Spring Clean Your Contracts

When was the last time you dusted off your sales plan and gave it a spruce? Nearly six in 10 salespeople say that when they figure out what works for them, they don’t change it, but what does that mean for a sales strategy in the cleaning industry?

We know that contacts are key and time is of the essence when it comes to cleaning sales, so we’ve given you some helpful pointers so that you can get the most out of your sales strategy.

Give value for money over price

Within the cleaning industry, it can be tempting to undercut a competitor price to snare that hard-to-win tender. But this could damage your profit margin in the long term and lose out on clients in the long-term if you need to put your prices up. If you are a more expensive service, then don’t be afraid to say why and sell those benefits. Share details about the quality of the services and products you provide, provide an in-depth look at the frequency of your cleaning schedule and show them the difference you can make to maintaining their premises with photos and customer testimonials.

Look at your results

Cleaning contracts can be elusive, tenders are often for periods of 1+ years, so you need to keep records on your potential customers. Have you found out the expiration dates of tenders you’re interested in and setting up reminders for when they are near? That’s the perfect time to connect with your prospect and reach out to try and arrange a sales meeting. If you’ve met them previously, but they didn’t convert into a sale – why not? What can you do to improve that relationship to stand a chance of winning a tender? It might be reviewing the products you offer, the standard of your services, or it might be as simple as connecting with a different person in that business. Whatever you’ve done or are doing, keep a record so you can look at your results and find areas to improve on.

Get to know your prospects

Within the cleaning industry, finding the right person to connect with can be a challenge. It can be time consuming to find the person with the decision-making ability that will get you a new contract. Are they a cold prospect, have you ever spoken to them before? Or have they already visited your website/spoken with you so they’re already in your sales funnel? On average, it takes 18 calls to convert someone and get a sale. Within the cleaning industry it can take even longer, because of the length of contracts, so continuously monitoring and staying in touch with your contacts is essential – knowing information about them is key to using your time wisely. This is an area that you could consider outsourcing to free up your time.

You don’t know what you don’t know

The cleaning industry is like most others; relationships are key. By spending time improving your network, reading industry news and collecting information on your prospects you will give yourself a chance to connect and develop quality relationships that deliver meaningful contracts and sales. If sales is out of your comfort zone, then  LinkedIn has plenty of resources to help get you started and HubSpot has some great research to help you get into your buyers mind-set.