Are you looking to start your own commercial cleaning service? Do you run a cleaning company which hasn’t enjoyed much success in the past when it comes to winning over clients? Are you looking to improve your commercial cleaning processes, to learn about more efficient cleaning equipment, or more effective cleaning products? You need access to good resources for cleaning companies. Here are 3 places where you can find those resources.
ISSA
ISSA is the primary industry body for professional cleaners worldwide. The organisation has more than 9 thousand members, including manufacturers of cleaning products and cleaning service providers (including commercial and residential cleaners). ISSA also organises the largest cleaning tradeshow in the world, and it helps its members to connect with other players in the cleaning industry. Through its website, ISSA provides lots of resources for cleaning professionals to help them perfect their trade. These resources include educational materials used to train cleaners, guiding documents for cleaners who want to adhere to industry standards, publications about advancements in the industry, regulatory requirements for cleaners of various specialities in different countries across the world, and recent market reports. Their educational resources are also available in multiple international languages. If you are is looking to create a prospectus or to court new clients, ISSA provides a comprehensive document on the value of cleaning, which can be used to convince prospects to hire your cleaning company.
Although ISSA has lots of great resources, it has one big disadvantage; you have to pay a hefty membership fee to gain access to their resources. ISSA members have to pay close to $1000 per year. While this fee may be manageable for big cleaning companies that are fully established, small cleaners and start-ups may find it hard to fork up that kind of money.
Cleanfax
Clean Fax provides important resources for cleaning professionals who are looking to increase their productivity and grow their businesses. It started as a magazine more than thirty years ago, and since then it has been publishing materials about new cleaning products, as well as innovative cleaning processes that are likely to shape the future of commercial cleaning. On its website, Clean Fax provides round the clock access to educational and informative resources including digital magazines, adverts and reviews of cleaning products and equipment, and interactive message boards where cleaning professionals can ask for and receive advice from their peers. The website has a member’s directory that is full of resources and services that cleaning services need. It also contains publications from professional bodies such as contract cleaning associations, building service contractor associations, carpet cleaning institutes, and indoor air quality associations. Some of the resources created by ISSA are also available on Clean Fax. You have to subscribe to the website to gain access to most of its resources. Also, some of the resources listed on Clean Fax are actually owned and distributed by third party websites, and fees may apply in some cases.
Smart Cleaning Solutions
A great free resource is produced by Smart Cleaning Solutions, a commercial cleaning service in Australia. The company is run by a guy called Nicholas Pastras who has been a CEO in the cleaning industry for more than 20 years. Pastras shares his extensive knowledge and experience through a series of blog posts that cover various topics about commercial cleaning. Some of his most insightful blog posts include; one that discusses the link between dust and body fat, one that discusses the truth about sanitation in gyms, one that outlines the steps that commercial cleaning services need to take in order to increase their reliability, and one that illustrates how professionals can clean to prevent the transmission of infectious diseases. The content on the Smart Cleaning Solutions website provides a wealth of information that new cleaners can use to structure and grow their businesses.
Pastras also wrote an article called 7 Questions You Need to Ask a Commercial Cleaning Company before hiring them, which is a particularly useful resource that every professional cleaner should read. This article is a must read because it includes a download link to a resource that lists 37 different questions (grouped into 7 segments) which he recommends people ask cleaning companies before deciding to hire them. While it’s structured as a resource for clients, this document is just as important for cleaning companies. If you are setting up a commercial cleaning business, you can use this resource as a checklist of the requirements that you need to meet in order to bag clients. It’s essentially a detailed list of all the important insider tips on the questions that you’ll need to answer to win cleaning contracts in the competitive commercial cleaning market. Reverse engineer the list so your business can answer all these questions well and you will be able to shortcut a huge learning curve.
