How To Win Commercial Cleaning/Janitorial Contracts

If you’re not already really clear on the type of clients you want to work with, your first task for this week is to pick an ideal client type — also known as a niche. You may have more than one, but take note — “anyone willing to pay me” is not a niche!

Why is it Important to Pick a Type of Client?

1. It allows you to narrow down which businesses in your area could be leads — otherwise, where would you even begin?
2. It allows you to target them with specific marketing messages. If you have one generic message for all client type, it won’t feel like you truly understand the challenges they face on a daily basis in their industry. Referencing things that are unique to their business sets you apart from the competition.
3. By working with clients in the same industry you will begin to specialize in those types of jobs — making you an expert in that area.
4. Testimonials and references from other clients in the same industry will allow you to build trust quickly.
5. It helps you stay focused as you try to grow your business.

How Do You Pick An Ideal Client Type?

If you already have business, write down the types of clients you currently have. You may start to see patterns emerge. If not, choose one or two of your best clients — the ones you really enjoy working for and who your company is best suited to serve — this could be your niche.

If you’re just starting out, talk to your friends. Do they own businesses or know someone who owns a business that your company could serve? If so, be sure to give some thought to whether or not you are well suited to clean their spaces before deciding to go after more of that type of client.

Also pay attention while you’re out and about on a daily basis — while you’re at the dentist, the gym or dropping your cat off at the vet. Do any of these businesses have specific pains that you could solve with your services?

Once you’ve brainstormed, begin Googling businesses in your area that match up with this client type. We’ll soon help you turn this into a list of leads in your local area, but first it’s important to determine how you’ll make your company stand out to these types of organizations.

IDENTIFYING THEIR UNIQUE PAIN POINTS

Once you’ve identified the type of businesses you’d like to work with the next step is identifying the unique pain points of each client type. For example, a dentist office doesn’t run into the same cleanliness-related issues as a fitness centre or an office building. By understanding the challenges each of them faces you’ll be able to speak to these pains (and offer solutions) when you’re on the phone with them — setting your company apart from the competition.

We’ve created this Customer Pain Point Worksheet to help you brainstorm their pain points and record solutions you might be able to offer.

Once you have an idea of the type of clients you’d like to work with, it’s time to build a list of leads to reach out to.

BUILDING A LIST OF LEADS

The first step is to research businesses in your area that match your ideal client type. You can do this using Google and YellowPages. Use this Lead Tracking Spreadsheet to record the contact information of as many businesses as possible. You’ll see at the bottom of the spreadsheet that we’ve divided it up by type of business. Because these leads are cold (meaning you have no previous relationship with them,) you’ll want to compile a long list before reaching out to anyone.

Aim for at least 100 contacts. This may seem like more than you’ll need, but unfortunately you won’t get a hold of everyone on that list, and of those you do, not every one will result in a walk through. You may only book a walk through with 10% of these contacts, and even that is a good percentage!

Truthfully, it’s not creating the list that’s important — it’s maintaining that list. When we were a cleaning company building a list like yours, the leads that converted into customers were the ones that we carefully tracked.

Here are some recommendations for keeping your list organized:

1. List your next action item for each contact and highlight them all in colour.
2. Put those action items in your calendar before you forget!
3. If you have a lot of people asking you to follow up in a few days, re-organize your list and move those contacts to the bottom
4. Include any notes from your calls in their own column to jog your memory about that lead for future conversations.

Our handy Lead Tracking Spreadsheet has examples to get you on the right track. Click here to download the spreadsheet.

COLD CALLING YOUR LIST

Now that you have a nice long list of leads and a plan for keeping it organized, it’s time to pick up the phone. Because this may seem like a daunting task, we’ve creating Cold Calling Scripts for you to use as a starting point. We encourage you to print these off and write in the proper names where they belong.

As you may soon find out, cold calling can be discouraging, and it’s easy to give up after 20 – 30 contacts. Here are some recommendations for making cold calling more enjoyable:

1. Put on some music — something upbeat — and commit to calling for at least an hour.
2. Allow yourself to be happy — even exciting about it. The key is to be in the right mindset!
3. Give yourself the chance to experience a successful call. Your first call that goes really well will give you the confidence to keep going.
4. Don’t try to close the deal on the phone. Don’t talk about price — talk about their pain point and how you have something different that sets you apart.
5. Use the scripts we’ve provided to get started, but once you start to get the hang of it tweak that script and do what works for you. You don’t want to sound like a robot!

As you know, business owners are busy, so you’ll likely get a lot of voicemails. Leave a message with your name and phone numberand let them know approximately what time you’ll call back. If you’re persistent, they’ll call you back or answer eventually — and that’s your opportunity to show them how you’re different.

SENDING COLD EMAILS

In addition to making cold calls you may want to test cold emails. We’ve created sample “Drip Emails” for you to use as a starting point. Drip emails are a series of emails that go out to the same lead in order to build a relationship over time.

The first one is an introduction to your company. If they don’t respond you send them the second email in the series, and so on, and so on.

**Note: If you’re using email automation software to send these emails automatically, remember to remove anyone who responds to one from the list so that they don’t receive the rest of the emails in the series!

At this point in the challenge we’re going to shift gears and spend some time thinking about who will do the cleaning once you’ve closed your next contract!

Many think that a job description for a cleaner doesn’t require much thought. But the reality is, if you don’t find the right cleaner for a job, that cleaner will leave and you’ll be stuck trying to fill their shifts at the last minute, doing the cleaning yourself (instead of growing your business!) or replacing them with another poor match who won’t last long either.

For a position to be a good match, it has to be more than just a job to your employee. We found that our best cleaners were getting way more out of their job with us than just a pay cheque. The fact of the matter is that our best cleaners could have been working any number of places but chose to work with us because the position was a good match for their life.

Below is a breakdown of what should go into each section of your job posting in order to give a potential employee a clear picture of the job.

JOB DESCRIPTION

When describing the position you have, state more than just the obvious. There are a lot of great people out there looking for work that might not have considered cleaning, but would be a perfect fit for your team. This description should answer the following questions…

• Why is this company any different from all the other cleaning jobs?
• What type of job is this?
• How much will I be paid?
• Is there flexibility in time I can work?
• How far away is this job from where I live now?
• How many hours do / can I work?
• Do they offer any type of health coverage?
• Will any training be provided?
• Who will I report to?
• Will I be a contractor or employee?

RESPONSIBILITIES

Setting expectations of what is required is critical. The job posting is the first interaction that a prospective cleaner has with your company. It’s important to use this job posting to tell them what will be expected of them. Questions to answer in this section are…

• What equipment do I need to know how to use?
• What duties are expected of me?
• Will I need to work in a team or by myself?

JOB REQUIREMENTS

This is the best place to make sure people do not apply to your position if they aren’t qualified for the job. What will the applicant need to be successful? Questions to answer in this section are…

• Do I need to pass a criminal background check?
• Do I need my own car or can I use public transportation?
• Do I need experience?
• Will I need a cell phone?
• Do I need to speak English?
• Do I need to be able to read English?
• Will I need to be able to lift heavy things?

With these questions in mind, we’ve created an example job posting to get you started. ###a href="https://www.sweptworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/SampleJobPosting.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Click here to download the sample job post.

BUILDING A DATABASE OF CLEANERS TO HIRE FROM

Managers that spend little time on job postings are failing to make the connection between the job posting and dysfunctional cleaner turnover in their company.

To find cleaners who matched the jobs we were hiring for, we built CleaningJobs.co — a free tool that you can use too. Watch this video to learn more about how Cleaning Jobs works.

BEFORE YOU SUBMIT A PROPOSAL

Needless to say, submitting a proposal requires an investment of your time. You need to create an estimate, update your proposal template (which we’ve provided you with below,) and then follow up with the potential customer.

So if you’re thinking about submitting a proposal, ask yourself these 3 questions first:

1. Do you have the advantage over your competitors?
2. Why are you going to win this contract? What makes this client a great fit for your company?
3. Do you know what their hiring process looks like? Have you spoken with the decision maker in that organization?

If you answered “No” or “I don’t know” to one or more of these questions, it may not make sense for you to invest your time into submitting a proposal.

For more info on how to qualify a lead check out this blog post.

Having a proposal that looks professional and personalized to the organization you’re aiming to work with can be crucial to closing the deal, but it can also be an intimidating task.

Lucky for you, our friends at Proposify offer a free trial of their proposal software, which happens to include a beautifully designed cleaning contract proposal.

While Proposify is super user friendly (we even wrote a blog post about it!) and the sections of the template are pretty self-explanatory, we want to highlight a few key areas that deserve special attention before you get started.

When customizing your Proposify template be sure to…

Use the letter at the beginning of the proposal to reiterate how you are different from your competitors.

Choose testimonials from business owners in the same industry as the person who the proposal is going to. If you don’t have any testimonials yet simply leave out this page of the proposal for now.

Update the Getting Started page with your own process.

Outline your fees as clearly as possibly, breaking down the cost per sq/ft, per hour, etc. when possible.

Add your own contractor agreement to make this document legally binding.

FOLLOW UP AFTER SENDING A PROPOSAL

After submitting a proposal to a potential customer, you may need to follow up (sometimes multiple times) before you’ll hear back from them. We recommend starting with a phone call so that you can answer any questions they have on the spot. Don’t forget to leave a message letting them know when you will call back again if you get their voicemail.

Unfortunately you’ll sometimes have trouble getting a hold of someone. This could be because they are simply too busy to look at the proposal or even to call you back, but there’s also the possibility that they aren’t sold on your services.

We’ve put together some follow-up email scripts to help you navigate these waters and get more information out of them without being pushy.The first email is a simple check in, providing them with an opportunity to open the proposal right then and there — perhaps for the first time.

The second email gives them a few quick options for responding and let’s them know that you don’t want to badger them — that you’ll stop reaching out if they aren’t interested.

Finally, if you hear back that they are going another direction or if there’s still no response, the third email allows you to at least get some feedback to help you improve.

INTERVIEWING CLEANERS

If you’ve reached the stage of submitting a proposal you should be thinking about finding cleaners for the job at the same time. Use Cleaning Jobs to rank the applications you’ve received based on who is the best match for the position, then begin calling that list to book phone interviews. We recommend starting with phone interviews, and only inviting your top candidates to meet you for in-person interviews. Below you’ll find links to everything you’ll need to conduct both type of interviews, including phone interview scripts and in-person interview scripts.

TRAINING CLEANERS

A second strategy we recommend is doing all training in the form of weekly group training sessions. By designating a specific time and day each week for training new hires you’ll manage your time more effectively and budget for the time spent training. If a prospective hire is unable to make the training session they have the opportunity to do so the following week in order to be hired. This worked really well for us when we were a cleaning company and we believe it will save you time and money too.

Final Thoughts

That’s it! You’ve reached the end of our 21 Day Sales Challenge. We hope you received lots of value from our videos, worksheets, templates and scripts. If you’re well on your way to signing your next contract, congratulations! If you’re not quite there yet, don’t worry. We’re happy to keep supporting you along the way.

Besides reaching out for help or answers to any questions you have, our best advice is to return to the last step in the challenge where you feel you are losing potential clients.

Think of your sales funnel like a bucket. If you’ve put in the work but are struggling to close contracts, there must be a hole in your bucket. It could be something you’re saying (or not saying) in your initial cold call, or maybe it’s later in the funnel, such as your proposal process.

Fixing a leaking bucket requires some investigation, trial and error, and perseverance, but it’s worth it in the long run! We’d much rather see you spend time finding and fixing the “hole” than pouring more leads into a leaky bucket!

If you’d like to chat with someone on the Swept team about your sales process shoot us an email at challenge@sweptwork.com and we’d be happy to help you out.

Happy selling!