WE CAN DO THAT

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where a good customer asks if you can do some service that is outside the actual scope of janitorial service? Did you answer "We don't do that", or did you say "We can do that"?  You see, so many (you?) BSCs see themselves as a janitorial service provider rather than a facility service provider and in the long run that is going to hurt their growth opportunities and possibly lose some of the business they currently have.

Many of our customers today are looking to consolidate vendors so they don't have to deal with so many people and write so many checks each month and the more services we can provide the more solid our relationship becomes. And a major side benefit---if you are performing several services for your customer it becomes much harder for them to terminate you for missing a few trash cans if they are committed to you in several different service areas. 

Let me give you a few examples I am aware of where BSCs were able to solidify their position with a customer by saying "We can do that". In fact, some of these examples are the company I owned for 34 years.

One customer was having a difficult time with their entrance mat rental service. The service was irregular, the mats weren't laid now clean and many times in the wrong area etc. Overhearing the frustration, the BSC said "we can do that" and they negotiated an addition to the contract for 150 entrance mats per week. Here is the really great part. The customer provided the space for the BSC to clean the mats etc. How cool is that? 

Some months later that same customer was getting ready to take proposals for maintaining the grounds on their 40 plus acres which entailed mowing, fertilizing, trimming, planting and maintaining flower beds etc. Guess who they ended up negotiating the contract with because the BSC said "we can do that". We didn't really know how but we hired people that did know how. Following that came parking lot sweeping, striping, and snow clearing. How did all this get done by a BSC that started out as a janitorial service? Finding reliable sub contractors that could provide a quality service on those services we weren't proficient at.

Now, when the time came to take proposals for facility services it became pretty easy to renew the agreement with the customer because the incumbent was the only "qualified" vendor that could provide all the facility services the customer needed. The last time I checked the BSC was in their 23rd year of providing service to this customer. 

Another case in point. One customer got the approval from the home office to purchase 2 fork lifts for their warehouse. Neat, huh? To show you the wisdom of the home office, they would not authorize the funds for the customer to hire operators for the fork lifts but gave them authority to hire help through a temporary help agency. "We can do that" was the reply of this BSC. They provided the fork lift operators and had a nice profitable add on service for years. By the way, if you're only doing the front office areas of manufacturing plants you are missing out on a tremendous profit opportunity. The "real" money is in the plant areas themselves. You can provide aisle sweeping and scrubbing, rafter cleaning, equipment cleaning during shut time times etc. 

One contractor I know actually invested in the vending machine business and provided all the vending machines and related services to their clients. Wow! What a profit center that was for them. In fact, that eventually became a larger percentage of their total business than the janitorial business. Interesting, isn't it?

Okay, okay, some of you that are smaller size contractors are probably saying, "That takes a lot of money to gear up for some of this work". Let me suggest you negotiate into the agreement that if the customer cancels for ANY reason, they agree to purchase the equipment from you. Not possible to negotiate these terms you say? Happens all the time except maybe in the vending machine business. You don't get what you don't negotiate. 

Here's an unusual one. A customer was getting ready to purchase about 25 microwaves for break areas and lunch rooms throughout their factory. An aggressive BSC said to their customer "we can buy those, place them were you want them and maintain them for you for a monthly service fee. The customer bought the service. And with the price of microwave ovens these days if one does go bad you can usually just replace it almost as cheap as trying to repair it. 

These are just a few of the services I am aware that aggressive BSCs are providing for their customers today. If provides an additional profit opportunity for the BSC but just as important, and maybe more so, it makes it much more difficult for the customer to replace you for a minor slip up in service OR  if you get that new purchasing agent or property manager that wants to make a name for themselves by saving a few dollars on the janitorial service by "going out for bid". 

Start making you list today of the services in addition to those listed about that "we can do" such as 

Pest elimination
trash removal
stocking of shelves
temporary help services 
scheduled light bulb changing and lens cleaning
minor repairs
painting 
furniture moving
what other services can you think of?

Start being more observant of the needs of your customers besides the janitorial services you provide.

You see you don't have to be proficient in all of these, just be able to locate and work with reliable, professional sub contractors. You pay the subs and add on a 15% or so amount for you. Remember, the sub probably would not have that business if it weren't for you so they should be willing to discount their service to you which in turn results in no additional expense to your customer by having you handle all the services. An additional selling point to your customer is one check per month, one phone call to one location gets the service they need. This dramatically reduces their overall cost of doing business.  

Like I said earlier in this blog, start making your list today of the services you see your prospects could use and let them know "we can do that".

Till next time.
 

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