Building a client base for a business isn’t just a luxury, it’s a necessity for the longevity of your company. In the contract cleaning field, prospecting new clients is all the more necessary, especially in locations where competition is tight. But, when it comes down to tackling prospecting, what are the most effective ways to get new customers?

We talked to five different contract cleaning leaders who approach prospecting from different angles, asking them what they consider to be the biggest advantages and limitations to their methods and how they measure success and ROI.

In-House Inside Sales and Account Management Teams

Kristina Thayer, Director of Business Development at MSNW LLC

The biggest advantage of using in-house inside sales and account management teams is trust, which is something that can’t be outsourced. These teams know your value, your services, and your target market inside and out. More importantly, they’ve built real relationships with your clients. That makes it easier to have meaningful conversations, ask for referrals, and identify upsell opportunities without it feeling forced. They aren’t just calling from a script; they’re part of the team.

But in-house sales teams aren’t without their challenges. One common issue is juggling service and sales. Account managers are focused on making sure existing clients are happy, which doesn’t always leave time or mental space for prospecting. Some may also feel a little uncomfortable “selling” if it feels like it might disrupt the relationship they’ve worked hard to build. That’s where coaching, clear goals, and a little structure go a long way.

When it comes to measuring success, our organization looks at more than just new deals. We track referrals, warm leads coming in through the account management team, and the growth of current accounts. We also watch for signs that relationships are getting deeper: things like being brought into new conversations or introduced to other decision-makers. That’s when you know it’s working.

In-House Local and Dedicated Sales Representatives

Matthew Streiff, SVP of Sales, Marketing, and Specialty Services at the Budd Group

The biggest advantage of an in-house, dedicated sales team is that it provides boots on the ground and hearts in the community. Our local, rep-led prospecting model gives us the advantage through the trust and credibility we build in-market. Because our salespeople live and work in the regions they serve, they develop deep knowledge of local needs and decision-makers. This allows us to build long-term relationships well before an RFP is issued and positions us as a trusted partner, not just a vendor.

The most common challenges of this prospecting method are consistency, scalability, and time constraints. Prospecting works — but only if we work it, and that’s where we hit bumps. Not every representative will prospect with the same energy or skillset. Without structured support or marketing alignment, prospecting can become reactive or inconsistent across markets. To mitigate this, we support our reps with better data, marketing air cover, sales enablement tools, and regular coaching.

Measuring success is critical to stay on task and prospect well. We don’t just count wins — we track the plays that got us to the red zone. We look at both leading and lagging indicators. On the front end, we track first meetings, referrals, and engagement with marketing campaigns. On the back end, we evaluate opportunities created, close rates on self-generated deals, and revenue/margin from new logos. The ROI isn’t just quick wins. It’s the development of sustainable, long-term relationships in our communities that align with our core values.

Google Ads and SEO

Steven Harper, President/CEO of Spectrum Building Services of America

The biggest advantage of using a combination of Google Ads and SEO for prospecting is the ability to scale with precision. With the right strategies, you can generate a steady stream of high-intent leads who are actively searching for commercial cleaning services in your target markets. Unlike traditional outbound efforts, digital prospecting allows us to be visible exactly when a facilities manager or procurement officer is searching for a solution, making the conversation warmer from the outset. SEO complements this by building long-term brand visibility, allowing us to reduce our reliance on paid traffic over time, while increasing our online authority.

One of the biggest challenges is filtering out unqualified or low-value leads without compromising visibility to our ideal customer profile. Because janitorial services can vary widely in scope, frequency, and budget, it's easy to spend advertising dollars attracting prospects who aren’t a fit. It requires disciplined keyword targeting, thoughtful landing page design, and continuous optimization to maintain a low cost-per-lead while enhancing lead quality. Additionally, the competitive landscape for cleaning keywords can be expensive in metro areas, so having a strong SEO foundation is critical to support long-term sustainability.

We track success using a combination of lead volume, lead quality, and downstream conversion into recurring revenue. Every inbound lead is tracked in our CRM, and we evaluate not only the number of leads that come in, but also how many convert into qualified proposals and ultimately into customers with our ideal contract size. For paid campaigns, we also monitor cost-per-lead and return on ad spend. For SEO, we measure improvements in keyword rankings, organic traffic, and branded search volume over time. Ultimately, if the digital channel contributes to high value contracts and reduces reliance on cold outreach, we consider it a strong return on investment.

Outsourced Prospecting: Telemarketing Companies

Steve Shuchat, CEO at Clean All Services Inc.

Companies that outsource their prospecting can get many calls in a short period of time, because they have telephone systems set up for rapid and efficient calling. This method is great for identifying low-hanging fruit, like prospects with immediate needs who have an interest in getting started with the business right away. Call centers and telemarketers also reduce the amount of time your employees spend on a task they’re not good at or may be inefficient at. Outsourced prospecting can supplement the efforts of your already existing employees.

A challenge of this method is that parameters for prospects must be made very clear upfront, since the telemarketing company does not have prior knowledge of the company. When we started working with the telemarketing company, we had to clearly clarify what geographic area we worked in and what type of customers we take (government buildings, medical buildings, etc.). A downside of using telemarketers is that some telemarketers will set up appointments with prospects who have no interest in our services. The prospect either does this to get off the phone with the telemarketer, or the prospect is looking or free consultation. A solution to this is that the telemarketer gets email addresses for all appointments and our salespeople follow up with these prospects to get more information.

To measure ROI, you must develop relationships with the employees of the telemarketing company that call prospects. Our agency meets with the person making the calls at least every other week to get a clearer understanding of potential clients and how phone conversations are going. We also record conversations between the telemarketer and prospects so that we can work with the telemarketer to improve their performance. From a bigger picture perspective, we also set upfront objectives for the number and size of appointments and have quarterly meetings with the telemarketing firm’s leadership to discuss their progress towards these objectives. 

Third-Party Lead Generators

Bradley S. Klein, President of Building Professionals of Texas Janitorial Service

The biggest advantage of outsourcing lead generation to a third party is time. We have outsourced our lead generation for several years and have worked with several companies. Change is the single most important piece of this puzzle. Every Lead generation company has a unique personality, just like everyone you clean for is different from everyone else. You will find that hitting the perfect note the first time is very difficult. We have changed companies several times. Some of those changes were because they could not understand our vision and some were because we did not articulate our vision and parameters successfully. Once you find a company — and more importantly a person in that company — that understands and buys into your vision, it can have a dramatic effect on your sales.

Finding the company and person that knows what they are doing is important, but finding the company and person that knows what you are doing is paramount. You want to find somebody who understands the part of the world where you are trying to sell and understands the depth and breadth of your services. You must clearly communicate your company’s parameters with them. For example, be clear about the number of days per week, number of hours per day, particular verticals and minimum and/or maximum sizes that you want to or are willing to clean in advance. The important thing to remember is not every opportunity should be taken at face value. You may get an opportunity at a single bank for three days per week. At first it may not seem to be worth your time, but maybe the one bank will lead to an entire region in the future. They also need to look for signs that the bid process will start down the road and make sure they disseminate that information to you immediately. The other challenge is getting the lead generation company to understand that a “no” today is not a “no” forever.

The success of a third-party lead gen company is measured the same as an in-house salesperson. What are they bringing you compared to the dollars you are putting out? Are the proposals real quality or did the client say yes to get off the phone? Is the CRM information high enough quality, that down the road, follow-up will be easy? We set up weekly meetings with our lead gen company to go through last week’s leads as well as this week’s targets. This keeps them on track and everyone on the same page.

Don’t expect that their calls will have businesses falling into your lap. It is vital that you follow up and follow through on their leads immediately.