How to Market to Property Managers
In today’s episode Mike coaches Ricky Edwards of Burlington Janitorial Services http://www.burlingtonjanitorialservice.com on how to market to property managers.

First you have to decide on whether or not you want to niche with property managers. There are benefits and disadvantages with every niche so you have to weigh them out against your financial and lifestyle goals.

The good thing about property managers is they represent a huge opportunity. They can be a great way to get many big accounts with one point of contact.

The flips side to that opportunity is it can be slow going.

Generally you get a property manager who controls a million sqft of property, you aren’t going to be able to walk in and expect them to make a quick decision to use you for all or even some of their properties. They are going to take their time, get to know you, build a relationship before trusting you enough to give you a crack at a tiny job.

That job is basically an interview for a larger job and so on. It make take a year or two before you have built up enough goodwill and trust to get the big accounts with them.

They are also a lot more price sensitive typically than building owners and business owners. Business owners are going to have more first hand experience with how clean a facility is, how it affects them, their employees, their customers..their everything. They are going to be more in tuned to the value you bring as a cleaner to their business and day to day.

Property managers are more geared towards the bottom line and cleaning their facilities is more a matter of ‘it has to be done’ than ‘I really want this done’. They are held accountable to numbers and profit margins for the building owners. So anyway they can cut expenses they will do that.

However, the work with property managers can come like an avalanche. You may work for months or years with a property manager to build up to a level of confidence they have with you, but once you have that confidence you may get a mountain of work.

Property managers are a small community. Once you build rapport with one property manager you may be referred to other managers.

Now that we have that settled and if you are still on board with property managers, let’s get on to the technical side of How to Market to Property Managers.

First and foremost you have to understand the lifetime value of a client. A typical property manager could have a million square feet of commercial space they need cleaned. They could absolutely bury you in contracts. You have to be OK with spending 9 months and $5,000 to woo that client knowing that down the road the return on that time and money could be massive.

BONUS TIP: Step one is to attract them, not chase them.

The way that you are going to attract them online is to use a lead magnet. It isn’t going to be about you, it’s going to be about what’s interesting to them. Find out what they want, their hopes and dreams and create something for them that solves their pain and passion.

Then you want to also create a lot of content. That can be a blog you write every week and they subscribe to, it can be a podcast or even interview property managers.

Content can come in so many forms, written word, video or audio, the important thing is to find out where property managers like to get their information and create content for them on those mediums. So if they are watching youtube, create a channel for them. If they listen to podcast, make a podcast, if they read magazines, write an article there that serves them and their interests.

The content can be something like how to deal with move in- move outs, how to deal with angry owners, something that is of interest and value to them that you can solve with your services.

BONUS TIP: Property Managers aren’t interested in cleaning and your company. They are interested in things that benefit them.

Use that content to get them onto your list. In exchange for this lead magnet, or subscribe to this blog, give me your name, address, phone or email address so I can continue this conversation with you.

Then you can start to email them, or send them gifts until they either decide to buy from you or tell you to go away. Send them things that are valuable to them. If what you are sending is interesting and valuable to them, you can send them something every day! But if it’s about you and how great your services are, don’t send them anything! It’s all about the value you bring to their world.

Marketing to them offline is similar. You are going to identify property managers you want to work with and communicate with them in a similar way. If you are going to go offline, I would pick your dream 100.

Your dream 100 are the top clients you want that you know would rock your world if you could get contracts with them.

I have talked about the dream 100 before on this podcast https://oldsite.growmycleaningcompany.comhow-to-get-commercial-cleaning-contracts/ The dream 100 is a concept I stole from Chet Holmes in his book The Ultimate Sales Machine.

Once you have your dream 100, you can really go after them.

Call them or put together a lunch and learn.

With the lunch and learns, make a short presentation on something they are interested in and serve food. Maybe even give them something like a report on commercial real estate in their area. Something with high value and interest to them.

The goal is to move from a formal business relationship to almost a friendship where they know, like and trust you.

Look at it as a long game tactic. If you are creative and consistent you are going to be miles ahead of your competition. There is something very different from calling every few weeks to offer services and inviting them to a party at Mortons where you buy them food and drink and give them great content they’re interested in.

BONUS TIPS: This tactic works for every niche.

Lightning Round
Stay humble, work hard. Be the hardest worker in the room.
Know how much solution to use when stripping a floor.