Hi i currently own my own cleaning company in ILLINOIS.
I have been cleaning residential homes in Illinois for the past nine months and I am ready to also switch to offices in the night time..

I am just a little confused on what to do for offices though... Sq footage or hourly rates???

I went on a bid a month or so ago for a 6000 sq ft office and decided to charged about .06 for general cleaning and then i told them .09 Cents per sq ft for in depth cleaning.....

I never had received a call ..

u also calle dmy competitors in the area and found oud some are charging 140 hr for cleaning a 2 bedroom condo the first time and some quoted me 100-140 hr which is wayy more than what i charge....

Is offices and residential alike with hourly rates???

Please help THANK YOU!

HI i am from the Chicago area and I am inquiring on how to start bids on offices. I currently own a residential cleaning co in the area that is fully insured and incorporated and I am trying to expand my horizon to commercial offices and I am very unsure on how to bid on these jobs ..and what are good hourly rates.. depending on who supplies the paper towel and supplies....
To if they customer suplies everything.. I just want to know if theres an equation.... or some simple rules to follow...

Any adivce is greatly appreciated..!

[Original questions from two threads merged together.]

Stringer

The ISSA had a seminar today in a Melrose Park hotel this morning from 8 am to noon.

Look into the Bscia and the ISSA, both are organizations for building service contractors with a lot to offer. There obviously is a charge.

Also join How to Start a Successful Cleaning Business great help to new service entrepreneurs, read the archived articles and you can ask questions.

My office is in Naperville. By the way, we do quite a bit of business in Orland. from the Wisconsin border north to west of Oswego, to Kankakee south and most of northwest Indiana.

As I said, commercial cleaning is a different animal Cleaningman. The bidding process is different, the cleaning plan is different, the clients are different and even the employees that you hire for this work are different.

Bidding is important, but I think that you should be asking about marketing and advertising (clough) and prospecting first, that is important and different also.

However, bidding a building has many aspects to it:

Density - amount of staff in the building, number of trash cans, more supplies for the washrooms, more dirt in the lunchrooms, spots on the glass, walls, etc.

Size: Larger buildings, do you use 'team cleaning' or assigned areas?

Square footage: how much is actually 'cleanable?'

More:....

We have a computer program that we use to figure our costs and pricing. This figures in all the costs that we previously have incorporated into the program. (These are available, but not cheap)

Figure a current sq ft price: sq ft X a price that you have developed from your own experience and from competitors info.

Walking the building and determining what needs done, how and how long it will take....an hourly price that you will change to monthly (Note: in almost all commercial bids there are monthly bids, but you break it down first to arrive at this)

And lastly and one of the most important, know your competitors and how they price. Find out who is bidding against you.

All these methods are used by us each time we bid. Each of these is brought into serious consideration to culminate into our final price. We are very picky as to what we go after and have learned through the last 25 years how to stack the odds in our favor. We basically have built a great reputation in our particular market and we spend a lot of time nourishing it. Most of the buildings we go after are at least 30,000 sq ft, many are over 300,000 sq ft, or they have many facilities.

I would suggest that you initially bid by figuring by the sq ft. Play with it and determine your price. Example; a 6,000 sq ft building cleaning five days per week (these are way more profitable) should shake out at about $960.00 per month and that is competitive for the most part. ($.16 per sq ft)

Prospect and bid, always keep something in the pipeline, when you lose a bid call the prospect. Tell them that you are sorry that you lost the bid and if they would be so kind as to help you get better? Tell them that you know that you can do the job properly and make them happy but you need to refine your pricing. You will be surprised how many will take a few moments to help you. Say you bid that $960.00 and you lost...ask them how many bidders there were, where you came in with your bid (second, third, fourth)? Then ask them, for example, if I was second how close was I to the low bidder? They will tell you that before they will tell you exactly how much in dollars. However ask them how much in dollars after you get the other info.

Keep all this info in general and about each of your competitors....that bid also.

I am a little tired and I have a staff meeting tomorrow morning so I guess that is all for tonight Cleaningman.

Oh, I might add that I bid against dry chemical carpet cleaning and win, we can discuss this also later.

Respond to this and we can continue.

Thanks,

Stringer

Stringer

Compliments things Clean...answers will be bouncing back and forth....

Stringer

We need to get all this on one thread cleaningman.

Cleaningman23

Hi Stringer and once again Thank You for your advice with these matters again!
I am gifted to have come across such a successful person in this area!!

But yea I do agree that I should be asking about advertisement also@ And that was my next step .haha.


But yes Now your saying a 6000 sq ft office should be around $960.00 a month for a five days a week cleaning? That averages to about $48.00 per night to clean??
Is that correct?
You are also saying that most commercial bids are monthly and that you should start out hourly? Do you use that to determine the monthly price? And what about the sq footage? now .16 cents is a good bid for sq foot when using your won materials?? or what i stated??


You also state that you out bid chem dry??

Does that mean you have a more cost effective system than them that your customers prefer? or that your experience prompts you to have customers chose you over the dry cleaning aspect of things?





I have tried doing my research into commercial aspect with books and internet studying but have not come across a adequate example of the prices in my area at all...

Cleaningman23

Thank You once again for your time and advice!

Clough

Okay, I just now saw this. Let me work on the merger. It would be okay to keep addressing the questions and dialogue while I do that.

Thanks!

Clough

I merged the threads together as well as the questions. It looks like I didn't lose any information when doing that.

Thanks!

Stringer

Exactly $44.31 per day...but remember in this end of the business always think and talk 'monthly.'

To get an exact price: Take the $960.00 X 12 (months) then divide by 260 (days in a year for 5 days per week)= $44.31 rounding.

Yes, break it down always, you can see SO much more this way. Figure your price in detail then always convert to monthly for your bidding purposes. If you start talking to commercial clients in anything else but monthly or annual they will start questioning your experience..There is no proven, written thing about this, it's only my experience talking here.


In this market this will cover your cleaning supplies needed for this job. Consumable supplies such as ; Paper towels, toilet paper, hand soaps, plastic waste bags, feminine products, etc. is best handled by your client. There is very little profit in these items, competitors hold the profit to almost nothing. The 'sweat to reward' just isn't there. Then something is back ordered by the shipper/distributor and you spend all your time on the phone as your client can't wipe their butts. This business is stressful enough, you don't need this pain. You offer to take an inventory every two weeks for them and give them the 'suggested' order. Tell them that they will save money if they purchase it on their own because you would need to mark it up.

Well, I have been cleaning carpets for a very long time. And I have been to so many seminars that I have lost count.

Fact: Whatever goes into a carpet can stay in the carpet. No matter what you do, you will, at best, get only 80% of it back out. Think of your kitchen sink....you just cleaned it, it looks great and is clean...but just inches away in the drain trap there are so many germs that you would not want to use your sink Again...The powder will build up over time in the bottom nap of the carpet and will act like sandpaper eventually (although your supplier will not tell you this) and serve to grind and wear that carpet much sooner than necessary. And the wear will begin to show in traffic lanes.

We only use the hot water extraction method, it sanitizes and cleans as deeply as possible. We have 12 of these commercial machines and they are busy constantly, actually we are considering purchasing several more. There is an art in learning to properly use this method, you can use too much or not enough hot water and either will cause a cleaning, wicking problem.

Now, have I ever used the dry chem method, yes but rarely. If I have a client with really dirty carpet that just keeps wicking up spots and dirt then I will use it or I will lightly burnish the surface.

Is this method (hot water extraction) less expensive to the customer? Not always, but close, and I make sure that they understand that their investment is better protected for the long term.

And I don't think that you will...pricing is as close to a personal thing as anything in this business. You must experiment, ask, listen, keep good records and have a gut feel. Go back to my other post about how to find out if you are competitive and profitable.

Hope this helped, come back and let me know.

You need to request that Clough get involved with you, he has invaluable information and help that he can offer you.

ALWAYS REMEMBER: PERSIST WITHOUT EXCEPTION....ALWAYS!

Stringer

Cleaningman23

Ok now i understand that this is a monthly system "commercially"

So your saying that averages to about $44.31 per day.
Now is that price going to actual cover the employees pay? Is that price with 1-2- or even 3 employees cleaning the building? I am assuming that 6000 sq ft office should not require no longer than 3 hours to clean(basic cleaning)
Would there be anything that will fluctuate that sq ft price higher or lower?

My client i had wanted it done once a week.. not five times a week..since he only wants it done four times a month would that effect the price i charge him? Should i charge him 20 cents ?? When would a discounted price apply

Now that i think about it also. Another question that the customer asked when I went on the estimate was if i had a steam machine and i stated that i had the dry clean carpet method. Could that have been another reason ??

THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP ONCE AGAIN! I HAVE JOTTED SOME OF THIS DOWN FOR MY NOTES IN THE FUTURE!

Stringer

#1 If you use one person for three hours, fine...use three and they will have to complete it using an hour each. Total hours dedicated is ...3. Yes that should cover you, but remember, YOU are responsible for all your pricing, not me.

#2 If the building is obviously empty....sq ft price is less...density dictates pricing.

#3 Volume always dictates pricing....frequency does also....like I said prior, I do not go after less than 5 day contracts...If you are cleaning less than 5 days...charge a little more. More dirt, more washroom usage, more garbage, etc.

#4 It is hard to say what the reason was CM, (Could have been anything, even you confidence level...and how you presented yourself.)) but arriving at the best cleaning methods in general is a good idea...always be learning...

Stringer

Please rate my answers if they helped you at all, thanks.

Stringer