[CLEAN-MASTER]

I'm looking for your opionions please!
I am putting in a quote to clean a large commercial building, one cleaner between 6am & midnight ( 2 shifts ). The quote is to include all cleaning equipment & products but not soap/toilet rolls.
I was thinking of £12/hour + VAT, how does that sound?

[*Chris Browne]

Maybe a touch more but sounds about right

Chris

[rob fryer]

You are suppling chem and equipment and labour for £12 plus vat if so how are you making any profit?.

[CLEAN-MASTER]

The contract is for 5800 hours over 12 months, I would provide all chemicals & pay my cleaners £6.50/hour, there seems a profit in it to me.
The current company are charging £8.50/hour & it's not working out but I'm not sure they'll want to pay the extra for (hopefully!) a better service.

[rob fryer]

If you can make it pay good look to you the min round my way is £12.50 and thats for some scruff in delboys van we charge min £15.00per hour custys all happy with price.

[Pristine Clean]

what about paper towels? they may use alot of them? or do they have electric dryers?

Seems alot of hours? for that amount of hours...they must have a fair number of people passing by or have large amount of staff..

How many black bags will you on avg use a month?

What about travel costs?

Is there any special equipment you are going to have to use?

[PHILC]

you would do  better breaking your quote down ie hours and materials separately

[GeoffDerby]

Break Your costs down as follows
a) Labour, 110 hours per week at £6.50 = £715.00
Add Holidays, SSP, Traning, NI & PAYE, uniforms transport ect
b) materials, Chemicals, small equipment, mops, vacs ect = £???
c) Equipment, Burnishers, scrubberdryers, grafiti removal, other services, carpet cleaning, windows, consumables ect £
D) Margin, Reporting, Audits & Management
Add these figures togeather then divide by the number of hours should give you a cost per hour.
quoting over 100 hours per week at a single location will attract interest from large cleaning companies who will spread the management costs over multiple sites, and can by equipment and material at very competative costs.
My advise would be to go in at a similar price to what is being paid now or leave it alone and focus on more profitable business
Hope this helps
Geoff

[Pristine Clean]

Just because he is going in at a different price, Why would you leave it alone? They are obviously not happy with the current staff or contractors.. so price may not come into it now.

I would price a job around £15.00 per hour considering all the materials.. NI SSP HOLIDAYS, TRANSPORT Clothing....

Quality comes at a price!

[Pristine Clean]

Also unless you already have the staff in place... or are a large enough company can I ask how you would staff it... have you got staff laying around doing nothing or would you use recruitment agencies then get staff in.

Just interested in how people deal with new contracts when they are already at full with work... plus the wages will be huge to find... will they pay one month in advance....or do you borrow from the bank manager.

[GeoffDerby]

We already have staff in place, and we are a large enough company with over 150 contracts of similar or larger size in place already, taking on this type of contract would be a normal days work for us, we have the systems, process and labour to accommodate without affecting my other business. My advise was primarily regarding how to price and my observation is that this is not normal business for Clean-Master

I had assumed that Clean-Master had little or no experience of quoting for this size of business and he wanted advise. I pointed out that there would be a lot of interest and he could end up wasting his time and effort, unless he already has a relationship with the client, in which case he should find out how he can add value to his proposition, thereby increasing his price to the client.

I would suggest at this stage reviewing the business plan and delivering against this plan, if this is outside of the business capability leave it to others and focus on his own business plan, after all I would not want to become to reliable on one large client and therefore put at risk all my other happy customers.

Typically this type of client will request a minimum of 3 quotes, (often it is 10  to 15 quotes, they measure stability, delivery, value, flexibility management, relationships, reporting, and then again they look at value, then they should look for similar business references.

My advise is to grow the business sensibly, stick to your business plan, you will have plenty of staff relying on you to pay their wages, do not overtrade it will kill the business quicker than poor service as anyone managing tight cash flow will confirm.

PS it's only my opinion, and I have jobs that pay less than £8.50 per hour and some that pay £45 per hour, it is about balance and value

[Pristine Clean]

Hi Geoff,

Now that you have made it clearer to me, I must say that you have given superb advice.

I did not know that Clean Master had not taken on these types of quotes of this size until looking at the website and there vehicle pictured on their site, and yourself pointing it out.

However if he goes for it I wish him the best of luck.

[GeoffDerby]

Thanks Pristine clean,

I learnt many years ago get the foundations right then build on a strong infrastructure.

At best we win only 1 in 3 qoutes, of the other two, one we loose and the other will come back in time if you treat him right.

Like you I wish Clean Master every success and every other business in this highly competative industry, good luck and remember if you build it right they will come .....

Regards
Geoff

[Pristine Clean]

Just a thought. About this contract.

Would the company requesting the quotes. Know that Clean - Master is a smaller company?

Maybe they want a smaller company to deal with.. as my company is no where near the size of yours, Geoff but no offence intended here.. with larger companies they sometimes forget the important things that the customer wants.

Maybe the company wants a new approach.... or am I going way off the beaten track....

[windowcleanertrad]

hi geoff,

do companies of your size have in house window cleaners and all the traditional & waterfed pole systems? or do you sub contract it out? if you sub contract it out how do it? the reason i ask is, i wish to build up a relationship with local / national firms, as i assume they require good honest reliable window cleaners with all the relevant bespoke h&s, racial & equality policies, environmental policies etc...any advice welcome from anybody.

regards

shaun