119. Athens Cleaning Lost 25% Revenue in Six Weeks. Then Tripled. Here's What Changed.

Your wins are random. Construction one month. Housing the next. Retail after that. Different sectors. Different buyers. Different decision criteria.

Your wins are random. Celebrating wins without knowing why you won. Losing deals without knowing what would have changed the outcome.

Your sales process isn’t broken. Your positioning is.

You’re operating without a defined ICP.

You accept any client who’ll pay. Pitch anyone who’ll listen. Build capability for whoever says yes.

Serve construction, housing, retail, and local authority simultaneously? Your value prop stays generic.

“Quality service. Reliable delivery.”

What every competitor says.

Buyers don’t choose you because they know you. They choose you because you’re available.

A housing client refers you to another housing contact.

Your case studies show construction work. Your website talks about retail. Your LinkedIn features property services.

They lose confidence. Your positioning doesn’t match their world.

The introduction dies.

Without focused ICP, every deal is a new game.

You’re learning buyer language from scratch. Building credibility from zero. Competing against specialists who’ve been in that buyer’s world for years.

Better operators aren’t beating you. Clearer positioning is.

You’re in every deal because no one else can close it.

Revenue caps at your personal capacity.

Your best people leave—there’s no clear growth path.

Every new opportunity requires rebuilding credibility from nothing.

Athens Cleaning Company operated this way for years. Retail. Construction. Medical offices. Banks. Professional offices. Whatever came through the door.

Then they lost 25% revenue in six weeks.

That crisis forced one decision:

“We focus on bank branches and medical offices. Small-format professional environments cleaned by part-time professionals.”

Not bigger accounts. Not diverse sectors.

Smaller, specific, repeatable.

Three things changed:

Instead of “quality cleaning services,” it became “two to three-hour professional cleans, multiple times per week, by people who already work in professional environments.”

Bank branch managers and medical practice managers understood exactly what they were getting.

One bank branch manager referred them to another.

Case studies matched. Capability statement aligned. The team already spoke the compliance language that those buyers cared about.

They stopped advertising “cleaning jobs.”

They started targeting specific people: office managers and bank tellers looking for side income.

Not from working harder. From getting clear on who they serve.

Recognise this pattern in your business?

Book a Commercial Focus Diagnostic. 60 minutes. We’ll map your actual ICP from your last 20 wins, identify where generalist positioning costs you margin, and build your sector focus decision tree.

Book your diagnostic → here.

Look at your last 20 wins.

Same sector? Same contract size? Same buyer type?

If yes, you have an ICP. You’re not positioning around it.

If no, you’re running a revenue lottery.

Athens Cleaning waited. Lost 25%. The crisis forced clarity that tripled the business.

You can choose the timing. You can’t avoid the decision.

Most founders resist. Niching feels like revenue risk.

It’s not. Staying a generalist is the risk.

Messaging can’t sharpen.

Case studies don’t stack.

Referrals don’t compound.

Your team can’t build sector-specific expertise.

You stay busy. You don’t build momentum.

You’re the known option in their sector.

When Josh Melton defined Athens Cleaning’s focus, 16-year client retention became normal. Not because service quality improved. Because relationship depth became possible.

Every win makes the next easier.

Case studies match. Team speaks the buyer’s language. One client refers a similar client. The introduction carries weight because your positioning is clear.

You’re not starting from zero in every pitch.

You know the procurement criteria. You know the risk language. You compete as the specialist, not the generalist.

Inconsistent sales aren’t a pipeline problem. They’re a positioning problem.

Positioning starts with deciding who you’re built to serve.

In Josh Melton’s words: “You can be the McDonald’s of cleaning companies or the Chick-fil-A of cleaning companies. Both are very successful.”

The business that tries to win everywhere wins nowhere predictably.

A business that focuses on a single buyer type compounds its advantage with every contract.

Look at your last 20 wins.

Find common features:

If the answer is “nothing,” you don’t have a positioning problem—you lack commercial clarity.

The decision you make from here changes everything.

90 minutes. We’ll map your actual ICP from your win data, identify where you’re leaking margin to generalist positioning, and build your sector focus decision tree.

Matt Harris

The Growth Lab

Working hard but not growing?

Three ways help you move forward:

#1: Diagnose your ICP clarity 📋 Book a Commercial Focus Diagnostic — 10 questions that map who you’re selling to, who you should be selling to, and which opportunities are burning your capacity, backed by a 60-minute. call. 👉🏾 Get clarity here

#2: Access the playbook 📚 Join Growth Lab Pro for the full library of frameworks, scripts, and pursuit systems built for £3–10m Soft FM operators. 👉🏾 Upgrade here

#3: Fix this systematically 🎯 Work with me as a Growth Partner. We’ll reset your ICP, rebuild your value proposition, and systemise how you win construction, housing, and property services contracts. 👉🏾 Learn more here

💼 I share daily Soft FM growth insights on LinkedIn. Join 5,000+ leaders learning how to win more contracts. Connect here.

🐦 Want quick-hit tactics in real time? Follow me on X (@iam_mattharris) for daily sales lessons from the field. Follow here.