Cover Story The difficult part is that this may require a leap of faith on your part. You must firmly believe that you know what you are doing and are making the right decisions, even when you canʼt prove it and when others question your actions — and your sanity. A primary goal of the business owner or manager must be the desire to gain and maintain a competitive edge over your competition. Write it down, read it daily, develop an action plan with due dates and make it hap-pen. can save in these areas, especially if you havenʼt gotten quotes in a couple of years. delay the cleaning of less visible areas? Can you reduce an eight-hour position to seven hours per day? Chances are that doing so will have no impact on quality in most locations. Pricing Some business owners suggest raising your prices to cover higher costs. This may be a risky option as it encour-ages your customers to put your account out to bid. What if you lower your prices? Well, you control your costs; you donʼt control your customersʼ budgets. Therefore, it makes sense to deal with what you do control rather than what you donʼt control. If you want a price increase, reduce your labor costs internally instead of asking the customer for more money. Many contractors report that they are getting cancellation notices from some of their customers who are facing hard times. Take a proactive approach and talk to your customers to let them know that you value their business and will do whatever it takes to retain them as a customer. Let each customer know that you will be taking a close look at their account in an effort to find cost savings without reducing the quality of service provided. Then, pass the savings on to the customer. This will go a long way in cementing your relationship with each customer and will help you avoid unexpected cancellation notices. Look at cleaning specifications for cost savings. Specifications are often excessive because they are added to over time in an effort to improve quality. Look at cutting in half the frequencies for burnishing, stripping, scrubbing and recoat-ing hard floors. Frequencies are often based on the type of floor covering and not the needs of each area in a building or facility. Do the same for carpet cleaning: Will low-moisture interim cleaning allow you to delay the need for more expensive deep cleaning? Another area to look at is window clean-ing. Can frequencies be cut in half without a significant loss of appearance, or can you schedule only the most visible glass and People Realizing that the cost of cleaning is all about production rates, donʼt overlook the value of and the need to provide ongoing training and upward mobility for your staff, especially during times of financial uncer-tainty. The reality is that you are going to pay a fair cost for labor one way or the other. You can develop your staff and increase production and reduce turnover, or you can pay higher costs for supervision, employee turnover, account cancellations and hiring costs. We are often so busy selling and servic-ing our accounts that we donʼt take the time to develop the employees who make it all happen. Obvious Places To Look For Improvement Look at management. Are you utilizing computerization in as many aspects of your business as possi-ble? Are letters, proposals and bids standard-ized? Do you have written policies, procedures and checklists that outline and help assure that things will get done the way they are supposed to be done? Do you get regular financial reports and are you using them to determine how to operate your business? Do you receive and review a monthly or quarterly balance sheet, profit and loss statement, along with income and expense projections? Have you updated your credit line and credit cards to see if a lower rate is avail-able? Are your credit line and cards secured? Many companies are being notified by their banks and credit card companies that limits have been lowered, rates have increased or accounts have been can-celled. It is also a good idea to audit your state and federal tax reports to make sure that you are taking advantage of all the pro-grams and deductions that are available. This includes looking for ways to reduce unemployment and workerʼs compensation rates and claims. Review insurance policies as well as phone, cable and Internet service provider (ISP) contracts and put these out for com-petitive bid. You may be surprised at how much you Resources To Help You Find And Keep The Edge www.iicrc.org Cleaning industry certification body, which has also written standards on carpet clean-ing, water damage and mold restoration. www.ieha.org Health care/hospitality focus. www.custodialadvisorsnetwork.com Question and answer forum. www.ciri-research.org Cutting-edge scientific research about cleaning with videos available. www.nationalproclean.com A helpful site with inexpensive bidding software, books and consulting support. www.usgbc.org Information on the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program and green cleaning. You can print out standards. www.iaqradio.com www.jancast.com Internet talk radio programs. 12 CM/Cleaning & Maintenance Management ® • August 2009
CMM – Archives Aug 2009: 12
