This entry is from a 5-part series on building a successful cleaning company.

Just because a potential client is asking for my services does not mean we will be a good fit. I have to truly value my clients, and they me, for us to have a great working relationship. I spend a lot of time thinking about my clients outside of the hours we are actually cleaning their location. For example, a few months ago, I drove an hour away to a peach farm to pick over 800 peaches for my clients. I have been delivering the peaches to them to let them know how much I value them. Now, this gesture is completely meaningless if my company does not do the job we were hired to do.

I only want to have clients that value my employees as much as I do. For example, tipping

commercial cleaners is unheard of in the industry; however, not long ago one of my

clients named John did just that. He wrote a note to the two cleaners thanking them for the

great job they did and left it along with $40 for them to find. I think that was such a

beautiful gesture because he went above and beyond to show appreciation to people who

usually do not get appreciation.

We work after hours, or on weekends, and the people who work in the buildings we clean never see us. The only time a cleaning company gets noticed is when something goes wrong. Well, we go to great lengths to change that. I want my clients to know that we truly care about them and are trying to go above and beyond for them. We are trying to bring the human element back to commercial cleaning. We are not just a service, we are a company that cares about you and we want to do such a good job that you never want to look for another cleaning company again.

We want clients that are not willing to settle for "just okay" service. I take a lot of pride in my company and I have worked very hard to set us apart from the industry. In fact, the main headline of our website is “Changing the Cleaning Industry” for a very specific reason. Cleaning is not difficult; however, I cannot tell you how many times I walk in to give a quote to someone and they say something along the lines of, “we have had 6 cleaning companies in the last 3 years.” I hate hearing this because it automatically makes me not only a commodity, but also the enemy. Here I am, just one more cleaning company promising the world, but will I deliver?

Recently, I hand-delivered peaches picked fresh from a farm in South Carolina to all of my clients as a token of our appreciation because they are all awesome clients. We are grateful they trust us to put in the work to make their location clean and beautiful. Sometimes we make mistakes and fail, but they are fair with their criticism, and allow us to grow and overcome the mistakes we make. It is impossible to hire a company that does not make a single mistake, but it is possible to hire one that owns their mistakes, does everything to mitigate them, and seeks to make things right. Our clients see that we truly want to change the cleaning industry.