contractor success Diversifying With CLEANING Why building service contractors should consider adding window cleaning services to their offerings. By: Jason Vance Window actions and would add another $600, making the total value of that customer now $1,800. When used properly, the number of transactions can be a very valuable tool to help increase revenue. D Diversification is one of those growth strat-egies that just makes sense for a building service contractor (BSC). If done right, it can be a low-cost way to boost your revenue. The easiest sell any sales person can make is to a relationship that is already developed. The customer already trusts you and your company’s services. When I think of sales revenue, I think of the five factors that make up your revenue and profit for a customer in any given year: 1. Number of leads 2. Conversion rate 3. Average dollar sale 4. Number of transactions 5. Profit margin. When we are talking about diversification, we are talking about the fourth factor used to boost revenue: Number of transactions. We are talking about ways to increase the number of transactions or times that your customer buys from you. This, then, increases the overall value of a customer for a given year. An example of this would be along the lines of the following: Your customer, ABC Widgets, currently has a cleaning schedule of a monthly office cleaning — 12 cleanings in a given year. For easy math, let’s say that each clean-ing was $100, making your current value of that customer $1,200 a year. Now, let’s say you added a monthly win-dow cleaning at $50 per cleaning. This would double the number of trans-Why Window Cleaning? Simply put, there is a good return on invest-ment (ROI). The cost of tools and equipment can be minimal, and the need is already there. Windows, fortunately, keep getting dirty, leading to a high-frequency service plan. A typical service plan for an office build-ing may be the interior/exterior of the entrances monthly and the interior/exterior of the building seasonally — in spring/fall or summer/winter. My golden rule in business is: Find the repeat business and you will find the profits. As a BSC, I am sure you are already aware of that. The advantages of offering window clean-ing as an add-on include: ■ Increased revenue. This is done by increasing the value of your current customer. ■ Low start-up cost. The cost of the equip-ment for one technician is under $200. ■ Quick learning curve. Training your technicians is easy to do, and if you have a good employee who is a quick learner, I would expect them to have For high-rise window cleaning, a rope and pulley system is the most common apparatus used to move workers around. Image courtesy of Abhi Ahmadadeen
CMM – Archives Jan 2012: 37
