Episode 162 Jennifer Bulkley ASC Cleaning Services
Want Better Cleaning Business Marketing?
Jennifer Bulkley with ASC Cleaning Services asks Mike how to supercharge her cleaning business marketing. She What decision makers should she go after? How to get past the gatekeepers and get your cleaning business marketing efforts in front of the decision makers? All that and more in this podcast/ blog!

FUN FACT: We just had Jennifer’s husband Larado on the last podcast- check out Larado’s Podcast HERE
Before Mike dives into cleaning business marketing and gatekeepers, he gives Jennifer and Cleaning Nation some encouragement. Jennifer and Larado have decided to focus their efforts on a the medical niche. That kind of focus will make all of her cleaning business marketing far more effective.

Once you have identified your niche, it is time to get to know them. It’s not enough just to know the title of the decision maker. You need to know who they are and what makes them tick. To get the most out of your cleaning business marketing you need demographics and psychographic information.

Demographics are the typical basic facts you want to know about your prospect:

Age
Sex
Income
Education
Locaion
Marital Status
Psychographics are more about how your prospect feels about things. What is important to them.

What blogs do they read? Magazines they subscribe to?
Who did they vote for?
What are they passionate about
What are their greatest fears and frustrations
RESOURCE ALERT: For a deeper discussion on demographics and psychographics, check out Michael Gerber’s book the eMyth
A lot of demographic information is available on the internet. Both government and private companies offer quite a bit of demographic information on businesses, companies and the decision makers in them. Some of it is free and some you have to pay for. Remember, national data is going to differ from data in your area. Get as much information specific to your area as possible.

Psychographic data is much harder to get. You will probably have to compile it yourself. The bad news is: It’s hard work.It’s boring and tedious. The good news is because it is so boring and tedious, no one else in your market will take the time to get it!

When you dig in and do this type of research you will be the only one in your market with that data. That puts you in a better position than anyone in the world for your cleaning business marketing to succeed.

KEY POINT: Once you have good demographic and psychographic data- your competitors won’t be able to compete with your cleaning business marketing
You will be having conversations around what keeps your customers and prospects up at night. Your competitors will be stuck talking about “being green” and lowering prices.

Ok genius- how do I obtain this magical psychographic data???

Ask!

There are many creative ways to ask your customer about themselves. You can use a survey. Online is easier- face to face will get you more value. Have a dozen conversations with your ideal prospect and the data you are looking for will start to materialize.

Here are some of the questions you might ask:

How did you get into this business? Why did you choose it?
What is your favorite/ least favorite thing about it?
If you could change one thing about your business (or your life) what would it be?
What is your biggest frustration in business?
What are you passionate about? Why?
The magic isn’t in the questions, it is in the listening! If you can get a dozen of those conversations a couple of really exciting things are going to happen…

You will know your market better than anyone else.
Many of the people you survey will ask you to give them a bid.
KEY POINT: DON’T SELL! Let them buy if they want
Once you have compiled all of that data, you can go back to the people who didn’t request a bid from you and ask if they would be interested in your findings. People can’t resist hearing about how they compare to their colleagues and will typically be very interested.

This gives you the opportunity to go back and share the pain and frustration you found in people like them and discuss how you can use that data to set up your company to solve that pain. This is going to be very compelling marketing for your cleaning business!

In addition to surveys, you can gather this info with a super fun tool- the Lunch & Learn. Here’s how:

Put together information that is interesting to your prospect
Invite your ideal prospects to a group lunch
Buy lunch & present the interesting information you put together
Encourage them to network, have fun and get to know each other
Wanna supercharge the process? Interview them as they leave asking about their experience and get it on video. This will create some amazing content/ testimonials for your cleaning business marketing efforts. Ask the people at your lunch & learn if you can interview them 1 on 1. Ask your 1 on 1 interviews if they would like to attend a lunch & learn. Mix and match- have some fun. At the end of the day, you are going to be a stone cold expert on these decision makers and have tons raw materials for your cleaning business marketing!

KEY POINT: Demographic and Psychographic data is the foundation for all of your cleaning business marketing messaging
What about the gatekeepers? When you call and ask for the decision maker, put yourself in their shoes. Which do you think will make them more likely to put you through?

“Hi, I’m John with John’s Cleaning- can I talk to your boss about your cleaning services?”

or…

“Hey I’m putting on a super fun event at a fancy local restaurant and I thought your boss might be into a free meal and getting to know some of the top people in your industry”

Before the fun ends, Mike gives Jennifer the opportunity to share with Cleaning Nation in the…