11 Tips For Growing Your Cleaning Business

If you’re serious about growing your cleaning business this year (and beyond) take this advice to heart.

Don’t take “no” for an answer and never let yourself say “I have no more time”. These are common excuses for people who fail, so don’t fall into that trap!

Make the commitment to yourself right now to maintain a consistent marketing effort. Work hard on a game plan you will execute regardless of how many “No’s” you must fight through or how busy you get in the process.

To help you along with this task, here’s a list of 11 tips for growing your cleaning business:

1. Make a commitment to staying in touch with current prospects (and any actual clients you already have) at least once a month. You can accomplish this through phone calls, face to face meetings, direct mail or even e-mail.
2. If you haven’t already, get your contact data into a contact management system. This can make life a lot easier. Choose one that allows you to quickly and easily export mailing lists and send targeted e-mails when you need to.
3. Set attainable monthly (or weekly) goals for prospecting activities. You will always need more prospects to cultivate, but first you need to find them. You do this by committing to a specific number of “networking events” (or via mail, e-mail or direct mail to referrals others have given you).
4. Build your own in-house list. Simply collect e-mail addresses from clients and candidates whenever possible. This gives you a great way to touch base with them later on. Doing this from day one can save you a ton of time later on (and put a a boat-load of money in your bank account down the road).
5. Refer some business to your potential or existing clients. When you work with many different businesses, you have the ability to act as a “matchmaker”, helping your clients and prospects find new business faster and easier. You will quickly become a favorite asset to others when using this secret method!
6. Become the expert in your field. You know a great deal about how the cleaning business works (more than they do for sure) . Share your wisdom by distributing any articles you think may be useful to them, or posting tips on your web site.
7. Repeatedly mail your direct mail offerings to the same people. Ever wonder why credit card companies send mail to you over and over again? Because it works! Repetition is the name of the game.
8. Get out there and start talking. Virtually every Rotary Club and local Chamber of Commerce needs speakers with your expertise.
9. Set aside 15 – 30 minutes each day to nurture current clients, potential prospects or candidates. Create a personal note, call them or email them if need be, just stay in touch and try to grow the relationship.
10. Send thank you cards for appointments and referrals. Try to be unique by sending cards for even minor occasions like thanking people for initial phone conversations.
11. Improve the performance of  your direct marketing by segmenting your market into audiences with common concerns. This way you can address their problems directly in your marketing communications. You could do this by simply creating different direct mail pieces for doctors, insurances agents and shipping companies (or whoever makes up your target market). They all have different needs, so why would you send them the same stock letter? Customize the message and increase your response.

If anyone out there can add to the list (I’m sure a lot of good ideas are out there floating around), feel free to add your thoughts in the comments below.

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