A few months ago we cleaned a residential job and during course of conversing with owner he found out we did a lot of commercial cleaning specifically restaurant carpet. He ask if we ever cleaned tile & grout and I said SURE we clean alot of it. Ended up he was a gm for a local restaurant chain that has all tile in FOH. When he told me where it was I told him I had bid it around 3 years ago but I had put the manager at that time in to "Sticker Shock" when I handed him the estimate (this estimate was base on a 6 month total Foh clean). I told him what the estimate was to best of my knowledge and he said what would you do it for if you were to clean it monthly. I told him I would have to go back and review the square footage and look at the job again. He told me what he was paying monthly and I said I'll let you know if I can do it for that. After looking at job I decided to give it a try as a test.
First time we cleaned it took exactly 2 hours for $325. (this was moving every table and replacing) I was estastic! Since then we have gotten it down to 1.75 hours and it's much easier than cleaning carpet and faster. Now I know most of you will think I'm crazy but this job came out to around .15 sf for tile & grout cleaning. For 5-6 years now I have not even tried to go after that market because restaurants wouldn't even consider paying .50 a sf ( I know cuz I ran them for 34 years!) Now I am cleaning 3 that has tile & grout only. So I am going to put together some marketing materials during the slow down months and promote PRICE, yeah I said it! I think I can get bunches to take me up on tile & grout cleaning FOH (front of house) only for .25 psf, and even if this was quarterly I think it will be a great avenue to experiment with.
What do you think?
As a note, we did scrub grout lines in restrooms only for the first clean, but no scrubbing after that simply because it is not necessary. I have an awesome product now that I use that is really cheap. I used to pay around $26 a gallon for tile cleaner that I thought was the bomb (and it was) however I have found a product for $35 for 5 gallon that is as good as "if not" better!
First time we cleaned it took exactly 2 hours for $325. (this was moving every table and replacing) I was estastic! Since then we have gotten it down to 1.75 hours and it's much easier than cleaning carpet and faster. Now I know most of you will think I'm crazy but this job came out to around .15 sf for tile & grout cleaning. For 5-6 years now I have not even tried to go after that market because restaurants wouldn't even consider paying .50 a sf ( I know cuz I ran them for 34 years!) Now I am cleaning 3 that has tile & grout only. So I am going to put together some marketing materials during the slow down months and promote PRICE, yeah I said it! I think I can get bunches to take me up on tile & grout cleaning FOH (front of house) only for .25 psf, and even if this was quarterly I think it will be a great avenue to experiment with.
What do you think?
As a note, we did scrub grout lines in restrooms only for the first clean, but no scrubbing after that simply because it is not necessary. I have an awesome product now that I use that is really cheap. I used to pay around $26 a gallon for tile cleaner that I thought was the bomb (and it was) however I have found a product for $35 for 5 gallon that is as good as "if not" better!
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