Thanks for watching our video “What’s the “Going Rate” to Bid Cleaning Contracts?” But, don’t stop there – Be sure to check out our exciting NEW video series “Flip My Cleaning Business From Painful to PROFITABLE!” where we tackle everything from the rampant use of illegal workers to the devastating effects of the low-balling ‘big guy’ franchises and national management companies. “Frankly, we’re sick of it!” How’s that for starters? Then, we’ll tell you what we intend to do about it, and what YOU can do NOW to flip your cleaning business from painful to PROFITABLE. Want to Flip Yours? Go to www.CleanBid.net and sign up for FREE today!!!

Well, before you’re done watching this episode of “Flip My Cleaning Business from Painful to PROFITABLE!” You’ll learn what is we believe is more important than a picture of your building, the history of your company or a list of the cleaning services you provide.  This one ‘thing’ hits at the core of how you can steadily turn semi-interested prospects into actual customers – one at a time.  Listen NOW ; you’ll be glad you did!

Thanks for watching our video – The MOST important ‘thing’ on Your Janitorial Business Website! But, don’t stop there – Be sure to check out our video: What Janitorial Businesses Can Learn From a Baseball Coach where you’ll hear a funny baseball story that teaches an important lesson – and an easy to use way of knowing when it’s time to make changes in your cleaning business IF you want to be profitable!

You’ll watch a few, short minutes of video loaded with practical ideas, tips and strategies about what it really takes to flip a cleaning business from painful to profitable. Want to Flip Yours?

And it’s not because I don’t think you’re perfectly capable as a salesperson.

No, there’s another, more important, reason why I suggest the less selling required the better, and it’s this:

The better your MARKETING is – the less you need to ‘sell’… to make the sale.

Think about it.

If your marketing qualifies, educates, convinces and motivates your prospects to buy…the less you need to sell.

That’s right; when prospects feel compelled to call after your marketing…

1. grabs their attention

2. demonstrates why and how your different

3. highlights important benefits

4. attracts them to want to want to do business with you

Well, frankly, if it’s doing those ‘things’ effectively, well, we’re getting somewhere!

Don’t get me wrong, I think selling is important.

When it’s time to sell, you want to do it in a way consistent with how you approach everything else in your cleaning business.

How’s that?

Well, professionally and effectively to begin with.

But, for today, let’s start with agreeing we want to have our marketing do most of the ‘heavy lifting’ sometimes needed to turn prospects into customers.

When marketing is created and delivered in a way that turns any remaining selling into something close to ‘order taking’ you may be on your way to fast growth and healthy profits.

The good news is – there are many things you can do to have your marketing ‘sell more’… so you can ‘sell less’.

Drum roll, please…..here it is:

Boring.

It’s true – the biggest reason why the marketing used by many cleaning companies isn’t working is something as simple as the fact that… it’s BORING.

You know what today’s world is like, right?

It’s not a secret – It’s fast, fast, fast and people are overwhelmed with information – News. Sports. Ads. Online. Offline. Mobile. Skype. Text. 24/7 Twitter. Facebook.

It’s not information they’re missing. It’s not facts they’re short of.

Nope, here’s what’s missing: Something so unique, new and interesting that it literally
commands their attention!

Now, brace yourself, here’s a question: Is that what your marketing is doing?

In today’s fast paced, mind-numbing world, where people’s attention span is shorter than ever before, here’s the question put another way:

Is your marketing saying something so NEW, so ENGAGING and so EXCITING that it virtually ‘grabs your prospect by the collar, gets them to ‘sit up and take notice’ and ‘compels them to act’?

I know….that’s a lot to ask for.

But that’s what it’s going to take to get the attention of today’s consumers. And I’m not just talking about care-free, texting-crazed teenagers…nope, I’m talking about nearly everybody, and that includes building owners, property managers and purchasing agents.

Yep, these folks are running as hard and fast as everyone else…maybe faster, and they’re so overwhelmed with info, ads, brochures and sales pitches…that if you allow your marketing to become boring – you’re sunk.

The good news is – you’re marketing doesn’t have to be ‘boring’ and you don’t have to be ‘sunk’.

You can craft exciting, fresh, interesting marketing messages highlighting how your cleaning business is different from your competition in new and important ways.

Stick around, we’ll talk about how you can do this more quickly and easily than you ever thought possible.

Well, before you’re done watching this episode of “Flip My Cleaning Business from Painful to PROFITABLE!” You’ll learn what a baseball coach said to his struggling pitcher and how it can be a powerful and profitable lesson for your cleaning business. Listen NOW ; you’ll be glad you did!

Thanks for watching our video – What Janitorial Businesses Can Learn from a BASEBALL Coach! But, don’t stop there – Be sure to check out our video: What’s More Important Than ‘Being Clever’ in Your Janitorial Advertising? where we’ll reveal what you need your marketing to do MORE than being clever – IF you want to be profitable!

You’ll watch a few, short minutes of video loaded with practical ideas, tips and strategies about what it really takes to flip a cleaning business from painful to profitable. Want to Flip Yours?

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.

Well, before you’re done watching this episode of “Flip My Cleaning Business from Painful to PROFITABLE!” we’ll disclose an approach that what we found to be VERY effective for our cleaning company – one that you might want to take advantage of!

Thanks for watching our video – What’s More Important Than Being Clever in Your Janitorial Advertising? – Be sure to check out our video: Yes, This SHOULD be in Your Janitorial Marketing!, where we reveal exactly what this ONE thing is, and why you should start including it in your marketing sooner rather than later

You’ll watch a few, short minutes of video loaded with practical ideas, tips and strategies about what it really takes to flip a cleaning business from painful to profitable. Want to Flip Yours?

Well, before you’re done watching this episode of “Flip My Cleaning Business from Painful to PROFITABLE!” we’ll reveal exactly what this ONE thing is, and why you should start including it in your marketing sooner rather than later. What are you waiting for? Listen NOW and get started TODAY; you’ll be glad you did!

Thanks for watching our video – Yes, This SHOULD be in Your Janitorial Marketing! But, don’t stop there – Be sure to check out our video: Consumable Supplies: The Janitorial Business ‘Hot Potato’ – Part 2, where we’ll look at the important question: Who’s going to be responsible for the consumable polypaper restroom supply cost. You’ll quickly see how you can avoid getting burned by this ‘hot potato’!

You’ll watch a few, short minutes of video loaded with practical ideas, tips and strategies about what it really takes to flip a cleaning business from painful to profitable. Want to Flip Yours?

Nope – don't even ask. No fishing, no power boating, no colorful drinks with funny names and little umbrellas in 'em.

Ok, we may have had a few drinks… but they didn't have any little umbrellas.

Anyway, the point is we were down there on business and when we went to the airport to head home we made a rare and amazing discovery in the restroom.

Drum roll please…here it is…common sense; that elusive creature – good old common sense.
What do I mean?

Well, you see management had roped off at least half of the restroom – restricting use by the public, to of course – only one half.

However, even with access to only half of the facility, there were still plenty of stalls, urinals and sinks available for the steady, but manageable, number of visitors using the restroom.

I don't have to tell you the obvious value of this common sense idea, but I will.

There was no real downside to the public, other than not being able to roam freely in a facility twice as large as was needed.

But to the maintenance staff – the time savings of having to clean only 50% of the space was – I'm sure – significant.

Now, I'm not saying this strategy was anything on par with say… the discovery of fire. I'm sure you may have seen this kind of limited access strategy used in restrooms before, maybe in places like public arenas or highway service plazas.

It may not seem like a 'new' thing or 'big' thing, except when you stop to think about how often you see OTHER obvious opportunities to save time and money like the one in the airport…get completely missed.

Maybe no one is 'seeing' it. Maybe no one is saying anything about it. Either way, it's being missed.

It makes you wonder how long it took before someone sitting in a meeting at the airport finally raised their hand and said “Hey, if we roped off part of the restroom we could cut our cleaning time….”.

Common sense isn't always as common as we'd like. Obvious solutions sometimes only seem obvious after the fact.

What can we do?

We can start by trying to think of new solutions to our old, nagging cleaning problems. And since two heads are always better than one, we can begin to ask others to help us come up with these new solutions as well.

Make sense? Yep, makes cents.

Until next time, have a great week, remember: “You Can Do This…You Really Can!”

- Dan

“I never hit a shot, not even in practice, without having a very sharp, in-focus picture of it in my head.

Then there is a sort of fade-out, and the next scene shows me making the kind of swing that will turn the previous images into reality.”

You can probably already visualize what amazing value this ‘visualization thing’ can offer all of us in our lives…including our janitorial businesses.

Powerful stuff.

Have a great week, and remember:

“You Can Do This… You Really Can!”

- Dan