Transforming the Cleaning Industry through Mentorship

I never truly set out to be a business leader, even though entrepreneurship has been a part of my life since my childhood days in Hungary. However, leadership has become a passion of mine because of the success, growth, and lessons I’ve had over my career as an employee through to a business owner. I credit my experience as an employee – specifically as an Executive Assistant – for giving me an understanding of running a business, particularly as it relates to operations, communications, and team building.

As Clean Club Calgary continues to grow, I’ve had the honour of supporting other professional cleaning business owners to augment their businesses because of my experience. Things I know that help Clean Club Calgary to provide a great customer experience including how to work with high expectations, how to be adaptable, and how to lead a team of diverse individuals. In particular, I discovered that I have a knack for working with people, supporting them in their growth and success. This is crucial for any business to truly grow. 

Moreover, I am dedicated to improving the standards and regulations of the professional cleaning industry here in Canada. By working with other cleaning business owners, we can raise the standards and reputation of the entire cleaning industry. 

With the business owners I am mentoring, there have been three primary areas that are most often overlooked when trying scale.

Systems and Processes

We can have the best customer service, but if the backend of our business is in chaos, we cannot grow or provide a consistent experience. This is where our systems and processes come into play.

Ultimately, this comes down to understanding process mapping - the beginning to end requirements of your business, both from a customer experience and an internal one. These items often include: 

• Customer journey from the initial call through to invoicing and payment collection.
• Developing proper quoting systems that are as detailed as possible to ensure a proper quote. Personally, Jobber has been a great investment to not only quote effectively and efficiently but level up our entire customer experience as well.
• Clear customer communication for clarity on which services will be delivered, which services were delivered, and who will/did provide the services themselves. This often involves working with the client’s expectations and communicating what is and isn’t realistic. For example, when engaging a new cleaning company, the first cleaning most always takes a little bit longer due to the nature of the clean. From there, professional cleaners find their groove and future cleanings may not require as much time.
• Team scheduling and coordination systems, particularly if a customer requests a specific individual and skill set.
• Team support for training and ongoing support while working on the job. Currently, Clean Club Calgary uses Slack, Trainual, and BambooHR to provide access to information and team members throughout the day.
• Hiring processes to ensure quality applicants apply and the right individuals are hired.
• Training processes that include investing in ongoing training as new techniques and products become available on the market.

Each business is unique; however, each requires processes clearly defined and communicated to the team to ensure consistency AND to improve over time.

Ask yourself: What processes and systems do you currently have in place? Are they communicated, documented, and easily accessed?

Hiring for Fit and Skills

It’s one thing to have the proper hiring processes and tools in place (e.g., job ad placement, easy online application forms, etc.), however, if the right people aren’t being hired, turnaround and lower customer satisfaction will quickly follow. 

When hiring, it’s important that businesses hire individuals who are like-minded and aligned in their values with your company’s. What this does is provide clarity on expectations.

Of course, “hire for personality fit, train the skills,” is easy to say, but how do you do this?

Role play! That’s right - role play is huge in our own hiring process. For instance, we walk through real-world scenarios, such as how to work with a difficult customer, how to support a customer who isn’t clear on what they need, how to outline expectations versus budget, and so forth. This provides insight into who the person is and where they may require further development.

It’s also important to have the proper training tools in place for those individuals you do hire. At Clean Club, we have an in-depth training program, which I walk my business consultant clients through, so they can see the importance of investing in proper onboarding and ongoing training.

It’s one thing to hire the right people. It’s another to keep them.  

Ask yourself: What hiring techniques do you have in place? What ongoing team support do you have? Are there opportunities for your people to grow within your company?

Succession Plan Realities

So many businesses run into the dreaded reality of not properly preparing for leaving their business.

I know that at some point, I will sell Clean Club Calgary (don’t worry – not for the foreseeable future). Getting everything in place and having the right processes, people, and brand reputation are key value drivers for the succession plan I’m working towards.

When we start to think about what we want the business to be when we are ready to leave and/or sell, we are better able to:

• Remove bottlenecks that slow down the business. Often this is the business owner themselves (guilty!). Removing the owner is a “must” in the business as it allows us to think more logically about the business itself without our ego guiding decisions.
• Focus on developing an experience that builds the company’s reputation, team confidence and engagement, and customer satisfaction.
• See what items, services and processes no longer serve and/or hinder the company’s vision.
• Develop systems that allow the business owner to have a “touch-free” business where we can take time away without worrying that the business itself will stop or implode.
• Identify risk mitigation techniques and solutions that should be further developed into processes and systems.

Ask yourself: What is your succession plan? How will you achieve this? Do you know the timeline needed to make it come to fruition?

Ultimately, most business owners want to set their company up for success. This means empowering our people to be independent, to have the knowledge (or access to it) for when questions arise, and have ownership and pride over their role within the business. Business is rarely about us – the owner. It’s about why we started the business and who will help serve this greater purpose.

I am fortunate to understand what I need in my ‘tool belt’ for business growth. This is why, I believe, other businesses have reached out for this unique support to set their business – and their people – up for success.

If you are curious about what tools your business, specifically your cleaning business, could benefit from, I am an open book. Reach out to see how we can work together. I truly believe that this is an industry where collaboration – not competition – can and will thrive. Send me a message and let’s chat!