By Stephen Ashkin

Selling Green Cleaning Chemicals – floor care

This month’s Green Selling Tip covers floor care.  Again, I’d like to encourage you to review DestinationGreen Issue 2; Building the Bundle.  Remember, your customers (building owners & managers and contractors) are trying to create a healthy, high performing environment for the occupants of their building, while at the same time reducing environmental impacts.  Thus, I recommend more of a “program” approach (see DestinationGreen Issue 3: The Pilot Process) to assess the entire cleaning process and only then recommend specific products as part of a complete bundle or program.  Not only will this be better for your customers, but it will be better for your sales and commissions.

Let’s again quickly review what makes a green or environmentally preferable product.  Remember, when you are selling green, you are NOT suggesting that traditional products are “bad”.  Rather, green or environmentally preferable products simply recognize that newer technologies can achieved the desired floor care at a competitive price, but at the same time reduces the health and environmental impacts associated with the products.  Additionally, one of the things that differentiates selling green floor care from cleaners is that floor care truly is a system.  It is not just a collection of individual products.

So what makes a floor care program green product?  Many traditional floor finishes contain ingredients such as zinc used to crosslink the polymer making it more durable and chemical resistant, phthalates which are used to help make the polymer flexible so it doesn’t powder, solvents and flourosurfactants used for a variety of functions including improving application and leveling of the finish itself.  While traditional floor finishes have definitely improved performance compared to the natural waxes which they replaced beginning in the 1950’s, these ingredients we have come to learn contribute to health and environmental concerns.

At the same time, traditional strippers contain ingredients such 2-butoxyethanol, ammonia, sodium hydroxide and akylphenol ethoxylate surfactants all of which are known to cause health and environmental problems.

As we discussed in last month’s article DestinationGreen Issue 15 on selling green cleaners, the point here is not to go on and on about the potential problems associated with traditional products.  Rather, new technologies are now available that can protect the floor, maintain appearances, slip resistant, cost competitive, similar in application, and which further reduce the potential for harm to both occupant and product users’ health as well as to the environment.

There is however some major differences when selling green floor care compared to selling other products.  As I mentioned earlier, floor care truly is a system.  We know that it is not only important to match the green floor finish with the green stripper, but as importantly we know that to maximize the reduction in health and environmental impacts perhaps the most important thing you can do for your customer is to teach them how to develop a program that reduces the frequency of stripping and refinishing.  In the US Green Building Council’s LEED for Existing Buildings Rating System (LEED-EB) they term this a ‘sustainable floor care system’.

Thus in addition to reducing the health and environmental impacts of the floor finish and stripper itself, you need to look for other ways to make the entire system last longer.  Simply put, if we can reduce the frequency of stripping and recoating from 2 times a year to 1 time per year, or once every 2 or 3 years, then we have significantly reduced the impacts associated with floor care.  Not only will this help reduce health and environmental impacts, but it will also help you sell your entire bundle.  A true win-win.

Some when selling your green floor care system you’ll want to ask your prospect to do a pilot (for more information on pilot programs as a selling technique see DestinationGreen Issue 2).  The size of the pilot can vary but you want a large enough area or a small building so that you can implement your complete floor care system.

You’ll want your floor care pilot to demonstrate not only the effectiveness, durability, wearability, gloss, slip resistance, low-odor, etc., of the floor care products themselves, but how you can help them implement a sustainable floor care system which also includes your entrance mats, your burnishers with vacuum attachments, your microfiber floor mops, your mop buckets, etc.  And of course you’ll want to show them your training program to make sure that they are applying enough of a base (I personally recommend 6 to 12 coats of floor finish on a floor that has been totally stripped of finish), daily cleaning and dust mopping, interim maintenance, scrub & recoat programs, etc. which all taken together can extend the life of your floor care system and create something that truly is sustainable.

Remember, Green Cleaning is coming.  And because customers are going to be buying their green cleaners from someone – I’d prefer it’s from you!

Good selling!