Somehow, I've gained the impression that a good many of you guys who post here are heavy into commercial cleaning. I have a few regular commercial accounts myself, and have grown fond of them. They are much easier to clean, and to deal with than residentials.

Do many of you guys also offer janitorial cleaning?

For those of you who don't offer janitorial, have you noticed that having an adverse effect on your commercial sales?

Marty,
That's our main business. Janitorial. Carpet cleaning is for now secondary. We have under contract 1.1 Million SQ.FT./ month.
There's no slow season,checks come every month, No worrying if we going to have work next week.We recently bid on an additional 155,000 Sq.ft./ NIGHT! 2 buildings
It has it's pros and cons like any other business.

why i'm shocked you'd ask this here...what after bashing this forum's posters over at Mikey's place

or was that just a joke?

--- Derek.

Derek,

How do you ever expect to be accepted into the good old boys club on these forums if you talk like that.

Marty this may be a long response but it's to the point with no ps's.
I only clean commercial carpet and get a lot of my work from a very large janitorial company that are friends of mine. With large buildings you'll find that often times the owners or property managers of buildings will try and use the janitorial company to also provide the carpet cleaning services, especially if they are happy with their janitorial services. It's one less thing for them to hassle with when it comes to access and security issues and they already have a relationship with everyone. While this isn't always the case I've found it to be the norm for the larger work I do for them. (One complex we clean has several buildings with about 1 1/2 million sq feet of carpet)

We mainly do medical facilities in office buildings that are connected to hospitals. For me I think it would be VERY difficult and probably impossible to get their carpet cleaning without going through the janitorial company.
I think if you get the right janitorial accounts it could be a good addition to ccing but the downside is usually less profit and the nightly headaches dealing with the cleaners missing trash cans, etc.

Another option may be to contact some of the better janitorial companies in your area and try to contract their carpet cleaning. It works well for me because I mainly encap these types of accounts and many janitorial companies are very happy to make 20% profit without any hassles. I bill through the janitorial company and even wear their company shirt on some jobs. Some of their accounts know they subcontract to me and others don't. I don't care much either way as I still get paid. I personally prefer doing it this way than being responsible for the nightly janitorial services

Jeff Cutshall

I've thought about the hassles of trying to go into the janitorial side of things. I'd hate to have to be responsible for seeing to it that employees show up for work and all. Can't imagine the stress. In my town there's a few husband and wife teams and a few singles doing most of the janitorial work for pennies. I caught one of them checking out my equipment and writing down names and numbers last week. Probably have a competitor soon, now that he's seen how easy encap. is.

That's the problem, encap. IS easy, and if you look in Cleaning and Maintenance Management magazine, all our friendly suppliers are marketing to the janitorial crowd ... not that I can blame them.

I do a lot of Commercial Cleaning probably not compared to some of these guys.
And yes it does adversely affect my business, particularly the growth of my business. Several times during cold calls they will tell me that the janitorial service does it.
I cleaned a residence (hwe, I explained I have a diff method for commercial) once and they were thrilled so they asked me to come and give them a quote on their business. I went in and it was pretty bad I quoted around $350 (probably .13-.16 per sq) and they came back with oh the janitorial does it for $100 so we'll stick with them EVEN THOUGH THEY SAID IT LOOKED TERRIBLE.
I found out later from the janitor that the janitorial service recommended they go with me and told them they didn't know much about CC'ing.

lol.

Thats crazy. so what happen RickL? Did they or didn't they?

Thanks
Your Servant Alex

Cultivate the "OCCD" you had at first for the industry!

They stayed with the janitorial and I do their residence and UPH. The husband is the one that handles it and is (in the janitors words) CHEAP. The wife is better but I never see her even at the house and it's not worth the hassel of going over his head.

That certainly could be a problem. What I do if I know I'm being watched is in addition to cimexing or op cleaning I go ahead and lay out my extraction hoses, either truckmount or portable in the general vicinity of the cleaning area. This does waste some time but it's good to keep them guessing. I've had some watch for a few minutes then quickly lose interest when I turn the portable on.

We do most of our work on the weekend when no one is around though. I know some will actually put a customized company label over the Cimex tank to make it a little more difficult to indentify.
JC

We do janitorial and floor cleaning.

I have found that many as stated above want to deal with one company for keeping the building clean. We can offer this service
whether my company does the actual janitorial service or not depends on location and how much money I can get.
I have a working relationship with a few quality janitorial companies, when it is not a place I want to do the Jan work I call them to see if it fits what they want also to check the pricing criteria for them.

In most cases one of my contacts will accept the bid with me making enough to justify the hassle of my company being the point person as it may. Since we also to VCT and hard floor care I am in the buildings with good frequency to make sure the other Co is keeping up there end. The relationship also goes the other way and we get a lot of floors and carpets from the Jan companies as we are set up better to do the work they need done in a timely fashion an produce quality results.


Marty I would not want to be responsible for a bunch of janitorial employees showing up each night also, that is why I went the networking with janitorial companies route.
I also get to pick and choose a few cherry Jan accounts. This has translated into me not taking crap jobs I might have other wise taken.


David

Question for you.

Do you charge the client on two different terms or do you add the jan & cc together. My jan account doesn't want a contract for cc'ing but want to clean them when they get very noticable.

I will propose to him the perpetual plan beginning of year for cc. It would seem to be more profitable to me.

How about you? I ask cause i'm newby. (jan & cc)

Thanks
Your Servant Alex

Cultivate the "OCCD" you had at first for the industry!

Years ago when I did janitorial cleaning, some accts wanted cc'ing done twice a year or spot cleaning done when needed so we would add a little more into the total cost of the service each month.

Some of my accts only wanted cc'ing done when they told me to do it, so they would get an invoice for the carpet job when it was completed.

All depends on who writes the check.

I have to agree with Joe, it depends on the client.

We always give them two options, I can add the cost of the carpet maintenance program to the monthly janitorial bill and line item it out, or I can charge them for the carpet cleaning when we they choose to have us do it. I just add a line item to the regular bill.

the advantage I always stress to the client is by adding the cost to the monthly bill it is less expensive for them.

1 Smaller monthly chunks rather then one big bill, this allows us to schedule more frequent cleanings, we give them a discount for doing it this way along with.

2. Their carpet will last longer due to the carpet never reaching a heavy soil load.

3. They do not have to think about any carpet or floor maintaince
any more so they can keep focused on what they are trained to do.

Marty,
when I started back in '71, my biz; was janitorial, (down under, we call it "contract cleaning").

I progressed to carpet cleaning in less than a year.

When I started in Cairns in'83, it was mainly janitorial with a fair bit (& growing), carpet & upholstery.

I finally got sick of all the transients (backpackers) applying for jobs, up to fifty for one job.

Mind you, most of my work revolved around the airport, doctors surgeries and clubs.

These, especially the airport, were jobs where all applicants had to undergo a security check, with the Federal Police (like the FBI) for the airport.

After a week's training, supply of uniforms, superannuation payments, tax file number registration, etc; they were ready to work on their own.

We found that after about three months, these people now had a quid in their kick, ($$$ in the bill fold), & were ready to hit the road to some other place.

So we would be back into their job until we found a replacement, then do it all over again.

To replace the uniforms for each person was expensive to say the least.

Then there were the week-end warriors.

You could set your watch on a Saturday & Sunday for the ones that would ring in "sick " & couldn't go to work that day.

So again, I would be off to do their job, 3 hours late.

Finally I spat the dummy big time.

Got rid of that side of the biz; went solely carpet & upholstery & never looked back.

I don't have as big a turnover.

I don't pay super;

I don't supply multi uniforms.

I don't have to find a large pay packet for sub standard workers each week.

I don't have cranky customers.

I don't have stress.

Funnily enough, I now have more profit at the end of each year, work a lot less & still enjoy what I am doing.

Different areas will have different problems.

Hope this don't confuse you.

Cheers,

Shorty.

I've seen the light, and changed my wicked ways.
www.get.shorty.com.au

My own experience was very much like Shorty's 300 accounts and 100 employees and no end of stress and turnover. As each year went by the work ethic deteriorated. Carpet cleaning was far more profitable and stress free until recently so now I'd rather just do Inspections, make the same profit with ZERO employees. I never have to worry about low ballers and cheap part-time pig farmer carpet cleaners as they would never spend the money required to become Inspectors.

Tony said "cheap part-time pig farmer carpet cleaner" Hmmmmm, can't you just feel the love. It's Christmas day here, and I hope it is going to be a great relaxing day with your families. I wish ya'll the very best and don't forget the birthday cake for our Lord and Savior.

Hey, I'm down here in San Antonio with the whole clan.
Hope you and yours have a great day.



ps, you surely know that Marty & I frequently have our tongues firmly stuck in our cheeks.