Selling to Churches, Chains, and Local Government Buildings

[lowxposure]

I want to thank everybody on the board for their support and knowledge. I know I'm not a frequent poster here, but thanks to many of you I'm off to a good start. I've been doing fairly well selling to privately held businesses and even smaller bank chains, but in this area the largest potential for carpet cleaning jobs are in churches, national chains, and government buildings (of which there are many).

How do you folks sell to these organizations? Chains almost always tell me that their regional or corporate office sends carpet cleaners from out of town. I've only talked to one church, but they all but chased me off their lawn, and I wouldn't even know where to begin on government contracts (city, state, or federal).

Don't worry, I'm not in your market so your not in danger of losing business

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

[Anew Carpet Cleaning OKC]

If you are doing well with small businesses I would keep working that market, are you getting testimonials, are you getting referrals? Make sure you stay in front of them, it sounds like you are in a fairly small city so you will be the go to if you just keep at them. If you went to one church and they ran you out don't worry about it, they may have been having a bad day, is your pitch interesting, are you acting as a consultant, I have did many churches and it always turns out great, I would just forget about the chains, there is probably more business elsewhere. You need to contact the government office you want to work with, find out which building you like, find out if Fed, City, State, then go to there website and find out how to become a vendor, then find out how to nail down the person who may care about carpet maintenance, then start calling them and sending them helpful information and offers, then keep doing that, you will do good, sounds like your off to a good start. Do you have a CRM system or someway of automatically following up with your prospects? You want to start now while your just getting started, and don't make my mistake of constantly chasing new businesses. Lastly if you live in a small town and you are trying to generate some income from CC'ing alone, maybe you should invest in a Vario OP machine and clean houses in your area, it's easy, I do it everyday with no problems.

[mdrummond1999]

I provide 50% to all churches and non-profits. I use that to get referrals and to show off my work to a large audience. Once a month I choose a church or non profit in strong need a free carpet cleaning. I also have done quite a few fundraisers to help out organizations. If done right you will get a lot of publicity off of this, just make sure you are doing it for the right reasons. People like a giving heart not someone who is all about me. You will find out this will give you more work than you can get from any ad you run.

[NJP]

Yep, your right. I do my church for free all the time! You will get plenty of referral's.

[Derek]

what market are you in?