Many people take office cleaning for granted in the past. However, with the global pandemic changing the way we see germs and cleanliness, cleaning companies have grown in necessity, popularity, and number. In this growing and already saturated market, keeping a commercial cleaning company from going under in the midst of such competition can be difficult.
Business owners know that securing commercial cleaning contracts is the best way to keep a business afloat with a constant, dependable source of income. It may seem like a daunting task but securing cleaning contracts is necessary to succeed in a highly competitive market.
However, knowing where to start and how to go about obtaining a commercial cleaning contract can be challenging, especially if you are a newcomer. This is why we have derived a list of strategies that you can employ to help your cleaning business thrive.
1. Ensure that Your Cleaning Business Stands Out from the Crowd
Because the market is teeming with commercial cleaning businesses claiming to be the best at what they do, landing cleaning contracts depends on how unique your business is and how good your commercial cleaning services are. Before contacting businesses for contracts, it is important to first get your house in order.
Determine the Facilities You Intend to Approach
First and foremost, you must decide what kinds of facilities you want to target, and it’s crucial to consider how facilities and sectors differ while making this decision. Light production and manufacturing facilities, for example, are likely to demand a lower degree of service than physician’s clinics or childcare centers.
The cleaning requirements of the facility alter as the institution’s goals change. An entity concerned with the wellbeing of babies has entirely different requirements than one concerned with the distribution of packaging.
Commercial cleaning jobs such as office cleaning or bank cleaning for large corporations often require more staff than cleaning a small nursery school or real estate company. Therefore, it is vital to consider carefully what size firms you wish to provide your services to.
Consider your business’s abilities, skills, and shortcomings as you consider the categories of customers you want to pursue. Identifying your ideal clients begins with understanding what expertise best complements your expertise.
Some businesses may not demand regular cleaning services but may need cleaning services for special events only. Special event cleaning contracts, like recurrent commercial cleaning contracts, can have an extensive range of requirements, and business owners must pick which opportunities they want to pursue.
Establish Your Costs
Next, when deciding which clients to pursue, transportation and logistics must be considered. Commute time is a genuine cost in terms of finance and time, and it must not be neglected when considering the commercial cleaning contracts your cleaning company may pursue.
Pursuing cleaning contracts in local businesses that are in close proximity to one another can cut down on travel costs and time, reducing the likelihood of a delayed job due to heavy traffic or another unanticipated and unpredictable situation.
Additionally, it doesn’t make sense to offer emergency cleaning services to areas that are two hours away, as you must account for the time it takes for your employees to get to the destination, so targeting clients within your area is a wiser decision.
Find a Unique Approach
An excellent way to stand out from the crowd is to find a unique approach. It is essential first to understand your competition to find a unique angle to market your business. If cleaning services in your area have a closing and opening time, you can offer 24-hour service.
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, many people are looking for cleaning services. In response to this, you can add COVID-19 specific solutions, such as fogging and cleaning with anti-viral chemicals, as a featured service to potential clients.
Adopting an eco-friendly approach is another way to gain an advantage over competitors because more people are becoming environmentally aware, requiring more cleaning services centered around the protection of the environment through gree products and biodegradable cleaning equipment.
Perfect Your Company’s Cleaning Services
The truth is that a business is only as good as its employees, so investing in training your employees is a crucial way to build credibility and favor with prospective clients before you get cleaning contracts.
As a business owner, your aim must not be to just meet clients’ expectations, but rather exceed them. In this way, you can quickly outperform your competition and gain a positive reputation amongst large corporations.
Additionally, having your employees trained can help you provide proof when applying for a commercial cleaning contract, and it can help prospective clients trust you with their business.
2. Devise a Strong Company Profile and Brand
Often, the first thing that potential clients ask for when deciding on a cleaning business to employ is their company profile. This document is a summary of your business’s activities and details about how it works, who owns it, its vision statement, and future goals.
Business owners must not gloss over their company profile. Still, they must take the time to compile a compelling profile that highlights the business’s main strengths, as well as previous clients, that can help build trust and confidence in the business.
Create a List of Services
When it comes to marketing your cleaning services, having a list or catalogue of the services your cleaning business has to offer is critical. Factors such as how frequently you plan to provide services affect your time investment, and the amount customer must pay for your services.
Another thing to think about is how much housekeeping and what type of housekeeping you want to do daily, biweekly, or monthly. You can include weekly floor polishing in your cleaning contracts, or you can include this daily.
Compose a Compelling Website
Any corporate office or other corporation you contact for a cleaning contract is sure to conduct an online search of your commercial cleaning business. Therefore, your cleaning business website is the first thing customers see.
While it does not need to be extravagant and designed by an expensive marketing company, your cleaning business website must appear professional and include enough material for the customer to understand precisely what cleaning services your business has to offer.
Your website must clearly outline the services you can provide and include prices. Other elements to add are an introduction to your cleaning team, a history of your services, and a company profile.
Employee Attire
Part of creating a successful brand is to focus on appearance. As vain as this may sound, having staff wear consistent, suitable attire can give you a competitive advantage when you are in the cleaning business. Additionally, promoting good personal grooming is another great way to build a strong brand.
This is because no one is going to trust you as a reputable and dependable cleaning business if your employees appear unclean themselves, so providing a uniform for your employees may be one of the best ways to land and retain a cleaning contract.
3. Explore Traditional Marketing Strategies to Land a Commercial Cleaning Contract
It is time to start promoting your business to obtain cleaning contracts once you have successfully identified defined your ideal consumer, selected which area to target, outlined your services offered, and established your brand.
Cold Calling
Making phone calls, sometimes known as cold calling, has long been the most productive and cost-effective method of obtaining commercial cleaning contracts. It is helpful if you already have a relationship with business owners in the area, which is a great place to start.
Cold calling also helps to establish relationships with people in the area and lets them know who you are and what you do. Therefore, even if they do not hire you immediately, they know who to call if they need additional services for a special event or need to replace a current cleaning company.
Networking
Networking is another sound way to get repeat office cleaning contracts. Partnering with companies can help to drive revenue through a constant supply of work. An excellent place to start is to contact real estate companies in the area and ask them to partner with you.
Real estate companies often enlist the help of cleaning companies, as properties must be cleaned before open houses or before they can be ready for potential buyers to see. Physically approaching these companies can be a great way to get cleaning contracts with them.
Get Referrals
You can ask happy, satisfied customers to recommend you to other firms, networks, or industries once you’ve built up a customer base. Referrals from friends and family are a powerful statement of trust in your company, and they make marketing cleaning contracts to new potential clients considerably easier.
Hand Out Flyers
The most important thing you need to do as a new business owner is getting the word out about your new business. This entails getting your company’s name and services in front of as many people in the chosen area of operation as possible.
Handing out pamphlets and flyers with a list of services and discounts can help you get cleaning contracts because no one wants to do business with a company they have never seen or heard of before. By getting the word out, businesses are more inclined to trust you.
Advertise in Newspapers
Posting adverts in newspapers and magazines is another effective way to put your brand in the public eye and increase the likelihood of securing cleaning contracts. These adverts are often cheaper than placing ads on Google too, which is another plus.
Cold calling and client referrals can assist you in getting your firm off the ground. Still, they can’t guarantee long-term, continuous success, so it is essential to use these methods in conjunction with online strategies.
Offer Discounts and Price Services Competitively
Offering discounts on a specific service, such as office cleaning or bank cleaning, can help you get your foot in the door in the cleaning industry. Many small businesses can grow into large cleaning companies by opening specials and discounts for referrals or repeat business.
This is also a great way to get cleaning contracts as a newcomer to the cleaning industry because a lot of the time, the decision of which cleaning business to award a cleaning contract boils down to how affordable they are.
4. Focus on Online Marketing Strategies
Commercial cleaning companies that are aiming to succeed in the industry cannot do so without investing in online marketing. We live in a digital age, so the first thing that people do when they need office cleaning services, for example, is to do a Google search online.
Google uses an algorithm to determine how search results rank. Therefore, much time, effort, and money are invested into search engine optimization, or SEO, by most businesses in the 21st century. If you want to get cleaning contracts, you must not neglect these online means.
Below is a list of some of the recommended online marketing strategies to help business owners obtain commercial cleaning contracts.
Optimize Your Website
Optimizing your website and its content can help Google rank you higher on search queries. However, this is often a difficult task to do on your own. SEO can be quite confusing and overwhelming, especially for newcomers, so it may be essential to enlist the help of a digital marketing professional to help you achieve a higher Google ranking.
Google’s algorithm is constantly changing too, so staying ahead of the game (and the competition) isn’t easy to do on your own. However, some essential ways to rank higher is by establishing a consistent and robust brand.
Linking to other web pages is also a great way to improve your search engine optimization. Another way is by linking your website to a blog. Including blog content is a great way to drive traffic to your website because people are constantly looking for information online. The more unique your content is, the greater your chances of people trusting your company and using your services.
Paid Google Ads
With online advertising, you may focus your adverts on the types of clients you wish to pursue while filtering out those you don’t. Google Ads makes use of a variety of targeting options to connect you with the consumers you want to target at the right time – just when they are looking for your specific cleaning services online.
It is important to note that Google ads can be quite expensive, but they can be valuable tools, depending on the type of clients you want to pursue.
Social Media Advertising
Because most people, including managers and business owners of your target companies, use social media frequently, social media advertising is a great way to reach potential clients. Many users use social media as a search engine of sorts to find businesses. Although they don’t expect to see much information about them on social media platforms or see daily posts, they do expect to find them there.
Therefore, while it isn’t wise to rely solely on social media advertising to get cleaning contracts, social media advertising, and the benefits it can have for your cleaning company must not be ignored as a way to reach clients and spread the word about your business.
5. Pursue Specific Companies
One of the most effective strategies to adopt is to research the companies that you prefer to work at and call them to set up a meeting. This kind of hands-on approach is one of the most effective ways to secure commercial cleaning contracts.
You must organize a meeting with the company beforehand and ask them if you can have a walkthrough of their facilities to adequately describe and present the benefits your cleaning business can provide for their particular business. As a result, you can create a more personalized plan for this customer.
People frequently make the error of criticizing the existing commercial cleaning companies that currently work at the organization to managers or staff when visiting a customer’s premises.
This is something you must never do, but rather focus on posing questions and identifying other problem areas or challenges the company may be experiencing, providing potential solutions that your cleaning business can provide.
It may be helpful to find out what the client’s needs are, not just in terms of the services they require, but also in terms of the price point, they are looking at for these services.
The Bottom Line
If you are a newcomer hoping to get your cleaning company off the ground with commercial cleaning contracts, or if you have been in the business of providing janitorial services for several years, your business can gain from attaining new clients.
Whether your chosen niche is bank cleaning or office cleaning, you can gain from establishing a good brand, creating a compelling cleaning company profile, and adopting both traditional and online strategies to make your presence known, and to present your list of services so they stand out, attracting new clients.
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