We just did the carpets of a very high-end customer for the first time… he called our office afterward and said, “Where have you guys been, my carpets have NEVER looked so great!” Then he wanted us to give him estimates for his stores.

Two high end furniture stores.

Store 1. Traffic areas of 130,000 SF. Our guess is that only about 50,000 SF would be traffic areas.
Clean 1000SF of offices every month… spot clean the rest of the carpet every month.
Clean all visible carpet twice per year.

Store 2: Traffic areas of 39,000 SF. Our guess is only about 15,000 SF would be traffic areas.
Clean 1000SF of offices every month… spot clean the rest of the carpet every month.
Clean all visible carpet twice per year.

Steve,

Wat do you mean when you say "Traffic areas of 130,000 SF. Our guess is that only about 50,000 SF would be traffic areas." Do you mean that sq footage is 130,000 with 50,000 being high traffic? Or do you mean something else?


If you mean what I thought above I would take the total sq footage multiply that by price you want per sq ft (.09 my guess) then by 2 then divide by 12 for a monthly cost. So that would be $11700x2/12=$1950. Then I would figure on spot cleaning at approximately 1/20th the total monthly (7,500 sq ft monthly)=$675. Take the 1000 sq ft monthly-$90 for a grand total of $2715 per month. Then I would pitch it as a monthly service plan of $2715. If they paid on the first of every month I would discount it to $2600.

Being a novice I would then think that the resultant amount is too high and then proceed to lower it to possible .07 or .08 a foot and then rework the numbers to see if they work out more in line with what I think.

This is just my way, and I too am interested in seeing how others might do it. This also takes into account that you have the wow factor in your favor.

Hope this helps ???

T

Do you mean that sq footage is 130,000 with 50,000 being high traffic? Or do you mean something else?

I mean they are both furniture stores full of furniture... we would not be moving the furniture. We would only be cleaning all open areas where you can walk. Some of the open areas are high traffic, but a lot them are low traffic.

Thnaks for your input... I hope others will chime in as well... We need to make our bid soon.

Prior to the ability to encapsulate we would not even bother bidding because we know that we would be too high. This is a new ball game for us.

We don't do much commercial now. The only encapsulation I have done was a demo. But if my expereince can help here are the details. A few years back we did 3 Helig Meyer furniture stores. Definitely not high end stores. Total sq. ft of carpet in one store was 65,000 sq. ft. Rest was tile or concrete storage rooms.
We cleaned the high traffic main pathways quarterly and all the carpet we could reach without moving furniture annually. I never did measure the actual sq. ft. we cleaned.
Quarterly cleaning took 2 1/2 to 3 hours on site time. $277. Annual cleaning took about 4 hours and we got $365.
At least 2/3 of the open carpet got fairly high traffic.
The quarterly cleaning was done mostly by bonnet but entry way got truck mount follwed by bonnet.
Annual cleaning got mostly truckmount. In tight quarters close to furniture I used a bonnet machine so as not to spend too much time working hose around furniture.

Scott W

Steve I would price these stores at a flat rate of .045 per sq ft. This is a discounted price and it’s considerably lower than our normal rate. But it’s a bit higher than figuring just the “traffic areas” . The reason for going with the standard square foot rate is because it’s a huge pain to go around lots of stuff. It just about takes more time to clean around stuff than it does to clean open areas. So to clean the 130,000 sq ft showroom would cost them $5850 (a bargain). Then I would round up the price to $5877 – because the number “7” sells (I know this sounds ridiculous – but I read about it a marketing book and it works; check out Wal-Mart).

Or else we could just trade out for that beautiful top-grain leather living room set on display by the front door.



Rick Gelinas

Thanks for all the advice.

We really didn't know what to bid... I was going to bid around $6000, but my main tech talked me into going very low just to get the experience of how we should bid and get our feet wet bidding on large areas.

We bid $4000 to do all the traffic areas twice a year and $400 to spot clean each month.

The guy nearly had a heart attack!!!!! LOL

We didn't get the bid even though we were what I would consider VERY, VERY low, and even though he raved about the work we did in his home.

We never did find out what he had been paying, but we did find out that it was a franchise (Steamatic).

They had just cleaned the carpets about 8 days ago and they looked like crap... we couldn't see that they had done anything... lots of spots and a general overall dingy appearance of the whole carpet. The owner said it usually takes them about 3 to 3 1/2 hours to do the job. Yeah sure, ya betcha!!! LOL

It is amazing, he is the highest priced furniture dealer in all Nashville. He sells only very high-end stuff, but he thinks low-end when it comes to keeping his stores looking nice. LOL

Thanks again for the advice!

Fly JiMMy in to do the job for $2500, after he puts up with him for a few hours, you can name your price!!!!! LOL

Ref