- Who you’re actually dealing with
Shaun Herman, founder of Commercial Cleaning Machines
I’m Shaun Herman. I started Commercial Cleaning Machines in 2021 with a van, my tools and a short list of customers who’d been let down by someone else.
Today we’ve got thousands of machines on our books and around 500 on scheduled service across Queensland. We’ve installed large fleets into government facilities and we look after industrial sweepers that cost more than a house deposit.
- Shaun Herman, founder
In that order
I’m not a salesman who learned about machines. I’m a mechanic who learned about selling them, and it happened in that order for a reason.
Started CC Machines with a van and his tools
Machines on scheduled service across Queensland
Machines on our books
Installed into government facilities
The trade came first
I grew up fixing things
Trucks, forklifts, cars, whatever was broken that week. I did my apprenticeship on heavy road transport, everything from little Hinos up to Kenworth K909s, and when I finished I went contract field servicing on fuel tankers.
Apprenticeship, heavy road transport
Hino to Kenworth K909
Everything from little Hinos up to Kenworth K909s. Trucks, forklifts, cars, whatever was broken that week.
Contract field servicing, fuel tankers
No second chances
That job taught me the thing I’ve built this business on. On trucks you don’t get a second chance.
Service manager, golf operation, Canada
300+ machines
I ran the service side of a golf operation in Canada, over 300 machines across two courses, then came home to Australia and into cleaning equipment properly.
PowerVac, Western Australia
Tennant · WA
First proper stint in cleaning equipment, at the biggest Tennant dealer in the country. We are still a Tennant authorised distributor in Brisbane today.
Manufacturer service department, Brisbane
Manufacturer side
That last one taught me what manufacturers do brilliantly and what they do badly. I got frustrated enough with it to go and do it properly myself.
Commercial Cleaning Machines
2021, Brisbane
A van, my tools and a short list of customers who’d been let down by someone else. Now thousands of machines on the books and around 500 on a scheduled service plan.
The standard
On trucks you don’t get a second chance
If a truck runs into a family car because someone got complacent with a brake service, there’s no fixing that afterwards. The difference between a good mechanic and a bad one is enormous, and on that gear it’s measured in lives.
Cleaning equipment isn’t that high stakes. But I brought the same standard across anyway, and I train my technicians the same way.
We don’t go to the site to fix a machine. We go to fix the problem, then work out what else is going to fail before we’re back.
That is what a service visit from our technicians is supposed to be.
Why I went out on my own
What manufacturers do brilliantly, and what they do badly
What they bring
- Scale
- Stability
What they often can’t
- Someone who knows your site
- Someone who picks up the phone
I got frustrated enough with that to go and do it properly myself.
Service came before sales
For the first stretch of CCM I had nothing to sell
I’d be standing in front of a machine telling a customer the motors were going and the chassis was rusting out and it was time to stop throwing money at it, then pointing them at another dealer because I couldn’t help them.
Eventually enough customers wanted to buy from me that a couple of manufacturers were willing to back a small operator. Most weren’t. That’s still how we work, and it is why every brand we sell is one we also service, including the Nilfisk range we are authorised for.
What that looks like
Two things customers tell back to us
Government contracts we’ve taken over
Was
Now
Sites that were getting weekly repair visits now sit at close to zero callouts. That is what preventative maintenance is actually for.
A second opinion call
Quoted
Actual fault
A manufacturer washed their hands of a machine and quoted a replacement, and the customer wasn’t convinced. We’d seen the fault before. It was a $30 microswitch. That customer is still one of our biggest today.
The flip side
The advice that costs us money
Mostly robotics at the moment. If I were any good as a salesman I’d have sold ten times the robots we have. But if we put one into a site where it was never going to work, that lands straight back on us.
So we tell people when it won’t work.
If you want the numbers rather than the pitch, run your own site through the robotic cleaning ROI calculator.
Where this is heading
In ten years I want CCM to be the leading supplier of quality cleaning equipment across Queensland, backed by service and support that keeps every customer coming back.
Not the biggest for the sake of it. The one people stay with.
Outside of work, any real free time goes to my family and running.
Talk to Shaun
If you’ve got a machine someone’s given up on, or you’re about to sign for one and want a straight answer on whether it suits your site, get in touch.
