How to get commercial cleaning contracts (and keep them)

Why commercial work is worth chasing

Clean Papi cleans homes, condos and offices across the GTA, from Oshawa to Burlington. The two halves of the business look alike from the outside: same mops, same crew. Up close, commercial work doesn't behave like house cleaning at all.

• It's recurring by default. An office doesn't book a one-off. It books three nights a week for a year.
• It fills the hours homes can't. Houses get cleaned between 9 and 5. Offices get cleaned after 6. The same cleaner can do both.
• It's predictable. You know next month's revenue before next month starts, which makes hiring far less scary.
• It's slower to win and slower to pay. Weeks of back-and-forth, then invoices on 30-day terms. That's the trade.

That's why Clean Papi quotes office jobs per site instead of putting them on the instant price form. Every building is different, and the quote needs a person behind it.

Pick the kind of building you want

"We clean any commercial space" sounds flexible. To a buyer, it sounds like you haven't done theirs before. Small companies win faster when they pick one or two types of building and get known for them:

Pick the ones that sit inside your service area and fit the hours your crew can work. A clinic 40 minutes away three nights a week costs you two hours of driving every visit.

Where commercial cleaning contracts actually come from

1. Walk in

It still works better than anything else for small accounts. Pick a strip of offices, clinics or a business park inside your area. Go between 10 and 11:30 or between 2 and 4, when the front desk isn't slammed. Ask one question: "Who looks after your cleaning?" Then leave a one-page proposal with your name, what you clean, your insurance and a phone number, and write down who you spoke to.

Follow up in a week. Most offices aren't unhappy enough to switch today. You want to be the name they remember the night their current cleaner doesn't show up.

2. Property managers

One property manager can look after a dozen buildings. Getting onto their approved vendor list usually takes a certificate of insurance, a workers' compensation clearance (a WSIB clearance certificate in Ontario) and references. It's slow, but one good manager can feed you work for years. Start with smaller local management firms; the national ones mostly use national janitorial companies.

3. Public tenders

Governments, school boards, hospitals and cities post janitorial contracts publicly. Where to look:

• CanadaBuys for federal contracts. Free to search and register.
• MERX for many provincial, municipal and broader public sector buyers. Set up a profile with custodial service categories to get matching notices. Some buyers only accept bids from suppliers who downloaded the documents through MERX.
• Biddingo and bids&tenders, which many Ontario cities, school boards and agencies use.
• Your city's own procurement page, for smaller contracts that never make the big sites.

Read the award notices, not just the open tenders. Many buyers publish who won and at what price, which is free market research before your first bid.

4. Subcontract for a bigger company

Large janitorial companies win contracts they can't always staff. Subcontracting a building or two for them pays less than a direct contract, but it teaches you commercial work with someone else carrying the sales risk. Get the terms, the payment schedule and the insurance requirements in writing.

5. Your own residential customers

Every homeowner you clean for works somewhere. A one-line ask on your receipt or follow-up email ("Does your office need a cleaner?") costs nothing. Clean Papi grew almost entirely on referrals and local search, and the people who already trust you with their home are the easiest referrals you'll ever get.

The site walk: questions that win the bid

Every serious commercial quote starts with a walk-through. The buyer is judging you as much as you're judging the building. Bring a notebook, ask questions, and measure what you can't see on a floor plan.

The question about the last cleaner is the most valuable one on the list. "They never emptied the boardroom recycling" tells you exactly what to put in bold in your proposal.

How to price a commercial cleaning bid

Most new owners price commercial work per square foot because that's what they've heard. The problem is that per square foot quotes for the same building vary wildly; one forum thread had bids from 5 cents to 68 cents a square foot. Price from the hours instead, then use the per square foot number as a sanity check.

1. Work out the hours. Divide the cleanable square footage by a production rate. Office cleaners typically cover about 2,500 to 3,500 square feet an hour; clinics and medical spaces closer to 1,500 to 2,000, because there's more to disinfect.
2. Add for the extras. Washrooms, kitchens, glass and anything heavier than a quick wipe all add time.
3. Cost the hours. Your cleaner's wage plus the employer costs on top (CPP, EI, vacation pay, workers' compensation), supplies, travel and a share of your insurance.
4. Add your margin. Then multiply by the number of visits in a month.
5. Check it per square foot. If the number looks far off the local range, re-check your production rate before you re-check your margin.

Write a proposal that doesn't look like everyone else's

Most cleaning proposals are a logo and a price. The buyer has three of them on the desk and picks the cheapest, because nothing else is different. Make yours different:

• Open with what they told you. "You mentioned the boardroom recycling was missed. Here's how we'll make sure it isn't."
• Scope by area and frequency. A table: area, task, nightly, weekly, monthly. No one can argue about what's included.
• Show how you check your own work. A checklist per visit and photos of the finished space. Buyers have been burned by cleaners who stopped trying after month two.
• Name the contact. One person who answers the phone, and how fast.
• Attach the paperwork. Certificate of insurance, workers' compensation clearance and two references.
• State the terms. Price per month, what's extra, payment terms, start date, notice period.

More Knocks commercial quotes give offices and post-construction jobs a proper intake form, and quotes customers sign online lock in what was agreed, so the scope you priced is the scope you clean.

Keep the contract past the first renewal

Winning a commercial contract is half the job. Most are lost in months three to six, when the new cleaner gets comfortable and the small things start slipping. Keep it like this:

• Same crew, same nights. Office staff notice when a stranger is in the building, and familiar cleaners know where the extra garbage bags are kept.
• Inspect your own work. Walk the space yourself every few weeks, before the client does it for you.
• Log every visit. When the cleaner checks in and out, and photos of the finished space. When the client says "nobody came Tuesday," you'll know whether that's true.
• Fix complaints in a day. One missed washroom fixed tomorrow is forgiven. Ignored for a week, it's a reason to re-tender.
• Raise the price on time. Wages go up. Put a yearly increase in the contract instead of asking awkwardly in year three.

The More Knocks cleaner app logs check-in and check-out and photos on every visit, and checklists keep each night to the same standard, even when the regular cleaner is off.