Who Is Your Avatar? Who is that ideal client? In this episode, I unpack what you need to do to define your avatar and why you need one if you want to have a large cleaning business.
You need to figure out who you're going to target. Take out a sheet of paper. On one side, write out every single service you are currently offering or want to offer. Are they in alignment? Are they generating revenue? Or are you carrying dead weight because you're spending time marketing a service that nobody is buying?
Then on the other side of the paper, write out every niche you'd like to target. Make a list of churches, schools, office buildings, etc. Here's the hard part: pick only one to start. Why? It helps eliminate distractions. Instead of being pulled in with all of the client possibilities out there, you are now focused on one. Dive in deep to that one. Be known as the expert within that niche, like a "school cleaning expert" or a "bank cleaning expert". Change up your website copy and blog.
Now dive deep into that niche. Go to Google and google, "schools near me" or "dentists near me" or whatever niche you want to target. Open up Excel or Google Sheets and put headings on the top, like Company name, Company address, Company URL, and so forth. As you find leads, fill them in and grow. With a simple Google search, you have all the information you need to call and mail them. Use sites like Hunter dot io or Seamless dot ai to find emails. You can now email your list.
Dive deeper into that avatar. Where do they hang out? Figure out what associations they belong to or networking groups they attend. Find individuals who can connect you to. Always ask for referrals.
Now, all you have to do is to prospect to them. Grow a large business!
If you felt this show is worth 5-starts, I would truly appreciate a rating and review through whatever platform you happen to be listening on.
This podcast is brought to you by My Clean Pivot, LLC. Face it, we all need help growing our businesses. Check out My Clean Pivot if you're looking to grow your business to that next level. www.mycleanpivot.com.
Who Is Your Avatar? Who is that ideal client? In this episode, I unpack what you need to do to define your avatar and why you need one if you want to have a large cleaning business.
You need to figure out who you're going to target. Take out a sheet of paper. On one side, write out every single service you are currently offering or want to offer. Are they in alignment? Are they generating revenue? Or are you carrying dead weight because you're spending time marketing a service that nobody is buying?
Then on the other side of the paper, write out every niche you'd like to target. Make a list of churches, schools, office buildings, etc. Here's the hard part: pick only one to start. Why? It helps eliminate distractions. Instead of being pulled in with all of the client possibilities out there, you are now focused on one. Dive in deep to that one. Be known as the expert within that niche, like a "school cleaning expert" or a "bank cleaning expert". Change up your website copy and blog.
Now dive deep into that niche. Go to Google and google, "schools near me" or "dentists near me" or whatever niche you want to target. Open up Excel or Google Sheets and put headings on the top, like Company name, Company address, Company URL, and so forth. As you find leads, fill them in and grow. With a simple Google search, you have all the information you need to call and mail them. Use sites like Hunter dot io or Seamless dot ai to find emails. You can now email your list.
Dive deeper into that avatar. Where do they hang out? Figure out what associations they belong to or networking groups they attend. Find individuals who can connect you to. Always ask for referrals.
Now, all you have to do is to prospect to them. Grow a large business!
If you felt this show is worth 5-starts, I would truly appreciate a rating and review through whatever platform you happen to be listening on.
This podcast is brought to you by My Clean Pivot, LLC. Face it, we all need help growing our businesses. Check out My Clean Pivot if you're looking to grow your business to that next level. www.mycleanpivot.com.
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Who is your avatar? Who is that ideal client, you would love to have? A I'm Mark Lineberry with the on the mop and today I'm going to talk about building the avatar. What's about why you need one and how it can help your business grow. But first, each episode, I want to include a pro tip something well, resource or full cup, something that helps your business grow to that next level. And I'm going to talk about this Do you sometimes feel stuck within your business? And do you wished her you feel there's like a resource out there like an experienced team that could help you get over that next hump, or that next hurdle or obstacle? Guys check out the Small Business Development Center SBDCs are broken down in our regional affiliates, and our even a partner program with the Small Business Administration. In fact, they offer help for free business consulting free and at cost training weekly and monthly webinars. In fact, this month, we talked about, well growing through COVID, cybersecurity, and like we talked about marketing trends, and even working with QuickBooks. They have one on one mentoring. Some locations even offer the use of their office or center for meetings, or employee interviews. And if you guys are looking for guidance and starting up your business or helping grow into next level, definitely check out the SBDC or Small Business Development Center. You can find them on the web at America's sbdc.org fact I was watching a recent F episode of undercover billionaire as the first season and Glen I forgot the guy's last name but he owns the finance company is on there he is you utilizing the SPDC a lot to grow his business absolutely free during his during his startup in that show, but his awesome way anyway. Back to what we're talking about with avatars, what are they? And why you need one? Well, who is your avatar? Who's that ideal client? It D No. I mean, is it 1000? square foot office spaces it may million square foot office park? Is $100 a month in monthly recurring revenue back into your pocket? Or is it $100,000 A month in monthly recurring revenue? Is your ideal client a school? Is it a bank? Is it medical? Is it residential? Is your avatar ideal client a low bid or no bid situation? Those are great. Or are you bidding against 50 others or as my business partner likes to do he makes movie noises under his breath has were herded around like cattle throughout a walk through joint walk through. Where's your avatar located? Is it in your city? Is it in your county is it 30 minutes away is an hour away? Guys, you gotta figure all that out before you start your business. Or if you haven't done it already, you can sit down and go through this exercise. So here's, here's what I'd like you to do. If you want to create a largest business he definitely read need to refine that avatar that ideal client, I want you to take out two sheets of paper or take out one sheet and use the other side whatever's on the one side, make a list of all the different services that you would like to provide. There's no wrong answer. So move in, move out commercial kitchen cleaning, janitorial border, disinfecting, specialty floor work, window cleaning, and so many others make a list of all the different services that you provide now or you'd like to provide in the future and make that list. And here's why you want to do that. As a background, I got started in sales in 1997. The company that I co own now got started 1978 I turned around bought them in 2010 2011 Somewhere around there. When in the early days, at least when I was working there and certainly before then universal janitorial services offered services to everyone providing everything, everything but the kitchen sink I think maybe even that too. So they offered supply cells they offer temporary outsourcing they offered maid services course janitorial Porter, disinfecting specialty floor work, they offered window cleaning, commercial kitchen cleaning, they offered one time cleaning, they offered residential cleaning to certain folks. They offered parking attendant services, they offered maintenance services, they offered some landscaping, they offered snow removal. And they even offered a personal chef service. And yes, I was the one coming in. And being that Chef if our chef called in sick, so I had to do all that. And when we took over in 2011 we realize look how much we're providing. Every year the term or the phrase, jack of all trades but master of none right? We were master of nothing, couldn't even hang our hat on none were just I mean, we're just floundering out there. So what we did, we made a list when we took over, what 10 years ago or so we made a list of all the different services we provided. And then we went back into our accounting history, we pulled up the revenue pulled for each service. And we realized that 95% of our revenue just fell in three services, janitorial Porter, and specialty floor work. All the rest wasn't even bringing revenue. So it meant that we were spending time, money, energy resources, marketing, confusion with all of our clients, just to sell services that no one was even buying. A confused client never buys, by the way. So if you're offering a ton services, definitely consider honing that down. There's nothing wrong if you want to provide law services, if it's going to bring you revenue, but it wasn't even bringing us revenue, we're just spinning our gears, getting absolutely nothing for it. So turn the sheet over and get that second sheet that I told you about. Now make a list of all the different niches, types of businesses that you would like to clean. So these might be banks, schools, churches, places of worship warehouses, industrial car dealerships, parking garages, residential community, gems, banks, and so many others, make a list of all those different business types. And reason you want to do this, there's a couple of reasons. First off, I'll dive into the second reason here in a second, but it's so easy to get distracted, I get the strike, you'll probably hear me on the podcast get distracted a lot. But as you're driving through your service area, you see all these tall buildings around you see all these shiny objects, right? Shiny Object Syndrome, you see all these tall buildings, you go, Oh, I went clean that one and this one than that one, I'll be so cool to have this and this and this and that. And that, that that and all sudden your head just gets bogged down with all these potential clients, and you don't know where to start first. And it slows you down and actually hurts your business. So I told you to put all this together, make the list. Now here's the hard part. Pick one. Now you could pick more down the road. But pick one to start focus on one be known as the church cleaning expert in your community, or to school cleaning expert, or the bank cleaning Pro or what have you been known as the go to guy for all things. Fill in blank here cleaning. And there's reasons why you want to do that. Number one, besides the distraction part, you want to be known as the expert, right? Again, I told you jack of all trades and master of none. But imagine if you had the ability to be known as the expert and get referred over and over and over again. So here's what you want to you want to create a list, Kray lists, so go into Excel or whatever spreadsheet software, you got some sheets or what have you. And then put headers at the top. So you want put company name, you want put meaning prospect name, you want to put prospect or company address, prospect city, state, zip, phone number, URL, and all that. So whatever information you find that you feel is useful to you put them put start filling in that information. So here's what you want to do. You want to go to sites like Google just go to go to Google type in well school cleaning, or let me back up not even school clean schools nearby or schools near me, right if schools is your target, if if it's banks put banks near me if it's churches, put churches near me, just type in Google and you'll see the search results. You'll see tons and tons and tons of results. Start filtering through those. And right off the bat just by going into their website, you got their URL, which is handy to have. here in a second, I'll tell you why you can easily find their phone number you can easily find their address. So without any excuses, guys, you can now call them and mail them anytime you wanted to a sales letters or what have you phone call you just use the phone script. Be more than happy to share your mind just let me know send me a message. And now keep looking in keep diving in. You could use sites like hunter.io or if you have LinkedIn, pair up LinkedIn with seamless AI and now you have email addresses up the wazoo for any of your prospects, including names. And so you could go to hunter.io for example, type in the URL, and I'll show you all the past email addresses that the website ever had. Even if they hit it now It's able to be seen again, as long as they didn't delete from the from the history there. So you go on, he pulled that information. And now you could call now and email anyone you want to. So as you build up this list, you want to start reaching out to him. And I said, reason you want to do it is because you can now be seen as the school cleaning Pro. They refer to one another all the time, I can't tell you how many times my clients have said, Hey, such and such school down, called down the street and asked Who do you do business with, I hear time and time again. So now you want to tailor your website. And you want to do this by within your website, you want to have like a services section with listing out all your services, but you probably want include in there all the niches that you do. So now you could send all your potential clients to this school cleaning resource or score cleaning page within your website or church cleaning page within your website or bank cleaning page within their website. You want to add all that information in and they expand it and grow it. So now you'll be known as the expert in your community. And you'll be the go to Resources for all that. So you want build out your list, just continue to build it out use Google. Now another resource he can use is figure out where's your client hang out at figure out local Chamber of Commerce's in your area and figure out who your ideal client, your avatars, a member of that Chamber of Commerce thing, you could join that Chamber of Commerce and do networking events and shake their hand and get to know them and hug babies and everything else to grow your own business because your ideal client is there with you too. And that's the cool part. Another thing you want to do is figure out what associations they belong to maybe they're a building owner, well, they probably belong to a building owners Management Association. Maybe they're a property manager or Property Management Association. So you want to figure out what different associations they belong to, you want to join those associations. So that way, again, you could connect with them on a more meaningful level than just email or a phone call. And another thing you want to do is, well, who do they know that I might know that my person can introduce me to their person or what have you. Let me give a great example. And many, many moons ago, I reached out and I had communication with a uniform sales guy. And I knew this uniform sales guy serviced, one of our potential prospects is a school. And a school wasn't looking for services. And I'd been reaching out reaching out, no luck, no luck. Well, one day, that school reached out to the uniform guy and said, Hey, do you know of a cleaning service? Well, the uniform guy only because I developed friendship and relationship with them said yeah, I happen to know Mark over universal janitorial services, here's their number, give him a call. That school called me I end up signing them into a contract. That was in 2013. And we still have them today. Nine years later, they've been providing eight grand a month continuously. They are month in, month out. So do you think that handshake that relationship that initial connection was worth it? Heck, yeah, it's worth it to my guy to because I pay him a percentage, just referring business to us. Another thing you want to do is well, build your list, continue to grow it, you want, call them, email them and mail all the time. And in fact, if you ever read fanatical prospecting, if you have a cold prospect, you never met them, they don't know you, they'll know your name or your brand. If you reach out to them 20 to 50 times through calls, mails, email, shaking hands, referrals and so forth. You know it, eventually they'll come to you and they'll say mark, or insert your name there. Hey, Joe Schmo, we need cleaning services, can you do a walk through? And just by building that relationship? Building those touch points? They'll eventually come around and say yes, because if you email them right now, chances are they're gonna say no, if you call them right now their chances are they're gonna say no, even if you connect to the right person, they're gonna say no, because the odds of you reaching out to them right at their buying window, with a typical one year contract with the cleaning service is is absolutely teeny, tiny. So there's the odds of you connecting on the first go around slim to impossible, right? So by doing this again, and again, and again, letting them get familiar with you letting them get to know you. And by the way, in a future episode, I'm talking about 60 ways you can market and advertise your business. But the more touch points you do, then they'll reach out to when the buying time is right and they'll ask you to do a walkthrough and now you have the ability to serve them. So continue to prospect again, if you reach out to enough folks, you We'll get that walk through. Well, I hope this information was helpful to you guys. For more information about the show and resources mentioned, definitely check out beyond the mop show.com. If you felt this was worth five stars, I would truly appreciate a rating and review through Apple podcasts, Spotify, or where ever you listen to this podcast. By the way, this podcast was brought to you by my clean pivot business coaching. If you ever need help with your business and grown it to that next level, definitely reach out to me I'd be more than happy to help you out. Take care guys have a blessed and awesome week.