SurClean SubContracting Ryans out for $285

[BLewis]

Well, there you have it. I have heard from 2 sources now that they have been contacted my SureClean to see if they would be interested in cleaning them for $285 per clean! I also hear from reliable source that they only intend on cleaning once every 3 months. One would have to be CRAZY to do this. So as someone mention previously they will get fools to clean them once and then they will quit or if they keep on they will do a very poor job.

 

[daniel@procarpet]

Billy the problem is you have way too much invested in your equipment not to mention your time.

You should do them for 285. Get a porty, hire some cheap help (legal or not), pay 50-100 dollars, and let them do it.

Even a cheap tm would work.

You make money and don't have to worry about how good the job turns out.

 

[BLewis]

Daniel,
You see that's the problem. I refuse to do work like that and refuse to be any part of it. We have built our reputation on quality results, working our butts off, and giving a fair value of service for the dollar. There's plenty more out there, I guess you could say "lost that one" but I am waiting on a phone call to pick up a few others.

I also lost one about 30 miles away from us today (and that's ok with me too) company driving 50 miles from Louisville to this mid way point to do the job for $215. I told her I didn't blame her that I would switch also. I pick up alot of business when managers transfer or get promoted and occasionally lose a spot due to this. I just told her to let us know if we can ever be of service to them or they need someone in a pinch (don't ever burn that bridge).

I have recently did 2 different restaurants that I made over 1,200 each that I never serviced before. We did quality work and at a good value (another words I didn't try to price rape them). Guess who they will call back when they need cleaned again. It won't be ever month, maybe only 1-2 times per year, but that's ok by me to.

I have a little "secret weapon" that we use and I doubt that I will lose many of my restaurant accounts do to this. But, if we do that's ok. I guess I am getting like the majority here where I don't fret about losing a restaurant or two along the way. This type of commercial business has been pretty good to us and I hope that we can continue to do it.

It's kinda like a vending route that I had as a kid, my mentor gave me some great advise from the get go. He said if you ever have to pull a rack of machines don't let it get you down! So I made up my mind right there and then if I lost a location, I didn't go back home for the day until I placed it at another! Well, somedays I did go home but I would have them placed before the week was out.

 

[daniel@procarpet]

Billy I used to clean a lot of restaurants, but I no longer do very many. I personally do not want to work in the middle of the night cleaning grease pits.

If I wanted to get serious about doing them, I would not buy a super expensive rig to claim I have the biggest, baddest, suck machine.

I would get a simple set-up, ask what the owner they are paying, and offer a much better deal. I would introduce my help as "this is _______. He works hard and cheap as hell. We can save you some money. The last company was charging 200. No problem we can do it for 150." Something along those lines. I would pay the help 10 bucks an hour and let him go at it.

Trust me people are desperate for work. 10 dollars an hour is gold for some people.

You shouldn't care about producing the best job. IT"S RESTAURANT WORK. Show the help how to do it once and let them roll with it. You should never have to step foot in a restaurant.

If you have good high paying jobs, great. If your truck is just sitting, then why not let it go out and make some money.

Let's say you were doing it for 400. What do you think would happen if I rolled up with a decent small tm and offered to do it for 200. You know the owners are going to try it out. I would pay my help 50 dollars and be happy with what is left over. The help is making money and so am I. I would have a policy that the job must be done right or they re-do it out of their pocket.

In reality I care nothing about competing for grungy restaurant work.

You will gain accounts and lose some, but you must find a way to be competitive.

 

[Dolly Llama]

Billy I used to clean a lot of restaurants, but I no longer do very many. I personally do not want to work in the middle of the night cleaning grease pits.

If I wanted to get serious about doing them, I would not buy a super expensive rig to claim I have the biggest, baddest, suck machine.

I would get a simple set-up, ask what the owner they are paying, and offer a much better deal. I would introduce my help as "this is _______. He works hard and cheap as hell. We can save you some money. The last company was charging 200. No problem we can do it for 150." Something along those lines. I would pay the help 10 bucks an hour and let him go at it.

Trust me people are desperate for work. 10 dollars an hour is gold for some people.

You shouldn't care about producing the best job. IT"S RESTAURANT WORK. Show the help how to do it once and let them roll with it. You should never have to step foot in a restaurant.

If you have good high paying jobs, great. If your truck is just sitting, then why not let it go out and make some money.

Let's say you were doing it for 400. What do you think would happen if I rolled up with a decent small tm and offered to do it for 200. You know the owners are going to try it out. I would pay my help 50 dollars and be happy with what is left over. The help is making money and so am I. I would have a policy that the job must be done right or they re-do it out of their pocket.

.

umm, Dan, since you would "never have to step foot in a restaurant", why not give you're fantasy plan a whirl for a year ..THEN tell us how well it'll work :roll:


..l.T.A.

 

[randy]

They will have guys standing in line to clean them for $285. With national unemployment at over 10% officially and more like 22%, plenty of guys are willing to work for that or less. You should be able to do a Ryans in four hours with truck mount and they will make a few bucks on it. National companies have lowered the cost of commercial cleaning big time, trying to clean commercial with a Vortex payment will be tough. Eventually the same thing will happen to residential (it's started already in some places) and if you can't clean for $30-$40 a room and make money then you better be making plans to get the hell out of the carpet cleaning business.
In some areas it's more like $20-$25 a room. I did away with restaurants & truck mounts years ago but still have a military base where the cafeteria requires truck mounted hot water extraction. It takes about 5 hours to clean it. Every year I put an ad on craigslist for a truck mount with operator to do it for $150 cash on the spot and normally get around 6-7 calls. This year I got 36 calls within two days. A guy with a butler did it in less than 4 hours with a RX-20 and was happy to have the work.

Things are changing fast within this industry. What you saw with Ryans is the wave of the future in commercial carpet care. In most cases if you can't do it with a cimex it is tough to make money. I just lost a job we have had for 8 years. The "winner" of the bid got it for 6 cents a square and plans to use his truck mount. We were getting 25 cents a square for years. Flustrating for sure but that's the nature of the business.

 

[Ken Snow]

How large is it? $285 doesn;t mean anything without that data. If it is 2000-3000 sq ft that is pretty standard pricing and they can get good to great job for that price. If there are 3500+ sq ft the quality will likely suffer. 1000-1500 sq ft an hour for restaurants is SOP.

 

[daniel@procarpet]

Billy I used to clean a lot of restaurants, but I no longer do very many. I personally do not want to work in the middle of the night cleaning grease pits.

If I wanted to get serious about doing them, I would not buy a super expensive rig to claim I have the biggest, baddest, suck machine.

I would get a simple set-up, ask what the owner they are paying, and offer a much better deal. I would introduce my help as "this is _______. He works hard and cheap as hell. We can save you some money. The last company was charging 200. No problem we can do it for 150." Something along those lines. I would pay the help 10 bucks an hour and let him go at it.

Trust me people are desperate for work. 10 dollars an hour is gold for some people.

You shouldn't care about producing the best job. IT"S RESTAURANT WORK. Show the help how to do it once and let them roll with it. You should never have to step foot in a restaurant.

If you have good high paying jobs, great. If your truck is just sitting, then why not let it go out and make some money.

Let's say you were doing it for 400. What do you think would happen if I rolled up with a decent small tm and offered to do it for 200. You know the owners are going to try it out. I would pay my help 50 dollars and be happy with what is left over. The help is making money and so am I. I would have a policy that the job must be done right or they re-do it out of their pocket.

.

umm, Dan, since you would "never have to step foot in a restaurant", why not give you're fantasy plan a whirl for a year ..THEN tell us how well it'll work :roll:


..l.T.A.

Sorry Larry but it can work with the right PEOPLE. You the owner just have to look at it on a cash flow basis and not rely solely on it. Yes you would have to clean each location a few times until the help got the routine down. Then you could just go in and explain the best approach on new locations after they have a few under their belt. I may do it. I have a truck just sitting. Why not? If it doesn't work, then it doesn't work. I won't be out every night though nor will I rely on restaurants as a good portion of my income.

And yes 285 is decent money.

Billy do them at 285. Swallow your pride. Let your techs do them. I personally would have no problem paying someone 40 percent of 285 if I didn't have to lift a finger. In reality though you could get two people to do them for 40-50 per person.

 

[Lee Stockwell]

The name of the Uncleaning contractor is Superclean out of Dallas TX. They own NO cleaning equipment but have read up on cleaning and can write a good proposal.

...that doesn't get carpets clean. 3800 to 4100 sf, lots of red stains, and slow pay. My boys really work hard on them, usually about 5 hours work, plus driving time in the middle of the night.

 

[joeynbgky]

I have worked for superclean many times u can always negotiate price with them

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[joeynbgky]

Super clean actually does cleaning lee. In their town. They have atleast 60 cleaning employees and I counted 10 tms on their lot

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[GeneMiller]

Sorry Dan but that has to be the worst advice, yea lets go in and offer a lower price.

gene

 

[steve frasier]

the guy that needs a bigger truck is telling you that you don't need a bigger truck so not sure why he owns a big prochem machine instead of a spitfire if he doesn't need it

 

[BLewis]

Well, before we went out and cleaned our "newest" restaurant client I left Daniel a message but must not have posted it. Can't really remember all that I said but it went something like this. I don't usually talk about my big powerful truck mount Daniel. Although I was pretty darn excited when we did that 80k sf job in 3 days and we were cleaning at 450 ft on 5th floor and 350 ft. in the basement at the same time. It's not often that I get to dual with the V but when I do it's like watching a bird dog on point (a thing of beauty).

The other thing that I pointed out to you when you go sending your "tech" back to redo his job on his own dime then you will once again get to see how it is to clean a restaurant! Plus, it's against most labor laws unless they're on salary and then it's not on their dime is it? Maybe you practiced your theory that is probably the real reason you don't do many now. We are almost at 30 per month and that is close to my first goal for this segment of the commercial end of things. Then I have one more slightly higher goal that I would like to reach that would take about another 6 months to a year.

Daniel weren't you the one that just posted a few days ago that you needed a bigger truck?

The other thing that I pointed out is that there are ALOT of people on here that I would gladly accept advise from, however you just don't happen to be one of them. Your more like a big pimple on my ass that I would just like to squeeze so that it would go away. No one really brings up the issue of the Big Truck except for you Daniel, really I think you are obsessed with wanting one.

 

[Brian R]

If you can make money doing it and doing it well....do it.

If you can't...don't.

Why does it have to be so hard?

I gave up restaurants because they are diry, nasty, filthy and don't pay very well. Not worth my time at 4am.

I can make more doing 1 decent residential at half the time...during the daylight etc.

I'm not big on commercial work for the same reason unless it's a little higher end....and now...a little higher up. (tall buildings).

Daniels right about the big truck.....But he changes his mind (or at least the way he expresses it) quite often.

 

[Walt]

Daniel,

I admire you enthusiasm. Seriously, I think you look at things in a different way. Most of us would be too cautious to express a thought like that out loud - but you let it fly.

I say, try it out. The worst thing that can happen is you lose the account and a little money - which is no big deal. Personally, I don't think it's going to work as easily as you described. But maybe you can make it work.

 

[daniel@procarpet]

Geez don't take what I say personal. Billy yes u need a big machine, but not to target restaurants. Some will pay decent. Most just want a cheap job. I say u should do them for super clean. Like Brian said if u can make it work, go for it. If you can't then don't do them.

 

[joeynbgky]

Guess my time came they called today. Trying to get me to take over 15 ryans in ky and tn. I took the one in my town cause its the only one on the list that gets done every 35 days. Now...... if I had keys to the other stores I would take them. But not driving for an hour for one store 3 a night yes.

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[Burtz]

so guys like joey upchuck are the scourge of the industry willing to take the work from the maintenance mafias
I aways wondered who those cleaners were that took on those jobs for so much less money

Now I know

 

[Bob Foster]

.

 

[Burtz]

s]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNQRqAoT-2cs]

 

[daniel@procarpet]

Guess my time came they called today. Trying to get me to take over 15 ryans in ky and tn. I took the one in my town cause its the only one on the list that gets done every 35 days. Now...... if I had keys to the other stores I would take them. But not driving for an hour for one store 3 a night yes.

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Make that money. I bet Joey is foaming at the mouth to send his tech out at 10 dollars an hour to make him a nice check. 285 is decent for restaurant work.

 

[BLewis]

Hey Joey, good on u bro. When and if the GC ever opens there I can probably influence them and get u on. However they only will pay $400 per clean every 2 weeks and that will average everything out.

 

[joeynbgky]

I ate there tonight. They have brand new one week old carpet. This ryans is huge with two conference rooms. I'm gonna have to pass to many tables. To move. This location is the busiest out of all of them that's why they are every 35 days the others are 90. How much did the stores use. To pay?

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[BLewis]

[center:1ahgdz4p][/center:1ahgdz4p]Joey, my first go around I did the Ryans in Bg for 500 then went on and did a Denny's there for 500 (included bathroom tile) then drove to Owensboro and got a room and slept till 4:00 got up went to Ryans and ate a big ribeye (back when they used to sell steaks lol) back to hotel for shower, checkout and then back to clean Ryans of Owensboro for 500 more and then back home. It was a nice little road trip once per month.

 

[Bjorn]

wow the price is almost cut in half

 

[Shane Deubell]

An owner can still make money, but an owner operator ...
going to be hard.

 

[joeynbgky]

That was a long time ago too, im sure it was more now. Haha wish I could get 500 out of dennys. But I get 450 for another larger dennys. And ryans wants me to buy an 80 buck special lock

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[Shane Deubell]

In one of the poorest cities in america, i can have people lined up around the block to work that job at $12 hour.

Easy money.