Footprint Cleaning – Telstra Business Awards Finalists

Footprint Cleaning received an anonymous nomination into the Emerging & Energised category of the 2019 WA Telstra Business Awards.
After a long, thorough process, they made it all the way to the Finals!
Into the top 25 of 21,000 businesses nominated across Australia.
Meeting the other category finalists at the Masterclass in Perth, and attending the gala dinner was a great way to celebrate their successes and growth so far this year.

Here’s their speech:

“We’d also like to acknowledge the traditional owners of this land we’re celebrating on tonight and other Aboriginal people here with us.

While it looks like FC is a cleaning company,

It’s actually a platform that enables us to empower people and improve our community.

3 years ago we started providing high standard commercial cleaning services for workplaces in Broome.

It quickly turned into a force for positive change in the areas of social crisis, cultural reconciliation, environmental impact and wealth management.

Since applying for the Telstra Awards we’ve learnt that this is a thing called quadruple bottom line and footprint cleaning was used in a local case study example because it ticks all the boxes.

From preferential employment of aboriginal people or people with a disability, to

Replacing individual desk waste bins with communal recycling stations, to

Sponsoring events with cash and in-kind services that bridge the gap between youth and mental health services,

To helping staff with financial literacy skills.

Aaron and I are like that 1 annoying mosquito buzzing around your ears while you’re trying to sleep, incessantly working to make at least a small difference in what are complicated overwhelming problems.

We don’t give hand-outs, we give hand-ups.

And mostly to those who then give other people a hand-up, and on it goes.

Saying yes to taking risks with innovation, believing in universal laws of reciprocity and abundance, following personal intuition and breaking business norms.

Utilising our skills but dismissing ill-fitting advice like “keep staff separate  from your personal life”. Our success has come about by doing the opposite!

Such is life in remote, rural, regional towns.

Thanks to Telstra for supporting and recognising this, thereby shining a light on how individuals like you and I can make effective pivots with these urgent problems.

To be a small business owner is to be a problem solver.

But it’s naught a solo sport.

Big love and gratitude to the mob at home – our family, staff, clients, suppliers and supporters.”