About Us
Sales consulting to facility service contractors
Company
Sell More Contracts & Retain the Ones You Want
Revenue-IQ helps you win large contracts more often. Our collaborative engagements combine your customer knowledge with our industry expertise.
As a result, you raise win ratios, revenue, and overall sales capabilities.
ounded in 1996 by Chris Arlen, Revenue-IQ clients include many of North America’s top facility service contractors, such as:
- G4S
- Securitas
- U.S. Security Associates
- Able Services
- ABM
- Compass Canada
- C&W Services
- GDI Integrated Facility Services
- Marsden Services
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Industry-specific consulting experience
Lead Consultant
Chris Arlen started Revenue-IQ to improve contractors’ sales capabilities and share lessons learned from more than 20 years consulting with security, janitorial, engineering and other facility contractors. Prior to consulting, Chris was the VP of Sales & Marketing for ABM.
EDUCATION
• MS, Management, Antioch University Seattle
• BA, Theater Arts, California State University of Sacramento
SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS
• BSCAI annual convention & various webinars
• ISSA Interclean International convention
• Salt River Project, Energy Efficiency Alliance Conference
• Various client seminars
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“Chris Arlen helps contractors articulate persuasive proposal narratives that get customers to take action and sign.”
VP, Marketing, Varsity Facility Services
It’s a privilege to work with industry leaders
Clients
Frequently Asked Questions
FAQs
First, we sign a legally binding Non Disclosure Agreement (NDA) guaranteeing our confidentiality.
Second, we’ve been consulting to the facility service industry for more than 20 years. We could only continue to do that by maintaining the highest degree of confidentiality.
Lastly, we live by the same ethical considerations you do when you have customers who compete against each other.
That’s easy; the first step is to talk. We’ll ask about your business issues, goals and your current situation.
If we can help, we’ll take the next step. We may ask to review your materials, after which we’ll develop a consulting proposal at no cost to you. We’ll define our deliverables, schedule and fees. At that point you decide the next step.
We work with clients throughout North America, from Seattle to Boston, Florida, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Houston, Vancouver B.C. and Toronto, Canada.
When appropriate we work remotely using web meetings, teleconferencing, email, and a secure collaborative web service (Basecamp).
We avoid thousands of dollars in travel expenses and, as importantly, use your time judiciously.
Chris Arlen, President of Revenue-IQ, brings more than 20 years consulting, selling and marketing facility contracts on a national and regional basis. Chris holds a Masters Degree in Management from Antioch University. Past positions include:
- Vice President of Sales & Marketing – ABM Security Services
- Regional Dir. of Sales & Marketing – ABM Janitorial Services
- Vice President – Southern California Janitorial Contractor
- Material Logistics Manager (Soccer) – 1984 Los Angeles Olympics Organizing Committee
Having lived the life of a facility service salesperson, Chris is committed to successfully helping contractors sell smarter and gain richer results.
As salesman and consultant, he has bid on tens of thousands of HPW and millions of square feet for contracting firms to facilities such as:
- Commercial office space
- Corporate campuses
- High-tech & biotech manufacturing facilities
- Retail banks
- Food processing plants
- K-12 schools, colleges & universities
Typically, we charge on an hourly basis — we use QuickBooks timing software for exact tracking.
At the time we give you our proposal (no cost to you), you’ll receive an estimated cost for the entire project.
And when a project is easily scoped, we can provide a fixed consulting fee.
Travel, image, video, and audio purchases are all billed additionally.
That’s easy; the first step is to talk. We’ll ask about your business issues, goals and your current situation.
If we can help, we’ll sign a Non Disclosure Agreement (NDA), either ours or yours. We’ll then ask to review your materials. After this review we’ll develop our proposal at no cost to you. We’ll define our deliverables, schedule and fees. At that point you decide the next step.
All estimates are at no cost to you.
Infrequently there are times when the consulting project is to define a project. In those cases, we’ll request an hourly fee to define the project, and give you an estimate for the number of hours we think it’ll take.
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Recommended reading
Good Reads
There’s a lot of “How to do something” reading out there, which is perfect if you’re looking to solve a particular problem – mine included “(How to Write a Sales Plan)“.
Then there are books that show us how the world works. They help us understand the behavior of individuals, organizations and consumers. Here are a few of those books (all are affiliate links to Amazon.com).
Made to Stick
by Chip Heath & Dan Heath
This is one of the best books I’ve come across for quite some time. It’s focused on stickiness, which I connect to persuasiveness and branding. So there are big insights here for selling, proposal writing and marketing.
slide:ology
by Nancy Duarte
Slide:ology is a great book for slideshow design and graphics. Nancy Duarte’s book provides actionable guidance. This is an absolute required read.
Delivering Quality Service
by Valerie Zeithaml, A. Parasuraman and Leonard Berry
This is the go-to source for understanding how customers determine service quality. If you want to know how customers fundamentally judge service quality, read about it here.
Permission Marketing : Turning Strangers Into Friends And Friends Into Customers
by Seth Godin
Here’s the first recognition of the chase for customers’ attention in an information overloaded world, written in 1999. Today we still just ignore ads rather than buy as our parents and grandparents might have.
The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More
by Chris Anderson
The Internet made numbers king and The Long Tail followed those numbers to stand a basic business sales tenet on its head: more is no longer better. Selling to the smaller niche markets because there’s more of them out there.
The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization
by Peter Senge
While the subtitle addresses the learning organization, it’s an introduction to systems thinking. It takes the “when a butterfly flaps its wings in Brazil there’s a real estate boom in Iceland” idea and makes it rationally understandable.
Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance
by Michael Porter
If there’s only one academic text book you ever read, make it this one. There are two takeaways (among many others) that make this a most important read; the Value Chain and a 5-forces analysis.
