I recently had the opportunity of observing two small BSC’s (Building Service Contractors) and was impressed with the differences I noted. Both companies are only a couple of years old and have a handful of accounts. To keep it simple and anonymous, this is a composite. We will refer to them as A and B with no hint of other factors that could reveal their identity. You can be the judge as to my observations and conclusions.

Company A is what I call the typical “Mom and Pop” company that stumbled into a cleaning business. The owner, Pop, has some floor care experience and comes across as rather personable with his customers. Since work was performed after hours, he preferred to be casual and comfortable.

When I observed him at work he was wearing cutoff jeans with open toed sandals and a tank top that exposed his various tattoos. His wife and three children (two under age 15) were dressed similarly. The wife had bug bites and scrapes on her legs which she unconsciously scratched while working. When no one was around, the children played with the computers, looked at items on the desks, opened drawers and helped themselves to any candy they found. The vacuum cleaner was a salvage from the flea market and their mopping system was a knot mop (that had seen better days) that was rinsed and wrung out by hand in a sink or toilet. They used paper towels from the dispenser or out of the trash to clean mirrors and wipe counter tops and touch points. Their cleaning products consisted of a generic glass cleaner from the grocery store. The focus was cleaning for appearance which resulted in spot vacuuming and rushing through the tasks to get to the next account. I scored them (1-5) a 1.5 since they did show up. I felt that I was generous. Would you agree with my score?

We will look at Company B in a future article. Thanks for all you do.

Your comments and questions are important. I hope to hear from you soon. Until then, keep it clean...

Mickey Crowe has been involved in the industry for over 35 years. He is a trainer, speaker and consultant. You can reach Mickey at 678-314-2171 or CTCG50@comcast.net


posted on 6/21/2016