“Đoan Green Shirt”: From cleaning workers to company boss with revenue 8 billion per year

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About Nguyen Minh Doan, the customers and business partners just  think of a simple guy who always in a only green shirt. His desire is how to radiate the values of green life and train many employees to put always their minds toward people, contributing to build a cleaner and more civilized life.

Not be only the boss of Bao Linh General Trading Service Co. Ltd, providing the industrial cleaning services and sanitary machinery & equipment, he is also an executive member of the Districts Enterprise Association of Ho Chi Minh City, a member of the Saigon Entrepreneurs Club, receive a symbol of entrepreneur for the community.

More than 6 years since starting the industrial cleaning service- the field is considered as difficult and hard, but Nguyen Minh Doan gradually builds the brand, expands business to achieve remarkable successes. Nowadays, he has more than 30,000 customers in Ho Chi Minh City and many provinces such as Can Tho, Binh Duong, Dong Nai, Nha Trang, Da Lat, Ban Me Thuot, Da Nang, Hanoi, Thai Nguyen, Cao Bang …

The Startup World News has an interesting interview with this dynamic, simple, young 9X director.

Hi. Mr Nguyen Minh Doan, can you let the readers of the Startup World News know why you choose to start business by this industrial cleaning service ?

I officially established Bao Linh General Trading Services Co. Ltd. in 2013, but the start-up story is probably right since 2008. At that time, my same age friends were in college, university, while I fell-out of high school. Feeling ashamed of my family, I leaved Binh Thuan, with poor luggage to Saigon, and stayed at a pagoda in Go Vap, worked and parallelly reviewed my course

At that time, I tried so many manual labor such as constructing apprentice, cleaning the bridge bottom, distributing leaflets, stevedoring, sweeping, painting the walls… etc. Which kind of honest or well paid work so I do. After passing into the HCM City University of Gyms & Sports Pedalogy, I still continued these works, including part-time work on sanitary companies. At that time, I found that the cleaning work wasn’t so hard but the income was higher so I enticed my friends to work together and decided toward longterm.

I worked on many companies, carried-out some different job stages such as supervision, customer care, … to learn how to operate a business. In 2013, when I had enough knowledge, experience and with the economised, borrowed  capital of VND 40 million, I boldly bought machines, established a small-scale company with 5 employees. My initial customers were households, because they wanted to take care of home but lacked time. I knocked each resident door, distributed leaflets, brought promotions to attract customers and gradually expanded my business.

In your opinion, what is the biggest challenge in the field of industrial sanitation services, and how did you solve it?

The hardest part of this service is controlling and handling risks. Many times I has the case thereby customers accused our employees to steal money, gold, phone… In these incidents, I always apologized directly to customers, coordinated with authorities. The investigation results were some caused by  customers’ relatives, some by customers’ mistakes.

To avoid the same matter, I published a clear, detailed 7 steps process, in beginning with customers to checked assets before work. Grace to this process, my company minimized the risk and simplified the troubleshooting.

In my opinion, the most important thing when doing service is calm, patient, enthusiastic. When you have these things, every challenge will not be difficult for you.

Overcoming all these difficulties, how is your company’s actual business situation ?

In the field of industrial cleaning services, Bao Linh Company currently haves 40 employees, serving more than 30,000 customers. Revenue in 2018 was VND 8 billion, growing nearly 20% more than 2017. After a process of the income proving, the business results and the risk control proceeding, I succeed in trademark lisence transferring to Hanoi & Lam Dong units. In  close future, I will expand that in Dong Nai, Binh Duong and Long An.

2 years ago, I focused on developing the system of supplying the sanitary equipment, garbage bins, rubbish bags, toilet paper … My company made the products such as stainless steel trash, plastic garbage bins, moreover, did the exclusive import and distribution of European-standard products with outstanding features such as deodorizing and bactericidal. In 2018, revenue from the distribution of trash systems was about VND 3.5 billion. This number wasn’t large, but I believe this is a good potential market.

Sir, in present competitive market, what do you think about your company’s strength in comparison with competitors ?

That is the personnel training. Actually, I’m believing my staff’s orderliness, enthusiasm and professionalism. This value taken from the recruiting and training them -about 3 months from an ignorant person to become skilled. But characteristics of this service that’s when get good skills, workers easily leave, do business them-selves or work on other companies. Therefore, I always bring to my employees the good benefits, stable income and show them the professional development scene when accompanying me.

In addition, I also especially invested in machinery and uniform. Because  working in the sanitary field, It must have a clean and neat appearance to offer the clean and nice space to customers. In particular, there are always some gifts to our customers, for example, when customers buy a combo set of house cleaning, I will give free set of mattress wash or present the garbage trash, rubbish bags -fabricated by my company… Such small gifts make customers more happy and impressed by our services.

Everybodies often know you as the name Doan Green Shirt, where does it come from ?

The first days of business starting, no capital, no relationship, no customers, an empty capacity profile, … really hard to develop. So, I created a way to make a difference that caught people’s attention. At any business events, where I’ld meet potential customers, I always brough a camera and wore only green uniform – my favorite color and also the outstanding color. I took pictures of the customers, businessmen, then later sent emails with photos to them, and profited that opportunity to advertise for company, making a personal brand. Gradually, people got habitual to my typical green shirt image, the name Đoan Green Shirt come from it.

Start point without business knowledge and experience, how did you get  the knowledge ?

I chose big brands to be their partners, chose and communicated the specialist with strong expertise to study. Big companies already kept the available processes for training, sales, customer care. When I worked with them, I learned a lot and practiced from that for my own way.

I was also one of the first 20 students to receive 3M industrial sanitary certificate in Vietnam, trained by Mr. Roy Ng, an expert in Asia Pacific regional management. These courses did not only give me the knowledge but also an opportunity to meet talented people and learn from them. Besides, I enlisted in fairs, especially border business events then thereby observed how the pioneers who looked for markets and on those cars or trains, I was exchanged, teached a lot of business stories. I still apply this approach when expanding the business of trash bin and garbage bags and achieve the positive results.

Thank you, Mr. Nguyen Minh Doan, for our interesting conversation. Wish your business get more success!.

Mr Le Nang Hung