How are you pricing all this new work?
I'm having more luck getting the job where competitive bids are being gather by figuring out my desired hourly wage rather than square footin..
SF is nice and all and you'll score the occasional home run but trying to be a BB rock star can lose you a lot of work.
I had it in my giant head for so long that I had to get so much per foot or I was not a real premium cleaner worthy of a starring role in a ride along DVD.
Last week we were the lowest bidder on an auto showroom (I was competing against full service janitors) and we scored the job for $595. Took less than two hours to blow them away with the results.
Mikey,
Most of out CC work has been Managed Properties. Since My Wife is a property manager and the current Prez of the Apt Association it isnt real hard to figure out what price our competition is doing it for : )
Note that I do not clean her property. We are waiting for the current cleaner to really screw up and he (VP of Apt Association, no kidding) is on thin ice with her over his attitude towards me now. That and her Corp. Office just likes me better : )
$0.10 is the going rate around here and we are pulling off $0.12 = $120 an hour in most units.
With that said, at this point we take what we can get and have yet to turn anyone away due to price. just smile, clean, collect and deposit.
Residential we have been matching SS and blowing their doors off as far as quality.
We have ran 1 ad in the paper over the last 12 months, paid Dex a butt load of money to get us up top in our lil bitty town, but the mass majority of work has been Word of Mouth due to taking our time, and providing Quality work. People seem to really like the fact that we are young and have our heads on straight. No wishy washy like the Wife deals with on a regular basis.
DCI and Superclean hold most of the commercial accounts around here. Hard to get in with them but we continue to shoot for the stars.
I tried some crap on that video once and got ran plumb out into the parking lot.
I just be Myself and it seems to be working. I will never say or act like I am better than the competition to a customers or potential customers face, here I will brag like the dickens though because we are sort of shocked at how it is progressing and pretty proud.
We owe ALOT to Mikey's Board for helping us Maintain that Pro Feel in our heads, when we are really runts in the game. Confidence Booster like no other.
Chris
