Episode #24 -- How Do I Land My First BIG Cleaning Account?

We recently had a member post a question in our discussion forum. Here's what he said. "Okay I'm new, but I've heard wonderful stories about the big accounts. THAT'S WHAT I WANT! Anyone have any advice on landing my first big account? What do I need to know and where can I find them?"

What a great question. If only we could ALL start out by landing those big accounts! You know, every once in a while we hear of someone landing a big account pretty quickly after they started their commercial cleaning business. Whether or not they were able to HANDLE that big account is another story, and why I wanted to talk about it in this episode.

First of all, in most cases it's going to take time to land big accounts. The building owners and managers that hire cleaning contractors for these accounts want companies with a proven track record. In other words, they want to know that you already clean buildings of similar size. In fact, you may not even be allowed to submit a proposal without having experience with the larger buildings. So I know what you're thinking. Well how the heck do I get experience if they all want me to have experience ALREADY? The way to do it is to work your way up.

If you are already cleaning 5,000 sq ft buildings, then start setting your sites on 10,000 sq ft buildings. Once you have a couple of those under your belt, then you go for the 15,000 and 20,000 sq ft buildings, and you keep going up from there.

Once you get up to the 40 or 50,000 sq ft range, it's a lot easier to go for the 75 to 100,000 sq ft buildings.

In our business, we got to the point where we had several buildings that were in the 15 - 20,000 sq ft range, but we had yet to land a larger sized building or an account with several large buildings.

The way WE were able to do it was by building a solid relationship with our janitorial distributor. Let me explain. Steve was there every week ordering supplies, talking about new equipment, chewing the fat with all the guys, and really getting to know them over a period of years. And while he was doing that, they learned more about the type of business owner he was, they knew that the business was growing, they knew many of our customers and always heard good things about our service, AND they knew we always paid our bills early -- which was important to THEM. Because they knew us so well, they occasionally gave us tips on buildings they knew were looking for a new contractor.

We finally got our opportunity at a complex of 5 buildings that ranged from 30 - 50,000 sq ft each, because of this relationship we had built. (NOTE: Do not take this advice to mean you should start asking your distributor for leads - they'll see right through you).

What I'm trying to get across is the fact the it takes time to build relationships that can lead to great referrals. Not only with your distributor, but in your community. Join the Chamber, get to know other members, consider joining BOMA, and so on.

Set your sites on the larger accounts by building solid relationships and creating a history of taking care of business so that you have several clients that will rave about your service -- because these larger accounts WILL call your current clients to find out if you do take care of business.

Ok, I also wanted to talk more about what you need to know when you DO land a large building. You don't want to take them on too soon or you could put your company into financial hardship. And there's many reasons for that. When we got those 5 buildings we had to hire about 15 people all at one time, which is a lot of payroll we had to suddenly pay. Plus, we had to buy equipment for all those buildings. Now we were in a good cash flow position at the time; plus we had secured a line of credit before landing this account; so we were able to seamlessly add the extra expenses.

Not everyone is in that position, so plan ahead and position yourself so that if the opportunity presents itself, you're already financially stable.

I've seen people with the opportunity to land a big, new, shiny account but quickly found out they bit off way more than they could chew. And it's not only the start up expense to consider. How are you going to manage an account of this size? Do you have trained supervisors? Who is going to fill in when people call in sick or don't show up? You can no longer fill this void yourself so you have to have a plan in place for management of the large accounts.

And one more thing. When you get into the larger accounts, you'll also be facing lower profit margins. So if you make a mistake in your estimate, it could cost you thousands of dollars.

Now I don't mean to scare anyone off, because there are a lot of upsides to large accounts - for one, they're actually a lot easier to manage than a dozen small accounts scattered all over. I just want to paint a realistic picture of what it takes to get the larger accounts.

If you plan your growth, create a solid financial foundation for your business, and build solid relationships with your clients and in your community, there is no reason you can't work your way up to the large accounts. And nothing beats the feeling of landing that first BIG account!

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