Is hiring a team and growing your business top of mind? Commercial cleaning, janitorial, and maintenance service companies often overlook the back-of-house operations that help grow their business. As much as you need frontline personnel to service your clients, hiring a solid sales team is equally important.
In this industry, there are many things to consider as a small business owner when the economic landscape changes, or in the case of recent days, is volatile and unpredictable. In strained economic times, starting or growing a small business can be risky, even for those opening a recession-resistant business like commercial cleaning.
As an owner or operator, keeping that “business mentality” outside of the product or service you’re offering is important. Owners and operators must develop robust business plans, be ready to pivot, and invest in people to keep their commercial cleaning or maintenance business viable and profitable.
For many entrepreneurs, hiring the right salespeople to get the revenue stream flowing is the first step. In the commercial cleaning franchise sector, entrepreneurs come from all backgrounds, professional experiences, and skill levels to launch unit franchises designed to help them succeed. While some have excellent back-of-house expertise and others shine on the front lines, commercial cleaning or maintenance business owners must focus on hiring the right people to create a balanced team.
When combing through resumes and interviewing candidates, there are some common mistakes you can avoid to build a winning team for your business.
Hiring a marketer instead of a true salesperson
Don’t make the mistake of hiring a marketing person when you need a salesperson. The lines sometimes get blurred between these two departments. If you suspect someone with a “business development” background may be a marketer, ask the right questions. Are they able to accurately communicate the need for professional cleaning services? Are they problem solvers? Are they client-centric? Although they do work very closely together, sales and marketing serve different purposes for your business.
Hiring the wrong sales persona for the position
Choose the right candidate for your business. Take a look at the five types of salespeople below, consider which category your current sales reps fall into, and adjust as needed.
- Order taker: This person is pleasant, reliable, and typically inexpensive but does not excel at prospecting, following up, or closing.
- Business developer: This candidate creates new business opportunities, but they could present a weakness when making the necessary number of cold calls or visits.
- Account manager: These types build client relationships, generally follow-through, and demonstrate a high close rate, but may be weak in prospecting, as their experience tends to be limited.
- Closer: This person excels in the sales process when given a warm lead and is highly skilled at getting prospects to a decision point. Similar to the centre on a basketball team, think about them putting up a lot of points, but needing the team to feed them the ball before they finish the job.
- Prospecting closer: This candidate is the overall sales professional. This could be considered the jack of all trades, often not as effective as closers or as skilled at relationship management as the account managers. On the basketball court, the prospecting closer is like the point guard, creating opportunities and finishing at the hoop, but rarely outscoring the star centre.
Everyone on your commercial cleaning or maintenance sales team has specific strengths and weaknesses, so don’t hitch the future of your business to just one salesperson’s wagon.
Hiring someone who regularly colours outside the lines
When building and managing your commercial cleaning or maintenance sales team, be on the lookout for salespeople who disregard the standard to suit their needs. Set up clear incentives, measurement tools, standard operating procedures, and expectations from day one, and regularly review those with your reps.
Discovering new sales leads and closing contracts can make or break your business, so your sales reps need to understand the importance of anticipating customer needs.
Not empowering your sales superstars
One of the best things you can do for your sales team is to measure the right things at the right time to empower your superstars. Measure and report behaviors that lead to results – every day. It could be appointments, bids, or follow-up calls. Once they get the process down, you can then move to weekly progress reports. If someone falls behind, reassess behaviors and outcomes daily until they improve.
The success of your sales team (and your business) ties directly to the growth of your objectives and the feedback from your clients. Remember, learning about the commercial cleaning and maintenance industry from the client’s viewpoint is an experiential journey. Clients are looking to fill a no-frills need and outcome. Ensure your team understands the “desired need and expected outcome” from the start and reverse engineer the processes for a sales team of stars.
Adam Povlitz is CEO & President of Anago Cleaning Systems, one of the world’s leading franchised commercial cleaning companies and a leader in technological advances relating to business operations and janitorial services.
