How to respond to a commercial bid question?

[Rescue]

Okay-

Here is the deal. I have a commercial bid that I just sent. It is a glue down commercial grade carpet with a couple of soda spills. The layout is pretty easy to work with. There will be no HWE only encap. since it is on the 6th floor in San Francisco. I bid for a one time cleaning which was $.20 sq/ft for 4,000 feet and the other bid was for a maintenance program at $.12 sq/ft for 4,000 feet which includes 3 cleanings in a year.

The problem that I am having is how to answer the question that I know they will ask about the price difference per cleaning ($480 compared to $800). Other then telling them that it will take time, labor and solution where with the maintenance program the cleanings will get easier the second and third time. What else can I say?

Joe

 

[mkpol1]

Volume discount....the more you buy the less it is....Sam's club is a perfect example

 

[Contemporary Carpet Clean]

Joe,

Sounds like you are going to say all the right things. The first cleaning that we do for a commercial job is usually a mess. That is the reason they are calling you in the first place. The previous carpet guy could not clean it right or hired some subpar help and the quality of work has gone down hill. Maybe they haven't had it cleaned a while and (possibly the economy/biz was not good) and they now have money to maintain their place of biz properly.

It would be just like if you hired someone to mow you lawn and you didn't mow it for 3 months (this is an exaggeration). There is no way they are going to mow it once (for the normal weekly contract rate) especially needing to make multiple passes to cut the lawn to the right height.

Maybe make the price between the maintenance and the first "restoration" cleaning closer. We have done that main. cleaning discount pricing and when they do not stick to that program they expect that you charge the lower price all the time....Just saying I would make the cleaning prices more of the same.

 

[Spurling]

1st time clean is a restoration clean ..every one after will be a frequency clean ..the more frequent ..the higher the discount.. most of the time youre trying to fix someone elses mistake.. thats prolly why their looking for someone else. you could call it a corrective cleaning ..doing everything you can to restore the carpet .. then maintain them with a discounted rate..

the longer they wait between cleanings .. the higher up the scale the price gets

 

[Jeremy]

All of the above & you save on marketing since you have pre-scheduled appointments you don't have to spend additional $ to fill.

 

[Derek]

Here is the deal...a couple of soda spills. The layout is pretty easy to work with.

you said it all there.

obviously you've already pointed out the "problem" areas of this job?? if so, they will only go for you if they feel once a year is all they need.

if they want it more than that, than i'd def go with other person, UNLESS you can sell them on the bene's of VLM / Encap.

and if my initial assumption was right, and you only pointed out the bad things (which 2 soda spills on 4k of carpet is pretty much CAKE!), then they may not need a CC'ing only once a year and you may be a shoe-in


--- Derek.

 

[Rescue]

Thanks!

 

[Jimmy L]

NO NEED to tell them you will eNcAP the other times.


Just say the first is a restoration clean and the rest are maintenance appearance management.


Don't go into explaining ENAcapsUlatIon therories bla bla bla.

You will only bore them and appear to look stupid to them.