The Book Chapters

On this page, you will find the list of chapters that are found in the book and the first two pages of each chapter as a small sample of the powerful information available to build your business and your income as quickly as possible.

Jump Into Janitorial

by Ron Piscatelli

Introduction

Chapter One........... Decide on a niche.

Chapter Two........... How much over-head do you need?

Chapter Three......... How big do you want your business?

Chapter Four........... Marketing.

Chapter Five............. Sales.

Chapter Six............... Sales-Packaging.

Chapter Seven........... Hiring and Recruiting Labor.

Chapter Eight............Organizing.(Click for an entire sample chapter)

Chapter Nine.............Training.

Chapter Ten...............Keeping track of Quality.

Chapter Eleven...........Hiring managers.

Chapter Twelve...........Incentives.

Chapter Thirteen.........The Kobayashi Maru.

Chapter Fourteen....... The three biggest sins.

Chapter Fifteen............This and that.

Conclusion.

Chapter One

Decide on a niche

In this chapter, we will be discussing:

* What type of company do you want to have?

* The many niches of the cleaning industry there are.

* My perfect client profile.

* Comparing the benefits of a large building account to a small janitorial account.

* We will go over a plan to net you a six figure income.

Decide on a niche

Who are you? What type of company do you want to have? In this

first chapter, I want to go over a few different ways that define the

janitorial business. There are small and large accounts. There are

accounts that require as much as daily service and some that require as

little as once per month service. The cleaning itself breaks down to floors

or carpets or a combination of both. Then you could break down the

industry by the types of accounts available such as supermarkets, office

buildings or even restaurants. The one thing they all have in common is

that they are of a commercial nature as opposed to a residential nature.

There are many more differences in the janitorial industry than I listed

above. For over 20 years in the business, I have tried them all. I

used to pride myself on the fact that we were always working 24 hours a

day, seven days per week. Like the old British Empire saying, "The sun

never sets on British soil," so too the cleaning empire I had, never closed.

We were always working. Hours of operation is another major decision

needed in choosing a niche.

The difference now, by my experience, is that I learned that you first

figure out what is right for you, then incorporate the aspects of the cleaning

Chapter Two

Overhead

In this chapter, we will be discussing:

* How much overhead do you need?

* What is overhead?

* Do you need an office and a secretary?

How much overhead do I need?

If you want to make money, stop growing.” That was a quote

I heard from a Bank President in San Diego when I first got into

business 20 years ago. I resisted it. I read books such as “Think and

Grow Rich” and “The Magic of Thinking Big” and other

books such as those that encouraged growth. How could my banker

say to not grow? Now, I know what he meant. He meant grow

profits, don’t add over-head expenses.

Over-head includes any expense that has to be paid every month

whether you make a sale or not. That would be your office, secretary,

in house bookkeeper, electricity, telephones, pagers, cell phones, full

time labor, management, loans, car/truck/equipment installment

payments. The list could go on and on. This is where all of your

profit goes. If you are not frugal, your spending takes away from your

profits. That’s why I love the niche I recommend in this book. You

need very little equipment. Supplies are minimal.

When I was cleaning supermarkets, we had to have the latest

equipment like propane burnishers, propane edgers, automatic floor

Chapter Three

How big a business do you want?

In this chapter, we will be discussing:

* Your dreams and how they relate to the size of business you will
want to grow.

* We will talk about ways to accomplish the amount of money you
want to make.

* We will go over what you can do with your free time.

How big do you want your business?

The best way to decide the size of the business you want is to first

list the items in life that are important to you. No need to think about

the costs at this point. Just list what you would like to happen in your

life. Let’s say you wanted a 20 room mansion in the most expensive

area of town with a spectacular view. That would take building a

larger business with a greater net income than if your goal was

for a 4 bedroom home in the suburbs. Making this list of things you

want goes into your whole lifestyle.

(A more in depth study is done in my first book ,
Coffee Break Wisdom on Building a Successful Business.
Go to: www.CoffeeBreakWisdom.Com).

This chapter illustrates a plan to net $100,000 or more in the

easiest and quickest way, with as little over head as possible. I

focused on easy accounts that took very little equipment.

In chapter one, I explained the niche this book will focus on, easy,

repeat janitorial accounts requiring simple tools. Their hours

of operation close by 11PM. You can get any combination of 5 days

per week accounts to once or twice a month. To follow the $100,000

net per year example, the gross monthly income would have to

Chapter Four

Marketing

In this chapter, I will discuss:

*Door to door marketing.

*Network meetings.

*Telemarketing.

*Yellow pages ads.

*Newspaper ads.

*Websites.

*Imprinted products like pens, magnets, pads of paper, etc…

Marketing

I like to think of marketing as I would think of working in my garden. The

more seeds I plant, the more plants that grow. In marketing, the idea is similar.

You plant your name in the minds of those people who fit your niche. As the

needs of those people in your niche surface, your hope is that they give you an

opportunity to bid for the account. This is not the time to make a sale. I think

this is where salesmen get confused. The minute they meet someone, they talk,

talk, talk about the service they are selling, or they focus on instant success.

The first plan then is to have different approaches to marketing and sales. So

the focus is to get your name in the hands of people who fit your niche. This

book is about the niche I recommend. In my recommended janitorial niche, we

have small businesses that close at 6:00 PM. I like accounts that are not

that dirty. (Restaurants are very dirty. Convenience stores are dirty.

They are open after 11:00 PM. I would not take these accounts.) Let me say

here that when I first started in the cleaning business, I took anything I could

get. I took a lady’s health spa that I got paid $2.50 per hour and worked at

Chapter Five

Sales

In this chapter, we will be discussing:

* 1st Impressions.

* Be professional.

* Ask Questions.

* Listen.

* Give it away free.

* Know your business.

Sales

The bottom line in sales is results. Without results, you will

be out of business. There are many aspects of the sales process and I

will go over many of them.

First Impression

You only have one chance to give a good first impression. It happens

in the very first moment you make eye contact. Get in the habit that the

first thing you do when you look in another persons eyes is smile.

Almost always, they will smile back.

These are my estimates and are not scientific, but two out of every

ten people you meet will love you. Two out of every ten will hate you

and the six in the middle can go either way. What this means, if you are

unprofessional, uncouth, unclean with a beard, two out of ten people

needing an estimate, will like you. My belief is that if you put a sign on a

dog and it went door to door, it would eventually reach enough numbers

that the dog will make two out of ten sales.

On the other hand, you could be dressed the most professionally and

have the best quality service in the world at the cheapest price. You

could have a great personality and you still will run into the two out of ten that

Chapter Six

Sales packages

In this chapter, we will be discussing:

* What is a small account?

* Small accounts that are weekly.

* The three types of five day service packages.

* “Premium Maintenance Service.”

* “Class “A” Office Service.”

* “Surgical Service.”

* How to estimate labor.

* A labor estimating chart for five day accounts.

Sales Packages

Having pre-set programs makes it easy for people to choose your

service. If you are just starting out, set prices can help you give

estimates. (Asking what they are paying helps even more). Looking

for accounts that fit the niche discussed in this book would mean

smaller type offices that can be cleaned during early evenings. Small

office type accounts, based on 500 square feet to about 3,000 square

feet, that are done on a regular basis, takes about thirty minutes. As

the office gets to the 3,000 square feet size, I pay a janitor an hour’s

pay. No matter the size, there is a minimum charge I have and that is

up to 3,000 square feet. The items that take time to clean are the

rest rooms, floors and kitchens. Small offices usually have one or

two rest rooms and a kitchen.

Even if you bid every small account at $199 or higher,

if you have rapport with the customer, they will either accept

this price or ask you to lower it. That means you can lower the price

to get the bid. The key of course is building rapport. I never just

lower the price. I decided if I want to lower it. I first ask if besides

the price, there are any other issues. If they say no, I say, “then you

Chapter Seven

Hiring and Recruiting

In this chapter, we will discuss:

* What to look for in a janitor.

* Who would clean?

* Defining a niche for janitorial workers.

* Don’t be desperate.

* The benefits of cleaning.

* How to screen applicants.

* Good help is easy to find.

Biggest mistake in hiring

When I got in the cleaning business, even though I cleaned

myself, I thought that to find labor, I would look for people down and

out. Who else would clean? That will be the biggest mistake you

make. There are professional people who will clean. The next

biggest mistake is working with family. Family members sometimes

take advantage because of familiarity.

In the hiring process, I wanted to cut down on turn over. That

changed after I had started hiring professional people. I hired

professional people to work full time. Professional people will work

full time on a temporary basis until they find something else, resulting

in too much turnover. However, there are many professional people

who are working now and need just a little more money a month. This

is ideal!

There is a great niche of professional workers available for the

right program. By the right program I mean, part time work that

doesn’t take up your whole weekend or include late nights such as a

security guard, retail help or fast food worker. Who could maintain a

Chapter Eight

Organizing

In this chapter, we will discuss:

* Knowing your goals.

* When to set goals.

* When to work on them.

* Writing in a journal.

* Ask and you shall receive.

* Having free time all day long.

* How to be an idea receptor.

* Priority lists of things to do.

* Total Quality Management and ISO 9001

* Having a consistent service.

* How to write a procedure.

* Keeping graphs and charts.

Being Organized

For me, being organized begins with knowing my niche, knowing

my values, knowing my short term goals, knowing my long term goals

and then following a plan.

(If you need to organize these items, I recommend my other book,
Coffee Break Wisdom, On Building A Successful Business,
www.CoffeeBreakWisdom.Com. This book is geared towards a goal of netting
six figures and up). go now to: www.CoffeeBreakWisdom.com

To be organized, I get my goals written down during the last week

of December. I review those goals the last week of August. Those

are two perfect times to do this as there is a feeling of a new

beginning, because of the New Year and September, the start of a

new school year. The last weekend of the month, I review my goals

for the month and write out my goals for the coming month. Each

weekend I write out my goals for the week.

Each morning I write out my goals for the day. I constantly keep a

list of my priorities that I need to do. I write all this down so I won’t

forget. I also like to keep my mind blank, free from thinking of things

to do. I get myself into the habit of waking up by 5 AM every morning

including weekends. I wake up automatically. There is something

special about being awake before the masses. I have coffee and

Chapter Nine

Training

In this chapter, we will discuss:

* Giving new people an orientation.

* How to train cleaning a rest room.

* How to know they know.

* What to do with a slow and thorough trainee.

* The way you start out a new person is the way they will always be.

* Set a good first impression.

* Vertical versus a horizontal world.

* How a professional acts.

Orientation

I like giving everyone an introduction as to what will happen when

they work here. When I was maintaining over 75 employees, I

usually had to have an orientation twice per month for 2 to 4

applicants to keep one or two janitors per month. When I used the

approach in this book, I stopped the orientation, because I need very

few new janitors. After I interview, when I know I am hiring the

person, I give the first part. I go over compensation, pay days,

raises, expectations, schedules, taking days off, and any other office

procedure question type issues. I give the next part of the orientation

when I train the janitor at the work locations. I hire them for one night

as a trial period. On the first night, I take 30 minutes and go over the

rest room cleaning procedure. I show how to do the rest room and let

them watch me. Then I watch as the person cleans one. I usually

encourage and direct. I let them clean one on their own and I

thoroughly check while they watch. I train until I know that they

know how to do the job. “There are no poor students, only poor

teachers.”

Chapter Ten

Quality Service

In this chapter, we will discuss:

* Maintaining a quality service.

* Check! Check! Check!

* Giving a report on the job done.

* Checking the janitor form.

* Giving tickets for compliments.

* What prizes do I give?

* If all else fails, give a guarantee.

Quality

Quality is a word that is hard to understand. I don’t believe

it can be defined, because quality means different things to

everyone you do business with. That is why I try to find the issues

of importance to each customer I do business with. Dusting could be

an issue for one customer. Rest room cleaning could be for an other.

You have got to find the issues for each client. This will let you satisfy

that person. Assuming that you know the customer’s most important

issues, train the janitor this at that location first and check.

Check, check, check. This is the best way to deal with quality.

When you have a new janitor that cleans alone, they must be

checked. Some dirt does not show up for a month. For example,

edges of carpets. When you are initially training, the edges are clean

and unless you check, these type of problems show up later. After a

ninety day period, when your janitor is consistent, you won’t have to

check them that often. You should check on a regular basis to be

sure that quality is done.

When I first had janitors, I used to give report cards when I

checked on their work. I did this because it was an easy way to give

Chapter Eleven

Hiring Managers

In this chapter, we will discuss:

* Is a manager needed?

* Promote good teachers.

* Avoid complainers.

* The positive child versus the negative child.

* How to pay a manager.

* Give employees an objective to accomplish with a time deadline.

* A manager’s incentive plan.

Managers

With the simple plan of this book, a manager is not needed. You

can do this yourself to save over-head costs. If you do hire a

manager, they should work as a janitor at each location they

manage. You can check at a location just cleaned by the janitor, but

unless you know the place and nooks and crannies, items could

easily be missed. I promoted part time managers from our janitorial

staff.

I never liked the word manager. In my mind, I picture a king when

I say manager. I see a person manipulating people’s lives. I prefer

to use the word responsible. As a person responsible for the

accounts you assign to them, what they do is make sure the

customer’s needs are met. They are being responsible for the

outcome. It is as simple as that. I have found that you can not force

people to do things. You have to lead. You need to tell, show and

check their work. Using the words “responsible for the outcome,” will

paint a picture in your manager’s mind that his job is simple. Check

that the job was done right.

Over the years, I have had many managers. I look for people who

Chapter Twelve

Incentives

In this chapter, we will discuss:

* How to motivate people.

* A little white kitten as a business mentor.

* Janitor incentive number one.

* Janitor incentive number two.

* Janitor incentive number three.

* The janitor pool.

* The manager’s incentive.

Incentives

Incentives can get anyone to do almost anything you want them to

do. Why? Because people do things for their reasons, not your

reasons. When I first got into the service business, my personal

vision was to be the world’s utmost authority on how to motivate

people. After reading books, listening to motivational tapes and

studying successful people, I realized that there is no way to motivate

people. People have to motivate themselves. What I did learn was

that if I could find what people want, showed them how to get it by

doing what I needed done, they would self motivate themselves to

take actions.

One of my greatest mentors was a stray white kitten that used to

come to my front door many years ago when I lived in an apartment.

There were about 30 other units in the building. The kitten was so

cute. I gave it food and the kitten hung around. Everyone in the

complex was feeding it. Cats are smart. They go to where the food

and living conditions are the best. I laugh when I see signs that say

lost cat. Cats don’t get lost. If you don’t treat them right, they move

on. My little kitten stopped coming to my door. I wanted the cat so I

Chapter Thirteen

Kobayashi Maru

In this chapter, we will discuss:

* Getting employees to want to improve performance.

* The Kobayashi Maru test.

* Captain Kirk and Star Trek

* The official scoring sheet rules.

* The office portion.

* The rest room portion.

* The lobby.

* The corridor.

* The scoring sheet and what is judged.

Kobayashi Maru

Most janitors work hard at the locations they are assigned to. My

theory is anyone can clean a dirty place. When you are done, the

customer can see a difference. Plus, a customer that allows a place

to get dirty beyond the normal level, has no need for perfection. A

clean place is very common, especially in professional suites in large

commercial buildings. These type customers want to see a

difference when they come in to work. These type of customers

notice every fingerprint. When a janitor cleans, even if checked by a

manager, very minor things can be missed. That is why the cleaning

test, the “Kobayashi Maru” was established. It focuses on all of the

little things that easily can be missed. Plus, it put “fun” into the

training. It became a game instead of a boring lecture of what to

do. Being a game, it got the workers in the habit of looking out for the

little things. It got employees to think about ways to be more efficient

which was rewarded with points. The person with the highest total

score wins a designated prize, (see the official scoring sheet at the

end of this chapter), dinner out for two at a nice restaurant or a new

TV set. Make the prize desirous.

Chapter Fourteen

Three biggest sins

In this chapter, we will discuss:

* What is a sin?

* What is a mortal sin?

* What is a cleaning sin?

* Leaving a door unlocked.

* Not setting an alarm system or setting one off.

* Forgetting to replenish rest room supplies, especially toilet paper.

Three Biggest Sins

In the janitorial business, there are many things that can go wrong.

Some are more serious than others. I think of it as committing sins.

Being brought up Catholic, I remember the nuns in Sunday school

emphasizing the differences between committing a sin and a mortal

sin. A sin that was not one of the Ten Commandments was a minor

infraction. If you died before confession, meant a time in purgatory.

You would end up in heaven eventually. A mortal sin would land you

in hell for eternity if you died before confession. Obviously, it was

wise to know the difference if your goal was heaven.

In cleaning, you have errors that are minor and ones that are

major or mortal. If you make a cleaning error, you will probably be

told and given the opportunity to correct it. Customers will cancel if

they have to tell you over and over the same problem. In this chapter,

I will talk about the three mortal sins of janitorial. Should you or one

of your people commit one and you could lose the account quicker

than you can imagine even if they love you.

The three are:

#1: leaving a customer’s door unlocked,

Chapter Fifteen

This and that

In this chapter, we will discuss:

* Attitude.

* Empathy.

* Think win, win, and win.

* What would you like your customer to say about you a year from now?

* Live a balanced life.

* A few accounting ideas.

This and That

Attitude makes the difference

Your attitude makes all the difference in everything you do. You

get back what you put out. Put out a storm and a storm is what you

get back. Give out a smile and you get back a smile. Care about

your customers and employees, and they will care about you.

Separate your sales and service departments. I made the

mistake of teaming a salesman and a service manager. They ran off

and stole a couple of customers to form their own business.

Fortunately, my employees signed papers that allowed me to sue

them for the stolen accounts. They settled out of court and paid me.

However, I still lost a couple of customers and a great deal of mental

thought. I realized I did not lose an account where I had established

rapport with the manager or owner. Always develop rapport with your

customers.

Develop empathy towards your customers and your employees.

Empathy means placing yourself in someone else’s shoes. Try to

think of how others feel. Go inside their skin. This will give you great

insights on how to treat people.

I hope you enjoyed a taste of what this book is about.

I think you will see the value of this information

as you build your janitorial business.

..............Ron Piscatelli

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