CleanPeers Editorial Page

No Vacation, I made money this summer

noreply@blogger.com (Ken Galo) — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 04:50:00 +0000

In my competitors buildings!

That's right, you are reading this correctly. I made money, every single week since April of this year in buildings I have no business in, no contracts with and are being cleaned by my competitors.

What was my secret?

Nothing, a little hard work, some time doing research and investigation and then following it all up ruthlessly.

Back when the economy took a nose dive late last fall, we saw the government, right or wrong, begin to bail out certain industries but not all of them. I started compiling a list from the news, newspapers and business journals of all the companies warning or actually cutting back, laying off and reducing staff and even locations.

In February of this year I started calling, I called property managers of multi tenant sites, I called the branch managers of all the sites being down sized or closed and then I called their corporate offices all over the country.

Somebody will have to clean up after they move out, right?

I know from previous experience that the larger cleaning contractors in the big buildings have flat rate agreements and that they are usually high for doing extra work like this, be it hourly or by the sq.ft.

I told every single person I talked to that I would beat their price.

We averaged 2 empty suite/building clean outs a week since April and I am booked until the end of October.

Easy jobs too, nothing tough, no stripping or waxing, no carpet cleaning. Just clear out debris, throw out anything left in closets, vacuum, dust ledges, window sills and clean the restrooms and break rooms. Quick cleans, done during the day, a ton of good exposure to other tenants which picked me up several carpet and floor jobs and the best part is, the property managers had to sign off accepting the work. Which means I now have new contacts I can work on building a relationship with to help move my competitors out of those jobs.

It's sad that the economy is in such a condition but just like the folks making money cleaning up all those foreclosed homes and abandoned homes we should look for opportunities within the commercial sector too.

I put a few before and after pictures up so you can see what I am talking about.

Back to School & the Workbench

noreply@blogger.com (Ken Galo) — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 17:21:00 +0000

I always use this time of year as a reminder to check my tools. As parents rejoice the return of the school year and children mourn the loss of summer it is the best time for you to check your cleaning equipment to avoid any mourning of your own.

Check your vacuum bags, brushes, tubes, etc...
Check your power equipment:

water level in the batteries
electrical cords
plugs
switches
recovery tanks
solution tanks
filters
screens
drive motors
brushes
squeegee blades

Check your non-powered equipment too!

Wheels on barrels, maid carts, check your brooms, dustpans, caddy's, trays, look for damages and replace broken parts to save yourself aggravation later on. Don't forget those buckets and wringers! A little preventive maintenance goes a long way to saving you big replacement costs!

Target Marketing

noreply@blogger.com (Ken Galo) — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 22:40:00 +0000

Maybe I am old school or maybe it's my chosen market of the industry but does anybody do target marketing anymore?

I am sure we all have done mass marketing via telephone solicitation, emails, flyer's or direct mail but what about target marketing?

Target marketing involves time, yours and plenty of it.

You select companies that you want to be a janitorial service provider for and start researching. What do they do? How long have they been doing it? Who are the principals? What organizations, charities and events does this company support and how?

Then you begin to align yourself with them, attend the public events. If their executives are involved in the organizations, write some letters or emails expressing an interest in donating some time or money to the events. Ask them for advice on getting involved.

This opens a door for you that by passes all other normal channels. You are not making a sales pitch, in fact you are not evening mentioning what you do other than the company name after your signature.

An example:
This year I am a golf pro.
I haven't been to a single golf course all year yet I have sponsored prizes at par 3 holes at 17 courses this year. My company name listed on every flyer, announcement, brochure, at the course and the awards/prize dinner afterwards. Sure it cost me some money but I can now pick up the phone and reach over 65 high level executives without having to go through voicemail or the administrative assistant. By fall each of these people will be getting thank cards from me for participating in charity events that I helped sponsor and of course my business card.

I have an 'in'. What happens when I contact their purchasing department or management and put that executive down as a reference? Think I am greasing the wheels? They are dripping grease right now!

We are working on another one this fall/winter involving children and live performances at theaters that are sponsored by yet another group of business executives.

That is one type of targeting your market.

More coming up in future installments.

This type of marketing does not result in immediate sales. It does create a lasting impression that will benefit me for years.

How many of my competitors have I run across this past summer doing anything?

0

Seems the belt tightening has gotten a little severe around here. To bad for them, I'll sacrifice a vacation week to pick up these kinds of relationships.

Sales, Selling and getting the deal

noreply@blogger.com (Ken Galo) — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 05:24:00 +0000

This is going to be both a rant and tip post.

If you are selling, know your customer! Don't be ignorant of who they are, what they do and most importantly how your service can benefit them.

It seems at least 7x a week I get a call from some clueless moron trying to sell me something and I can tell immediately that they didn't do their research and that means they just lost a sale.

The calls that come in are incredibly stupid in my opinion and show a complete lack of desire to succeed.

I get calls to increase my residential cleaning business
I get calls to increase my landscaping business
I get calls to increase my online store sales
I get calls to help me be #1 in google for my window cleaning website and my house cleaning website.
I get calls to be #1 in yahoo for my carpet installation business

Do you know what the major issue is with all of those calls?

I don't do any of that work.

This shows that the salesperson doesn't really want to make a sale or impress me enough to keep me on the phone long enough to make a pitch.

Want to sell to me? Call me and talk about my office cleaning business in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and I am all ears. It's how I approach my potential customers. A little research goes a long way in opening a closed door.

Slick and Sleaze Sales

noreply@blogger.com (Ken Galo) — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 18:14:00 +0000

This must be the week to get on my bad side.

Yesterday morning I answer the phone and some woman says to me, I have 7 carpet jobs for you. Of course I am overjoyed to hear such good news and go into my information gathering phase.

She says, I have these homes that need their carpeting cleaned and they are looking for a price.

Now my guard is up, we don't clean homes and we don't advertise that we clean homes, so I start asking more probing questions and out comes, well Mr. Galo, I am from everycontractor.co and we have customers looking for your service. I inform her that we only do commercial and industrial facilities and she immediately, with no hesitation at all, says we have customers for that too. Now I am amazed that she just happens to know for a fact that she has commercial consumers lined up and ready for me, so I pull up their website while she is yakking away.

They require a $900 sign up fee to get these 'leads'. When I tell her that this is very expensive for jobs that I will have to quote on and only have a chance getting her next, ultra fast reply is, " I can work with you on that fee and get it down to $600 if we do it right now, over the phone"

Now my inner alarm bells have gone to foghorn, klaxon scale.

You want me to give you my credit card info over the phone? and for $600 per year, I can get job leads? How many leads per year will you guarantee me? How many other companies in my area will also be getting these special leads?

She hung up.

This morning I get a call from Matt.

Matt is a business consultant working with janitorial companies in my area. Matt is offering free consultations, Matt will come to my office and work with me on a plan to create more business, increase my sales, reach more customers and improve my bottom line.

All for FREE ? I ask Matt

Yes sir he replies, I have a proven method that will boost your sales.

What do you get out of this Matt? Doesn't seem to me that you are eating well or paying the light bill giving this kind of help away for free, how are you making a living doing this Matt?

"Mr. Galo, your advertising of your services will be the vehicle that increases your sales and with my help we will create an ad that does that for you."

So, Matt, you run these ads then and that's how you make your money as a consultant? Where are these ads going to run? Business newspapers? Radio? What is the field?

That's why I want to make an appointment with you Mr. Galo, so I can take just 45 to 60 minutes of your time to demonstrate how a creative ad we design for you will work in growing your business.

Matt, you haven't answered my questions.

I'm with the Yellow pages, Mr. Galo

Matt, do you know what I do for a living?

Cleaning, right?

We clean commercial and industrial buildings Matt and do you know where all those yellow pages books are? They are in the recycling center Matt and I don't mean last years, I mean this years. Your folks deliver those shrink wrapped packages of books to the lobbies of these buildings every year and we get the calls to toss them in the recycling bins.

Matt, if no one is using your books, why should I spend money advertising in them?

Hello? Hello? Matt are you still there? Hello? Hello?

Couch Coaches versus Reality

noreply@blogger.com (Ken Galo) — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 04:29:00 +0000

I am going to rant but to make it a clear rant I am going to outline the characters first.

1. Couch Coaches

(disclaimer: this does not refer to everyone doing this, just a hell of a lot of them)

These are the self anointed guru's of the industry. The folks who always take the high road and insist that you must buy every new gadget, gizmo, product, book, video, dvd and webinar that comes out in order to be a state of the art toilet cleaner.

These folks probably haven't held a broom in their hands for business purposes, [sweeping the garage at home doesn't count] in decades.

You will find these folks, in the trade magazines, websites, Ebay etc... pontificating on how you must sacrifice business for the purity of the industry. How you shouldn't worry about what your competition is doing, that you should ignore all the illegal operations that are stealing your customers away, that it is unimportant that other service firms don't use the ultra new turbo deluxe steaming triple headed scrubbing feather duster but you must.

It's very easy for them to say this, they have established, large companies and they are not actively out in the field. Reality to them is a spreadsheet of numbers and a list of who they can fire when the numbers don't go their way. These are the folks in the owners box, calling down the occasional play that interests them and then firing the manager when it doesn't play out correctly.

2. Reality

We, the people in the field, the hands on owners, are up against a stacked deck with no wild cards and the dealer is sliding cards out from the bottom of the pile to the chosen few.

We have to battle franchises that sell accounts to meet contract obligations so they underbid, cut so many corners they make the buildings round and make it impossible for us to compete legitimately and screwing the heck out of their franchisees in the process. But hey, that's their business plan and it's OK with the ranking powers to be in the industry.

We also have to battle the big mega service corporations with offices in every city manned by one salesperson that perpetuates the fallacy that they have staff everywhere but in truth only find poor mom n pop companies to take the work, less 38% for them. Yeah, those mom n pop's may as well take jobs packing groceries for all the profit they are going to see and the sad part is, it will be awhile before they figure it out.

We also have the illegal operations, these are the folks with the old hoover in the trunk of their car, a couple bottles of some crappy cleaner from the dollar store and a bunch of rolls of 2 for $1.00 paper towels. They are the pinnacles of the industry, still collecting unemployment from their real jobs and now operating under the radar, collecting checks without reporting the extra income, not paying taxes and certainly not carrying any form of insurance.

Back to the Coaches,

These guru's are constantly telling us to pay no attention to these situations, we must take the high road of starvation and business loss while the crooks take our customers. It seems every time I read a post, blog, article or interview these folks are telling us to spend, spend, spend on products to show our professionalism but never taking a stance on the true problem/challenge

The Challenge

We are in down turned economy, price is king, don't let them lie to you. Quality is job 2, Money is job 1. Sad but true and instead of helping contractors find ways to be more efficient, stream lining operations, fighting the lowball bidders and illegals, these folks tell you that you aren't selling enough, that their book/video will help you. Or magically customers will flock to you if you spend more money on the latest green gimmick that they are espousing.

It makes me sick. I'll take their advice when their video's show them stripping floors on Saturday night for 5 hours or pressure washing the factory walls on a Sunday morning or cleaning the restroom stalls in the plant after 3 shifts have used them, when I see them out in the field experiencing the reality of today's cleaning world then I might listen, but not until then.

Of course most of them don't own cleaning companies anymore, they just sell stuff you didn't know you needed until they told you or they own the big mega service companies and are now trying to cash in on the other industry outlets.

I just had to rant, had a couple of purists hit me with some BS today about how we shouldn't concern ourselves with costs, just buy the goodies and customers will fall all over themselves to get to you because you have their goodies. Aarggh.

In the mean time Home Depot is out of bucket/wringer combo's cause Ford just laid off another 1000 and 500 of them are printing business cards at home and trying to figure out how the wringer works. They will be calling on your customers next week offering to do the job for $10 an hour, but that's okay you'll be out shopping for some more microfiber flat mop systems and green power scrubbing machines, right?

enough.

for now.

Monday, Again?

noreply@blogger.com (Ken Galo) — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 06:43:00 +0000

I love Monday's. The greatest day of the week, getting back to work, starting up a new project, setting off on a new marketing scheme, calling on customers, rallying the troops and energizing the staff, what a great day Monday is.

What? You don't like Mondays?

Back in one of my previous lives, when I managed for a nameless big time sleazeball corporation, [that's why they are nameless] I used to have Monday morning meetings, 9am for the salespeople, 9:30 am for Operations/Field people and 10am for HR/Office staff. The point of the meetings was to set the tone, goals, schedules for the upcoming week, check progress on long term strategies and resolutions from the previous weeks challenges.

One of the peculiar issues that always came up in these meetings was the question, can we have ours first? Can we schedule these for 8am?

In my naivete I assumed it was because they were all eager to get started on their week, they wanted to demonstrate some major butt kissing etc....

I was so wrong, as I found out later when conducting some introspective company interviews.

Everyone wanted the meetings early on a Monday to avoid answering the phone! Email didn't exist back in those days and everyone still wore voice or digital pagers and these were not allowed to be on in the meetings.

For larger service companies, Monday's are the most feared day of the week because they are the day you get the most complaints. Customers are fickle and in many regards completely blind to what we do. In their twisted little view of our world, they go home on Friday and you show up Friday evening and spend your entire weekend toothbrush scrubbing their entire facility.

They don't realize that their co-workers will be in on Saturday and/or Sunday after you cleaned on Friday and will make a mess in the break-room, restrooms and screw up the glass doors in the lobby. In their mind, you had all weekend why can't I perform surgery in the conference room?

Getting back to my point on the management staff, once I figured that this was the case, I ended Monday meetings and switched to Friday's at 3pm which really pissed off the sales people who normally can't be found at 1pm on a Friday.

I made it mandatory to be in the office on Monday at 8am till 11am, no exceptions and no appointments with anyone without clearing it with me.

Then I challenged them, each complaint call had to be logged and they had to report by the end of the week, what they sold as an extra service to that customer.

Everyone screamed, "you can't sell to a pissed off customer! " So I took the first couple of calls and had the operations people ride along with me. That was the first thing none of them had been doing, they took the phone call, jotted down some notes and passed the issue off to someone else in the field to resolve and report back. Not me, the customer called, I jumped in the car and drove on over, this impressed the customer and then as we discussed the issue for the complaint it comes around to me helping the customer see that there were people working all weekend long and yes that probably was the cause for the mess in the cafeteria.

I also pointed out that it had been awhile since the lobby carpeting had been cleaned and while we were doing that we could give them a discount [not really] if we were to tackle the elevators and hallway carpets as well.

Every contact with a customer is a golden opportunity to impact your bottom line while maintaining the 'customer focus' perception you are trying to cultivate.

Networking--for a job or for customers?

noreply@blogger.com (Ken Galo) — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 19:57:00 +0000

If you take the time to read the latest round of articles in the newspapers and on the Internet you will see more and more concerning finding a job, getting a job, networking for a job and related themes. Not surprising in today's economic crisis and this is excellent for people who are unemployed, recently downsized etc... but none of us fit into that category do we?

So what do we do with these sites?

Help people! In one hour on a Saturday evening I went through the postings on LinkedIn for my region and found over 12 posts from people asking questions about job hunting, interviewing and networking. I was able to offer pointers and tips for all of them from an employers perspective.

How does this benefit me?

I don't know who I am helping but, I get to advertise my company in or at the end of the post and what if the person I help today happens to end up being a customer contact person next week? Do I stand a better chance of gaining that business over my competitors because I am remembered as the person who helped them land that job? What about other potential customers who may be perusing these posts for employees and see me helping? It puts a good spin on my reputation as a business person.

Networking is something you have to work at and it's something you should always be doing, afterall networking is just the new word for advertising or marketing. I encourage everyone to log onto or join as many networking sites as possible that are NOT cleaning related. If you are already a member of a great site like Global Cleaning Association you don't need to waste any time on other cleaning forums, you will not pick up new customers on those sites. You need to join other groups that have regional impacts or those that can put you in contact with people with the potential to be customers.

Residential service owners shouldn't exclude themselves from this either!! Think about it, all those professionals on all those networking boards all live somewhere, don't they? Make a good impression and you may make a new customer.

Here is a list of just a few places that I have been joining and networking on recently. Feel free to join and add me to your contact list. If the site asks for an email for me, use Ken@lk-clean.com since I joined these to promote my service business or the supply store Dave and I own.

Stop in and see me at:

https://www.xing.com/

http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1798308&trk=hb_side_g After you join LinkedIn look for groups in your city and join those groups.

http://www.facebook.com/home.php

http://kengalo.multiply.com/

or here: http://cleaningpros.multiply.com/journal/item/1/New_Improved_Cleaning_Resource

http://www.merchantcircle.com/merchant --Everyone should have a free listing here. Add me to your network and we can write each other support comments in our profiles to get better search engine placement!

http://www.mister-wong.com/

http://cleanpeers.spaces.live.com/default.aspx

http://home.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user

Happy to connect and share with anyone, just click on whatever connect tab is available on each of the sites listed and if you know of other sites please send me an invite! Ken@cleanpeers.com

Contacts that are important, not trendy

noreply@blogger.com (Ken Galo) — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 17:57:00 +0000

MySpace? FaceBook? For Professionals?

Maybe if you're selling cosmetic's, music and acne products to teenagers. Is it really the place for you to pitch your cleaning service to other professionals or home owners? Do you get the kind of recognition from these sites that you want? Today's serious professionals are using sites like LinkedIn and programs in their mail system like Plaxo to stay connected with decision makers.
There is a subtle difference and distinct professionalism in sites like LinkedIn, no chatting, no kids, no recipes etc... Plenty of opinions but opinions about work related issues, government and business in general. If you join, check to see the 'groups' that are available for free that discuss a number of relevant issues.

You can connect with me at: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kennethgalo If it asks for my email, use ken@lk-clean.com since I joined to promote my cleaning business.

LinkedIn is a free site for establishing an online business identity away from the favorite celebrity and hair style info you find on other connection sites. If you join, please invite me to connect with you, it's quick, easy, simple and free. Many major cities now have large groups of over 2,000 local business members that stay connected via LinkedIn. Can you afford to not be?

Networking that matters

noreply@blogger.com (Ken Galo) — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 04:18:00 +0000

Networking, probably one of the newest of the 'overused' terms to come out in the last number of years. We are all told to network, join Chambers, join BNI groups, join BOMA, join IFMA, join just about every group out there in the pursuit of networking.

But does any or all of it give you an ROI?

Before actually joining a specific group, ask to attend a meeting or two. Meet other members, ask them what they have benefited from joining. If they start talking about the annual pig roast or the semi-annual golf outing, you can be pretty sure that person joined to get out of work, not to get work. Keep moving around the room, talk to people and look for those in sales or marketing. They will be the people that actually network within the group and they will be able to tell you if membership generates any decent sales leads.

Cleaning Illegally

noreply@blogger.com (Ken Galo) — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 18:14:00 +0000

Our industry is rocked by scandals all the time. Janitors, custodians, housekeepers, maids caught stealing or some other criminal activity.

Another equally criminal activity is operating your business under the wire or radar. These are the business operators who aren't licensed, don't have insurance, pay their personnel cash, don't pay taxes on their income, don't withhold payroll taxes and don't pay workers compensation premiums. They are referred to as 'trunk slammers' in most areas. The carpetbaggers of this century.

These operations damage all of us because each claim, each incident results in higher premiums for us legal companies.

The truly outrageous and absolutely most heinous criminal activity is when self-anointed industry leaders, who run online groups or associations, actually try to down play the seriousness of being an illegal operation.

One of the moron's recently wrote: about being a trunkslammer.

That he felt there was nothing wrong with starting out as a trunkslammer and felt the label was degrading. Guess there are no ethic's in his world?

He cried like a baby when I identified him here, so at his request, I am altering this post to remove his name, his organizations name and the exact verbiage he used.

I can definitely state, without fear of recourse that this person is NOT associated with:

Global Cleaners Association or International Cleaners Association, they have ethics.

Back to my rant,

How can this unnamed moron possibly claim to support our industry, claim to want to advance it and then turn around and endorse illegal operations? If you are paying your bills, paying your taxes, paying your insurance--don't you want your competitors to be doing the same? Or do you enjoy losing customers to people like this?

Cleaning up the Economy,

noreply@blogger.com (Ken Galo) — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 17:27:00 +0000

The economy is definitely in a downward slide in most areas of the country, with the challenges facing banks, mortgage companies, the automakers and all the related support industries it is clear we are in some trouble. Even with the 'congressional magic money bullet' we are going to be in 'some trouble' for at least 12 to 18 months if not longer, recession trends run 12 months to 3 years. This creates a unique environment for service providers, a time when we have to be frugal to survive but at the same time because of our ability to be frugal we can grow while everyone else is stagnating or battening down the hatches. Here is a quick snapshot, it's not all inclusive.

The Challenges

Lay-offs create trunk slammers who will undercut our prices to get work
Trunk Slammers continue to destroy our image and credibility through poor quality workmanship
Low ball pricing demeans an already besmirched industry
Scale backs in other industries shrinks the market for our services

The Positives

It's an employers market--we have a very large pool of probably overqualified candidates looking for work and we can pick the best.
We can manage our margins better to offer customers different service plans to meet shrinking budgets and still not damage our bottom line.
We can use this 'trunk slammer' time to educate our customers on the pitfalls of dealing with uninsured, low-ball service providers.
Slumping sales in other support industries gives us the advantage when negotiating better pricing on products we need.

You scared or you challenged or you tired and ready to get out?

Winter in the Snow Belt Areas

noreply@blogger.com (Ken Galo) — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 19:03:00 +0000

Ice melt, salt, slush, snow--It's Back!!

For those service companies in the snow belt zones we know all to well the struggles and challenges coming are way. Many of us started several weeks ago.

If you haven't already, now might be the time to send out your winter newsletter to your customers reminding them of;

1. Dangers of too much salt/ice melt
2. Extra matting to reduce slips and falls
3. Wet floor signs
4. Extra clean up services you offer such as mat extraction
5. safety reminders concerning the space heaters everyone leaves on all night

Work into your Season's Greetings or print up enough to leave on tables or counters near the coffee stations. It's a great PR move demonstrating how much you care about your customers and their properties.

Cleaning Up or Clearing Out in this Economy?

noreply@blogger.com (Ken Galo) — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 08:11:00 +0000

The economy is in a slump! New housing construction is down, 232,000 people lost their jobs in the first quarter of 2008, GM is laying off 3,500 more workers next week, gasoline prices at $3.80 or higher and going up even more!

and in the cleaning news?

Some celebrities in Hollywood are endorsing going green!

Makes me sick, like any of us who own cleaning service businesses are going to worry about Sheryl Crow and her 3 pieces of toilet paper per person plan! Let Kimberly Clark and Proctor & Gamble sweat that one out.

What we should be worried about is the business slow down, closings, lay-offs and the fact that the guru's of personal finance, Dave Ramsey, Clark Howard and the queens on The View are now encouraging homeowners to scale back on luxuries---like their maid/home cleaning service! The magazines for housewives at the supermarket have headlines--Clean Your Own Home, save for that vacation/new pool.

This is what affects Cleaning Business Owners, not Ed Begely's brand of green cleaning products.

So the questions we should be asking ourselves:

What will we do when gas hits $5.00 or more a gallon. The New York Sun Times predicts gas prices as high as $10 a gallon are possible.
What will we do when the price of trashbags goes higher than the price of 5 gal pail of wax
How will we handle employees asking for increases in wages or car allowance to cover the cost of fuel
What about our personal lives? What sacrifices are we willing to make in our lives to stay afloat?

Operationally we need to look at a number of factors that can affect our costs.

Travel--how big is your service area? Are you driving 35 miles to make $50? At today's prices you would spend $16 in gas (round trip) for a job 35 miles out from your office. Should you change your marketing strategy to reach customers closer to home? Have you maximized your potential within your locale? or are you taking anything that comes your way, no matter the distance? Have you experimented or looked at car-pooling for your employees? Are you Googling their routes to shorten the distance and increase efficiency?

Can you reduce the number of trashbags you are using? How much waste is going on? Are your employees slipping a few bags a night into their coat pockets to take home? If you spend $28 for a case of 200 trashbags that fit the standard 44 gallon brute barrel, those bags cost you .14 cents each. Doesn't sound like a lot but if 5 employees took 5 bags a night for a month, you are out $70.00 That's one tank of gas.

Have you taken a hard look at all your expenses? Can you scale back some of your cost centers in order to lower your overhead? Lowering your overhead can create areas within your pricing structure to offer one time or 1 year discounts on your services to lure in the bargain hunting customers.

Have you looked into discussing this issue with competitors in neighboring cities? Doing a group purchase with another company who is close but not a direct competitor can enable 2 or more of you to purchase supplies in larger quantities that will not only lower the cost of the items but also spread the burden of shipping costs to all of you, instead of just you. Utilize sites like GCA to meet and discuss these options, a trip of 30 miles to another city will cost you $12 but if combining an order with a in-state competitor saves you $50 or more on shipping alone, isn't it worth it? What if combining an order on Floor Finish can save you even more on product costs?

Have you changed your marketing strategy? Offering incentives to new customers? Discounts for first time customers? Offering 'rebates' in the fourth or fifth month of service---this allows you time to get the service program more efficient before you take a % discount hit.

Changing economic forecasts call for creative thinking, not quitting. I would be happy to hear your ideas or plans if you care to share. Send an email to ken@cleanpeers.com

Industry Scams, Spam and Scumbags

noreply@blogger.com (Ken Galo) — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 04:57:00 +0000

I must get over a 2000 emails a week, most of them spam offering me everything from pills to personal growth to hormone therapy. I usually just chuckle at the clever names they use in the subject line and delete them.

I have to tell you, the emails coming from so-called industry related firms that turn out to be nothing more than rip-offs really gets to me. To the point that I am going to start calling them out publicly.

I keep getting emails from Mike Richmond who is an Internet marketeer pretending to be a cleaning industry guru in green cleaning. He claims to have the Green Cleaning Institute that certifies green cleaning companies, for a fee and then lists them in on a special Green Institute website.

Mike actually belongs to enom.com which is a business to business networking scheme to suck in vulnerable business owners into believing they are getting real value for their dollar.

They answer some simple questions online, pay the enrollment fee, sign up for the yearly annual fee and presto! They get a cute little seal to display and they get listed in the special directory created by Mike.

Then there is the ultimate directory building scam artist, Matt. Now Matt has been around for years with his various 'Cleaning Directories' that you can get listed on for a monthly fee and he has been out there sucking in people who will pay him that hard earned money just to see their company name in print somewhere but how much business does that really bring in?

It seems not enough to keep Matt awash in cash, he has now started a new scam called Cleaning Service Registry where any schmuck with a broom can send in a few items of proof of existence and suddenly they are Certified and Registered.

Those of us who have been in the industry for any length of time know that just because you registered your trade name does not mean you can tell the difference between a neutral cleaner, a neutralizer and when to use which!

I am willing to bet that neither Mike or Matt would be able to tell you either, without spending 12 hours googling the terms!

Spring into Action!

noreply@blogger.com (Ken Galo) — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 08:02:00 +0000

Spring, the best time of the year to be in the cleaning business.

Why?

Because retailers all over the country are doing half your advertising for you!

All through March and April and part of May they will be announcing their specials on spring cleaning products, spring fashions, outdoor accessories etc..... It puts your potential customer in the Spring Cleaning Mode of Thinking.

Now it's up to you to get them to the next logical thought. Why should I do it when I can hire someone like Ken at L & K Cleaning Services?

We, just like everyone else should be doing, are capitalizing on the time of year with mailings, letters, brochures, ads to emphasize the need for a good spring cleaning of their floors, windows, walls and carpets. Why aren't you?

An effective marketing campaign right now can keep you booked with extra work well into June.

See some of the articles posted at http://www.cleanpeers.com/ and get even more tips from seasoned industry pro's at http://www.globalcleaningassociation.com/

Good luck and happy selling!

New Start up Service Firms

noreply@blogger.com (Ken Galo) — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 19:02:00 +0000

Record unemployment set for the last 2 months.
General Motors idling or shutting down 6 to 9 plants in the last few weeks due to a strike by a supplier.
Companies sending work to Mexico, South America, Indonesia and other overseas sites.
Lay-offs on the rise as economy falters

These are all recent headlines from newspapers in the US. What does this mean to you?

It means there is now the potential for another 90,000 new service firms opening their doors while all these unemployed people seek a source of extra revenue while collecting unemployment checks, early retirement checks and buyouts. These folks will be starting, perceived --low cost -- service businesses like home cleaning, janitorial services, landscaping, painting etc....

They will be undercutting and underbidding due to a lack of adequate training, knowledge and the sheer desparation to replace lost income.

How do you fight them?

Change your marketing strategy to include customer education.

1. None of these start-ups will be properly insured or bonded
2. They will not be properly trained on the equipment and especially the chemicals
3. They will be using cheap, poorly made supplies from the Dollar Store
4. They will not have MSDS on those chemicals making them a severe danger and liability to both themselves and the customer
5. If they get called back from lay-off, where will the customer be on their list of priorities?
6. Many of them will try to work under the table, for cash and will not supply a W-9 to properly report their income and tax liability.

Customer education is key to winning a battle between price and quality.

Chemical Testing for Certification

noreply@blogger.com (Ken Galo) — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 04:56:00 +0000

Green Seal Certified! CRI Certified--(Carpet Rug Institutes)--Seal of Approval, Consumer Digest reviews, Good Housekeeping Seal and so on.

We have all come to recognize some if not all of these over the years. They indicate that the product you are using has been inspected, tested and certified by the organization offering the seal.

Has it?

Recently, in several magazine articles and online stories I read about CRI using only manufacturer submitted products for testing. Not off the shelf products taken from a local distributor for testing. In my opinion this is wrong. Any manufacturer looking to gain instant approval or certification can manufacture a 'special' batch of chemicals to be sent over to CRI for testing and then continue making the chemical differently for retail or contractor consumption.

In addition, Aziz Ullah, pointed out in his Product Certification article, from the July issue of CleanFax that there was even one product currently approved by CRI with the SOA that when it dries the ph balance of the drying carpet actually exceeds the carpet manufacturers acceptable levels and exceeds the standard set by CRI!

Now we all know that the Consumers Digest folks get their products right off the store shelves and test them for a variety of safety and quality points yet the folks that are certifying dangerous chemicals are not? This means that the little toy truck that little Bobby is playing with is fine but the recently cleaned carpet he is playing on, is not?

I realize that these certifying programs are probably a large source of income for most of the organizations and that coupled with their enormous membership fees and certification submitted fees and application fees become the mainstay of their income.

In all fairness, shouldn't they be testing what we use?

So, my curiosity piqued, I took a quick tour over at the Green Seal site and guess what?

Item number #7 in their certification process description says:

"The Green Seal staff assigned to manage your evaluation will keep in touch with you regarding any additional data needs, further testing required, or product samples that may be requested."

So, CRI is not alone in this game.

Such a shame, guess the money is more important than our safety and that of our customers.

Green Seal, sealing your fate?

noreply@blogger.com (Ken Galo) — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 06:23:00 +0000

In a recent issue of Cleaning & Maintenance Management magazine, Cheryl Baldwin, who is the director of standards for Green Seal interviewed Linda Chipperfield who is the Vice President of Marketing and Outreach for Green Seal. She was interviewed regarding GS-42, the environmental leadership standard for certification of green cleaning services.

We would like to make it clear that we fully support the transition to Green Cleaning by Building Service Contractors and Residential Service Providers. This is for a better quality of life for all of us at home and at work.

The folks at Green Seal, which is an independent and nonprofit organization have made tremendous headway in certifying both chemicals and equipment submitted by the manufacturers.

They have now turned their non-profit eyes on the service providers.

Which is also a good idea, in our opinion, until we heard the price for this certification.

They indicate that the amount you will be charged will be based on your annual revenue but that the minimum amount or starting point is $7,000 up front and another $7,000 or more per year to maintain your status.

We at CleanPeers, find this amount to be absurd!

In the interview they compare the application and monitoring fees of $7,000 to what a small service provider pays in advertising or office expenses each year.

Don't they realize that if the small service provider forgoes advertising each year in order to pay them $7,000 they won't be around next year to pay it again?

Small business want to grow up to be big business, sounds like the folks at Green Seal want you out of business.

Buy the certified products but stay away from the certification until some over at Green Seal takes the blindfold off.

Something Different

noreply@blogger.com (Ken Galo) — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 05:36:00 +0000

It's been a long time since I have activated or utilized this feature.

Beginning Monday, July 23, 2007

It will be new. It will be a place where CleanPeers will have editorials, once or twice a week, covering issues, products and concerns facing the cleaning industry. Please feel free to write letters to the editor and email them to ken@cleanpeers.com

Thank you.

Cleaning in Houston, TX and other cities

noreply@blogger.com (Ken Galo) — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 19:14:00 +0000

I wish I had an office in Houston.

If you read what the SEIU is doing there, you would want an office there too. See CMM story here: Janitor Strike Expand

They are on strike at 33 buildings, to me, I smell money.

I would be going door to door visiting every property manager and building owner extolling the virtues of using small contractors to clean their buildings.

Can't handle a 30+ story building by yourself? That's OK, if you had the contract through a business group like ICA they could put anywhere from 2 to 12 contractors in a single building, each assigned a zone or section according to their abilities to complete the work. Small, NON-union cleaning companies working under a large company umbrella.

Bye-bye union staff, excessive high maintenance costs,
Hello--higher quality, better communication, improved tenant retention

I'm going to stop writing now and start calling the business directory in Houston. Maybe a flight down is in the near future?

Spring Cleaning in November

noreply@blogger.com (Ken Galo) — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 08:23:00 +0000

It was a rare, balmy, 64 degrees in Milwaukee today.

I knew it meant trouble.

My wife woke me up with a squeegee instead of a cup of coffee.

So, I cleaned all the windows in our house this morning, vacuumed out the tracks, wiped down the sills, washed the frames, scraped the tree sap off and made them shiny and clear.
All this so my wife can close down the blinds and re-hang the just cleaned draperies, thereby blocking 90% of the view from any window.

Anyway, as I was doing this, I had a thought: ( it happens)

In our industry we focus a lot of attention via marketing to Spring Cleaning. It's a staple of our business for customers both residential and commercial to expect, anticipate and sometimes demand 'Spring Cleaning'.

When you really think about it, what exactly are we cleaning up in the spring? The buildings have been basically closed off to outside containments, there are no bugs, no leaves, no sand, the windows aren't opened all winter, so what are we removing?

Wouldn't a Fall Cleaning make more sense? The buildings/homes have been opened up all summer long, bugs, spiders, flies, gnats, sand, grit, dust, anything and everything is alive and moving around in the summer months. Windows are opened allowing even more dust and debris in, so isn't the building/home more contaminated in the fall then in the spring?

I think a carefully orchestrated marketing plan along the lines of Fall Cleaning is a potentially untapped strategy for us.

I would appreciate your thoughts, go here: www.globalcleaningassociation.com and look for the post Spring Cleaning in November in the General Topic section.

Office Cleaning, House Cleaning, Any type of Cleaning

noreply@blogger.com (Ken Galo) — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 08:26:00 +0000

If you are in the cleaning business, any facet of our cleaning world, janitorial, residential, floor care, carpet cleaning, pressure washing, stone/marble, window washing, etc...

Then you are acutely aware of the pressures on you, the demands on your limited amount of time by customers, employees and your own schedule.

You need to take time out for yourself, even if it is only 15 minutes every morning or afternoon, do something not work related. Go and get a cup of coffee and sit at a table with your cellphone in your car. Stop by the local ice cream parlor and get a scoop, go to the park and take a 1o minute stroll.

You need this down time, use it to organize your thoughts, clear your head, whatever, just do something to break the chain of the day to day grind.

I'll call this mental health tip #1 for cleaners.

Ranting, Raving and Supporting

noreply@blogger.com (Ken Galo) — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 23:36:00 +0000

Coming soon! Watch this space.

Summer is over

noreply@blogger.com (Ken Galo) — Wed, 24 Aug 2005 17:57:00 +0000

Hello fellow vacationers! I know that you all have been cruising through the summer, taking off all kinds of time, weeks at the beach, more weeks in the cool mountains. Relaxing at home, watching the hired help weed the flower beds. Yes, it's been a summer of lounging, hasn't it?

Back in the real world,

Hopefully you all have had a successful summer, working hard, expanding your business, helping your community by creating jobs.

We will be changing our focus here and on CleanPeers in the coming weeks. Our articles will be more thought provoking, possibly angering some of you and hopefully raising your over all awareness of various issues faced by the cleaning industry.

Yes, Molly & Buffer will be back from vacation as well.

Stay tuned.