46. How to Build an Ideal Client Profile for Your Cleaning Business (4 Steps)
Including a survey and email campaign copy you can swipe
“Do you have an ideal client profile for your cleaning business?”
It’s a recurring question I ask to cleaning business owners
95% of them don’t.
They’re only interested in winning more contracts without any clear focus on the type of clients they want to grow their business.
I tweeted this in January when I was building our ICP for The Growth Lab:
The bigger the cleaning business, the fewer the services.
They have identified who their ideal clients are and focus on serving them.
If you want to grow your cleaning business up to and beyond seven figures, you need to have an ideal client profile.
Agenda
Top 20
Category Analysis
Market Research
Information Audit
1. Top 20
Start by reviewing your active client list and identify your Top 20.
Your Top 20 might be 5 or 25 clients based on the number of active clients you have.
To determine your Top 20, use the following characteristics:
Annual Recurring Revenue
Monthly Recurring Revenue
Average Monthly Bookings
Average Order Value
Gross Profit Margin
Lifetime Value
Average Payment Period
Choose the top 2/3 characteristics that are most relevant to your business.
Once your Top 20 becomes clear, ask yourself:
Do I like working with these clients?
Do they pay within an acceptable collection period
Are they profitable enough?
Now you need to go one level deeper.
2. Category Analysis
Category Analysis is a process of reviewing the different characteristics of your Top 20.
It includes looking at things like:
What markets, sectors or industries the business operates in?
What’s the head count of the business?
What’s annual revenue of the business;
Where is the business located?
Who are the key decision makers?
What’s the average lifetime value?
How much is their cleaning budget per year?
What’s the contract value?
How long is the sales cycle of the business?
What’s order frequency and order volumes?
By going through this process, you start to identify trends and commonalities between your Top 20.
Make a note of them. These are the characteristics that form the building blocks of your ideal client profile.
They will also help you forecast future sales and revenue expectations.
Knowing things like the average contract value and sales cycle helps you determine:
How many of clients you need to reach your revenue goals;
How long it will take to reach those goals; and
The extent of your sales efforts.
3. Market Research
As well as your internal research, you need to get feedback form your Top 20.
The best way is surveying or interviewing those clients.
A survey is simpler and less time consuming, while an interview provides you with more detailed information that you can turn into a case study.
Here is a simple 14 question survey template you can use:
To access a live version of the survey on Google Forms go here: https://forms.gle/7gbTmnXdqAdFHp1T7
You can’t duplicate the form but you will be able to copy and paste the content.
The survey is included in a 4 step email campaign over the course of 15 days.
Here’s the first email:
To access the Google Doc of the survey campaign, go here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/15zZWKLIu1p6cHataROt5HGiaj1bu41v-VgVxUPDhAlM/edit?usp=sharing
You can duplicate a copy of the Google Doc for your own use:
4. Information Audit
Once you’ve collected all of this information, you’ve got the raw data to create your ideal client profile.
You will know:
The Market/Industry/Sector to focus on;
The key decision maker roles;
Cleaning budgets and average contract values
Location;
Purchasing process and sales cycle;
Challenges and how your cleaning business can provide a solution;
How to improve your service to attract more ideal clients;
Potential objections to your service and how you can overcome them; and
The best value proposition for your ideal client and how to craft a better offer.
Create a detailed, in-depth ideal client profile to use for all of your sales and marketing.
You can also create a Power Statement that summarises your ideal client’s problems, how your business solves them and the benefits your cleaning service provides.
Need More Help?
Email me with the growth strategy for your cleaning business. The more details you provide, the more personal I can make my response.
Want to increase your revenue by £250K/mo in 12 months? Book a call.
Thanks for reading!
Matt @ The Growth Lab
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