The Pirate Who Sales for Cleaner Opportunities

Me as the Cleaning Pirate for Simply Right

January - April 2008.

My College experience provided me many opportunities to explore my creative side. While in college, I worked at KWCR radio station and ran a live local music show.  The show lead me to Producing and hosting a live TV show. Filmed several sporting events, short films and music videos. Wrote several short stories. College was a creative time. No other time in my life was I able to freely create.

Now as a Creative Marketer I’ve worked my way into a position allowing me to explore new create ways to sell a product most would consider "a hard sale.” There's no product, it's a service. No textile object to push onto the open market place. How do you sell a service?

First the Marketer needs understand the the service. Thanks to several years of working part-time for a cleaning service company I was able to work an many departments. In fact my first job was at 18 years old was scrapping gum in dumpy movie theater in the middle of nowhere USA. It took me three nights to clean the gum. It was hard labor. It gave me a “the boots on ground” training for what a cleaning service provider goes through. I told myself it was “just a job.” Now I know thinking of my work as “just of a Job” hurt my job satisfaction.

Jump ahead, and I’m in college being all creative and such, I still have a part-time job at Simply Right making customer service calls. I hated calling the customers because I was uncomfortable with what they might say on the phone. The irony was at night I would host a live radio show were I interviewed musicians. However during the same afternoon I was afraid of making customer service calls.

The acting CMO, Danny, noticed my talents and started having me help on projects. Well, Danny decided it was time to change our sells approach at our biggest sales event of the year – CinemaCon. He had the brilliance to understand that our “Product” was people. We provide the service of people, thus giving us a freedom to advertise in any direction. 2008 was the first year a theme was created for the booth. Danny designed a booth to look like a pirate ship with treasure chests and images of pirates. The working title for the booth was Cleaning the Deck 9or Keeping the Deck Clean; I don’t remember)

Danny pulled together several of the younger office workers at Simply Right to be the models for pirate photos he wanted to use for print advertising. I became the “Hero Pirate” due to my experience with production. I was the only one to really fit the mold of a pirate. I also agreed to let the photographer put eye liner on because they felt it helped my character “come alive.” During the shoot there was a supply of cleaning equipment. Danny had me switch cleaning equipment for different action shots, from spray bottles to backpack vacuums. After the shoot it seemed like my role was done.

Two months later Danny calls me while I at the campus.

“Hey man, how do you feel about coming with us to Las Vegas to be a Pirate?”

After agreeing to the job, Danny explained what was required of me. I would dress as a pirate walk around the trade show floor handing out keys to the guest. The keys would get the guest a chance to win a prize. We had a treasure chest at the booth and only a few keys worked to open the chest. Inside the chest was chocolate coins and a pair of skull candy headphones.

The whole experience of walking and talking to people at the trade show was fun. The interactions, the reactions and the photos was positive. This was on-hands training of what is needed for running a trade show booth. People want to have a good time. People want to feel special. 70% of client’s decision to buy into a service/product is based on how they feel about the person who’s selling it. If you can give the customer a positive experience with your company the odds of them using your services in the future increase greatly.

After seven years with Simply Right I've been involved in over 25 trade shows. With each show I try to get better at the process, improve my interactions with the guests and how can I make it fun.

First Corporate Video

The Year was 2009.
My first corporate project at Simply Right happened while I was still in college. At this time in life I most of my productions were music videos and a Local Music Radio show.  My Uncle, The Founder of Simply Right INC wanted to produce a promo video with a very limited budget. 
"How does a company make a low budget production?" Hire your video-grapher nephew whose hungry for work in his field. This "Backpack Vacuum Video" was my first introduction to corporate media. 

The cleaning service industry in a whole can be seen as a bland market. As to other industries, the Cleaning Service Industry is about 10 years behind. So, it’s not uncommon to have facility managers who are “out-of-touch” with what innovations in cleaning services. Early years of Simply Right INC deals contracts relied on the client providing the equipment and chemicals to a building. Which means if we needed something we’d have to request it from the facility manager.

The Founder of Simply Right, Dan Kilgore employed my skills to produce a video exclusively for Cinemark Theatres. Dan explained the video is to visually inform the customer on an essential piece of equipment – Backpack Vacuums. The project would be designed to help our clients understand why we needed a backpack vacuum. Having backpack vacuums in all the Cinemark Theatres would help us clean better, faster and help with labor costs.

At the time the Founder was buying vacuums from a small company in California called Manutech. The Manutech backpack vacuum was called “Bakuum." The gray tube vacuum was a workhorse. (The vacuum had a removable logo. Which made it easy to make the product look generic. The video wasn't selling Manutech as much as the need for Backpack vacuums). The Bakuum was cutting edge at the time for the cleaning industry, (even if the vacuum is now a dinosaur after ten years).

An attractive supervisor from California was shipped in to be the talent for the backpack promo video. The supervisor was going to be in town for three days. After getting mud on my boots I’ve learned it’s much easier to hire an actor to be the clean tech. The problem with using a real cleaner is they always want to rush the job, nor do they understand the actual process of production. Half the production time is spend teaching the person how to act, rather than filming.

The location was Cinemark Tinseltown Newgate, located in the Newgate Mall in Ogden, Ut, (about mile three miles away from home-office). Simply Right been cleaning Cinemark Tinsltown Newgate for over15 years. We’re still cleaning this the building. The movie theater has since had a facelift, all the seats in the video have now been replace by high-quality luxury pleather seats. (Personal note: The place looks great).

My crew for the production was a local cinematographer, Ben Sant. Ben had a talent for making low budget look high quality. The shoot took about 8 hours. The hardest part of the project was the lighting. The lights were either too dark or too bright, however, Ben the professional, he got the shots. (Pro Tip: As Producer always, always, always try to find people with more talent than yourself it will only improve the project).

As well as being the producer I was also the editor of the project. My preferred software then was Final Cut Pro. I had no direction on the how to brand the video for the company. So I use several techniques I would change now.   
All the motion graphics were the sample files provided on the editing software. The intro and scroll effects for wording are all sample graphics. The original music on the production was from a company that claimed to be royalty free music but was a scam. (I was sued for using the music. Which happened five years after the video was posted). No worries now, the music is now provided by YouTube. The music doesn’t really match but at least, I won’t have to be concerned about lawsuits over copyright.

As to the quality and process shown in the video it all still holds up as the basic industry standards for cleaning a movie theater. Ten years later I’m still making minor changes to the YouTube video. The name of the video was Simply Right - Backpack Video, now the name is - Backpack Vacuum. A simple title is more likely to get more traffic to the video. I suck at writing summaries, so I had to rewrite the summary. The summary is still lame.

 

Now with a bigger budget and more understanding to branding I would like to remake this promo video on the backpack vacuum. All facility services companies should make their own training videos. Being transparent on how to clean allows for good traffic. These days we can learn or study anything on the internet, so why not drive traffic to your brand. Pro-Team company an industry leaser in vacuums, they make training and promo videos for their products. However, when I make a Simply Right training video on vacuums it drives more clients to ask about Simply Right.

After-Thoughts:

Innovation in any industry is key. The basic principles of cleaning do not change. The equipment, the chemicals and people change, Finding new ways to prefect a product or job is a continuous effort.  Before writing this blog I re-visited Manutech’s website. The outlook on Manutech does not look good. Other companies are innovating new vacuums. Innovations like more comfort in the suspension system of the backpack vacuum. Losing the cord and going to lithium battery power. Companies have even designed the vacuums to look better, so you want to use. Shoot I have a Hoover backpack vacuum at home, I love to use it because it makes me feel like a Ghostbuster when I wear it. 
Ten years later Manutech is still selling the same vacuum.

Workplace Culture of Japan & How We Can Apply It

In the service industry learning how companies in other countries work is beneficial in gaining greater value in your own work.  The Japanese workplace culture can help us be better in our industry.

Not the Individual, but Member of the Family:

            Employees in Japan view the company as a whole organism, everyone’s job is important. Their mindset is on how I can help the company rather than any single individual. The best way to understand this mindset is to borrow from John F. Kennedy. “Think not, what can (my company) do for me, but what can I do for (my company).”
            Cooperation in the workplace is essential to being successful. All members of the company are part of “the family.” Everyone in the company shares the same fate. When the company does well, we are all successful. When the company loses an account, we have all failed. Often, we (as Americans) are too concerned with who is to blame. “Whose fault is it?” If we stop looking for a person to blame, we will start solving the problem and fix it faster. Americans tend to believe that the person who failed must “fix the problem.” In Japan, they believe that “we both failed," so we both have to fix it.”
            Maintaining a family attitude about the company will help retain employees. Akio Morita, former CEO of Sony explained the Japanese logic in hiring. Morita makes it clear that when a person is hired, they are being hired for 20 to 30 years. The new employee will be with us for their whole career. “Be very careful in choosing the right employees.”
            As the CEO, Morita would personally speak with his new hires. In his meeting with the new employee he is very clear what the agreement is between the company and employee. New employees are not drafted into the company. “We did not draft you; you chose to come to Sony. We selected your application. Make this the brightest time in your life for 20-30 years. No regrets being with us.” With all new hires, the new employee has a 3-month test period to make sure they fit with the company before being hired on full-time.
            Morita states to have the best results with all employees is to, “Treat all people as a human being.” The employee is not a disposable commodity, they are your selected family member.

Think of the Long Game, Never the Short Game:

            While Americans generally have a hyper-focus on the bottom-line. Japanese embrace a long-term average. As a cleaning service company, we maintain a long-term view on keeping a building clean. We promise quality. We clean every day. We do a great job most days, however, in every building we’ll make a mistake. We will miss an entire bathroom or a floor won’t get cleaned because a piece of equipment breaks down. As a company we look at the average. Is the building cleaned correctly most of the time? In the service industry most every job is repetitious by design. Without the right mindset, this kind of work can be boring, and failure will occur. In the Japanese workplace they use a word in which they base their work ethic on - Kaizen.
          
            Kaizen means to be continuously engaged in activities that improve all functions. Repetition, attention to detail, and care are the predecessors to efficiency. Appreciate the value in even the smallest amount of improvement. An improvement that isn’t evaluated by its degree is an incentivized routine.
            Think of your job for the long game. Avoid thoughts like, “I’m only cleaning till the next best thing comes along.” Rather, “I’m going to be the best at this so I can become a manager. I’m going to use these skills and gain greater value for my value, for my peers and for my company.”

Chain of Command:

            Every decision goes through a chain of command and must have approval from the Boss. In the Japanese workplace the word is: Horen-so = Report – Contact – Consult
            If a building facility manager wants you to do a job you’re not approved for, talk to the boss. Most importantly, report any problem immediately, before you try to fix it.

 Japanese Business Etiquette Basics:

            Embracing another culture’s business etiquette can greatly increase the first impression others have on you. Here are a few Japanese business etiquette's, if practiced can help improve how clients and colleagues see you.

Business Card:
Japanese see business card as an extension of themselves. Treat them with respect. Read card carefully in front of the person. Place card into holder or in a pocket above the waist.
Give your card as well. Exchanging business card at the beginning of the meeting works as an introduction and icebreaker.

Be Prepared: Show Effort/ Respect Is Valued:
Bring Pen, or something to write on (tablet). In meeting make notes to show effort. Never come to a meeting open handed. Come with something in your hand.

In Meetings:
Be very careful asking “Direct Questions.” Do not force client to make a decision on the spot.
Be careful with direct eye-contact.

Entertain:
Japanese people love to be entertained, so do most people. Take clients out to lunch or dinner. Take them to a restaurant where you can help suggest items from the menu. In Japanese culture it is bad luck to pour your own drink or to have an empty glass. Pour the drink for client or request the server to fill the glass.