So in your other post like a week or so ago I offered to answer any questions about the commercial cleaning industry. I ran a business in the space for 3-4 years and sold it. Perhaps you just didn't see that post.
I just want to share at least my experience of my local area is that this take on commercial cleaning versus residential is very rose-tinted glasses so to speak.
8/10 quotes I would go on would literally start the conversation (mostly on the phone before I would even get there) with making sure I was not a subcontracting shop because the experiences they have are mostly awful. Mostly because there are tons of those types of shops for the perception of what you listed above (and franchises sold on the concept). They then race around town mostly competing on margin and attract the sketchiest subcontractors to out compete each other. And going to shoot it to you straight, all the shops I knew in town that used subcontractors had workers who couldn't speak English at all (you make your own assumptions of why/how they were paying them). This is not conjecture - when you working at office parks from 10pm-4am you bump into them at the dumpsters frequently. Overall to me it was a "dirty" side of the business to be in and I couldn't help but feel a little bad for a lot of the subcontractors of what they must be being paid compared to my workers.
I don't know why you think there is not running payroll (there is still definitely cycles of paying subcontractors) and you most certainly need insurance. And if you do it with your own employees everything you listed that you consider in residential is just the start of commercial - now add background checks, filling out specific government documents, getting badge access per individual cleaner (no just swapping on the fly), different types of insurance you didn't know existed for some specific clients, managing different consumables/chemicals for different accounts, having chemical documentation up to date in each account for government random audits, etc. (Stopping here because I could type all night).
Also if you are not straight up with the customer in explaining you are going to use subcontractors when you get complaints how are you going to resolve it on the spot if you don't have some employees, equipment, etc.? (literally commercial cleaning is almost all complaint resolution + prevention game because you have every single person in the office to please)
I could go on and on but I will stop here.
With that being said the largest multi-million/national type companies all do use subcontractors but to service the mega-campus businesses (think skyscrapers that need cleaned every night with day porters, etc.). The customers in those circumstances are usually understanding of that flow more but that isn't an industry you just step into and honestly from my little experience talking with some of the guys who run those ones - it is all a cash flash/cash management game that requires quite a giant wad of cash to really break into.
I just want to share at least my experience of my local area is that this take on commercial cleaning versus residential is very rose-tinted glasses so to speak.
8/10 quotes I would go on would literally start the conversation (mostly on the phone before I would even get there) with making sure I was not a subcontracting shop because the experiences they have are mostly awful. Mostly because there are tons of those types of shops for the perception of what you listed above (and franchises sold on the concept). They then race around town mostly competing on margin and attract the sketchiest subcontractors to out compete each other. And going to shoot it to you straight, all the shops I knew in town that used subcontractors had workers who couldn't speak English at all (you make your own assumptions of why/how they were paying them). This is not conjecture - when you working at office parks from 10pm-4am you bump into them at the dumpsters frequently. Overall to me it was a "dirty" side of the business to be in and I couldn't help but feel a little bad for a lot of the subcontractors of what they must be being paid compared to my workers.
I don't know why you think there is not running payroll (there is still definitely cycles of paying subcontractors) and you most certainly need insurance. And if you do it with your own employees everything you listed that you consider in residential is just the start of commercial - now add background checks, filling out specific government documents, getting badge access per individual cleaner (no just swapping on the fly), different types of insurance you didn't know existed for some specific clients, managing different consumables/chemicals for different accounts, having chemical documentation up to date in each account for government random audits, etc. (Stopping here because I could type all night).
Also if you are not straight up with the customer in explaining you are going to use subcontractors when you get complaints how are you going to resolve it on the spot if you don't have some employees, equipment, etc.? (literally commercial cleaning is almost all complaint resolution + prevention game because you have every single person in the office to please)
I could go on and on but I will stop here.
With that being said the largest multi-million/national type companies all do use subcontractors but to service the mega-campus businesses (think skyscrapers that need cleaned every night with day porters, etc.). The customers in those circumstances are usually understanding of that flow more but that isn't an industry you just step into and honestly from my little experience talking with some of the guys who run those ones - it is all a cash flash/cash management game that requires quite a giant wad of cash to really break into.
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