Prospecting Cleaning Jobs Feels Broken (Because It Is)
You may resonate with this. Michael’s team had good territory. Downtown in a large city, plenty of class-A offices, government buildings, and medical facilities that should’ve been prime candidates for cleaning and janitorial contracts. But the monthly sales numbers kept lagging.
His reps were burned out - spending up to 4 hours a day on LinkedIn messaging building owners and managers, or a full day each week driving around trying to find properties to prospect.
Sometimes, this meant business development reps drove 90 minutes to drop a quote at a job, only to find out the property owner/manager was located at an office out of town and they'd be talking to a gatekeeper who'd "...be in touch.”
Then the grueling process of prospecting started all over again.
If you looked at all of the fresh properties and names that went into the front-end of the sales pipeline on a daily basis, the coverage ratio easily made sense on paper. But close rates and missed quotas told the real story.
The leads weren’t qualified. The outreach was to the wrong person (OR), too late. And sales efficiency? Nowhere close to where it needed to be to run a profitable regional office.
If you’ve felt this in your own business, you’re definitely not alone. Commercial cleaning sales is a game of timing, hyper-specific targeting, and cutting through layers of gatekeepers who are either paid to keep you from getting to decision-makers or reply back with simple answers like “I'm not the one who decides” before going dark or ghosting your messages.
When times are good, they're great, but when the economy takes a dive or a big customer drops you mid-year, it can feel like the looming bills are piling up with little to show for all your hard work.
And that’s why the teams who win more aren’t just the ones who hustle harder or even the ones who pour lists of names into their pipeline - they’re the ones using sales intelligence software and other solutions that indicate where the real buyers are and when to reach out to them (buyer intent signals) to work smarter.
What Sales Intelligence Software actually does, and how it works.
Sales intelligence is a key piece of software that monitors relevant data at the company level. This includes anything from information on key titles, decision-makers, and data about individuals searching for solutions to the challenges their businesses are facing, known as "intent data."
At its core, sales intelligence solutions like Convex solve three common inefficiencies in the sales process:
Wasted Time on Prospecting (i.e., researching or outreach to the wrong properties or decision-makers within those property management companies).
Outreach that’s generic, irrelevant, or too late to close a deal (allowing competitors to snag customers who may be perfect for your business).
Guesswork instead of targeted outreach based on signals collected at the property level.
In contrast, a commercial cleaning or janitorial company, using a powerful intelligence solution, can:
Search for commercial properties based on market segment, size, type, tenant mix, or even square footage thresholds that best fit your services.
Have visibility into verified ownership and management contact data at the property level (titles, emails, phone numbers, and even signals to indicate buyer intent).
Access to recent permit pulls or service activity (an indicator they’re preparing for an upgrade, may need your services, or up to change vendors).
Utilize Generative AI tools to create outreach messages tailored to that building’s specific attributes.
The result? You know who to contact, what to say, and when to say it—without spending your day toggling between Google Maps, County and municipal databases at the library, property tax records, and guessing what email formats a company uses to try and break past gatekeepers to bid on a job.
Why the “Old School” Prospecting Model Can’t Keep Up with Modern Sales Intelligence Software
If you've been in this business for any length of time, you're probably familiar with the sales prospecting process we've used for decades.
Traditional Prospecting Workflow
Step 1: Drive around looking for office parks, banks, schools, manufacturing buildings, (or whatever your business specializes in).
Step 2: Google the address hoping to find the management company.
Step 3: Manually search for a property manager’s name and find them on LinkedIn.
Step 4: When their contact information isn't listed, you try several email format guesses (hurting future email deliverability) or use a verification tool like Hunter.io to find the best way to contact them.
Step 5: Finally, you guess what message will resonate with them but in general, end up sending a generic (copy/pasted) email with slight personalization and a link to your services hoping you'll get the right person, at the right time, and that your message lands.
By the way, that’s just to get one lead. One shot in the dark. And the average business development rep needs to repeat that 80 to 100 times a week to keep a full sales pipeline. The problem is, there aren't enough hours in a week to win with that approach.
Now contrast that with what a modern sales intelligence workflow looks like.
Sales Intelligence Workflow
Open a solution like Convex, draw a circle on the map that you'd like to focus on (or, filter properties by industry, building size, permit history, and a handful of other key filters).
Sort by Signal Score (shows who’s likely in-market).
Click into a property profile to see who owns it, who manages it, and who the facilities directors, engineers, and other key decision-makers are at that location.
Use Generative AI trained on your company data as well as the information on that building (i.e., the building’s permit history and size) to create a first-touch email or phone script.
Click send, and move on to the next one.
Total time? 3–5 minutes per lead. With more relevance. Higher open rates. Faster close cycles. This is why we say sales intelligence is more like warm selling. You're seeing what people need, who to talk to about it, and sending messages that are relevant to them right now.
Real Example: Transforming Prospecting at Moreno & Associates
Kyleigh Moreno, Director of Sales, Marketing, and Development at Moreno & Associates (Known locally as Moreno Clean) - a leading janitorial and building maintenance provider in California’s Bay Area - was struggling with inefficient, manual prospecting. “I used to spend four to five hours each day scouring Google for leads and transferring notes into Excel,” Kyleigh recalled. Despite her effort, this cumbersome approach failed to produce consistent results, leaving Moreno & Associates stalled in their growth ambitions.
Recognizing the urgent need for a change, Kyleigh turned to Convex’s Atlas platform. Atlas immediately transformed her day-to-day operations, slashing prospecting time down to just one hour daily. The platform provided precise, actionable data on commercial properties, including building type, size, and verified decision-maker contacts.
“Having everything in one platform streamlined my workflow significantly,” Kyleigh noted. With Convex, Kyleigh targeted specific building profiles and key roles, reducing her contact list from hundreds of thousands to a tightly focused group that matched their ideal customer profile. The map-based visualization allowed her to identify prospective clients close to existing accounts, making her outreach more strategic and effective.
Not only did Moreno & Associates cut down prospecting inefficiencies, but their sales pipeline also became more predictable and manageable. Kyleigh shared, “Atlas gives me direct access to facility managers and owners, expediting decision-making and helping us close contracts faster.”
Additionally, Atlas integrated account and opportunity management features provided Kyleigh and her team with new clarity into their pipeline, further enhancing productivity and operational efficiency. This transformation didn’t go unnoticed internally either - getting team-wide buy-in validated her decision to leverage Convex as a crucial growth asset.
Within months, Moreno & Associates realized significant growth in new client acquisition, firmly positioning them as a top commercial cleaning provider in their market. You can read more of this case study by clicking this link.
But you may be thinking:
Objection: “But My CRM Already Has All Our Leads.”
It’s a common pushback. And fair. CRMs like HubSpot or Salesforce are great for tracking what you already know.
But CRMs are rearview mirrors. Sales intelligence is the windshield. You need both. But only one tells you where to look for the next deal.
We also hear:
Objection: “We Don’t Want to Spam People With Outreach.”
And, you shouldn’t.
But when you know a facility director is managing a 100,000 sq ft property with an expiring janitorial contract, and your outreach references the exact square footage, service type, and previous provider, they’re going to listen.
It’s not spam when it's accurate, timely, relevant, and helps them look good internally.
It may be helpful to visualize what a relevant sales outreach message like this could look like:
Helpful Script: Generative AI-Assisted Outreach for Commercial Cleaning
Here’s an example of what outreach looks like when it’s generated using contact, property, and intent data:
Subject: Commercial Cleaning Support for [Property Name]
"Hi [First Name],
Saw you’re listed as facilities director for [Property Address]. Based on the size and tenant mix, it looks like the building may be coming up on a vendor renewal.
We work with several multi-tenant office spaces in [City] and specialize in fast-turn, tenant-ready cleaning and ongoing janitorial support, especially when building managers are balancing multiple floors and vendor needs.
Happy to send over a few case studies or drop by for a walkthrough this week if that’s helpful?
Best, [Rep Name]"
That’s the difference between a cold email and a relevant sales conversation starter.
What Happens When Sales Intelligence Delivers and You Nail It?
Let’s go back to Michael’s team.
After rolling out a sales intelligence platform built for commercial services (like Convex), they didn’t double their workload—they just doubled down on focus.
Time spent finding verified contact info dropped significantly (because the data was built into the platform).
Pipeline quality increased because signals showed Michael's team the properties actually needing cleaning and janitorial services.
Proposals could be estimated (based on building specs) and sent in minutes, win rates increased, and the team closed more deals because they were selling to warm prospects.
The biggest surprise? Their best reps didn’t “work harder.” They just stopped wasting time chasing incomplete information and bad data.
Final Thoughts: "Prospect" Intelligence Isn’t Optional Anymore
Commercial cleaning is competitive. The companies growing fastest aren’t outworking you. They’re out-targeting you. They’re getting to the decision-maker before you even discover who it is.
Sales intelligence software doesn’t replace relationships. It just gets you to the right table, with the right information, at the right time.
If your team is still piecing together prospect lists with LinkedIn and Google, it’s time to level up.
Schedule a free Demo to see Convex in action and find out how commercial cleaning teams are using intent signals, property data, and verified contacts to win more deals—faster.
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