137. Why the best cleaning acquisitions are already more than just cleaning

In July, I spoke to a Kent-based operator doing £1.6M in turnover.

Eleven vans. A tipper. A cherry picker.

The business does pressure washing, exterior cleaning, waste clearance, grounds maintenance, mould treatment, pest control, bird protection, painting, and decorating.

His website says “cleaning company”.

That’s not what the business really is.

He doesn’t market the full range. He has never positioned the company as a Soft FM operator. But that’s exactly what it’s become.

Some cleaning businesses aren’t just cleaning businesses.

They’re hidden Soft FM platforms.

In a recent issue, I identified how five different markets share the same operating profile.

Residents living in buildings at scale. Communal areas that drive complaints and perception. Professional management. Centralised procurement. Rising pressure to prove that standards are being managed.

Five sector labels: housing associations, BTR, PBSA, co-living and retirement living.

One operating problem.

Once the ICP is clear, the growth strategy changes.

You stop asking: “How do we win more cleaning contracts?”

And start asking: “What else does this customer need?”

Cleaning opens the door.

The ICP tells you where expansion is worth the effort.

Most cleaning businesses define themselves by service lines.

Office cleaning. School cleaning. Construction cleaning. Communal cleaning.

That helps when you start. It tells the buyer what to expect.

The downside? You end up stuck in single-service conversations.

A professionally managed residential operator doesn’t just buy clean corridors.

They’re managing resident experience, service charges, building presentation, compliance, contractor performance, and operational friction across many sites.

Cleaning is one part of that.

Cleaning is often the most visible recurring service in a building.

It happens daily, touching the spaces residents notice first: entrances, lifts, corridors, bin stores, and amenity areas.

It also gives the operator something more useful than clean environments.

Site intelligence.

Earlier this year, I walked a London estate with a housing association and an integrated FM provider running a 60% cleaning, 20% grounds, 20% maintenance model.

One resident leaving a bin bag in the wrong place became a pile.

The pile attracted dumped furniture.

Fly-tipping from outside the estate started reaching the bin stores.

At one point, the estate team cleared three loads of waste a day to stay on top of it.

The previous caretaking team had been segregating waste streams. When they left, the system collapsed. Residents complained. The estate team was always firefighting.

The cleaning team saw it all. Daily.

If you only clean, you report the problem and move on.

If you manage bin stores, bulky waste, grounds, and external standards, the relationship changes.

You’re not only keeping the building clean. You’re reducing friction for the people managing it.

That is a stronger commercial position.

For the ICP Growth Lab Capital targets, cleaning rarely sits alone.

The same operating team often manages:

Same client. Same sites. More of the spend.

When I speak with housing associations, I always ask about annual waste spend.

Some individual sites spend £100,000 a year. Some portfolios spend more than £2m.

That excludes time spent chasing clearances, handling complaints, and explaining to residents why issues haven't been fixed.

That's the opportunity.

Not diversification. Connected demand.

The simple version of this strategy: Buy a cleaning business and add more services.

I tried that at The Organised Cleaning Company. What I didn’t appreciate was the different labour, equipment, compliance, margins, and management rhythm.

The business became a service menu. Not a better company.

The lesson: don’t add everything.

Horizontal expansion only works when the new service shares three things:

If it needs a different delivery model or management capability, it’s a distraction.

In managed residential buildings, waste and grounds are the most visible operational failures.

I've seen it. A large housing association relied on grounds contractors to handle fly-tip clearances. Two-week turnarounds. Partial clearances. Alleyways becoming dumping grounds. The problem compounds until it becomes a complaint — and complaints affect TSMs.

On one estate walk, I noticed the fragmented responsibility. The cleaning team couldn't dispose of litter in the estate bins. The grounds contractor wasn't clearing to the pavement edge. The council-maintained green space was untouched. Nobody owned the whole problem.

The cleaning team spots these patterns early. Which bin stores fail. Which entrances attract dumping. Which collections should be planned, not reactive. Which external areas are damaging first impressions for residents.

That's the gap a multi-service operator fills. Not because it does more. Because it takes responsibility for more.

A property manager or housing officer is already managing several suppliers.

Cleaning. Waste. Grounds. Pest control. Reactive works.

Each one creates work.

Another invoice. Another account manager. Another service failure. Another escalation route. Another reporting format. Another renewal cycle.

The promise of a multi-service Soft FM operator is not: “We do more things.”

It is: “We reduce your management burden across recurring building services.”

One account rhythm. One reporting structure. One escalation route. One supplier taking more responsibility.

That’s how wallet share becomes more than a sales metric.

It becomes a retention strategy.

A single-service cleaning contract can be replaceable. A multi-service relationship is harder to unwind. There are significant switching costs.

If a client uses you for cleaning, waste, and grounds across several sites, you're a strategic partner.

You know the sites. The people. The recurring issues. The complaint patterns. The seasonal pressure points. The procurement rhythm.

Add in a reporting layer with performance data and sustainability metrics, and you become hard to replace.

More revenue from the same customer means higher account value, better site density, lower cost of sale, and stronger account management ROI.

It also improves earnings quality. And quality of earnings is what serious buyers pay for.

Not selling more things to anyone.

Selling the right services to the right customer with similar operational problems.

I won’t buy a cleaning business because it has £2m of revenue.

I want to know where that revenue sits.

Is it scattered across low-margin, reactive contracts with no clear path to expansion?

Or does it work in professionally managed residential buildings where the same buyer also needs waste and grounds support?

The £1.6M Kent business positions itself as a cleaning company and operates as FM.

The full service range is not marketed. The capability is there. The client relationships are there. The services are already being delivered.

That’s a different asset from a cleaning company with scattered turnover, price-sensitive contracts and no account depth.

The questions become:

It’s not about buying EBITDA at the right multiples.

I’m looking for cleaning businesses that become more valuable under a defined ICP and better operating system.

By focusing on the right ICP, there’s an opportunity to capture adjacent spend from the same customer base.

Cleaning first. Waste and Grounds where it fits. Other services only where the client needs them, the delivery model works, and the operating cadence makes sense.

That’s the bet.

I’m not building a business that says yes to every service request.

I’m building a business that understands one client profile better than the fragmented suppliers around it.

That's all for this week.

Matt Harris

The Growth Lab

If this was useful, forward it to one operator who is thinking about acquisitions or trying to make their cleaning business less dependent on them. That is the best way to help grow this.

I speak to cleaning and Soft FM operators every week. If you are thinking about what comes next — exit, growth partner, or just getting the business in better shape — reply here. The conversation costs nothing. The clarity might be worth something.

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