Focus Feature: Constructive Cleaning

Cleaning is a family affair for the Magers.

From mom – the boss – to dad, their children, parents and a sibling or two, the family members each play a role and pitch in when there’s work to be done at Magers Elite Cleaning LLC.

Majority owner Diana Magers, who oversees day-to-day operations, doesn’t see herself as the big boss. Her husband of 39 years and Magers Elite Cleaning co-founder, Randy Magers, begs to differ.

“She’s the one who makes the final decisions. I just bring her the options,” says Randy, who focuses on sales, bidding and training at the 40-employee company.

The couple founded the cleaning business in 2001 after Randy – a distant relation to the Bill Magers family of Metropolitan National Bank – had worked as the national sales manager for Lowe Boats in Lebanon, Diana says. Her husband had partnered in a budding boat venture, G3 Boats, but income was slow to build. They took stock of their options and decided a cleaning business had potential – particularly for the underserved construction market.

Magers Elite Cleaning has carved out a niche on the local cleaning scene by first working to prepare new homes and multifamily buildings for occupation. The business grew organically from there.

“And what happened was they’d see our team and ask, ‘Do you do residential cleaning?’ And we thought, ‘Well, I guess we can.’ So, we ventured into that area. Now, we’ve got a huge clientele of residential homes,” she says, noting the company currently serves about 110 homes.

Mixed use
For the first 10 years, the couple worked out of their garage. In 2011, they began to rent space on North Patterson Avenue, when the business felt too big to handle from home.

The company has grown its revenue every year, according to Diana, except 2009, when the construction industry was hit hardest. In 2014, the cleaning venture generated between $500,000 and $1 million.

Serving about 50 commercial and 45 post-construction clients, the list includes Build LLC, The Vecino Group, Hiland Dairy, Q & Co., Nabholz Construction Corp., BluCurrent Credit Union and Phoenix Home Health Care Inc., with recent cleaning jobs at Top of the Rock and the adjacent Ancient Ozarks Natural History Museum, The Frisco, The Jefferson, Beacon Suites and Beacon Commons.

Steve Monsanto, senior project manager with Build LLC, says he’s used Magers for construction cleanup for more than three years.

“They’re going to do Sky Eleven for me. They’re probably going to do the Sterling Lofts and Chesterfield Lofts, as well,” he says. “They do two things for us. They do what we call a rough clean and we’re about 95 percent complete, and then they’ll come through and do a final clean. They clean the walls. They clean the base. They clean the floors, windows, light fixtures. They do it all and they do a good job.”

Monsanto says it was good, old-fashioned prospecting that led to the business connection.

“I think Randy Magers just showed up at my office one day. He had heard about us a few years back. He introduced himself, we gave them a shot and have been working with them ever since,” he says.

Commercial and construction prices range dramatically, says Diana, from $50 a month for a small office to several thousand dollars to clean a large business, industrial space or new apartment complex.

About two years ago, the couple moved to put the business fully in Diana’s name as an incentive for contractors who wanted to work with women-owned businesses on projects that have a public-financing component, such as The Frisco.

Larger clients such as McCarthy Building Cos. Inc. also look for those opportunities to diversify their pool of subcontractors, according to Diana.

Against a backdrop that includes names such as Brokate Janitorial LLC, Jani-King and Action Cleaning, Diana says it’s a competitive local market for commercial services. Though she declined to disclose specifics, Diana says the company recently lost Jack Henry & Associates Inc.’s business at its Springfield offices on East Battlefield Road.

“Commercial is extremely competitive,” she says. “We are not the highest [priced], but we’re not the lowest either.”

While revenue was up 23 percent in 2014 over 2013, she says the company forecasts much more modest growth this year, in part, because of the Jack Henry loss.

“We were underbid. Loss is just a part of the business,” she says.

While commercial work may be the biggest slice of the pie right now, making up 38 percent of 2014 sales, construction work is close at 35 percent and residential is inching up at 27 percent.

On the domestic side, the company handles deep cleaning and maintenance – vacuuming, mopping, scrubbing, dusting – but no laundry services. Prices vary widely, Diana says, depending on the types of services requested, frequency of need and size of the facility. “It can be anywhere from $80 to $250,” she says of a home cleaning.

Cleaning crew
Randy says the company focuses on trying to find the right candidates, giving them effective training, and then working with them as equals when a job needs to be done.

“I don’t run the area if I’m on the job. I am just like one of the team members. I say, ‘I’m not the boss today,’ and ask the team leader what he needs me to do,” Magers says.

He says a few workers have been with the company nine years or more, which is impressive, he says, given the traditionally high turnover rate for the janitorial industry.

According to an October 2014 Marketdata Enterprises report, the $52 billion janitorial market in the U.S. employs nearly 1 million people from 765,000 mostly small businesses. Wages are typically lower than average, and turnover is higher than with other industries. Industry tracker CleanLink.com estimates the annual turnover rates at roughly 75 percent.

Randy says a majority of the company’s workers are under 30. When their four children were in school, the parents often hired friends. The Magers’ two daughters still work for the company, as do Diana’s parents. Diana also counts a brother-in-law on the team and her brother, David Baker, is office manager.

Diana says the hardest aspect of her job comes when a customer’s expectations aren’t met. “I hate to see it if a customer is not satisfied,” says Diana,  “Just like raising kids, there are hard days in any business. We just tell them, we’ll be sure to take care of it.”