Tag: Janitorial Specialty Work

Your Target Janitorial Customers – Tips – Part 1

Who’s your target janitorial customer? What type of businesses do you spend your valuable time and marketing dollars to attract?  Is it the hair salon that’s cleaned for an hour once a week or the government contract (with 25 facilities) that’s cleaned six to seven days a week?  Is it every business with a trash can?

Not sure?  Well, you should be and you should only focus on the “right” target customers that will best support your business growth and your peace of mind. And it’s really not hard to determine…  Simply ask yourself, “Is is it profitable, manageable and sustainable to my company at the present time in my business growth, based on my experience and resources”?

I’m Drake Thomas, Co-founder of CleanlyRun (formerly CleanGuidePro), and I’ve been doing this forthree decades… Allow me to share a few observations about the different types of janitorial customers that you may consider targeting.  Because this is a large list, I’ll start with 10 of the most common types below (and next week I’ll address 10 more).

 

Janitorial Target Market
 

  1. ONE DAY A WEEKERS: Asking to have a building cleaned only once a week is a common customer request. And if you’re cleaning by yourself in the early stages of your business, that’s fine… But trying to find reliable employees to only work one day per week is challenging at best. There’s very little profit and you still have to clean a week’s worth of mess in one day. I simply would advise against it in most cases.
  2. RESTAURANTS: Typical cleaning frequency: 7 days per week. Pros: Can be very lucrative with the possibility of getting a chain to clean. Cons: Late start times, usually after midnight until 6-7am. Hard to staff the hours required on a daily basis. Notoriously slow payers.
  3. FLOOR CARE ONLY: This is when a customer contracts you to provide floor scrubbing, stripping, polishing, waxing, carpet cleaning only, on some type of a regularly scheduled maintenance program. Usually a type of retail store like an auto part chain, pawn chain, hair salon, grocery store, etc. Pros: High profit margins, repeat business and lots of work everywhere. Cons: Requires training, skills and speed from your employees. Lots of upfront costs with equipment and chemicals.
  4. BANKS: Typical cleaning frequency: 3-5 days per week. Pros: Lots of banks around and you don’t usually get just one, but dozens of locations. Potential for lots of extra specialty work, i.e. floor care, carpets, etc. Cons: Requires individual employees or a team to do multiple locations on a route requiring you to provide a vehicle or gas and travel time allowances.
  5. LAW FIRMS: Typical cleaning frequency: 3-5 days per week. Pros: Usually pays a bit more. Fast payers. Usually easier cleans. Cons: Not much, maybe having to work around a late working attorney.
  6. CAR DEALERSHIPS: Typical cleaning frequency: 5-7 days per week. Pros: Lots of dealerships everywhere, with lots of extra work potential. Cons: Late start times, 7 days a week. Requires fast production rates to be profitable.
  7. CHURCHES & RELIGIOUS FACILITIES: Typical cleaning frequency: 3-5 days per week. Pros: Lots of churches around. Usually very pleasant atmospheres. Timely payers and loyal. Extra work potential and easy to staff. Usually always will buy their supplies from you. Cons: None to mention.
  8. DAYCARE CENTERS: Typical cleaning frequency: 3-5 days per week. Pros: Lots of daycare facilities around. Pays well and potential for lots of floor and carpet work due to strict cleaning standards. Cons: Understandably they can be very picky at times. Requires a high level of detail cleaning and sanitizing.
  9. PRIVATE SCHOOLS: Typical cleaning frequency: 5 days per week. Pros: Easier to staff, as start times are earlier around 4pm. Usually always want you to provide floor work, carpet work and the supplies. Cons: Difficult cleans. Usually totally trashed each day, which leads to frequent employee frustration and turnover.
  10. GENERAL OFFICE BUILDINGS: Typical cleaning frequency: 5 days per week. Typical Square Footage: 10,000 – 20,000 Sq. Feet. Pros: This is the bread and butter account for many small to mid-size companies. Easy to staff, usually early start time of 5:30pm. Extra work and supplies. Good pay and usually not difficult to clean. Cons: Not much if you keep their building clean and keep the lines of communication open with your customer.

Remember, as your experience and resources increase (and they will), so will your target customers!

CleanGuidePro Successful Residential Cleaning bidderDrake

Janitorial Specialty Work Tips!

When starting out, most cleaning companies don’t offer janitorial specialty work. They offer basic, janitorial cleaning only. Things like general cleaning, dusting, sweeping, mopping, restrooms and trash. The problem with this approach is that you leave a lot of extra money on the table. That “extra money” comes from offering additional, specialty work like floor stripping and re-waxing, carpet cleaning, upholstery cleaning, pressure washing, tile and grout cleaning, etc.

In addition, you severely limit your company’s growth opportunities.  Most, if not all facility managers need and expect these services to be provided by one company. Trust me on this, the more specialty services that your company offers, the more opportunities you have to win bids and increase revenues at new and existing accounts!

The purpose of this blog is not to train you how to perform the following specialty services, but rather to simply point out a few of the opportunities that exist to increase your bottom line!

  1. FLOOR STRIPPING AND RE-WAXING: When waxed floors are stripped with a stripper solution, down to the bare floor and new wax (floor finish) is applied. Usually 4-5 coats of new wax (floor finish). Suggested competitive price range (per square foot) for “Floor stripping and waxing” is 0.26 – 0.65 (i.e. 26 cents to 65 cents).
  2. FLOOR SCRUBBING AND RE-WAXING: When waxed floors are scrubbed with a mild neutral solution, but not removing all layers of wax and new wax (floor finish) is applied. Usually 2-3 coats of new wax (floor finish). Suggested competitive price range (per square foot) for “Floor scrubbing and waxing” is 0.21 – 0.35 (i.e. 21 cents to 46 cents).
  3. FLOOR POLISHING/BUFFING: When waxed floors are polished, in between regular waxing intervals, using a floor machine that spins at 1000-2500 rpm (rotations per minute). Suggested competitive price range (per square foot) for “Floor Polishing/Buffing” is 0.06 – 0.13 (i.e. 6 cents to 13 cents).
  4. CARPET EXTRACTION CLEANING PORTABLE UNIT: This is the process where carpets are chemically pretreated using a sprayer or mixed in with the cleaning chemical solution inside the machine’s solution tank. An attachment wand is used to spray the carpets at 100-450 psi and simultaneously vacuums up the dirty water solution. Suggested competitive price range (per square foot) for “Carpet steam cleaning portable unit” is 0.16 – 0.33 (i.e. 16 cents to 33 cents).
  5. CARPET BONNET CLEANING: Sometimes called the “bonnet method”. When carpets are chemically pretreated using a sprayer or mixed in with the cleaning chemical solution tank attached to machine. The carpets are cleaned using a hand held, 175 rpm (rotations per minute) rotary scrubber machine with a damp bonnet pad on the bottom. The machine spins and agitates the pad and the pad absorbs the dirty solution. This method has its place, but does tend to leave chemical residue in the carpets, which leads to re-soiling. Suggested competitive price range (per square foot) for “Carpet bonnet cleaning” is 0.11 – 0.33 (i.e. 11 cents to 33 cents).
  6. TILE AND GROUT CLEANING: When a de-greaser solution is applied to the tile and grout, agitated with a nylon grit brush and then using a tile and grout machine that has a spinner tool attachment that spray rinses the floor at 1000-1200 psi and vacuums the residue at the same time. You can rent this machine at your local janitorial supply store until you have enough work to justify a purchase.Suggested competitive price range (per square foot) for “Tile and grout Cleaning” is 0.33 – 1.03 (i.e. 33 cents to $1.03).
  7. PRESSURE WASHING: This is an outdoor application. Sometimes called power washing. When you use an electric or gas powered “pressure washing machine” to wash down exterior walls, siding, awnings, driveways, sidewalks, etc. Water is sprayed on surfaces at high-pressure, usually 1500-4000 psi. Sometimes you need to pretreat surfaces with a cleaning agent.Suggested competitive price range (per square foot) for “Pressure washing” is 0.07 – 0.26 (i.e. 7 cents to 26 cents).
  8. EXTERIOR WINDOW CLEANING: When windows are scrub/cleaned with a wool, microfiber or cloth shammy, that has been pre-dipped into a bucket of cleaning solution, attached to an extension pole, then wiped clean with a rubber squeegee. If you need to clean exterior windows above the reach of an extension pole (above 2 floors) from ground level we suggest you sub it out to a professional window cleaning company that has the proper equipment, lifts, repelling harnesses and liability insurance to handle it.Suggested competitive price range (per window) for “Exterior Window Cleaning” is 1.89 – 6.00 (i.e. 1.89 dollars to 6 dollars). As an example, you might clean the facility’s 8 exterior, ground level pane glass windows and 2 front entrance glass doors monthly at $5 a panel for $50.00. Then again, you might clean all 200 of the facility’s exterior windows at $2.50 a panel for $500.00 quarterly.

When pricing Specialty Work, keep in mind that one time only jobs are priced at the higher end of the scale. Larger and more frequent jobs, say weekly or monthly in a regular maintenance program, are priced at the lower end.

Remember that one of the best and easiest ways to increase sales and net profits is within your own existing customer base! They need and want you to provide these services!

CleanlyRun Successful Residential Cleaning bidderDrake