Cleaning Proposal - How To Differentiate?

The Commercial Cleaning Industry is a competitive industry with a large quantity of new companies entering the market daily due to the low barriers of entry. What does this mean to you as a Cleaning Company Business Owner? It means now more than ever it is imperative your cleaning proposals are structured in a way to differentiate you from your competition and help deliver a compelling message to your customers.

We all have seen the generic, traditional cleaning proposal which has the boring same old sections: cover letter with all the stats and history on the company, the specifications, the price, references and sample contract. Most cleaning companies are presenting this traditional format and are not taking the opportunity to be consultants and provide the customer with customized cleaning solutions within their cleaning proposal.

What is a solution? It is just as it sounds; it is a plan of attack and action for solving a problem or challenge. Take the opportunity to focus on solutions and benefits. Look at implementing a consultative approach in your sales process by incorporating the following into your cleaning proposal:

1) Provide a Customer Profile - Look at this as a recap of the current customer environment. By utilizing this approach you are demonstrating to the customer that you were listening to his/her challenges and understand their business environment. Thus, you will want to outline what the current customer business and facility challenges are; what solutions you are providing to combat those associated challenges; what is the result the customer will experience by implementing your solution(s).

2) Highlight What Makes Your Cleaning Company Different (Why "xyz" Cleaning Company) - Provide a concise description of your specific cleaning company advantages or differentiators and what the associated benefit to the customer will be for each advantage. Make sure you are not referencing features of your service but rather unique advantages of your cleaning company.

3) Minimize the customer's risk - One of the take action motivators for a customer to move forward on a specific cleaning proposal is that specific proposal was able to minimize the risk for the customer. What is meant by minimize the risk? Think about it, if you are a new cleaning company in the market and are competing with more established companies, the customer may feel hesitant to move forward with you. Thus, you need to remove the customer's fear by providing additional resources to help combat this perception. Are you outlining staffing profiles, transition plans, or a training matrix? These would be additional tools that may be incorporated into your proposal which more than likely most of your competitors are not doing. Immediately you are differentiating yourself from the "pack".

In summary, focus on what your cleaning company's key differentiators are, so you can translate those advantages into your cleaning proposal. Your goal is to make sure the customer clearly understands from reading over your cleaning proposal what sets your company apart from the rest and how those differentiators will prove to be beneficial in the customer's specific environment.