturers and distributors, of course.

It makes me mad. But I’m not mad at them for advertising – that’s their job; to sell cleaning products and equipment.

No – I’m mad at us… because it’s our job to grow and too often, we get distracted in conversations about ‘which soap, wax or floor machine is best’ – as if that’s going to get us a fast-growing and profitable cleaning business.

Simply put – We need to re-focus on MARKETING and SELLING… not soap and wax!

You know, I promised myself something – that if Tony and I ever got a chance to do consulting work in the janitorial field …we wouldn’t feed people the ‘same old story’ they’ve heard for years.

You know the old worn-out story… ‘Work harder’, ‘Be quiet’, Head down and keep moving forward’…everything will be fine.

No, it won’t.

That’s right, we say, for a heck of a lot of people – No it won’t – at least, not if they keep doing the ‘same old things’… the ‘same old way’.

We say that old story about ‘being quiet’, ‘working harder’ and ‘keeping your head down’ is simply a good way… to crack your head on something you didn’t see coming!

So, Tony and I are telling, and will continue to tell, a quite different story.

It’s a story we know well, because it’s our story – of how we quickly and dramatically turned our cleaning business around. Today, we highlight just one of the many ‘things’ we did differently.

Here it is:

We concentrated the majority of our time and efforts on MARKETING and SELLING… not on cleaning products and equipment.

You can too.

Think about how you use your time. Think about how you could change that equation to reach your goals better, faster.

Ok, that’s it, I’ll get off my soapbox…for now.