A concern I have about doing commercial accounts is the late hours...I want to spend quality time with the wife & children, but doing commercial work might intefere with this time.

I think someone mentioned before that most of their jobs are between 5 pm and 10 pm (at the latest)...

What are your "hours of operation"?

Thanks!

Joe

ps Ive cleaned a Ruby Tuesdays at midnight, that was no fun...BUT at the same time most of my commercial jobs, like churches and hotels get cleaned during the day...

Joe I have a large commercial acct that prefers weekends so I'll usually work
a Sat during the early morning 8-12 for Carpet. If I'm doing T&G I'll usually start in the evening. However this account allows me to pretty much take the rest of the week off if I want and still meet my business revenue goals.

I try to book my commercial jobs for a weekend, That way I can do it during the day (which I prefer). I'll always make sure that I take the Monday off and sometimes Tuesday as well.

Smaller commercial jobs that I can do in one evening, I do during the week. I'll always ask if I can come in as early as possible to start pre-vacuuming. I've been able to start as early as 3pm that way, although generally they don't mind you starting at 4-4:30pm. Some people love an excuse to leave the office early! One job I broke into three sections and did it over three evenings from 6-10pm...I dislike working all night long.

I accomadate my customers needs if I want the job and the hours suck the price goes up because most of the other cleaners want daytime jobs or early evening only. My latest chain of coffee house close some at 11:00pm some at midnight si I get home around 3-5 am sleep till 7-8am and get back at it thank god they only want one done a week, but have been able to land not only carpet but upholstery and tile and now trying to convince them to have me apply non skid surface to the tile, territory manager e-mailed me the other day and said lets not let the carpet get that bad again, evedently it hadn't been cleaned in some time so I'll develop a maintenance program and try to sell it.

We do the work when they want it done, and charge accordingly.
some weeks I have all day and eve work, some times all even and night work, some times I put in a 18 to 20 hour days.(hate those)

Once we get large enough I will have my helper on set routes and schedules so I i will not have to continue to do two and three shift at times, or any of the technical work for that matter, but for now I will be as accommodating to my prospect and clients as possible.


If I do not want to job instead of saying NO I just raise my prices way up. Sometimes they still say yes.

Wow, some lousy hours! Thats why I dont like to do restaurants. How about you guys doing class A office buildings? I assume you get in there when the offices close around 5-5:30 and work until the job is done...

Joe

We do Class A offices on the weekends usually.

I do more retail stores during store hours Mon- Thus 8 AM to4 PM
I can get two or three small ones done in a day ave 3 to 4 K a store

Usually we start these friday night (5:00) work until 11:00 and will finish Saturday morning.Depending on the size. I have one I'm doing this fri and it is a quarterly cleaning and I will finish about 9 or 10 when I do the semi annual it's a 1 1/2 day. But always friday night or weekends if it is
a larger job.

A few years back when I was attending a Ed York Cleaning College in Vancover,Ed had a commercial only contractor teach part of the class. He had the best scheduling I had ever seen. They started on Friday night at midnight and worked straight through until Sunday at 4 PM, a total of 40 hours. He used college students in 12 hour shifts to do janitorial and carpet cleaning. He was off until the next Friday, he had done this for years and help was easy to come by. His name was Price as I remember, and that was my introduction to Cimex.

Ed York was selling Cimex in the early 90s and he had a Cimex rep at his Cleaning College. I signed on as a Distributor at that time. I am no longer a dist. of Cimex. hope this answers your questions.