starting a commercial cleaning business, any info on startin

[dannylightning]

i seem to be out of a job at the moment, at the produce delivery job i kept hurting my back, the first time it locked up and for about 2 weeks i could not even stand up streight, when i went back to work i hurt it again, off for 2 more weeks, went back to work for a few weeks and pulled it out again, well i decided it was best tell them i either need a warehouse position where i did not halve to lift a lot of weight or i was going to halve to quit, taking 2-3 hundred lbs on a dolly up and down steps and such things is just too much for me. my chiropractor suggest that i find a different job also so im working on starting my own commercial cleaning business.

the main thing i need info on is how to write up a good contract, i made up bid proposal sheets and had nice post cards designed to go put in company's mail boxes, post cards look way more professional that fliers. right now i think all i need is to get a contract written up and find out if i need to get a business license, than start getting my post cards out there and hope to get a few accounts.

the best thing about a cleaning business it it will not cost much money if you start off small, in most small offices all you need is cleaning products, a mop, mop bucket, a good vacuum and things like that, after getting every thing in order such as paper work, contracts and a few hundred bucks you are ready to start working, (as soon as you get a account) after things start going well you can invest in floor scrubbers and buffers and start cleaning bigger places like retail stores.

i have exp doing this, i was employed by walmart on the floor crew, i know how to strip and wax floors and run all the equipment. i also spent 2 hours a day cleaned the dining room and restrooms at a restaurant i worked at. and i enjoyed doing it. so i decided this is what i should go for.

[bonehead]

Good luck with it Danny.

[dannylightning]

thanks

[alantf]

the main thing i need info on is how to write up a good contract,

Danny, please believe me when I say that I'm not trying to knock you - but I think you'll be the first to agree that spelling, grammar, punctuation etc. aren't your strongest assets. While we, on this site, can understand & not be bothered about it, a legal contract is quite another thing. I really do believe that you need professional help - both with the actual wording, & the legalities. :2tup: :2tup:

[alanmcorcoran]

Danny,

Most small business contracts are really backstops to the informal relationship you have with the clients. Enforcing contracts implies you have the resources to bring the power of the courts to your side (which, unless you can afford lawyers or the claim is small, is typically out of reach for most small operators.) So try and make sure you have a good non-binding relationship with your accounts even if you do have signed contracts, because that is a better barometer of the business.

Here are three ideas:

1) Contact several large cleaning businesses and get copies of their contracts. Cut them down and adapt the genral principles for your use. (Keep the general principles, don't use anything that seems proprietary to a particular business.)

2) Check out LegalZoom.com

3) Many contracts of public entities are searchable on the internet.

I recommend you try to find a family friend that is a lawyer to help you get started for free. "Regular" lawyers can be very expensive when starting out - generally you can't get much done for under 5K.

Finally - are you sure you want to start a labor intensive business with a bad back? A website might make a lot more sense. Good luck to you and take care of your back. My understanding is you are still a pretty young guy and back problems can quickly morph into things that take over (and severely limit) your life.

[dannylightning]

I know my spelling, punctuation and writing skills are not exactly perfect,. If I actually set down and take my time and proof read what I have written it comes out much better, it just takes me awhile to do it. I will definitely have some one who's English skills are much better than mine go over any thing like this before I go out into the world and look like some kind of joke. I was not blessed with much of a attention span so it was always extremely hard to lean any thing that I was not interested in.

Cleaning is not exactly back breaking work, when I cleaned the walmart and that restaurant it was extremely easy, no hard physical work at all, vacuum the carpets, mop the floor, dust knickknacks, clean toilets and such things. I worked at fedex stacking packages in containers and delivering packages for 5 years, I never had any back problems that were caused by that job, at this last job they would stack a pallet of product up over you head and put 6 poorly stacked 50 pound bags of onions on top of the pallet. than when you tried to get them down they would slide off and fall on your head and every thing else. that is just one of the many examples, or dollies that woluld break when you were wheeling 300 lbs of product down a ramp. cus they would never fix any thing properly or buy new equipment. people were getting hurt at that company constantly. most people would quit with in the first month.

i do have back pain a lot but it is mostly muscle pain, i have had my back go out about 3 times in the last 13 years, until i started my last job.

well i got to run so im gonna type the rest of this out really fast. i was looking for commercial cleaning/janitorial contracts online, all i could find were small samples that you cant read because they want to sell you their already made up general cleaning contracts, i did find a few contracts online but they did not seem to be what i was looking for. do you really think a business is just going to hand out a copy of their contracts to some one who is going to be the competition. im not exactly sure they would do that but i guess it would be worth a shot.

[music man]

do you really think a business is just going to hand out a copy of their contracts to some one who is going to be the competition.


Don't go in and ask for them as the competition, more like go in as a potential client and get a copy of there contracts to "look" over. :2tup:

[alanmcorcoran]

dannylightning wrote: do you really think a business is just going to hand out a copy of their contracts to some one who is going to be the competition.


Don't go in and ask for them as the competition, more like go in as a potential client and get a copy of there contracts to "look" over.
Yeah what he said. I realize this is a bit sleazy and if you are a staunch idealist skip it. Having started and run a number of small businesses i have found that ideals sometimes are a luxury when you are starting out.

[music man]

Yeah what he said. I realize this is a bit sleazy and if you are a staunch idealist skip it. Having started and run a number of small businesses i have found that ideals sometimes are a luxury when you are starting out.



Ideals are a luxury in life period.

[dannylightning]

well one problem with getting a commercial cleaning , usually they want to come out and look at the place and bring their bid sheet, you check off all the things on the bid sheet that you would like to have done at your business, once you do that and they determine how many man hours it is going to take than they decide how much to charge, only than do they break out the contract stating you agree to have them come in and do every thing requested on the bid sheet and those things are all they are obligated to do and all that good stuff.

i could give it a try but i do not own any kind of commercial building for them to come and give me a estimate for. so one of those commercial cleaning contracts might be kind of hard to get a hold of. unless they will just give me one to look at, like music man suggested. you never know, they might.

i could always say that i am going to be opening a business and that i have heard good things about the company and would like to check out their contracts. it might work.

i met a guy tonight over at my friends house, he says he could probably have one of his lawyer friends write me one up for free. but that was just a maybe, he works at a law firm. he said he will try to hook me up but if he cant do that he can find out what i am going to need as far as business licenses and how much it will cost.

[patrick_777]

Know anyone working in the business that could appropriate a copy of the contracts for you? It's probably pretty straightforward.

[alanmcorcoran]

Now that you mention it, I have a several cleaning companies. I can probably get at least a copy of the contract for my anaheim office. I'm not in the office for a few weeks, hopefully i'll remember.

[dhgeyer]

I've started and run a couple of small (one person) businesses years ago. Can't help much with contracts, as they weren't that kind of businesses, but I have a few thoughts.

Expect a lot of rejection and frustration for the first year. Business is hard enough to find in normal times, and these days I have to believe it's going to be brutal. Most places that need a service like cleaning have one, and there aren't all that many new prospects starting up. You're looking largely for people who are unhappy with what they have, and there aren't going to be too many of those either. Also, people tend to select such a service based on recommendations/referrals from friends/associates. Being a new business, you won't have that. Plan to need enough startup money not only to obtain the stuff you need, but also to live for a while.

I don't know your area, but being further South I have to believe that one situation is worse there than it is here, which is pretty bad. That is the illegal immigrant problem. Cleaning businesses are just the sort of outfits that will hire them and pay them very low wages. You're going to have to compete with that in your bids. How little are you willing to work for?

I don't mean to be all negative, but if you've never started a business, you want to be realistic going in.

If you can somehow get some kind of website up, even a very modest one, it will help a great deal. When I started my woodworking business the Web was new, and I got a site up right away - one of the first woodworking sites out there. It didn't produce any trade to speak of for about a year, and I had to sell through shops, which take a big bite. After about a year the Internet sales started to take off, and after two years I never had to deal with shops again. That alone almost doubled my gross income. But if you think about even your own habits, if you are looking for something and you don't get a recommendation from a friend, you usually go to the web. Getting a decent, even if very small site up is only half the battle. Nowadays you need help in getting your site highly visible to search engines. That's a whole science/art in itself, but a very important consideration.

Again, I don't mean to discourage you, but if you haven't thought all this through already, you should.

In any case, I wish you the best of luck, and a lot of it is luck - being in the right place at the right time, or meeting the right person who knows someone. Social networking skills are really important, too.

Anyway, I wish you the best in whatever you do.

[dannylightning]

well i have taken all things in to consideration somewhat, i know how much the supplies i need are going to cost, not much, a few hunderd, just say 500 to be safe, a cap for the back of my truck, 500-800, printing up fliers, post cards and business cards will cost a few hundred bucks. getting my business legit with licensing and things like that well ???? but it is probably gonna be between 2 and 3 grand to get it all going. not too bad at all really

i have moved in with my parents, i have no bills besides car insurance and my cell phone. and i got a good amount of money saved up.

i also plan on finding some kind of part time job unless my business takes off first. there are not many illegal immigrants here at all, when i was in tennessee i saw a lot and when i was in arizona well, all over the place. but not here. there are some and thy all work at restaurants it seams.

i know a crap ton of people around here, some of witch own business like bars and resteraunts, a ufc fighting gym (free membership to clean there lol) that is all they offer haha. i have friends that said they could talk to the place they work and try to get me a contract. none of that guarantees any ting except for a free membership to a ufc fighting gym but hey well see what happens.

[dhgeyer]

Well, it does sound like you have considered these things as far as you can at this point. Good. I just had a couple more thoughts.

Running a business dramatically complicates your income tax filing. Can you say "The dreaded schedule C"? You will probably need help with that at least the first year. I went to "The Man" the first year, and after that just followed what I had done before, using the first year as a model. But the main point of the tax consideration is, keep absolutely accurate and detailed records of everything you take in and exactly when you got it, and when it was contracted for. There are two systems for reporting income, and you have to choose one or the other on your schedule C. So the date you got the money in hand may be the date you use, or the date it was agreed upon may be the date you use. Above all, document (keep receipts!) every penny you spend and what you spent it for. Keep a good set of books going - you'll never remember it all at the end of the year. How you categorize things, especially equipment, can have a big effect on how much taxes you pay.

Second thought, please take this in the constructive way in which it is intended. You have to be a special kind of personality when dealing with customers and potential customers. Learn to bite your lip, not shoot from the hip. I had a minor incident with the car tire business that we have dealt with for over 15 years about a week ago. The owner, Steve, wasn't there at the time. I went back when he was there, and laid it out in polite, respectful, but no uncertain terms. He bent so far over backwards to make it right I thought he was going to hurt himself. He spoke to the employees involved, and even told one of them not to deal with customers on certain subjects. He was actually grateful to me for bringing it to his attention, and thanked me several times for taking the time to come in and talk to him. He made one interesting point, that I think all small business owners would do well to take to heart. What he said was: "The customer may not always be right, but they are always the customer, and we want to keep it that way.". I think that's very good advice.

[dannylightning]

yes, the dreaded tax forms, i figure i can purchase some kind of computer program where i can enter how much money i make, spend, pay to employees, and all that good stuff. i have never filed any thing other than the 1040ez form so i will definitely halve to pay some one.

I do believe i am a pretty good sails man, at least at one point in time i had a very good way with words and could talk people into buying extras for this or that along with their purchase, they seemed reluctant about getting the extra's at first but if i really thought the extra stuff was a good value and would enhance their exp with the product they were buying 90% of the time i could talk them in to it. that was years and years ago so hopefully i still got it.

i have one employee, if this thing ever takes off and gets going. i plan on starting off small where just her and i can go in and bust out a small office in a hour or two and one day maybe ill jsut have employees working for me and i get to ride on my motorcycle all day. now that would be nice.

you do need to make your customers happy, if they are not happy they will drop you in a heart beat. so bending over backwards is the way to do it.

[dhgeyer]

I happened to run into George Kirkpatrick at the recycling center this afternoon. He and his partner Diane clean our house for us. I didn't know if they did any commercial work, but when I asked him he said they do some light office cleaning accounts; jobs that they can do with no more equipment than is needed for their residential accounts.

I asked him a few questions on your behalf. He said that, while things are slow right now, it's not necessarily a bad time to start. He did suggest having a regular part time job while you get things going. He said that they don't have a website, and that virtually all their trade comes from word of mouth. They do run ads in the paper from time to time. They've been with us for so long that I can't for the life of me remember how we heard of them. He made one interesting comment: that it's impossible to figure the time involved in doing any particular job based on past experience, number of rooms, area, etc. He said every job is different, and you do the best you can.

He said that residential accounts tend to come and go more quickly than commercial ones. Residential jobs are probably easier to find at first. Have you considered this? I think that most of the cleaning services I've seen do both, but the bread and butter of most of them seems to be residential.

George and Diane have been doing this for a long time, and are pretty successful at it. I know where they live, and they're doing quite well for themselves. If there are any questions you'd like me to ask George, let me know. We're getting cleaned Monday.

Incidentally, we never signed any kind of contract with them. Handshake agreement, and it's worked well for many years now.

[alanmcorcoran]

Expect a lot of rejection and frustration for the first year. Business is hard enough to find in normal times, and these days I have to believe it's going to be brutal. Most places that need a service like cleaning have one, and there aren't all that many new prospects starting up. You're looking largely for people who are unhappy with what they have, and there aren't going to be too many of those either. Also, people tend to select such a service based on recommendations/referrals from friends/associates. Being a new business, you won't have that. Plan to need enough startup money not only to obtain the stuff you need, but also to live for a while....
...If you can somehow get some kind of website up, even a very modest one, it will help a great deal...
In any case, I wish you the best of luck, and a lot of it is luck - being in the right place at the right time, or meeting the right person who knows someone. Social networking skills are really important, too.

:plus1: Mr. Geyer gives good advice. And luck plays as big of a role as hard work - maybe bigger. Personally, I think times like these are the best times to start a business because there is economic turbulence. Economic turbulence provides oppotunities for hungry newcomers as it discomforts the status quo. Some further thoughts: Don't get a truck cap until you really need it, don't go nuts with business cards and other trappings - focus on what it takes to identify and close prospective accounts. Sometimes a simple angle can be ridden to take you from zero to fully busy. (first cleaning free!) Don't make any long term deals that are money losers - always limit your promotions and plan as though you will soon have a full plate. Be nice when you are pestering people even they are rude back to you. Sooner or later, their current service is going to screw up or go out of business or set the alarm off one too many times, etc. You want to be next in line.

[dannylightning]

good advice guys, from what i understand residential cleaning is mainly a woman's job, from what i hear it is quite hard for a male to get a house cleaning gig. people are way more likely to trust a woman in their house when they are not home. i have a few friends that clean houses for a living and make good money doing it, they are female and also say people dont really want males cleaning their house. . i think i would rather have a pretty young girl in my house cleaning that some guy.

for a residential account you don't really need a contract but for commercial cleaning you want to be professional to get your accounts and that is the way the professionals do it. plus you are locked in to a job for at least 6 months to a year even if they are not happy with you.

dhgeyer, if you can possibly get a contract from them for their commercial side and just kind of scan it on to your computer than copy and paste it on to here that would be great. and if you could ask them any good tips for getting your first account that wold be great. also how much did it cost them to get started out.

any of that stuff i need i am not going to go out and buy untill i get a account, when i do get one i will be out to the cleaning supply store that day, i will probably need a truck cap, cant have a bunch of stuff in the back of my truck on a rainy day. it would be nice to have one of those any ways.

[patrick_777]

Let's do the time-warp.

[dannylightning]

Let's do the time-warp.

lol, thanks.

[mrlmd1]

If you ever do start up a business, get a couple of 18" x 36 magnetic signs with your logo and business name and phone number that you can stick on your truck doors, maybe also one for the tailgate. It's free advertising when you ride around. You may have to remove them at night when you park at home if the local codes prohibit parking commercial vehicles in the driveway at night.

[dannylightning]

good idea, any idea how much that cost, i was thinking about bout getting stickers made up but i think i would rather have something removable, i would kind of hate having stuff like that on my truck, i love that thing

my neighborhood freaks out about every thing, cant have a shed, cant park a boat cant this cant that, but that is one thing they do allow,, my neighbor parks his van in the drive way and it is covered with business info, and there is a guy down the street with a commercial vehicle also.

America, land of the free. yet you cant park your car in the driveway or build a storage shed in your back yard. and you better damn well go and pay for storage for a boat cus you cant keep it on the property that you own.

[patrick_777]

http://www.esigns.com/magnetic-signs/custom/

Check with a local sign shop first. Support your local businesses.

[bonehead]

My wife was going to get some for her business and I think they were going to cost her around 180.00 for 12 x 18. Needless to say she did'nt buy those. But she did get some magnetic vinyl material and some vinyl stick on letters and made her own.

Office supply stores should carry all you need to make your own.

[patrick_777]

Most of them are between $20 and $30 now. They're not bad for advertising, if you make sure the phone number is printed large enough.

[dannylightning]

Most of them are between $20 and $30 now. They're not bad for advertising, if you make sure the phone number is printed large enough.

they are cheaper than i thought they would be. not too bad at all.