Janitorial Employee Time Keeping

Ask Drake

President and Co-founder of CleanGuidePro

With the truly, humbling success of CleanGuidePro, we’ve received great questions by companies all over the world about varying topics in the janitorial industry. Allow me share one of them with you.

Dear Drake: We’ve been in the janitorial business a little over a year now and are ready to start hiring a few employees to help with our workload. Managing employee’s time is new to us. Any suggestions on how to track their weekly hours for payroll? Should we put in time clocks, have a “self write-in sheet” for them to write their own times down, or just pay them for a set amount of hours? .

Answer: Great question! First, let me get you thinking the right way. You don’t manage employees time, but rather you “manage” the “system” that manages your employees hourly timekeeping.

Having employees write their own time down or paying them for a set amount of time is a system allright, but it’s a system of the employees managing you! Learn from my early mistakes. I’ve stopped by to check buildings with write-in sheets at 8pm, with all employees gone and the times written down are 6pm in and 10pm out. I’ve also paid employees for 3 hrs a night, received customer complaints that things were getting missed, then find out the employee was only there for 1 hour each night!

Time-clocks are an OK system, but have drawbacks. Units are expensive, travel time to get time cards and manually entering in payroll data are all time consuming. Cliche yes, but “time is money” off your bottom line.

Here’s the hands down, best system to keep track of your employee hours for payroll. Telephone Clock-in Systems! This is online computer software that allows employees to clock in/out from their jobsite using caller id. It’s in real time and sends email or text alerts to you if someone is late, no shows, etc. You can see reports, print or email timesheets, export payroll and much more with the click of a button. It saves you time and money and it’s affordable to even the smallest of companies. That’s managing a system that works!

These systems are not put in place to control or manipulate “bad” people/employees at all. Employees should be cherished, appreciated, taken care of, paid well and yes, even loved! Systems are put in place to create a work environment that reduces chaos, creates structure and a sense of order. Systems foster harmony and peace in the workplace and i’snt that what it’s all about anyway my friend!

Drake

Increase Your Janitorial Customer Retention Dramatically

Do you want to know how to increase your janitorial customer retention dramatically? Silly question, right? Of course you do! But what exactly is “customer retention” and how do you achieve it? In practice, customer retention is less about you keeping your existing cleaning accounts and more about having your customers not get rid of you.

CleanGuidePro Janitorial Bidware - A proudly cleaned floor To acquire new customers, you spend a lot of time, effort and money to market and sell your services. Once you get a new customer, that’s just the beginning; Now you have to keep them!

Don’t think for a moment that just doing the basics and going through the motions will retain customers. A Janitorial Service Agreement is a business relationship that absolutely requires you to be attentive, nurturing, caring, loving – (yes, I said it, love your customer!) – and to occasionally bite your tongue. And just like any other relationship, it has to be nurtured and developed this month and next month and the month after that…

You actually need to move from “Customer Retention” to “Customer Loyalty” to thrive in this business. There’s a lot to be said on this subject (and I promise to to do so in future articles), but for now, let me start with my core “Customer Retention/Loyalty Tips” that have served me so well for over 25 years in this great janitorial industry.

COMMUNICATE: Right up front, when you do a walk through before preparing a proposal, make sure that you communicate with your contact about exactly what they expect. Do they have a checklist or do they want you to create one? Then, when you get awarded the account, make sure that you have a signed Service Agreement, spelling out the details and terms of your service. Customers understand the necessity of this document. Be on the same page on day one!
SIMPLY DO WHAT YOU SAY YOU’RE GOING TO DO: Keep your promises! If your proposal stated that all waxed floors will be polished once per week, then do it. If it noted that return vents and blinds are dusted monthly, then do it. I know one national franchise that promises (on their proposals) to take all the trash cans outside and wash them every month. Of course, it rarely gets done. That task wasn’t required, but since it was promised, it became expected and was subsequently viewed as a failure to perform. If I had a quarter for every new customer that told me, “the last cleaning company didn’t do what they promised”, well.. I’d have a lot of quarters.
KEEP THEIR BUILDING CLEAN: The #1 way to keep your customer happy and loyal is to keep their building clean! The #1 way to keep their building clean is to do regularly scheduled checklist inspections for quality control! It’s good and actually necessary for your customer to like you, but that alone will not keep you there. You need to consistently keep their facility clean and even exceed their original expectations. Go the extra mile, it will be well worth it. Strive to be a top service provider!
THEY NEED TO LIKE YOU: Hear me out on this one. I’m not talking about a joke telling, fishing buddy (although, being “professionally” personable and friendly goes a long way towards customer loyalty). Instead, when they like the way you and your company take care of their facility, they will also like you! Yes, cliché, but take care of your customers and they will take care of you.
BE PROFITABLE: You want to “retain” profitable customers. If you’re losing money on an account or just breaking even, then you will stop caring about the things that will make your customer keep you. They’ll probably drop you and you won’t care. Do all you can to keep your costs down and quality up. But if, for example, you start cleaning a private school with 200 students and 6 months later they’ve increased to 300 (which will increase your labor hours up to 2 hours a day), then it’s time to sit down and talk about a fair price increase. Even the Good Book says, “the worker is deserving of their pay”. That’s good enough for me.
TRAIN YOUR EMPLOYEES: To provide consistent quality cleaning on an ongoing basis, your crew needs to know what to do. You need to have some type of training on cleaning techniques, chemical use, customer relations, safety, protocol, procedures, production rates, etc. A trained and competent employee creates a loyal customer!
USE CHECKLISTS TO MANAGE “THE SYSTEM”: A checklist of exactly what is done each day is not just a good idea, but an absolute must to succeed. e.g. Individual employee checklists, area checklists, specialty work checklists, end of night supervisor checklists, monthly inspection checklists, etc. That’s managing a system that works!
EMPLOYEE UNIFORMS/BADGES/NAME TAGS: At each customer location, project an image of trust, structure and professionalism. After hour customer accounts should still have company t-shirts with your name and logo. And higher profile accounts need to project a more professional image. Specifically, polo shirts with logos and khakis, with employee lanyard or company identifying name badges need to be worn. The more your customer sees your employees, the sharper they need to look!
WHATEVER IT TAKES!: Commit to being that person that finds solutions. Every problem and situation has a perfect solution. Some tougher than others. Are you willing to fulfill a customer’s last minute, 4pm request to wax or polish floors tonight because their corporate boss is visiting tomorrow? Will you miss a little sleep or work late to provide a solution? Expect the unexpected! When another cleaning company comes “a courting”, they will say “No thanks, we’re very happy with our current cleaning service”. That’s customer loyalty!
HAVE A SPIRIT OF EXCELLENCE!: If you have a mindset of “it’s good enough, they’ll never notice, everyone cuts corners”, I know 4 coats of wax would look awesome, but 3 is enough for tonight”, then you don’t get it. When I used to ask my Floor Techs how a job came out and they would say “good”, I would ask them “do you know who the enemy of excellence is”? It’s “good enough”. They quickly got the point! They then started sending me cell phone pics of every job, and yes it was excellent work! Average Spirit equals Average Business and that equals average customer retention. Excellent Spirit equals Excellent Business and that equals EXCELLENT CUSTOMER RETENTION!

Always remember to nurture your customer relationships. Make them feel cared about and appreciated. Your customer retention will increase dramatically and your customer loyalty will soar!

Drake

Janitorial Bidding Software That Works!

Long story short:

After 25 years of hard work, determination, faith and years of trial and error developing a systematic bidding method for my own cleaning business, I ended up building (with an unbelievable team of programmers) the janitorial bidding software that I was searching for.. A proven systematic approach that has generated millions in sales. A system that works!

Long story long:

My name is Drake Thomas, I’ve been in the cleaning business over 24 years. I started out at age 19, supplementing the income from my full time job by cleaning my sister Linda’s house once a week (for $40 cash). It took me about two hours to clean, so I averaged about $20 an hour. I made 4 times the minimum wage rate at the time and she got a clean house for a week! That’s a win/win in my book!

I saw that there was good money in cleaning, but it wasn’t my dream job at the time; I had other life plans to pursue. Linda was already a very successful computer programmer, having graduated Valedictorian in high school and cum laude in college, and she urged me to get a degree as well. So, over the next five years, I worked in sales and went to college part time, receiving an AA degree in CIS, Computer Information Systems. The degree was good, I learned a lot about computers, but I never pursued that career path. But, I did meet my lovely wife Kristin there and we just celebrated our 19th wedding anniversary!

Just before I graduated college, an opportunity arose to take over a tiny floor care company (stripping, waxing and polishing floors). The owners, an older couple, were moving out of town in two months and would lose the handful of accounts that they had. I made them an offer of $5,780, (the total value of all their equipment if purchased new). The deal was that I would give them a deposit of $2,500 – (a credit union signature loan) – and work with them at night (for free) during a two month training period. The balance would be paid off in 6 monthly installments from my business profits. They happily agreed. So for a while, I worked a day job, attended college part time, and then stripped floors at night (sometimes until 5am). Then I got up at 7am to do it again. At the end of the two month training period, I quit my day job. I figured if I could sell for “them”, I could sell for myself. Initially, I only offered floor care, but I pretty quickly started bidding – and winning bids – for complete janitorial services.

This calculated risk paid off, but isn’t life full of risks? The fruit is at the end of the branches. During my career, I’ve read literally hundreds of books on business management, motivation, goal setting, systems, sales/marketing techniques, cash flow, customer retention, budgets, planning, cost cutting and the list goes on. But my number one book concerning business is the book of Proverbs. It has taught me more about business than any other by far. Things like “mere talk leads to poverty” (take action!), “all hard work returns a profit” (don’t be lazy!), and “seek wisdom more than choice gold or fine silver” (knowledge is power!).

Over the years, I’ve won hundreds and hundreds of bids for monthly janitorial service, floor waxing, carpet cleaning, pressure washing, specialty work and supply sales for Banks, Car Dealerships, Churches, Corporate Offices, Day Cares, Dentist Offices, Doctor’s offices, Hair Salons, Hospitals, Ice Cream Parlors, Law Firms, Medical Facilities, Pawn Shops, Property Management, Restaurants, Retail Stores, Schools, Veterinarians, and just about everything in between. What’s the secret you ask?… There is no secret! Just a quarter century of hard work, determination, faith and years of trial and error developing a systematic bidding method for my own cleaning business. A proven approach that has generated millions in sales. A system that works!

This bidding system is available to you now! Welcome to CleanGuidePro Janitorial Bidware, cleanlyrun.com! If you’re looking for the right janitorial bidding software to help you win more bids, you’ve found it. You can accurately bid on commercial and residential, monthly cleaning accounts, 13 specialty work tasks like floor stripping, carpet cleaning, pressure washing, tile &and grout cleaning, day porters, etc, commercial and residential construction cleanup, and much more!

Over three years of development has gone into the creation and development of this software. We just released in February of this year and hundreds of janitorial companies have already signed up, given us awesome feedback and most important, are winning bids! Not only is it designed to bid the way that I’ve bid and won hundreds and hundreds of times, but the behind the scenes team of software programmers have integrated the latest business rules technology to capture every nuance of successful bidding. This team is headed up by – you guessed it – none other than my sister Linda. Her thirty years of expertise and experience working on a multitude of Fortune 500 IT projects have made CleanGuidePro come to life. I half kiddingly tell people that I’m a Grand Master Janitor, but Linda is truly a Grand Master Programmer! Call it fate, destiny, or a match made in Heaven, but don’t call it coincidence. My love and gratitude to her.

Sign up today for our no obligation, free 30 day trial and start winning those bids! Check it out for yourself at cleanlyrun.com !

Sincerely,

Drake

Janitorial Growth Without Burnout, Top Tips!

When starting out in your janitorial business, you’re usually doing all the work yourself. We’ve all been there in the beginning, including me. Recently, I received email questions from one of our CleanGuidePro.com members. With his permission to post it here, this is what it said.

“Good News! I was awarded the new cleaning account. The only thing is that I’m nervous about all the hours I will be working. My day will start at 5:30am to 10am, then I go out again from 4pm until midnight, 7 days a week. On Saturdays it’s pretty much an all day marathon. What are your suggestions on hiring someone, am I looking for someone to clean some accounts on their own or should I get two people to clean together? At what point do I hire a supervisory type position? A bunch of years back, I became severely burnt out, so I made a career change while running my cleaning business part time. I’m now in a rebuild process and don’t want this to happen again.”

Sound familiar?

The answers to these questions are not a quick fix, one size fits all answer, but there are some common steps that myself and countless other companies (including some very large national companies I’ve known doing hundreds of millions of dollars a year) have done in the beginning to grow their businesses without “burning out” in the process. There are many additional things that go into each of these steps, i.e., labor law compliance, management skills, communication skills, marketing, training, cash flow management, etc., but in their simplest form, they are as follows:

CLEAN BUILDINGS YOURSELF: In the beginning, clean your accounts yourself. Determine a reasonable number of hours you can work per week before hiring help. If you have a full time day job, probably about 20 hrs is the max. If you don’t have a regular day job, I would suggest no more than 40-45hrs. This could be one building or 3 or more, depending on the size of each. For our illustration purposes, let’s just say you don’t have a day job, clean 3 buildings alone and work 45 hours a week.
ESTABLISH A GOAL: A goal to eventually not clean any of the buildings yourself. If these 3 buildings you clean, combined generate monthly revenue of $4,000 and about 90% (because you have no employees) net profit to you of $3,600. Once you start hiring employees to clean for you, your net profit will drop to about 30% per building. OK, let’s do the math, for you to generate that same $3,600 in net income without cleaning yourself, you need to do $12,000 per month in revenue. $12,000 x .30% = $3,600. Keep in mind that any monthly revenue generated above $12,000 is additional income for you and you’re no longer working a job, but rather running a business that is positioned to grow!
LOOK FOR CLEANING EMPLOYEES: It takes time to find the right employees. Start looking for good employees now, before you even get the next account. Have time to check references and do background checks. Have 4 -5 people ready to go.
GET 1 MORE BUILDING: At the same time, have a marketing plan and bids out and get the next new account.
CLEAN NEW ACCOUNTS YOURSELF: When you get the new building, you clean it and assign the new employee to one of your existing accounts.
ASSIGN NEW EMPLOYEE TO EXISTING ACCOUNT: You already know exactly what needs to be done there, so it’ll be easier to train someone there.
INSPECT NEW EMPLOYEES BUILDING: : You are now their Supervisor. Work with them the first week for training. Then the second week you inspect their work each night for a week or so. When you’re confident in their work, reduce inspections to once a week.
GET MORE BUILDINGS/REPEAT STEPS 5-7: Continue in these planned out, systematic steps with your goal in sight! Track it somehow, on a spreadsheet, a note pad, etc. Review regularly.
REDUCE YOUR CLEANING, INCREASE YOUR INSPECTING: Your time cleaning buildings will start to decrease now and your time inspecting buildings will increase, but you’re making the same net income and your goal is fast approaching!
HIT YOUR GOAL: Congratulations!! You’ve hit your goal. It may have taken you 6 months -2 years or more, but you don’t clean the buildings yourself, except for the occasional fill in. You’re doing $12,000 in monthly revenue and making the same net income as when you were physically killing yourself doing all the work yourself! Best of all, you’re positioned to continue growing the right way and you’re running the business instead of the business running you, into the ground.
YOU’RE THE SUPERVISOR: You’re now the full time supervisor. When you start Inspecting and Supervising more than 45 hrs a week, you can start planning to hire a “working supervisor”. One that produces income by cleaning a building or two themselves, fills in when other employees are out and inspects their work at your accounts. This is usually one of your current employees that you’re promoting. This will start to reduce your night time supervisory time and eventually get you to running the business during the day, if that’s your goal. I can tell you it was a big goal of mine. I’m much more effective running business during normal daytime hours and now spend my nights and weekends with my family..

Just as “Faith without works is dead” Remember that a goal without a plan is just a dream. I hope this blog answer was helpful and insightful to you my friend and many more!

Drake

Janitorial Cash Flow – Top Ten Tips!

The definition of Cash Flow is “The excess of cash revenues over cash outlays in a given period of time, not including non-cash expenses.” In layman’s terms, it simply means not only having more cash coming in than going out, but having that “excess” cash coming in when you need it!

For example, if you have $10,000 in revenue coming to you on the 20^th of the month and $8,000 due in payables on the 15^th, including payroll, what do you do? Do you simply tell your vendors and employees, “don’t worry, you’ll get paid when I get paid” and expect them to be understanding? Sure, you’ll have a few understanding people, but DO NOT rely on people understanding your cash flow issues! Instead, take the time to create a cash flow system to eliminate the inevitable problems that come from paying late, i.e., employees quitting, vendor credit cut offs, bank overdraft fees, poor relations, credit score reductions and the list goes on and on.

If you’ve got bank lines of credit and can pay all you’re bills on the first of the month, that’s great and I’m happy for you, but I can bet that in the beginning you had to be very savvy with your cash flow to convince the banks to lend to you. Kudos and respect to you! But , remember, borrowed money is the most expensive money.

Let me just touch on my Top Ten free, time tested Cash Flow Tips that have served me well in 25 years in this great janitorial industry. Remember, it’s all about having actual cash on hand when you need it! It’s not easy, but it’s not hard, just have a plan!

ESTABLISH CUSTOMER TERMS: DO NOT start an account and not know when you’ll get paid. My written terms were always billed on the 1^st of the month, due on the 15^th of the current month for the whole month. If they couldn’t do that, I’d bill them 2x per month, the 1^st– 15^th due on the 15^th and the 16^th -30/31^st due on the 30^th. Hear me, establish terms!
ESTABLISH VENDOR TERMS: Once you’ve established terms with your customers, get with your vendors. If you know that customer payments come in on the 15^th and 30^th of each month, then set up payments with suppliers due on the 16^th and 1^st of each month with your vendors. Vendors WILL WORK WITH YOU if they simply know they can count on a payment date. Car payments , cell phones, suppliers, even rent landlords can all change due dates for you.
ESTABLISH COMPANY BUDGETS: Know exactly what your numbers are. What’s your total monthly revenue and expenses each month? When are payments coming in and when are bills due?
ESTABLISH A PERSONAL BUDGET: It’s true that “ the eye is never satisfied”, but have the discipline and restraint to live within your means.
INCREASE REVENUE: No brainer, new customers equal more $Revenue. Continually be looking for more customers and have multiple bids out at the same time!
REDUCE OVERHEAD and INVENTORY: A $2000 a month office requires $7-10,000 a month in revenue to pay for it. I’m not saying don’t have one, but customers don’t come to your office, so make sure it’s a “need” to have and not a “nice” to have. Work from a home office until it’s impossible any longer . Also, have a ”just in time” inventory on hand in your warehouse. Don’t have $1000 in floor wax on hand if you only use $200 a month. Use the other $800 to pay bills.
DON’T FINANCE IT: Don’t finance a $4,000 new floor autoscrubber for 24 monthly payments and a total pay out of $5800, if you can buy a used one for $1500 cash that does the same job! Use your head!
EDUCATE YOURSELF: Do internet searches on cash flow tips, read books on it, read blogs on it, then implement it!
SUPERVISORY EMPLOYEES MUST PRODUCE REVENUE!: Make sure all supervisors, managers, etc., are producing monthly revenue! They should be filling in, cleaning buildings, delivering supplies, training new employees, solving problems, keeping costs down, etc. ! They should be the hardest working and most productive employees in your organization!
REVIEW IT: Review your cash flow daily, weekly, monthly and make adjustments accordingly! Do it this month and the next and next and so on. BE DISCIPLINED FOR CASH FLOW SUCCESS!

Follow these simple guidelines and watch your Cash Flow in the right direction and most important, when you need it!
Drake

Janitorial Inspections – Top Ten Tips!

What is the real purpose of a janitorial inspection? Is it to find fault, point fingers, let your customer know where you’re lacking? No, it’s to be proactive in finding and fixing the little problems before they become big problems that your customer finds.

The #1 way to keep your customer happy is to keep their facility clean! Don’t ever forget that fact. Yes, your customer needs to like you on a personal level and you need to maintain a friendly, professional relationship, but don’t rely on that to keep you there.

The #1 way to keep a facility clean is to do regular Janitorial Inspections for quality control! Let me just touch on my Top Ten, time tested Inspection Tips that have served me well in 25 years in this great janitorial industry. Remember, people do what you “inspect”, not what you “expect”!

Keep it simple!: One or two page inspections. i.e., Don’t grade every single toilet individually, but give an overall grade of the whole restroom, with comments to your staff about specific deficiencies, like “Restrooms are good overall. Toilet bases and partitions need improvement”, etc.
Frequent Visual and 1 Formal Inspection: Do frequent walkthru visual inspections for you and your staff only and 1 formal inspection for your customer to show that things are up to standards or have been brought up to standards by your inspection date.taking care of things you need to inspect it after it’s been cleaned and before your customer uses the building again.
Have an Inspection checklist: Know what you’re looking for and check off what’s up to standards and what’s deficient.
Inspect it after it’s been cleaned: This may seem obvious, but don’t inspect at the beginning or the middle of a shift. To see how your staff is taking care of things you need to inspect it after it’s been cleaned and before your customer uses the building again.
Know your customers hot spots: Know your customers top priorities. Restrooms, glass doors, dusting? Put extra emphasis on these areas and make sure your staff knows as well.
Fix things now! : When you find deficiencies, fix them yourself now! If a trash can was missed, empty it, if a soap dispenser is empty, fill it. Mark it in your inspection and let your staff know, but take care of it now.
Praise the good!: It’s perfectly acceptable to point out deficiencies, but don’t demoralize your staff. Let your cleaners know what they’re doing right!
Let customers know you’re doing regular Inspections: It strengthens your relationship and shows that your company is serious about taking care of them!
Send your customer a monthly report: This shouldn’t be the inspection that you share with your staff. You don’t want to point out where your staff is lacking, that’s for you and your staff to see and fix. Their report needs to show that things are up to standards or have been brought up to standards by your inspection date.
Do it again: Be consistent! Do inspections this month and next and so on! Whether your customer ever looks at your Monthly Inspection Report or not, they will look at the cleanliness of their building. Remember, the #1 way to keep their facility clean is to do regular Janitorial Inspections for quality control!

If you want to see your customer retention rate skyrocket, do consistent inspections!

Drake

Top Ten Janitorial Business Systems!

A Janitorial Business Leader Manages Systems and Procedures!

The simple definition of Management is, “the act of managing something”. O.K., sounds simple, but exactly what is the “something” that you manage and how do you manage it? If you think it’s you personally managing your business, operations, employees and customers, etc., you’re partially right and completely wrong! Hear me out..you “CANNOT” manage people, operations, payables, receivables, etc.., you can ONLY manage the “System and Procedures” that manages people, operations, payables, etc.!

Business 101 and every successful business franchise model will tell you that they have systems and procedures in place for everything! Look at McDonalds for example. If you eat a cheeseburger and fries in California and one in Georgia, it tastes exactly the same and all their worldwide customers get the same consistent experience. It’s not by chance I can promise you…, it’s because they have systems and procedures in place that cooks the fries exactly 7 minutes and the cheeseburger has the exact same meat size, amount of ketchup, mustard, onions, etc.

Every business type (that wants to thrive and grow) must have specific systems and procedures in place to provide consistent predictable results! When something goes wrong, which is inevitable in any business, the corrective action should be to look at what Systems and Procedures have failed and implement corrective action. There’s countless management books and expensive seminars (which are fine and helpful) on this topic. I could write whole chapters in detail about these systems, but let me just touch on my Top Ten free, time tested Systems and procedures that have served me well in 25 years in this great janitorial industry.

ORGANIZATIONAL SYSTEMS! You must establish a personnel organization chart. From Owner, President, Managers, Supervisors, Team Leaders, general cleaners, etc. Take the time to write out a “Position Contract” for each position, defining responsibilities, duties and who they report to and who reports to them.
HIRING SYSTEMS! You can have the best systems and procedures in the world, but they won’t work without the right people. Before hiring, don’t just rely on a good feeling. Have an initial checklist of initial interview questions i.e. “tell me how you solved a conflict at a previous job”, etc.., check references, do background checks, call former employers, etc. Get the “right people”!
EMPLOYEE SYSTEMS! Telephone clockin sytems with caller ID to track showing up and hours in bldg, dress code, conduct code, call out procedures, time off request procedures, employee/customer interaction procedures, verbal warnings, etc., etc. All this should be in an employee handbook that each employee receives and signs that they will adhere to it. Also, don’t forget affordable Employee Incentives!
TRAINING SYSTEMS! Safety training, new hire training, supervisor training chemical training, floor care, carpet care, etc. Your staff should know and be trained in exactly how it’s expected to be done here!
INSPECTION SYSTEMS! For Quality Control. Scheduled routine and formal building inspections to find and fix deficiences is the #1 Way to keep quality up. Be Proactive. Remember people do what you inspect not what you expect!
CUSTOMER SATISFACTION SYSTEMS! Have a specific customer contact person, keep them informed of what your doing to take care of them through monthly reporting of inspections, floor work, carpet cleaning, supply deliveries, etc. and ask them how you can serve them better through satisfaction surveys and/or face time at least once a month. andThe #1 Way to keep the customer satisfied is to keep their facility clean!
OPERATIONAL SYSTEMS! The day to day operations. How are supplies ordered/delivered, machines and vehicles repaired? Create schedules and procedures for all the mundane things that need to get done. Then delegate and manage the system!
FINANCIAL SYSTEMS! How do you pay for it all? What’s your exact overhead fixed expenses%, variable expenses%, labor%, net profit%? Know exactly what it costs you to run your business monthly, then have systems in place for cash flow, budgeting, accounts payable, receivables, payroll, taxes, etc. Count the costs!
SALES AND MARKETING SYSTEMS! Word of mouth new business is not enough. What’s the most “cost effective” way to systematically market your business and create steady new sales. Believe it or not, I have for years and you can also generate leads with customers calling you to place bids each month with the “right” direct mail marketing system for less than $100 a month! See how in the free bonus, marketing materials section in my CleanGuidePro.com janitorial bidding software!
OPERATION MANUALS! Document all your systems and procedures in operation manuals. Everything should be written in these manuals as if you’re creating a franchise model. Review and update as needed for a “turnkey” business that has actual resale value whether you ever want to sell it or not!

In business the system is the solution!

Drake