Olive Garden

[amygeorge]

We cleaned Olive Garden for the last time. The manager said there is a new national contract with a cleaning firm that will clean at night when employees are gone and will have keys.

Does anyone know who got the contract? The manager told me we will be the first he calls for water damage or other services when needed. It's really not a loss for us. We cleaned every three weeks and it was a super easy job and the employees were great to work for. We'll miss them.



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[cu]

Sorry bout that, but I thought you where going to take us out to dinner...y'all need to get on with your sorry self now

 

[billyeadon]

Amy,
They are part of the Darden chain and I had heard over a year ago Stanley had signed a national contract with them.

 

[amygeorge]

I had a feeling it was Stanley. Knowing our franchise, I bet we get called back. Then again no one will be there to see them in action, so maybe not.


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[Steve Toburen]

We cleaned every three weeks and it was a super easy job and the employees were great to work for. We'll miss them.

Sorry, Amy. Bummer!

Steve

PS Amy, I of all people would never say "I told you so". But I did! Twice! The one constant of business is change as in murderous, thieving, low-life competition constantly stealing your accounts away from you!

What to do about it? Do it right back to them, Amy! (I think it is something called "capitalism"!) But seriously, it is so easy to fall into complacency in business. So that is why we beg/ preach/ cajole our SFS graduates into having a consistent, routine commercial sales program in their companies. Why?

Because the simple fact of the matter is I don't care how good you are- you WILL lose accounts. I call this "Customer Erosion" and many times (as in your case, Amy) it is due to "factors beyond your control". What CAN you control, Amy? Your company and your marketing and selling efforts as in you should always have new, prospective accounts "in the pipeline". (See more on this in next week's QuickTIP.)

BTW, Amy, you very well may have new accounts beating down your door begging you to clean their carpets and if so I congratulate you!

 

[C&S]

Yep I lost min to. Manager was pissed that he was being forced to use someone else. He was very apologetic and assured me that once the new people take over he is sure they won't do as well and will voice their opposition to having sub standard work done.

 

[juniorc82]

They might just get preferred pricing or I have not got the bad news yet. I clean an olive garden and we are actualy scheduled to be in there tommarow night. I go the 1st and 3 rd wed night of each month and I will keep showing up till I hear otherwise. I do see ss cleaning a lot of darden stuff but it vary based on region or district depending on middle management.

 

[amygeorge]

Jon, I hope its regional and you get to keep it. We just switched from cleaning the restaurant at night to 7:00 in the morning about 3 months ago and the techs loved that job. They paid us to drive the 100 miles round trip because they did not like any of the local guys. It was a great account except for the drive even though we worked the area in between on the way back. The only restaurant with carpet in my town is a china buffet and I fired them 6 months ago.

Steve, you're dead on with all the advice you give. We're lucky to have you!


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[steve g]

my suggestion is cleaning carpets at NIGHT at olive garden where you really want to be taking your business model?? doing restaurant work at night is not something I have ever seen as profitable. for one they have no loyalty and will go with the next guy who charges $1 less than you. I would say peace out and have at it.

 

[Askal]

We don't have a lot of commercial accounts that we do at night but I do like the ones we ahve. Many for over 20 years. It is good money. Just a little less than res. but no worries.
Al

 

[billyeadon]

Jon, I hope its regional and you get to keep it. We just switched from cleaning the restaurant at night to 7:00 in the morning about 3 months ago and the techs loved that job. They paid us to drive the 100 miles round trip because they did not like any of the local guys. It was a great account except for the drive even though we worked the area in between on the way back. The only restaurant with carpet in my town is a china buffet and I fired them 6 months ago.

Steve, you're dead on with all the advice you give. We're lucky to have you!


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Oh Amy,
I wish you hadn't said that. I will be with him for a week in Denver in 10 days and he will be repeating that to me a couple times a day.

 

[amygeorge]

Bill, I like you better. Will that help? Have fun and enjoy the mile high city.


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[Neil King]

Individual Stanley franchises may have the right to decline if it isn't profitable. They had to have come in pretty low to land an account like that, and after the corporate cut I bet their margins are razor thin.

 

[juniorc82]

my suggestion is cleaning carpets at NIGHT at olive garden where you really want to be taking your business model?? doing restaurant work at night is not something I have ever seen as profitable. for one they have no loyalty and will go with the next guy who charges $1 less than you. I would say peace out and have at it.

that's not true. I have kept several restaurants despite them getting bids for slightly lower amounts because I am dependable, I have also attempted to bid on restaurants where the manager was happy with the service and told me flat out he didn't care that we where cheaper

 

[BLewis]

We just cleaned ours Wed night. Mgmt called Monday and ask is to bring proof of insurance etc., so I don't perceive any problems. About 2 years ago we lost our one Longhorns for the same reason, GM was not happy at all that they were being forced to go with SS. 6 months later they (SS) had so many complaints nation wide Dardens ended the contract and now we do 2.

 

[AJR]

Hi guys, I will say we too just lost three olive gardens toa national deal and it is most likely not SS. I have been told its cleanway akaCintas. I shot an email to darden ceo letting him know that phasing out smallbusiness that patron their restaurants is not a good idea. That it is a proven businessmodel to support local business and consumers that in turn support them. I receiveda response from the head facilities guy and he was very nice to correspond andeven sent cleanway our contact information so that we could service the samerestaurants under their associates program. It looks like cleanway does notself serve all locations. My best guess is that they only send their Cintas crewin if it’s worth it and give the crap to some desperate wand pusher that has nobetter pickings. Any way I was contacted by cleanway about half a dozen timesover a three week time to try and hire us to service the accounts they stolefrom us lol. I went along with the show to see how much they would offer us toservice the locations. Quick highlight on job specs.
We are in at 7am set up move all chairs tables and vac upall food and debris on floor, prespray, extract and apply protector and deodorizerand reset all tables and chairs menus and silverware. Speed dry and all drywhen we leave by 9:30 latest. We run two to three wands on the ground and a mincrew of 3. we do all of this for around .20 sq ft. monthly with free touch upif needed in-between service dates. Only had one call for touch up in twoyears. Well cleanway sent me a contract to sign that if we stop working forthem does not allow me to work for any of the customers I service for them fortwo years. So basically if they loose the account that they stole from me I canget it back lol. And all of this for less than .05 a sq. ft. I told them that Iwould be in the hole if I worked within their price scale. They said that that’sall they could pay. I figure that not much of a job is going to be done at 100buck a restaurant.

 

[Mikey P]

reset all tables and chairs menus and silverware

for .20 a foot...are you insane?

 

[Mikey P]

I stopped by to help my son with our one regular restaurant. every two months, Saturday at 4 pm 700 feet, move tables only. clean and protect every other time.

$470.
$350 without.

Prekleen, red pad, post bonnet, teflon.

 

[juniorc82]

I do some work for cleanway and I cant even imagine what they are going to try and pay people to clean the olive garden. I already gave the og the bare bones pirce just because I wanted some cashflow work for the winter. A nickel less and I think I would rather stay home and watch re runs of mash

 

[juniorc82]

I told them that Iwould be in the hole if I worked within their price scale. They said that that’sall they could pay. I figure that not much of a job is going to be done at 100buck a restaurant. [/FONT]

Let them try and pay out 100 bucks per service, that restaurant will go to shyt after the first 2 months. We got that floor in line but the people before us did a horrible job. A hundred bucks will buy you a porty crew. I don't even think at that rate you could afford to cimex that place. I think for cashflow work as a cc rentals and vacant realestate is where its at. These national companies have destroyed the vct game and now are trying to dismantle commericial cc'ing

 

[Royal Man]

my suggestion is cleaning carpets at NIGHT at olive garden where you really want to be taking your business model?? doing restaurant work at night is not something I have ever seen as profitable. for one they have no loyalty and will go with the next guy who charges $1 less than you. I would say peace out and have at it.

X2 Also sound you guys are too emotionally attached to your accounts. They come and go. It's in the hand of some bean counter and not yours . Get over it!!! And go on!! or take a Pamprin.

 

[Shane Deubell]

Yeah i wouldnt worry about it too much, should move away from most restaurants anyway.

 

[floorguy]

Let them try and pay out 100 bucks per service, that restaurant will go to shyt after the first 2 months. We got that floor in line but the people before us did a horrible job. A hundred bucks will buy you a porty crew. I don't even think at that rate you could afford to cimex that place. I think for cashflow work as a cc rentals and vacant realestate is where its at. These national companies have destroyed the vct game and now are trying to dismantle commericial cc'ing

whats funny is... i got asked to clean 1 up here by me...i am about an hr closer then they are....

anyway, i went and looked at it from the front (its in a mall) gave them some stupid number....then they called back to see if i could go down a little...

I said let me go look at it again.....he said "didnt you already?" yea but i didnt go back in the halls of the mall....

called back and said nope i need this amount....AND THEY TOOK IT

now if i could do national type accts for that money....in a heart beat....

 

[TomKing]

We have seen the same thing here. I have also had the calls for sub work. We run our truck 4 full 10 hour shifts without doing any sub work. We own all our accounts and so should you.

Commercial is great cash flow. Listen to Steve he is spot on when he talks about a commercial sales day each week. I did it and it worked.

Remember I heard Steve say it but Bill is the one who coached me to success.

In all the years Bill has been to my shop many times Steve has not made the trip.

We have lost accounts. I know it happens but I hate it anyway.

 

[juniorc82]

Tom, Congrads on the operation. As we get more and more busy I will ease off of the sub work abit. I don't think all sub work is the kiss of death that its made out to be.I do a lot of vct work for a large national company and yes it doesn't pay exactly what I want but its money that we make without spending it on advertising. Some of the national companies can pay a little bit above marginal if you master the art of stonewalling them and can locate their Achilles heel. I am geared up to be able to do big vct jobs and there is not a lot of competition around here for that sort of thing so I stab them in the throat every chance I get. One of the national companies weaknesses is that getting a contract with a company to service their buildings means that all of them have to be done. In my case living in a semi rural area they have trouble findning contractors who have the resources to clean large commercial buildings and that's how I stick em. Now hack carpet cleaners on the other hand are a dime a dozen. About the onlysub carpet work I do are a few Edward jones offices and a couple kay jewelers stores in the mall and can still manage to average 100 bucks per hour on them. I have had some national companies call (as most of us have) wanting some outrageous worl done for next to nothing. One time I got a call where they wanted to pay 90.00 to clean a blockbuster video store lol. The more I read into this thread it makes me think that darden or olive garden may not have signed a contract with ss because if they did why would cleanway or Cintas be involved? I think the olive garden might vary depending on region and budget and the national account may just be a safety mechanism if the store mgr cant find someone they like localy

 

[rwcarpet]

X2 Also sound you guys are too emotionally attached to your accounts. They come and go. It's in the hand of some bean counter and not yours . Get over it!!! And go on!! or take a Pamprin.

I'm with Dave here......don't get so emotionally attached to any accounts. Someone will always try to underbid you. If you lose an account, just tell them thanks for the business we had over the years, and when they call back in a few months or a year, hit them with a higher price than before they ditched you.

I also see Cintas trying to muscle in to accounts, usually regional or national chains, with their super-duper Aero Tech TM's. (I think they're using Aero-Tech).

 

[Wing It]

Cintas is using aero techs. In my opinion, they are set up great to clean large square footage in sky scraper buildings. They can charge what they want for that because not many have the ability to go over a few stories and not lose heat or vacuum. But, when it comes to restaurants I have found that they are charging much more than the competition. In a restaurant that is ground level with a door 10 feet from the curb, many carpet cleaners can provide ample heat and vac to do just as good a job for a much lower price.

 

[encapman]

Back in March I got a referral through a janitorial company to clean a carpet in a local Cintas office for them. The carpet had previously been cleaned by the Cintas people. The carpet was a total wicking nightmare. But we got it looking good with the Cimex and Releasit. Kind of cracked me up - it didn't look like they had a good plan of attack for commercial carpet.


Rick Gelinas
The Encapman

 

[Jimmy L]

And I'm sure you sold them a few cimex machines too.

Over the years I wonder how many cimex machines you have sold to building owners and taken away business from any local carpet cleaning company.

 

[Shane Deubell]

And I'm sure you sold them a few cimex machines too.

Over the years I wonder how many cimex machines you have sold to building owners and taken away business from any local carpet cleaning company.

Selling cimexes to local businesses as a DIY is a tough racket, hell its hard to convince carpet cleaners to buy one. The local cimex dealer went out of business years ago and never sold more then a couple a year.