Want to hear my secret, non-scientific method, to spotting possibly great employees? Let me tell you a story…

One day, at the car washed, I stumbled on what might be the easiest, most under-the-radar, way to spot a great potential employee, ever. It turns out, while waiting my turn to go through the car wash, I noticed
something interesting…

As you might have guessed, before getting their wash, many people vacuum out their car using one of the quarter operated vacs lined up there in a row. But, only some of those ””vacuumers”” (is that a word?) actually takes
the time to hang the hose up properly when they””re done.

Many simply left it all tangled up and simply threw it back up to hang in a knot. Others, the real slackers, just let it drop to the ground. No pride. None.

But a handful were very different. And that”’’s when it hit me.

Who might possibly make a terrific employee?

Well, just maybe – the handful of people who take the time to gather the hose, untangle it, and hang it up properly for the next person…and here”’’s the important part…… even though no one is looking!

Isn’t that right? Aren””t we all are looking for someone who has the character to do the right thing, even when no one else is watching. No reward; just doing the right thing… because it”’’s the right thing to do.

That’s someone with pride, and that’s someone who’d might very well be a great employee. Those are the kind of people we need to start looking for.

How?

That’s up to you; personally I’m going to start by keeping my eyes open at the car wash!

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 cleaning company. I wanted to give you some time to look things over, but thought I’d touch base to see if you had any questions.”

She responded, “Well, Dan, to be honest, you’re too late, I never heard back from you, so we went with somebody else.”

Huh? I couldn’t believe it. But she told me she would call back, right?

Yeah, and how did that work out? Crash and burn is right!

I learned a valuable lesson that day. From that day forward I always took responsibility to follow up on every cleaning proposal in a timely manner.

Even though Mary said she would call, she didn’t. And it doesn’t matter if it’s illogical, or even if she was wrong – It was not her fault, it was mine. It was my responsibility to follow up, not hers.

Lesson learned.

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 customers and prospects aren’t stupid; they know it too. And there’s the opportunity.

You see, you customers and prospects, don’t need, nor to be honest, always want, to hear an instant, knee jerk “No problem!” response to every request. It makes them begin to doubt your sincerity, credibility and seriousness on actually carrying through on your lofty promises.

Now, certainly, you want to accommodate customer requests whenever reasonably possible. But, when it’s far from reasonable, you need to let the customer or prospect know why and discuss it with him or her.

They might, in fact, prefer from time to time when the situation calls for it, a straightforward “No, Steve, that actually is a problem and let me explain the reasons why.”

Now, you should certainly offer alternative solutions, if there are any, but, it’s one thing to be helpful – it’s quite another to be a ‘doormat’.

When you use good judgment in answering requests from customers and prospects, you earn their respect.

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. It’s about the customers.

Deny it all you want; but if your prospects and customers want certain things, like lower prices and improved service – they want ‘em.

And they want them for a reason.

You or I may not like the reason, but there is a reason, and it’s usually a good one. And it’s probably one they’ve come up with to face a number of pressing business challenges.

Don’t misunderstand; it doesn’t mean they’re right. But, it also doesn’t automatically mean they’re wrong either. Our job as independent cleaning business owners is to listen to what they want; and to see what CAN be done – what is possible.

It’s hard. Finding ways to increase quality and improving service while holding or even lowering prices isn’t easy. It can often seem impossible. And it may be.

But, it’s our job to find the answers. And not just quick or easy answers, but, instead, the real answers.

For example, when prospects and customers demand more service and better service for less money, it’s easy to get defensive and refuse their request out of hand.

But, if we dig a little, we may find there are, in fact, not one or two, but many things we can do to increase service while holding or in some cases even lowering prices.

Some of the biggest steps forward in the quality and efficiency of cleaning have come about in direct response to demands from customers that at first seemed completely ‘ridiculous and unreasonable’.

-Can you clean without bothering our people as they work? – ultra-quiet vacuums
-Can you dust without spreading the dust? – microfiber cloths
-Can you help us if we want to shut down our offices after 6 PM? – day cleaning

Many times, there are answers to challenging times and “unreasonable” requests if we look hard enough, long enough and creatively enough.

People want what they want. Are you willing to help them get it?

Dan Liebrecht is co-founder of Clean Guru LLC
Copyright Clean Guru LLC, All Rights Reserved Sign up online at www.CleanBid.net to receive the FREE e-newsletter “Flip My Cleaning Business from ‘Painful’ to ‘Profitable’!” Need help bidding? Check out the CleanBid® Program – The Quick and Easy Way to Bid Any Cleaning Job… Guaranteed! http://www.CleanBid.net Modules for Janitorial, Construction Cleaning, Move In/Out Cleaning and Tile Maintenance

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 up and pay attention.

I once heard a marketing expert explain that a business’ marketing message needs to be so powerful that it inspires prospects to hire you above any other viable options (competitors)… including doing nothing at all!

Did you get that?  That’s right, they also have the option of simply doing nothing.  Not hire you…not hire one of your competitors…just simply do nothing at all.

Therefore, your marketing message needs to be so powerful that it actually motivates them, practically compels them, to take action, as well as clearly set you apart from the rest of your competitors.

Tall order, isn’t it?

Sure, but here are a few marketing devices or tools that can help you to do just that:

1.  Create Measureable Guarantees of Performance (MGPs): Create powerful marketing messages, we call them MGP’s, that literally grab your prospects attention; specific, dramatic answers to one or more of their most pressing problems.

2.  Use powerful CALLS TO ACTION or CTA’s, that not only tell your prospect what to do, but exactly how and when to do it.

3.  Use DEADLINES to create a “sense of urgency”

4.  Offer INCENTIVES to create a “fear of loss”.

Bottom line; today is not yesterday.  And what worked 10 or even 5 years ago, won’t necessarily work today.  Our job as marketers of cleaning services is to find out what does.

Dan Liebrecht is co-founder of Clean Guru LLC, Copyright Clean Guru LLC, All Rights Reserved
Sign up online at www.CleanBid.net to receive the FREE e-newsletter “Flip My Cleaning Business from ‘Painful’ to ‘Profitable’!” Need help bidding? Check out the CleanBid® Program – The Quick and Easy Way to Bid Any Cleaning Job… Guaranteed! http://www.CleanBid.net Modules for Janitorial, Construction Cleaning, Move In/Out Cleaning and Tile Maintenance