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Commercial Cleaning - Looking for your advice!

4K views 8 replies 6 participants last post by  swarm 
#1 ·
First let me say this is an awesome forum. I have been lurking for sometime now and its been a great help!

My wife and I have been in the "process" of starting our commercial cleaning business for a while now and have finally got to the point of taking the leap from planning and prep to getting our first accounts. We registered as an LLC, have a 2 mil liability policy, got ourselves quickbooks, and have been doing as much research as possible. I have a few questions for you seasoned vets though that I am hoping you can help with! Any help on these would be great because we are still pretty new to this all.

1. Do you bill at the beginning of the month before you complete the work or at the end of the month after you have done the work? How about quarterly, semi-annual, or annual billing?

2. Do you use contracts? If so what type of cancellation terms are typical?

3. I have seen people suggesting pricing anywhere from 5 cents/sq ft upwards to 15 cents/sq foot. I understand that you should evaluate each job individually and determine costs, profit, etc.. but I am trying to at least know if I am in the ballpark. What is the real average out there per sq. ft.?

4. I have to be honest I am a bit overwhelmed by the amount of chemical manufacturers out there! Any specific brands that you can recommend or have had good luck with? I do have a Waxie distributor near me and a few others. Im also very interested in offering "green" as an option. It seems like its pretty popular right now and I don't think its a terrible idea. :)
 
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#2 ·
cleaning business advice

pcs2clean,

Just a couple of things that come to mind.

A rough formula for cents-per-square-foot is 1% of the hourly wage in your area, e.g. if it's $10 per hour wage, then a ballpark for a 5x-per-week contract is 10 cents per square foot, assuming most of it is carpeted.

Definitely use contracts, and you bill at the end of the month.

Cancellations are usually done via a written 30-day notice.

I found a helpful site recently on how to start a cleaning business. It points to another site that also looks interesting, but I've not purchased anything from them.

Good luck!

Vicki
 
#4 ·
Every business owner has to ensure that their offices are well taken care off. Therefore the up keep and cleaning needs to be of an impeccable standard. This leads to creating the perfect environment for your employees. When everything around them is clean and cleared of clutter they will not have a problem focusing on their work. There is no doubt that clients are deterred from forging any business relationships if they walk in to an untidy office.


 
#6 ·
new cleaning business

You have a quite a few points to address. I will answer the one about cleaning chemicals. In my opinion, I would establish a good relationship with the staff at your local janitorial store. They usually have a lot of cleaning experience under their belt and can help you with any questions you may have. The owner of my local cleaning supply store gives me free samples, and has even offered to let me borrow his high speed buffer if I need it :yes: He even passes along job prospects from what he hears from the grapevine. Most of his chemicals come from local companies and seem to work pretty well. I would rather buy products from a local person that I have a relationship with than a mega-store like home depot.

Bainbridge Island Window Cleaning
 
#7 ·
price per square foot

As far as job bidding, it seems like the cleaning prices vary considerably across the country. However, there are books with national averages charts in them. I got one from cleanpro industries which was very helpful. You can always figure out how much your area differs from national averages then continue using the chart just adjusting it based on the percentage of variance. Small office cleaning jobs are easy to bid and don't require a chart, in my opinion - just estimate the time it will take. However, when you start getting into larger buildings it can be very difficult to really know how long it will take.

I think a rough estimate is 7 cents a square foot per month. So a 10,000 sq. ft. building would be about $700 per month. The charts are nice though because they can also adjust your rates depending on how many times a week or month the place is being cleaned. The more times you clean it the less per cleaning you will charge because it will be cleaner.

They also have software that you can use. Some of them are pretty detailed - counting up the number of sinks, toilets and so forth. In the end though, it all comes down to time. That's what you are selling. The costs of chemicals is pretty negligible, comparatively.

Bainbridge Island Window Cleaning
 
#8 ·
With commercial office cleaning, do you shoot for an hourly goal, or is it not like that in this industry? With pressure washing and roof cleaning, I always try to shoot for at least $100.00 per hour, but I understand that office cleaning is much less based on the bids and contracts that I have been awarded.
 
#9 ·
how many camras are there

hey phil
while it always come down to piece work , they also want to know how long
u were there? caught on video shows have a lot of footage. make sure havac
filter are changed frequently . and as always there mom never did it that way.swarm
 
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