Should Your Janitorial Business Go After Bigger Buildings?

Whether it’s a 35,000 sq. ft. building or a 135,000 sq. ft. one, at first – big places can be intimidating.

But here’s something to think about..

Some of the larger, more intimidating buildings can actually be easier in some ways than the much smaller ones you feel comfortable with now.

Let me tell you a story…

A few years ago, I had a morning meeting with an attorney at a big downtown office building – in fact, it was one of the largest buildings downtown.

I got to the meeting a little early, so I took a few minutes to sit down in the main lobby. It was very nice.

Yep, very nice and very quiet.

And as I looked around, I began to realize there wasn’t another soul around anywhere. So, I got up to take a closer look.

I walked all over – including down the escalator to where there was a set of restrooms, as well as over near the sets of elevators.

And what I discovered was

there was hardly anyone anywhere in the building. That’s right, other than the security guard stationed at the reception counter, it was practically empty.

And so, it didn’t shock me to see the first floor looked very clean. In fact, it occurred to me – if this is how busy it is at prime time, 10 AM then I bet the place doesn’t look much different at 5 PM when the tenants head home for the night.

Fine, you may say, but “What about the tenant areas?” If its a large building, those leased office spaces are being used and could be pretty dirty by end of the day.”

Well, let me put it this way….

From the looks of the few professionals, attorneys and assistants that slowly, calmly and quietly came in to work, I felt pretty safe in assuming based on the nature of the work – they weren’t very rough on the place!

It’s interesting – on closer look some of the easiest places for us to clean were our biggest buildings.

And, as you may agree – some of your fastest hourly production rates can be in larger professional buildings.

That’s right 4,000, 4,500 or even 5,000 sq. ft. per hour cleaning production rates can be achieved in buildings that can look, at least at first – very intimidating.

It can actually makes sense when you step back to look at it, doesn’t it.

Think about how hard you have to work to take a smaller, less intimidating, but a lot more filthier building from dirty to clean overnight!

It may be profitable to break the habit of instantly ruling out a big buildings simply because it’s large and intimidating – especially since larger buildings may have advantages smaller ones don’t.

Sure – more hours to clean, but more efficiencies.

Oh, and by the way, do you think it’s easier or harder to keep cleaning associates trained and happy in a smaller dirty building or a larger, but easier to maintain one?

Yep, big intimidating buildings may be easier to get and keep staffed.

And while the percent of profit may not be as high as on the smaller building, the absolute – total dollars coming from a bigger building can be much higher than the profit dollars generated from smaller facility.

Be sure to consider all your costs such as start up costs such as working capital to handle payroll, supervision as well as special equipment if needed, but don’t rule out a big building ONLY because it’s big.

Discover the Guru in YOU!
Dan