Commercial carpet cleaners, need your advice

[Captain Morgan]

I don't have any sizeable commercial accounts to speak of and I've been asked to submit quotes for a 3500 sq.ft. physical therapy facility. They've got a cleaning crew that comes in once a week to do the windows, bathroom sinks/toilets, and they've done the carpets too in the past but with a rug doctor, I think. This is 1 of 5 locations in roughly a 60 miles radius.

The manager wanted quotes to clean the whole place once a year, twice a year, quarterly, interim maintainence with encap etc.. I've been seed planting and educating him little by little to generate more interest in what I can offer and now I'm afraid I've gotten in over my head. I don't have a Cimex or OP, only a 175 so I guess I may have to use that for a while if he chooses a interim cleaning with encap.. but I'm getting ahead of myself.

There is sports equipment, stationary bikes, padded tables for patients to lay on, chairs in the waiting room, and offices/reception area so there would be a fair amount of stuff to be moved and I'd need a helper to keep things moving smoothly and steadily.

Looking at the carpet condition it will need a good rotary scrub prior to extraction. On my few small commercial jobs depending on condition and how much furniture I charge around .32-.34 p/s/f but those jobs are only a few hundred feet. This is 10 times that.

I don't want this to be a case of "what's the bottom line"? Although I know commercial can be just that. I pre-vac, pre-condition, scrub, extract, spot clean, move/replace/tab furniture as needed etc.. so I don't cut corners but I can't post-pad or pad-cap like some might because I don't have the equipment yet.

My questions are:

Where should I start my sq. ft. price? I know my annual charge should be more than my 2x year, and 2x more than 3x etc, to entice them to clean more often but..I want to make sure I make money in the process.

Should I offer price breaks on sq ft'age being cleaned and at what sq ft'age? 1000, 1500, 2000, 3000 sq.ft?

Do I simply start with my costs first and then simply add a % profit and cross my fingers?

How should position my quote to try to acquire some of the other locations too?

Should I give them a menu of services and go "ala carte" or offer price packages so not to complicate things?

I'm seeing this is becoming more complicated than I'd anticipated and posting messages on the board may be slow and difficult. If anyone wants to PM their phone # to me I'll gladly call them to discuss my situation and concerns.

Thanks a lot in advance for your help!

 

[Supersucker]

I have done those before, but they didn't want anything moved. I couldn't imagine what a pain in the ass that would be.
For interim maint you could just HWE the entries, halls & spots.

I would ask him what the prospect is for getting multiple locations, how often they have had it cleaned in the past, were they ever happy, did they ever get protection, and do they have a budget in mind. So many variables, but it sounds like a good prospect, what with 5 possible locations and all.

I would personally think about what I need to do all five say quarterly, then reverse-engineer my pricing from there, add in initial scrubbing & protectant and see where you are.

 

[Greenie]

Just look at your time, piece bid the job, if you know that a given footage would take you 2 hours to clean, bid it by the hour, say $125/hr x 2, If you do this piece by piece, you won't be out of whack on the total bid and you will always be profitable, then later if they deduct and area etc... you can subtract that safely and your numbers remain constant.

Maintenance is easy, get some thin looped synthetic bonnets and go to work, same deal as above even though you will be 3x as fast it's still about your hourly money.

 

[Ernie G]

William, There are several ways to bid these com. accounts, give me a call, I would be more than happy to talk to you about the subject. 425-788-5671

 

[Jeremy]

Probably go in the $.11-$.135 range for VLM. You'll make good $ at it like that too. TM extract for about $.20 or so. You'll clear well over $100 an hour.

812 754 1447 if you want. I'll help you out.

 

[boazcan]

Good answers so far for you.

Ask him for the budget they have for this project. They want to break off the janitorial so he knows that it is going to cost him more, but ask him first for where they are trying to be. You may have to educate him for more money or he may just give you an early Christmas present.

I would pitch hwe 2x per year and encap 2x per year. Include 1 or 2 "emergency spot cleans" per office per year. My customers love it when they hear something for free, but they rarely call. when they do, I do more talking than cleaning - which is the goal.

Also, do a demo before the price. Sell them on you before the price!!

Don't worry about sq ft savings, you are going to have to drive to each location. Charge for good work.

 

[whitely]

hi ,i have s small business in toronto and i need an office cleaning.i saw u have some experience about this activity and i hope u can help me.i wanna know about the cost/time/quality,or if u can give me some suggestion about where i can go....thx

 

[Guest]

well; 98% of all my business is commercial; greenie is correct; the best way to court business is to make it affordable for them to maintain you as a part time employee so to speak; it is very rare to get a business to spend $1,100 on cc when all that gonna happen is it gets trashed.

I wouldn't recommend anything but HWE on these jobs; due to the cleanliness requirement; if it is in a hospital anything but hwe is way substandard.

Remember this could be a constant meal ticket; hourly charge hwe; make sure you invoice asap; if this is a hospital group company it could take 30 days to recieve check.

 

[whitely]

hi,on my search on the internet i found an business office cleaning company.i think i wanna work with them and i need to know how they work.if somebody knows them pls give me a replay because i really need to clean my offices