CleanPeers Editorial Page

The Death of Micro Fiber Cleaning

noreply@blogger.com (Ken Galo) — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 18:39:00 +0000

On my desk is the packaged death of Micro Fiber cleaning.

Right now it's small but I can sense it's potential in killing off micro fiber cleaning. Yes it will be slow, methodical process but I predict just as micro fiber burst onto the scene as the latest, greatest in cleaning technology since the web foot mop this too will become the product du jour.

What is it?

First let me lay out the coming ad campaign:

1. It's 100% organic-- decomposes completely, the ultimate in green cleaning

2. It's very inexpensive to grow, grows and replaces itself very fast

3. It's naturally antibacterial

4. It's more aborbent than cotton and dries faster

Say hello to Bamboo Cleaning Cloths, sponges, scrubbers and other related items for our industry.

Think I am wrong? Explain why a big, mega giant company like 3M , through their Scotch Brite division is spending millions of dollars in developing and marketing this product already.

Think your green? If you're not into Bamboo cleaning, your not green enough. Hey 3M, you use any of this in your marketing, I want a free case of something.

Say " When"

noreply@blogger.com (Ken Galo) — Mon, 09 May 2011 17:12:00 +0000

There was a time when customer service and satisfaction was the only acceptable program for a service based company to operate on. We have been taught, lectured and told by various experts for eons that we must bend over backwards while jumping naked through flaming hoops to keep and retain our customers.

The question today is: Just how far and how high should we jump?

To make my point here is a short story that is playing out right now in my service firm.

Back in 2006 we had a mfg customer that we were servicing 5 days a week, sometimes 6 days during peak production times for a monthly sum of $5,000 a month average. When the economy collapsed we were asked to reduce service to 3x a week, then when it failed to improve we were asked to drop to 1x a week, reducing the monthly revenue to $975.00.

Over that same period of time, they have refused to perform any of the regularly scheduled project work such as stripping and finishing the floors, cleaning carpets and windows. Reducing our annual revenue even further, but we stayed loyal to our customer. We continued to work with them, providing high quality cleaning, open communications etc.

During that same period of time, ( 2008 to today) their account payables dept has taken the turn around on invoices from 30 days to 60 to 90 and now 120 days. At the end of April of this year, facing no payments of any kind for the months of Jan, Feb, Mar or April of this year we issued a letter with the monthly statement indicating that service will be suspended until payment is received. We have tried the "work with them" program but to no avail, accounting dept won't return calls, my contact ( the owner) ignores calls from me and demand notices have little effect. April 29th was their last scheduled service and the following week we made no effort to contact them since our suspension letter was delivered April 26th via certified mail.

At 8:02 am this morning my phone and email was jammed with dept heads from this company with complaints about missed trash, restrooms smelling, cafeteria garbage overflowing, etc.

My repsonse? Please contact your boss.

I realize I am not going to keep this customer, that they are probably scrambling right now to get a jani-fries company in to clean but I don't care.

I checked my business plan, went over the website and even looked at my biz cards again and nowhere on any of it can I find the words "non-profit" or "Easy Loan & Financing"

I have put out the flaming hoops, put my clothes back on and I am walking straighter from this point forward, yes, providing quality service is our primary goal but not at the risk of losing the small percentage of profit we are forced to accept as the new norm.

Let them go screw somebody else, it's a shame we don't have an 'Angies List' for deadbeat customers to warn other vendors.

http://wwwcleanpeers.blogspot.com/

2011, Time for a new strategy

noreply@blogger.com (Ken Galo) — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 05:04:00 +0000

Educating the customer has always been our number 1 offense against the franchise companies and the illegal operations and I am throwing it out with the customers trash.

Realistically I can't really do anything about the franchise companies except educate the consumer on the facts:
1. They are not in the cleaning business, they are in the franchise selling business, hence I am now calling them jani-fries. You heard it hear first.
2. Master franchises count on a predicted failure rate for their franchisees because it gives them the opportunity to resell the business several times before the customer wakes up and quits.
3. A Master franchise will sell a unit franchise to anyone with money regardless of background or skill set. Again, see number #2

Now the illegal operations, that's a different story because we have weapons we can use against them, most of us don't, but I aim to change that. An illegal operation or if you prefer, Trunk Slammers, are companies that operate under the wire, they may use undocumented workers or have a cash payroll system and avoid paying taxes, workers compensation premiums, federal unemployment, state unemployment etc. They have no regard for OSHA regulations, no MSDS books on site, buy their products from the dollar store and sometimes even bring kids into the buildings.

These operations are undermining and destroying a noble industry. Customers now expect 2001 pricing in 2011, expect us to deliver 'Cadillac' service for Escort pricing and turn a blind eye to any activity beyond submitting the lowest possible bid price.

I say it's time to shut these operations down or make them legal and I have taken the first steps already in my area. Just recently I had a small customer send me note about making a change due to substantial savings from another service firm. I know who this firm is, seen them in the buildings and one time cleaning with a couple of 12 year old boys.

Now I didn't take this seriously in the past but this situation just hit the wrong button with me on the wrong day. I have bid on the building with other competitors and none of us won, so I made some phone calls and we talked about how all of our bids came within 3 to 7% of each other. Remarkable that 4 legitimate companies can all produce a fair market price and then the magical 5th bidder comes in drastically lower. How can that be? How can they possibly be paying all the necessary and legally required taxes and insurances and still be that low? Are they paying below minimum wage? Paying cash? Using illegal aliens? Children?

That is not something for me to decide or find out, that belongs to the various state and federal agencies that I turned them over to. I am not doing this to get a customer back either, frankly do you really want customers that will drop you to save $20? Not me, as I see it now customer loyalty is dead, price is king and quality is a low 2 on the list.

Like I said, education is the only weapon against the jani-fries but these other 'trunk slammers'? Well I pay my taxes and premiums and now I expect my government agencies to make sure they do to. I figure this guy will be out of business in a few months or he is going to be cleaning each building in 15 minutes and taking on a lot more business to recover his losses.

Anyone who wants a list of agencies and contact info, please email me, happy to help start a 'good' war. I will be doing this from now on, every time I run up against these types of 'cleaning companies'. We need to level the playing field and this step 1.

www.globalcleaningassociation.com
www.cleanpeers.com
www.lk-clean.com
www.lonemopperproductions.biz

BuyerZone, biggest scam going for BSC's?

noreply@blogger.com (Ken Galo) — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 18:59:00 +0000

Over the years I have heard both good and bad about some of the online, lead generating systems that are available to commercial cleaners. Last April, 2009, I decide to risk some capital and see for myself.

I joined BuyerZone as a contractor under my cleaning company, L & K Office Cleaning.
They were nice about setting me up, waived the first years 'listing/advertising' fee of $40 and told me my lead rates would be $17 per lead generated. Your only control over these leads is in your ability to specify your geographical service area. You can NOT specify what types of businesses they send you and you will pay for the lead even if you decide that the lead is not something you wish to pursue.

I was told that I would receive between 3 to 5 leads per month from my area.

In the past 16 months we averaged 2 leads per month.

Out of the 30 leads we received between April 2009 and August 2010

12 were legitimate leads, meaning accounts we would normally like to have as customers

11 were bad leads, our opinion, meaning they were for restaurants, hair salons or other types of business we do not service.

7 were Fake, they turned out to be false leads with no real need for a service provider, competition trying to get pricing info over the phone without allowing a walk-through or somebody just goofing around on the Internet.
We received 2 credits for these 7 False leads. On 1 we were told to keep trying to contact them, on another we were told that Buyerzone determined them to be a good lead.
1 of these FAKE leads later on turned out to be a company that is now IN the cleaning business, even though they never clarified this when they filled out the Service Request for Price Quote.

Out of the 30 leads? 1 customer--more on that below.
2 credits and we paid out $510 for leads and another $40 for the next years advertising fee

Over the years I have learned to study trends, statistics and to ask questions, such as "Why didn't you choose us?" when sales are down. Looking at 30 leads and trying to determine why only 1 new customer set me down the path I am on now. Dismissing the 7 fake leads brings us to 23 leads, removing the 11 worthless leads that we wouldn't want as customers leaves us with the 12 valid leads. 1 is a customer, so I called the other 11 to see who they went with and why.

All 11 went with franchise companies, Cover-up or Jan no Pro specifically.

The only customer we did get, I bid at $13 per hour only because the contact showed me the other bids and said he was offended by the attitude of the salespeople from the franchise companies. He said they treated him like signing with them was a sure thing and that he really wasn't going to get any other competitive pricing from local companies. I underbid them just to upset them. Not making any money on the account and it is worth every penny.

The fact that the franchise companies can have this attitude and that they were also paying for BuyerZone leads sent me to the BuyerZone website where I found something that really upset me.
If you go to the BuyerZone page on Commercial Cleaning Services they have several articles about pricing and actually give rates for our services. But the most alarming item?
Right at the top of the page, in the upper right corner is a large display advertisement of their featured suppliers and every single one of those featured suppliers? IS A FRANCHISE COMPANY. How come I was never offered to be a Featured Supplier with my company name on the front page? hmmm

I am cancelling my membership today, this is a system designed to assist the franchises while stealing from hard working, independent contractors in a no-win situation.

The BBB, Angie's List and how about DNS List?

noreply@blogger.com (Ken Galo) — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 20:58:00 +0000

Isn't it funny that there are so many organizations to 'protect' the consumer from bad businesses but absolutely no protection for us?

Angies List, which lists companies that have good and bad ratings based on input from paid members of Angies List is designed to allow consumers the ability to select a service provider based on others recommendations and ratings.

The Better Business Bureau is another group that takes money from business members so that they can get BBB ratings and supposedly have a step up on their competition by being a BBB member. But the BBB almost always will side with a complainant and seek to have the business settle quietly any disputes, to avoid a negative mark.

What I want to see is a DNS List, or Do Not Service List for businesses.

A punch-list of homeowners that have bounced checks, never paid or otherwise screwed over a contractor. Same for businesses as well. Why not a list of late payers? Of companies that change contract spec's after they are signed and sealed? Companies that bounce checks? Take unauthorized deductions because they can and there is nobody to stop them.

Now I would pay to be a member of that kind of group.

What Makes you happy?

noreply@blogger.com (Ken Galo) — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 21:02:00 +0000

Or at least let's you achieve some inner tranquility?

For the first time in almost 2 years I went out today and did some heavy cleaning work by myself. I haven't been 'allowed' or 'left alone' to do this since my little medical incident in the fall of 08. Over protective family members don't want the 'old fool' to keel over until the company is bigger, I guess. But I digress.

I have forgotten how great it is!

My MP3 player, my equipment, empty buildings and me. Absolutely fantastic! Probably the best therapy for me, I was able to organize the fluff floating around in my head since January and actually feel more mentally organized than I have in a long time.

I have been in a severe mental fog for the last 6 months. I know what I want to do but just can't seem to concentrate long enough to finish anything. My desk is a giant pile of half finished projects and semi-worked out ideas. But after today and my down/alone time I find myself eager to tackle them again.

Strange what makes you happy, isn't it? Who would have figured work?

RESPECT

noreply@blogger.com (Ken Galo) — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 17:29:00 +0000

Aretha Franklin sang about the lack of it, Rodney Dangerfield never got any and I propose to you that neither do we as cleaning business owners.

Where does today's rant percolate from?

Last week I went to visit a long time customer to discuss quoting on stripping and waxing their floors and cleaning their carpeting. We have been servicing this building nightly for over 4 years, I have been in and out of this building countless times during the day and at night during that time, I am no stranger to the staff.

I arrived for my appointment and got in line behind a number of other people queuing up at the reception desk to announce who I am, who I am here to see, sign in and get my visitors badge.
While I was standing in line I was listening to the receptionist as she handled the incoming visitors.
Hi Sally, this is the front desk, Lorraine from ABC Mfg is here to see you
Hi Tyrone, this is the front desk, William from DFG Supply is here to see you
Hi Katy, this is the front desk, Kelly is here from HIJ Staffing to see you
and then it was my turn
Hi Ted, this is the front desk, the cleaning guy is here

Now I am in a suit and tie, dressed business pro, I have some really nice biz cards and I do not look like a janitor/custodian/cleaning guy, so why the slight? Why not Ken from L & K Cleaning is here to see you? She had my business card in her hand while she was making out my visitor badge, so no excuse for not knowing my name.

My Theory?
It's because of the perception of our industry in peoples minds, we are an evil necessity that they would really prefer to not deal with but our forced to. The mental image most people have of us is that of the old school custodian who wore the all dark blue work pants and shirt and had to clean up the vomit from little Billy who was always sick in the back of the classroom. We are those strange people they sometimes see when they are leaving work, coming to empty the trash and clean up the hair spray off the bathroom mirrors and we don't deserve any additional respect.

I think we bring this upon ourselves.
Case in point, I was on 2 bid walks this week, at walk #1 it was a group bid walk of 5 contractors, in attendance was me in a suit and tie, another guy in a shirt and tie, one nicely dressed lady and 2 clowns. Clown 1 in a polo shirt-no company name on it and Clown 2 in blue jeans T-shirt and sneakers. Bid walk 2 consisted of 4 companies, me in my business attire, 2 women who looked dressed for a night out on Friday at bar and a painting guy who also owns a cleaning company in his painting clothes complete with a rag in his back pocket.

How are we ever going to alter people's perception of us if we don't make an effort to even try and look professional. I am a business owner that happens to be a cleaning business, but if I sold O-rings for the toilets that we clean I would have gotten more respect.

I am tempted to say something to my fellow cleaning biz owners about their lack of business protocol but they are my, heh, heh, competition after-all and I refrained. Maybe I shouldn't?

Should I make this a one-man cause? Start embarrassing these under dressed neophytes?
It's tempting, very tempting. Then again I also enjoy the edge I now have because I can tell you in the bid walks, I get the proper attention and usually most of it while the contact ignores the custodian.

My Theory on the Crazy Season for Cleaning Companies

noreply@blogger.com (Ken Galo) — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 09:02:00 +0000

Now let me start off by clarifying that this is a THEORY of mine, not fact and is based on 31+ years of observation, pain and humiliation from being in this industry and no, I still love it and won't quit.

Theory:

From Ground Hog Day to the first Sunday in April is either the very worst time to be in the office cleaning business or the very best. If you have customers in small to medium sized accounts where they have 35 or less employees in the office you are at risk.

The holiday's are over, the Superbowl is over and there is really nothing going on until spring starts. This puts people in a depressed, cranky, out to get someone mood. Monday's are the worst, they come in, still fighting the depression of cabin fever and they are looking for someone to blame. Picking on co-workers is never advisable since they have access to your bag lunch in the company fridge, so who do you find fault with?
The cleaning company! I can't get my reports done because they never:

vacuum
dust
new can liner
clean the (sink/counter/toilet/steps/elevator)
I think you get my point here.

With smaller sized customers, enough cranky office people, who will continually infect each other with this can cause you to lose the job. The boss/owner/manager will put it out for bid if it does nothing other than making these whiners shutup for a few weeks.

Remember I am working off of theory based on experience here.

Now if you're a smart business person and I know you are because you are reading my drivel, then this is prime time for marketing. Your competitors do not know what you now know. Get those flyer's, emails, sales letters and phone calls going and going right now! Your emphasis should be on quality at this time you can always talk about your fair prices after you are in the door, but quality is what will get you in the door.

By the way, bigger offices aren't immune from this, it's just with more people the whiners are more diffused and less of an annoyance. But they are still whining and someone is still hearing it, they just won't go through the hassle of switching cleaning companies to quiet down 2-4 crankzilla's.

I will give you an example of this. I am in the snow-belt states and still have 14" on the ground, last year we were still getting snow in April and the moods around here are, well think along the terms of having a bad sunburn and then being made to wear sandpaper underwear. Anyway, last week a plant manager calls me and says that receptionist doesn't feel we are cleaning anything and can I come take care of it. Of course, I am out that night meeting my manager at the site, we inspect the entire office from one end to the other after the cleaners are finished. They are in fine shape and I can find nothing wrong. I send my contact an email, letting him know I was there and checked it all. 2 days later he is on the phone again and again it's the receptionist and he says to me, " Ken, get her to shut up" So I ask, is there anything specific she is mentioning or seeing? he says no, just says we aren't cleaning good. So, I drive out to the building at 4pm so I can catch this receptionist before she leaves. I come in, introduce myself and ask her point blank what we can do better or differently to make some improvements in the cleaning. Her response? I just don't think they are taking enough time and I don't think they are doing everything, every night. and then she leaves.

So, I sat at her desk and watched people leave the office to go home, watched them go across the lobby, out the doors and then swiveling I watched them through her window get in their cars.

Then I went out to my truck, got a spray bottle of lemon malodor treatment, a bottle of window cleaner and a squeegee. I spritzed the lemon into her trashcan and I cleaned the outside of the window by her desk and I left without saying a word to the cleaners.

At 9am the next morning I called the receptionist and asked her how things were this morning. Her reply? " Well you being here sure made a difference! You can tell they put in some extra time last night."

On that, I rest my case for my Theory of the Crazy Season.

coming up next, the much anticipated, franchise argument or why a sleazeball can change it's name but still be a sleazeball.

RFQ's, Demand for Info & The Jealousy Syndrome

noreply@blogger.com (Ken Galo) — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 07:05:00 +0000

I am in the men's department at a Kohl's store the other day, I have picked out a shirt, pair of pants and a really neat tie when a young man approaches me and asks if he can be of assistance. I noticed his name Matt on the tag and the title, 'department manager', so I tell him, "Matt, I love these clothes I've picked out, they match exactly what I am looking for, they are a perfect fit and the price is within my range" "The only thing stopping me from checking out and buying these right now Matt, is that I don't know what Kohl's true profit margin is on these clothes, I don't know the manufacturers costs in producing these clothes or package or transportation costs either and in order for me to feel comfortable about doing business with Kohl's today I am afraid you are going to have to break it all down for me so that I know Kohl's isn't making a dime more than I think they should be making on this sale."

Matt started asking me if I would like to meet someone in security now or will I just leave quietly.

Since around the middle of November of 2009 and now the end of January 2010 I have 17 RFQ's sitting on my desk. 11 of these I am in the running, my prices are fair, my references are outstanding and I meet their criteria perfectly. In my mind I have a chance of landing at least 30% of them. Now the other 6? Well those are sitting in a 'special' pile, soon to be recycled. I did the bid walks, calculated my costs and put together my standard proposal for each of them and submitted them. But, I don't stand a chance of winning any of them.

Why?
Well like my little tirade with Matt, these demi-gods of management seem to feel that they need to control every facet of my business. From how much I pay per hour for each classification of employee, how many hours and minutes each person will work, what my insurance, labor, unemployment, worker's compensation costs are per employee. How much my chemicals cost, what my equipment amortization is and on and on and on.

Quite frankly, I've had enough of these petulant little micro managers who feel they need to make sure that no janitor ever makes any more money than their poor, cubicle dwelling, under-achieving asses think they should make.

Where do they get off asking for this stuff? Are their life savings on the line everyday? Are they out working, taking emergency calls, risking their future, their family security everyday? No, but because we are risk takers, willing to take the giant steps these weak little folks run away from they are jealous and to the extent that they are going to make sure we are kept in our place by controlling our income.

Well this is one contractor who is not going to take it anymore, I will never fill out that information on any RFQ ever again. Will I lose some opportunities? Yes I will, but as one of the business owners I admire greatly always says " I don't want all the customers, I just want the best ones"
Thanks Rhonda.

I don't blog often unless it's something new, important or sets me off.
Coming up this week--The scariest and worst day of the year for commercial cleaning companies that service small and medium sized accounts. And it's not to far away either!

Do we defeat ourselves?

noreply@blogger.com (Ken Galo) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:49:00 +0000

I am sitting with my morning cup of coffee reviewing payroll reports for various buildings looking for anomaly's. There will always be spikes and drops in these reports mainly because of the nature of our business and the indifference of attitude of our employees regarding their '2nd income' jobs. For the most part I overlook small variances and instead focus on a longer view spanning 3 to 6 weeks or longer for larger labor issues.

Having started several large accounts late this summer, I am keenly interested in seeing if we now have them under control and operating within budget parameters, it's been 3 months so they should be in-line with the budgets I set when I sold the jobs. They are running like a Swiss clock. What I find disturbing is an increase in labor costs at an account we have been servicing for over 3 years now, so I start back tracking through previous quarters and I see a gradual increase in labor hours starting in April of this year and no correlating increase in revenue.

Now it's not a lot hours to start with, in fact in April and May it's no more than 1 to 1.5 hours per week but by mid-September it has jumped to almost 5 hours per week. To put this in a $$ perspective, if an hour of labor at my payroll rates costs me $12 than I am losing $60 per week more than I was in March of this year or $3,120.00 annually is being spent on labor without any form of compensation to make up for it. Now multiply an error like this times say 20-30-40 buildings!

I have no one to blame but me but I didn't know this at breakfast.

I grabbed my operations manager, which is easy since he is usually at my house with his head in my refrigerator most days, (he's my son after-all) and I asked him if he could explain this phenomenon to me.

The kid actually listens to me! He went out to his car and pulled out his building book and looked up operational notes dating back to last April and pulls out an email from me telling him to have our cleaner on the 3rd floor load and turn on the dishwasher in the executive dining/conference room every-night.

So, that explains the 1 hour more per week given a 15 minute daily routine window, it doesn't explain the current jump to 5 hours per week. So I set him to finding out why the jump and I go back to my logs to find out what I did in April to let this all get started.

Jr. comes back with:

The cleaner is now also roaming the floor every-night collecting cups off desks, clearing the 2 conference rooms of dishes and cups that are left sitting on the tables and she is also loading the main cafeteria dishwashers (2 here) on the 1st floor used by the rest of the building.

How did it progress to this point?

A couple of reasons:

With the new business starting this past summer and fall we weren't paying too much attention to the details of the nightly operations and focusing on a " please, no complaints-while we start the new stuff program, policy" This means we worried mainly about getting the job done right first and how to make money 2nd. This is our first step in defeating ourselves.

Next, I found that back in April the customer contacted me and asked if I could have the cleaner on the executive floor load and run the dishwasher 'whenever' they had a meeting or luncheon.

In my over-eagerness to please, retain and butt kiss a customer I agreed forgetting how these things progress and I should know better after all these years, it never ends with just one favor. This is the second step in defeating ourselves. We are so worried about pleasing the customer, so focused on customer service, so fearful of the low bidding competition that we will agree to these 'little' things without thinking about the consequences.

Finally, we now find ourselves in a bad spot, the contact realizing that they now have an open checkbook on extras has stopped our cleaner several times over the ensuing months to 'ask for one more favor' by including the other cafeteria dishwashers, checking all the executive suites for coffee cups etc... Can't really blame the contact, if we had been paying attention, which is our third defeat, we would have caught this the first or second week and I could have taken up the issue with the contact explaining the need for 'maid service' charge or perhaps suggesting adding a part time day porter to handle these duties. Now I am stuck trying to correct this situation after it's already been doing damage to me since July. I realize I have no hope of recovering lost revenue but I need to stop the bleed before it continues and the profit margins fall to 3%.

And this brings me to the fourth defeat, my own reluctance in today's economy to try and raise prices over something so trivial as loading a dishwasher, which is exactly how the customer sees it.

The way I see it, we are so enamored with customer service that we forget we are also in business to make money, otherwise why are you doing this? Extreme customer service can result in quick bankruptcy.

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!