Renae Hesselink, vice president of sales management at Nichols Paper and Supply Co. has worked in the distribution industry for nearly two decades.  At Nichols, (headquartered in Muskegon, MI), Hesselink has held a variety of positions during the past 13 years including: supply manager, marketing and sales manager. One year ago, she accepted the position of vice president of sales management and in October 2005, she guided Nichols into formalizing the company’s “Green and Clean Program.”

Today, Nichols Green Cleaning customers include:

• Herman Miller Corporation
• Spectrum Health
• Calvin College
• Cascade Engineering
• Forest Hills Public Schools
• St. Mary's Hospital
• Waters Circle (Class A office building in Grand Rapids, Michigan)
• West Ottawa Public Schools
• Baker College - Muskegon Campus
• Sault Ste Marie Schools
• Grand Valley State University
• Goodwill Industries - Battle Creek
• Metro Health System

 

DestinationGreen: What is Nichol's “Green and Clean Program?”

Hesselink: We sell green products and provide a comprehensive green cleaning program that includes the use of green products and green cleaning in general. Also, we provide extensive follow-up with each customer, such as conducting an audit to affirm they are performing the green cleaning program correctly.

 

DestinationGreen: How is the program working out?

Hesselink: It has been very well received in West Michigan, in particular. The region includes three of the largest office furniture manufacturers in the country and they also are our customers as well as numerous schools, K-12 and the university level. In fact, the biggest challenge we’ve faced is keeping up with all of the activity and completing the follow-up with all of our customers. Some of our customers have three work shifts per day. That means we must be present during all three shifts carrying out green cleaning trainings, managing all the documentation of the trainings if the customer is pursuing LEED certification and finally, helping customers promote their green cleaning program internally and externally.

 

DestinationGreen: It sounds very comprehensive. Can you share a specific example of all the activities you carry out in connection with selling your green products to a new customer?

Hesselink: We established a new customer that we met through a local environmental group that knew the company was pursuing LEED certification. We inquired about the Green Cleaning part of it of the certification process. The firm was not happy with its existing janitorial services contractor. We were able to refer professional green cleaning contractors and ultimately, the company contracted one of the businesses we had suggested. Since the contractor already was a customer of Nichols, the company knew we could provide the correct products.

We started the green cleaning implementation process by conducting the product training. We got the new customer's staff all up to speed -- why green cleaning and the benefits it offers. That took place in February. In May, we conducted our first stewardship meeting for the customer. We asked them to invite their landscaping company, their pest management company, their food services contractor, the cleaning contractor, and ourselves. We were all there.

We identified several issues. For example, we helped figure out a green cleaning process for the kitchen. We helped them find a chemical to use as a degreaser that would be safer than their current product.

I took it all back to the customer, outlining the follow-up that needs to take place, and we will repeat this process again a few months. It is labor and time intensive, but that is how we build our relationships with the customer.

 

DestinationGreen: How can the process be profitable?

Hesselink: The example I gave was all new business for us, so we received all the profit from the sales of those products. It’s hard to measure. We right it off as goodwill and the right thing to do and hope they will come back to us to purchase more products in the future.

 

DestinationGreen: What increase in profits have you gained selling green cleaning products?

Hesselink: My best guess at this point is that we will gain $250,000 - $300,000 in new business this year due to our Green and Clean program.

 

DestinationGreen: What are your key tips for successfully selling green cleaning products?

Hesselink: You want to be able to sell the value of green cleaning FIRST. When we hold our initial meetings with prospective customers, we don’t talk about the products until later in the process. We talk about the benefits we can bring to the customer, helping them put a formal (green cleaning) program together, conducting the meetings that need to happen, helping them with the documentation if they are going to apply for LEED certification, helping them conduct an audit afterwards to make sure all their contractors are in compliance.

Also, we help customers market themselves. Typically, maintenance and custodial departments aren’t very experienced in marketing. So we talk about all of those things before we get to the proposal of the green products. By then, they understand the value of both the products and the services we offer. The cost of the services is factored into the products.

If you’re out promoting green, you have to be green yourself. You have to be doing green cleaning in your own building, you have to make sure that your own staff is educated on the benefits of green and why you are promoting it – ALL your staff, not just your sales staff. We had a full day conference back in April and all our staff attended and many of them came out of the conference asking, are we totally green? Are we going to pursue LEED certification (because we are renovating an office to move into)? You have to be able to offer more than just the products.

 

DestinationGreen: What are the skills that distinguish an adequate versus a high achieving green cleaning products salesperson?

Hesselink: The most successful are those that understand the green cleaning program in depth. They understand they don’t need to sell the products up front. They understand why a company would want to shift to green cleaning.

I am now on the local board of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) so I am able to teach our sales people the value of LEED, the questions and answers to a few key inquiries about certification that a customer might pose and how we can provide resources and direction for customers to pursue the LEED certification process.

Listening skills and truly trying to understand where the customer wants to go with this also are important. Do they simply want to use green products? Do they have to report to their shareholders and senior management about their green practices? Is the company proceeding with LEED certification?

 

DestinationGreen: What would you say is the biggest difference between selling green cleaning products versus traditional cleaning products?

Hesselink: It has mostly been a shift, especially for our salespeople, from immediately selling products to a customer to first presenting the green cleaning program. The LAST step is the presentation of the products.

I think the green cleaning program takes it to a higher level within the organization (of the customer). For example, one of our healthcare customers are getting pushed from their executive level now to get all the company’s existing buildings LEED certified. Environmental services (department) are looking to us now to understand that process. We are connecting the customer to a consultancy specializes in LEED certification. This kind of experience has helped us build our brand in the market because we are viewed as a “go to” for the green cleaning process.

 

DestinationGreen: Do you think there will ever be a time when Nichols only sells green products?

Hesselink: I would hope that at sometime we could go to selling green products almost exclusively and I would hope that would happen as more people become educated, but I still see it as off in the future.

 

DestinationGreen: What would you say are the major benefits of a green cleaning program for facilities managers?

Hesselink: I believe we have been able to consolidate products so customers are using fewer products. A lot of that has come from the manufacturers who are coming out with products that are good for different surfaces at different dilution rates.

Customers are actually using less chemical overall. If they are using micro fiber cloths, they are much better at removing fingerprints from glass and if you use it correctly by spraying the chemical on the cloth rather than the glass you will use less chemical. You are also saving labor because you don’t have to handle as many multiple products and spending less time on ordering and probably less paperwork too.

 

DestinationGreen: If a customer is on the fence about switching over to a green cleaning program, what factors might tip them over to go green?

Hesselink: Talking about the health and safety (of a green cleaning program) and the possibility of improving the reputation of their janitorial services division by raising the level of awareness internally about the value they bring to the organization.

We are also seeing green cleaning being promoted by individuals at the facilities level – getting on board and driving it from their level up in the organization. We did a presentation to one facility manager at a public school system who then took the initiative to go to the principal, superintendent and some of the teachers to discuss the benefits. Now they are going to implement a green cleaning program at one elementary school and are talking about implementing it throughout the school system.

In the future, we hope to help customers measure their absenteeism and productivity before and after they implement a green cleaning program to see if they observe improvements.