FEATURE
LOOKING BACK TO MOVE FORWARD
As we say goodbye to 2016 and welcome in the New Year, Ron Segura, President of
Segura & Associates, looks back on the previous year, and examines how we can use what has happened in 2016, to make 2017 better.
Now that 2016 is behind us, this is a perfect time for cleaning contractors to take a serious look at their companies, evaluate how well the past year went, and to see if any trends, including good and maybe not-so- good ones, seem to be developing.
To accomplish this, what I suggest is for cleaning contractors to ask themselves the following questions:
• Did your company meet its profit goals in 2016? (Hopefully you have profit goals; remember, goals give you and your business a target to shoot for.)
• How does your reputation compare with that of your competitors? (Everyone today looks at online reviews, whether they are selecting a toaster or hiring a contract cleaner; become very focused on maintaining a good reputation for your company.)
• How well did your management team perform this past year?
• How successful was your 2016 marketing campaign compared to that of past years?
• Did you lose any accounts in 2016 because of price?
As far as the contract cleaning industry goes, there was not a specific trend shared by all in the professional cleaning industry in 2016. Some contractors were forced to reduce staff and scale back for a myriad of different reasons, while others experienced steady growth and still others achieved substantial growth.
However, we are seeing somewhat of a trend when it comes to add- on services. While some larger contractors have been very successful in introducing new add-on services,
30 | Tomorrow’s Cleaning
many others have decided to reduce or eliminate these services. We are talking about such things as lighting services, parking lot cleaning, landscaping, and so on. In some cases, what these contractors found was that the market was considerably smaller than they anticipated or simply too hard to break into.
Because of this, many cleaning contractors have reevaluated both current and, more importantly, future prospects for these add-on services. If they find the future does not look promising, many have decided to forgo these add-ons and focus their attention on their core business.
While it is difficult to detect specific trends, we are seeing the beginnings of some possible new directions. This New Year will likely determine if these trends have real traction. These include the following:
• Some cleaning contractors were able to identify new and specific needs and services for existing customers that helped them increase revenues. In other words, these were add-on services but only for specific clients.
• We are seeing more cleaning contractors put greater emphasis on marketing and new marketing strategies. This has helped them successfully gain new clients.
• During the recession, many cleaning contractors held off on purchasing new cleaning tools and equipment. However, with the recession behind us, they are now selecting new equipment and entirely new cleaning technologies. This has helped them streamline their cleaning operations, reduce costs, and improve profits.
• Contractors working with school districts and similar organisations experiencing budget cuts have developed abbreviated cleaning programmes that have allowed them to keep their customers and address these budget constraints. In other words, they thought ‘outside the box’ and demonstrated they were a true partner with their customers.
One promising direction we are observing is more cleaning contractors taking a ‘team’ approach to their businesses. Historically, cleaning companies have been very fragmented. There are the owners of the business, the supervisors, and then everyone else. The owners decide something, the supervisors enforce it, and the cleaning workers follow instructions.
Now what we are seeing is many successful cleaning contractors meeting with their entire staff regularly, soliciting comments from them, and listening very carefully to their questions and suggestions.
This team approach can pay off in many different ways. Not only does everyone feel they are on the same team, they now share in the goals for the company; service standards often improve; the company runs more efficiently; and the overall view of the company is enhanced, which can lead to further growth.
And this team approach is expanding beyond just the cleaning company and its workers. Successful cleaning contractors are now adding their clients to their team. All parties are sharing the same goals and working together to ensure they are achieved.
www.seguraassociates.com
twitter.com/TomoCleaning
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