SOME IMPORTANT FAVORITE SAYINGS

Soon many of us (and I hope you) will be heading to Chicago to attend the ISSA/Interclean/BSCAI trade show and convention. As I reflect on previous conventions I am reminded of some of the great speakers we had as either keynoters or general session presenters. Let me share a couple of points that I heard that stuck with me over the years.

THERE IS NO USE DOING WELL THAT WHICH YOU SHOULD NOT BE DOING AT ALL---Thomas Connellan at the 1979 BSCAI show in Dallas, TX.

This saying hit me right between the eyes. At that time I had been in business for myself for 7 years and was still opening the mail every morning to "see what has come in".

I don't know what exacting I was looking for. I guess I needed to see who had paid us and who was cancelling service---not! I took the deposit to the bank every day. What, no one else knew how to drive? Mr. Connellan's presentation made me take a look at how we were doing everything, especially how and what I was doing in the company. I found myself doing many things that could just as well be done by someone already on staff and frankly, they could do it much better and faster.

That statement was framed and has hung on my wall ever since. This one thing probably did more to keep me focused down through the years than anything else that was told or shown to me. Let me ask you, what are you doing in your company that you should not be doing at all? Check it out, you will probably be amazed. The time you are wasting can not be recovered.


IF YOU HAVE A CUSTOMER SERVICE REPRESENTATIVE IN YOUR COMPANY, WHAT ARE THE REST OF YOUR PEOPLE DOING?---TOM PETERS


This one always stuck with me as being particularly appropriate for our industry. So often I hear contract service owners and managers talk about how they have "customer service representatives" visit customers to discuss the quality of cleaning being done. The reality is we shouldn't have to do that because we should know on a daily basis what level of cleaning we are performing.

I realize we must maintain regular customer contact to develop and maintain a relationship. No question about it. That is why I believe you should have area supervisors or managers who work from early afternoon to 10 or 11 at night. Afternoons should be spent visiting the customer and developing that relationship and evenings can be spent in the field with the cleaning technicians.

Those afternoon visits should be augmented by regular monthly or quarterly partnering meetings as I have discussed in earlier writings. That is where the owner and/or top management can be involved in a formal meeting and they will know soon enough if the customer is comfortable with how everything is progressing.

Now having said that, I want to emphasize that the owner/manager must ALWAYS be available to visit with customers. I made random visits all of the time to see my customers. My routine was to visit with the customer on a social basis first, with a comment or question as to if they were comfortable with my staff and they would volunteer comments if they weren't satisfied which was my clue to get more involved. Oh, and by the way, I always made sure I checked random janitor's closets to see how we were doing in that department. I had a customer tell me early in my career that his evaluation of a cleaning company was if they kept their janitor's closets clean. He felt, and rightfully so, that if we couldn't keep our janitor's closet clean, how in the world could we keep his building clean. How are YOU doing in that department?

Having account reps to manage an account is one thing but to have someone to just go to the accounts to check quality is not something I subscribe to. By the way, if you have someone going during the day and they have cleaning issues with the night crew and the crew doesn't correct those issues, the service representative has to face the customer the next day and eventually you have an internal war on your hands that can easily spill over to the customer. Enough said on that issue for now.

These are just a couple of the important sayings that influenced my business career. I hope they will be helpful to you as well.

Don't forget our weekly FREE tripodcasts at www.tripodcast.com. In mid September we will begin daily ones highlighting the speakers and sponsors at the upcoming convention. I hope you will plan to listen as there are some really good speakers this year. Also, if you are a subscriber to our tripodcasts you can register for the convention at www.bscai.org and enter the promotion code SMD30 and get a 30% discount on your registration investment. Check it out.

Till next time and MAKE IT A GREAT DAY.