18: How to Build a Prospecting List for Your Cleaning Business
Hey, it’s Matt.
Building an accurate prospecting list for your cleaning business can make the difference between winning new contracts and falling short.
The only trouble is, building a good prospecting list takes time and effort.
Creating the right list building process helps you target the right prospects.
It increases your opportunities for winning the type of contracts you want for your cleaning business.
Prospecting lists help you reach out to potential clients by using the right information to develop a professional relationship.
Once contact has been made with a prospect, they’re qualified and turned into leads as part of your sales system.
So what are the steps for building good prospect lists?
It all starts with a plan.
Create a Prospecting Plan
A prospecting plan is a process for generating new leads. It helps you identify and contact potential clients interested in your cleaning service.
A good prospecting plan includes X elements:
An ideal client profile.
A list of outcomes that your cleaning business creates for clients.
Questions that help you engage with prospects so that they share their biggest challenges and important requirements.
Value based statements and insights that you can share with prospects during the prospecting phase.
Regular blocked time in your calendar for consistent outreach.
Once you have your prospecting plan ready, it’s time to build your lists.
Building your Prospect List
Now that you have an idea of what you’re looking for in a potential prospect, you need to start your search.
There are different channels, tools and outlets you can use for this, including:
LinkedIn
If your cleaning business operates in the commercial space, you need to be searching for prospects on LinkedIn. You can search based on criteria like job title, company size, department etc.
For granular and more targeted searching, subscribe to LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator tool.
Google Alerts
Use Google Alerts to receive notifications about important trigger events, brand mentions, industry news and more.
For example, you can set up an alert for office relocation or office move in your town or city. After receiving a notification about a business relocating to a new office, you can reach out to the business about your cleaning service.
Job Listing
Online job board like Indeed and Glassdoor can provide valuable insights into a company’s priorities.
If a company is hiring for a new office manager, facilities manager or procurement manager, it indicates a change in their organisation. As a cleaning business, this hiring change tells you they might be in the market for a new service provider.
Data Providers
There are a range of online tools, ranging from pricey to inexpensive, that enable you to generate a list of qualified prospects.
They have advanced search capabilities and valuable contact information all in one place.
Existing Customers
An easy and effective way to add new contacts to your prospect list is to ask existing clients for referrals. This is where investing in relationship marketing pays dividends.
Referrals aren’t limited to existing clients. You might have built great rapport with a prospect while bidding for a contract you didn’t win. They might be happy to recommend names of colleagues or connections who have a need for your cleaning service.
Automation Tools
This is the fastest and easiest way to build a good prospect list. Automation tools allow you to find companies and validated contact details in a single step.
They also allow you to get look-alike prospects by running your ideal client profile through their search function. By entering the attributes of your ideal client, you get a list of prospects that share the same attributes as them.
TL,DR
There’s no exact formula to building a prospect list for your cleaning business.
What is important is creating an ideal client profile that helps you understand your clients and the different channels needed to build a prospect list.
To get the best results from your outreach campaigns, you need to spend time identifying the right prospects.
Without an accurate list of prospects, even the best cold emails will fail to deliver the opportunities you need to win more cleaning contracts.
Additional Resources
“Active prospecting let's people know that they matter; that you've sought them out.”
From Predictable Revenue by Aaron Ross. Resurfaced using Readwise.
That’s all for today.
If you’re struggling to grow your cleaning business, I offer help in 3 ways:
Email me with your biggest challenge. The more detailed you provide, the more personal I can make my response.
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Turn 100% cold prospects into booked appointments for your commercial cleaning business with outbound sales development at scale. Find out more here.
Let me know what you think about this week's issue:
See you next week!
Matt @