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Episode 207

Decision Making in Your Cleaning Niche: Episode 207: Mike Campion LIVE

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EPISODE 207
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Episode 207 – Making Every Decision in Your Cleaning Niche

Making the Tough Decisions Day to Day Doesn’t have to Be Time Consuming
Streamline Decision Making Within Your Cleaning Niche
Today Mike coaches Adama Sender owner of Maid Especially in Cleveland, OH on how to make a tough decision in her cleaning niche. Currently Adama only serves residential clients. She was recently asked to clean for her kid’s daycare center and she doesn’t know if she should take it on or not.

KEY POINT: The big key to this is not to make a one time decision
There’s one wrong answer and multiple right answers and you as the business owner have to make the right decision. The wrong answer is to make this decision over and over and over again. To not have a plan and decision “this is who we are and this is what we do and what we don’t do”.

Start with the foundation and then plug any problem into that foundation and see what the right answer is.

Mike uses a premise in all of his businesses with things that are red, yellow and green. Red are things like “Nope, we just don’t do that.”

Yellow is this isn’t ideal and we want to move away from things like this, but it’s not red. It’s not what we want to do but will be considered and is in the real of possibility.

Green is what we are trying to do. I want all my lights across my business to be green from profitability to hiring and hiring and decisions that are made.Apply the red, yellow and green concept to all of your customers within your cleaning niche. Starting with geographical information. For example, out of state would be red…but what are your red, yellow and green lights geographically?

If a customer is an hour away but it’s once a month and $500 it’s yellow. But if they want your normal rate and weekly service they might be Red. Of course, if a prospect is next door to a current customers and they want weekly service, they’re probably going to be Green.

You should re spending all of your marketing dollars attracting Green customers. You aren’t going to waste and of your budget trying to attract less than desirable accounts and you certainly aren’t going to spend any money attracting any Red customers.

Now if someone calls in from your Green light marketing and asks for service and they fall into your Yellow light category, you can decide whether or not they are worthwhile.

RESOURCE ALERT: Discover some amazing niche marketing tactics in this Podcast
Once you have decided what areas you will and won’t serve, next is types of work you will and won’t perform.

If a customer asks youth detail their car that would be an obvious Red.You wouldn’t even have to think about it. If they are a commercial account and you do all residential that might be yellow. And of course a weekly residential request would be a Green light.

There are all sorts of things that are cleaning adjacent that you want to decide once and apply them to the red, yellow and green categories:

  • Drapes
  • Carpets
  • Window
  • Dishes
  • Laundry

Going forward when presented with a job opportunity that deviates from your cleaning niche, you don’t have to waste time or energy thinking about it.

KEY POINT: Once you make those decisions, don’t go back on them
Where you are going to hurt yourself is when another business calls and you get tempted with “Oh it’s so much money…” Just say No. Just like if asked to detail someone’s car, you’ve already made that decision and it’s a definite no. You don’t “think about it” or call someone. It takes no mind space or energy. You would be paralyzed in your business if every time an opportunity was presented to you had to consider it, think about it, and decide.

Going even further, if you only do residential, be clear on who it is you serve.

Things to consider:

The prospect only wants service once a month?
What if it’s a one time cleaning?
They have a condo and they only want to pay $80 a month?
What if they’re rude or don’t pay?
Take 20 minutes and think through what your parameters are. In terms of frequency, money, politeness from the client, how long it takes to drive what color are they? So every time a customer calls with a request, you already know what you are going to accept and not. It will save you time and energy.

Keep in mind you can always reconsider any of these categories, but if you decide to take a jerk client, now you need to change jerks from yellow or red to green. You never make 1 time exceptions. It’s always changing an entire category from one color to another.

Lightning Round:

Best advice you’ve received either personally or professionally?

Trust the process.

What’s the biggest mistake you’ve made in the cleaning business we can all learn from?

Taking on jobs that were out of her comfort zone or to help someone.

What is one idea that cleaning nation can put in practice right away that will improve their lives and/or businesses?

Don’t wait too long to ask for help I you need it.
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