There Is A Huge Difference

This week started off great! I got the email back from Doug Floro that they are ready to start me this week. Yay! I've added my 3rd new house cleaning client. Another email came in early in the week from Scott from Asher's Chocolate. They were looking to get a window cleaning estimate. I connected with Scott, he wanted to get quotes on office deep cleaning, floor cleaning, and window cleaning. At the end of the conversation, he said something about his owner recommending to call me and something about being stuck in my driveway. Oh, there is a great story here that I touch on in the podcast but I'll reserve the full story for a later episode.

Just when I thought the week couldn't start off better, I got a message from Erika (my first new house cleaning client). She recommended my company on the Facebook local mom's group. Obviously, I couldn't see it so I waited for my wife to tell me about it. Over the course of the week, 6 moms connected with either my wife, me, or my Facebook business page. I made sure to chase every lead like I taught early in this podcast.

• Lead 1: Krista is Erika's friend, who she referred directly through text. I answered all of her questions over the phone and thanked her for her interest. They may hire me down the road as I gave them enough information to start the budgeting process for cleaning.
• Lead 2: Kim saw Erika's post on the mom's group. She has an uninsured cleaner now, but had some damages that will not get resolved. We had a 15 minute phone call for me to answer her questions, especially about insurance.
• Lead 3: Monique saw Erika's post liked my Facebook page. I friended her and messaged her personally to thank her for liking my page. I also asked if she had any cleaning related questions. She wrote back later in the week. I added her to my newsletter and scheduled a phone call.
• Lead 4: Stacey also saw Erika's post and liked my cleaning page. She never responded to my friend request or personal message.
• Lead 5: Lindsay saw Erika's post and reached out to Teresa through Facebook private messenger. Teresa thanked her and forwarded my phone number so she could call me.
• Lead 6: Shahrzad also saw Erika's post and reached out to Teresa on Facebook. It was hard to connect, but we'll try again next week. 

It was a great start to the week. Let's switch gears to the title of this episode. We did speed networking this week at our MCBA group. The goal was to score a "date" by getting a good referral from each member. I chose to use my time to learn about the members by asking each one the question Why? It lead to interesting conversation and I learned more about the others. At the end of the experience, the moderator asked what we learned about other members and my name came up twice.

Marsha said. "Do you know that Ken is a consultant to other cleaning businesses and has a podcast!?" 

Susan Sloane of Real Health Quotes said. "I learned that there is a huge difference between a regular cleaner and a presentation cleaner."

This was awesome. Susan goes above and beyond to serve her clients with high touch medical insurance service. She knows what it means to be excellent in your work, so when she heard me explain what I do as a presentation cleaner, it clicked. Susan realized that most cleaners can clean well, most are detailed, but few understand the art of presentation. That's where I shine and she recognized that in our speed networking. Thank you Susan for that massive plug at the MCBA!