same here I been taking on vct work to keep the door closed to the commercial cleaning comp. I personally think there is not much money in the small jobs. getting the wax off is hit or miss. Takes a lots of steps and equip. and the floors we usually get are trashed and have had no maint. with several layers of old crappy wax to remove. I been bidding about .65 strip/wax/3coats 20% solids or better wax (all kinds of quality in wax) and for jobs less than 500 sf I shoot from the hip. and add for moving appl. Etc.. Realize that the real comp. in this vct market does not even want to mess with smaller vct jobs, so the SS guys you ran into may actually be getting $2 sf for S/W res. Jobs. Figure a kitchen and baths in a home about 300 sq. ft at 2.00 is $600 and you will go thru several pieces of equip. and be there about 4 hrs total incld waiting for wax to dry and supplying materials. For the most part with our current commercial customers we get the jobs, but like I said not a lot of money in it due to the amount of time involved. On the new custy its hit or miss on getting the work, big jobs we may or may not get them at .65 sq sf all though we get some. I have invested in several pieces of equip to make us more efficient. Like shovel nose vacs, backpack wax applicators, auto scrubbers, and waxomatic (large area wax applicators) and much more, kind of ridiculous for so little profit lol. And those tolls only help if your working on large areas. But like I said if I don’t provide the service I will be leaving the door open to my comp. example: I went into a Ryans restaurant this weekend, the carpets were being kept in pretty good condition but ceramic tile in baths and buffet was in worse condition than the ones in a truck stop restroom. I approached the manager and asked who maintained their floors she replied “no one” just them with a mop. I asked if they had a carpet cleaning company and she replied that the had one come in monthly and were under contract but that they did not clean the tile. After acknowledging they had a problem I said that we could provide them with some assistance in solving their floor odor problems and cleanliness. Well I was there the next morning doing a bid on the tile and also was asked to bid on the carpet. Like I said some services we are not going to make as much profit as others but we need to keep an eye on the back door lol.