70. How to Get Cleaning Contracts to Grow a Cleaning Business Fast

0:00We do about, on average, 340 jobs per month. sometimes on high season, which is June all the way to October. We do about 450 sometimes. We're close to the 500 jobs per month. Wow. He earned$6 ,000 in his first month of business,$18 ,000 in the second month, and now over$150 ,000 per month. I'm your host, Alex Freeman, and I'm joined by Cristobal Mondragon to delve into the world of cleaning contracts. Cristobal promised us to hold nothing back and reveal the same tools that helped him land$44 ,000 in cleaning contracts within three short months of starting his business. If you're an entrepreneur struggling to land cleaning contracts, this episode is for you.

0:43Chris, welcome to the show. For the third time, welcome. Alex, thank you for bringing me back. I'm really excited to be here again. I really enjoy speaking with you and with your audience. And so I've been actually waiting for today since you guys told me, hey, we want you to have it back. I'm like, I'm in. So for anyone who hasn't heard the other two episodes that you've done with us, and if you haven't, go back and make sure you give those a listen. But if you could give us just a little overview of Queen Bee Cleaning and your background on the business and how you got started in the cleaning industry.

1:12For sure. So a little bit of story about me. I'm originally from Mexico. I moved to the States back in 2004. I held many jobs, landscaping, cook, dishwasher, and also a car salesman. And in 2015, my wife, she was working for another cleaning company at the time. And she quickly realized that it was a busy job, you know, like something that we could definitely do it. It was a low entry, you know, you don't have thousands of dollars to start. And she tells me one day we were having dinner, like, Chris, we should open a cleaning company ourselves. And Alex, honestly, at first my response was like, you're crazy.

1:45It's just like, I just didn't see myself doing cleaning, I guess, because I'm a guy. So cleaning is not something that was appealing to me. and number two, we never really had a business before. So I'm like, what are you even talking about? Like, we don't even know how to run a business. Like, I don't think it's a good idea. However, that was enough for me to have that. What if we do it? You know, like, should we do it? I just had this, you can call it a seat. She planted a seat on my mind. And, you know, I was working at the Carthage Le Chevelle at the time and I'm thinking, well, what if we just give it a shot?

2:13Number one, we know how to spend a ton of money to start it. And if it doesn't work, you know, I can just keep doing what I'm doing. And nine years later, here we are doing$1.5 million a year cleaning homes. That's incredible. And can you break that down for us into kind of what that means contract-wise? Like what is the average number of cleaning jobs in a month look like for Queen Bee today? Good question, Alex. So we mostly do residence, but we also do commercial. And between both, we do about, on average, 340 jobs per month. Sometimes on high season, which is June all the way to October, we do about 450 sometimes.

2:50We're close to the 500 jobs per month. Wow. Okay. So now let's go back to that first and second month. How many contracts did you land in that first month and then your second month? Oh, wow. I remember that's an easy answer because one, I didn't know really what I was doing. So we were not charging enough. And when you don't charge enough, you actually get a lot of contracts because you're cheap. And so the first month we did 40 contracts. Wow. Roughly translated into 6 ,000 in the very first month, averaging$150 per clean. So that's what we did the first month. We did about 20 contracts. And then the second month we did about 120.

3:23So we quickly scale. But one of the reasons is because I didn't really know how to charge correctly. So every call that I will get, I will just guesstimate the price and see if people like it. They're like, yeah, you're high. And I'm like, okay, I know. And so that's one of the reasons that I was able to kind of get part of it. But I'll tell you guys how you can avoid that. And if you stick around on this episode. I definitely want to dive into Yeah. The number one way in which to land some of those early contracts, because obviously way undercharging is probably not the right way to go about it.

3:51That's right. You know, you might think that you're making money, right? Like, oh, I just landed another one. But in reality, you're not taking in consideration the cost of operating the business plus paying yourself and then paying employees. So we were not really making much profit. We were making gross, but that doesn't mean you get to take that home. So, yeah, it was definitely a mistake that I did at the beginning, but I quickly realized that after the second month, I'm like, well, we did all this money, but where is it? Yeah. So if somebody has gotten their pricing in order, but they maybe are still not landing the number of contracts that they would like to be doing, what's probably the most common mistake that they might be making that is keeping them from landing those contracts?

4:33There's a couple of mistakes people make, you know, as far as like preventing them from getting more contracts and good contracts. The first one is not pricing your services correctly. If you're undercharging, you might think that you're getting a little action, but in reality, once you pay your labor, your cost of operations, your fixed cost, and then you quickly realize that you're not even paying yourself. So I guess the first thing you guys need to do is really come up with the right amount of your hourly rate. That's what I'm trying to say. What you want to do is, okay, how much a person is going to cost you per hour.

5:05So let's say$15 an hour. You need to add payroll taxes. You also need to add what is the cost of operations, chemicals, supplies, tools. Fortunately for this industry, you know, the tools, chemicals, you can buy pretty much everything for a couple hundred bucks. And the way you need to do is sum all these expenses, you know, your labor, your payroll taxes, your supplies. And that will tell you, OK, the cost of running your company is about$20, including labor. From there, you need to add 20%, which is your profit. So you need to say, okay, I need to add two more dollars to that rate, right? But I like to round things up.

5:42You know, you want to be profitable. The thing is, if you're going to start this business, it's for the reason of being profitable, not just to get new buy. So I will say, you know, after you sum up the cost per labor, supplies, and taxes at about$20, I will charge$25. That will give you enough cushion to pay everything. And then you still have some profit for you. So I will say, take the time to really come up with the cost per hour. One simple way to come up with these numbers, Alex, is ladies. All you need to do is add all expenses that you're running to a month. You know, software, supplies, cell phone, insurance, gasoline.

6:18And then you want to divide that by 30. That's the 30 days in the month. And that's going to give you a number. Then what you want to do is divide that number by 24. That's the 24 hours in the day. Obviously, you're not going to be working out 24 hours per day, but you want to find out what is the hourly cost for you to run the business, just to have it open. That's going to tell you, okay, my business, it costs about$6 to$7, used to be an operation. And then you're going to add that to your employee hourly rate. That's going to tell you, okay, this is how much it's going to cost you per hour just to run the business.

6:52From there, you need to add your percentage, your profit, and then now you're good. Now you know how much you need to charge in order to be profitable. Number two, when you're starting, This is one of the reasons why you also quickly scale, Alex. When you're starting, it's very rare that people are just going to start calling you, right? Just because you open a business doesn't mean that you're going to start getting calls right away. So instead of waiting for the phone to ring, what you can do is be resourceful. You can just go to Google and research property managers in Seattle, whatever city you are in.

7:22Google is going to throw you a list of results. All you need to do is create a spreadsheet, put the company name, phone number, and then you can start call calling them. Simple as that. That's all I did. One of the things, I guess, skills that I learned when I was in the car dealership, it was to really call call, right? We didn't really call call because the way we did it at the dealership is every time someone calls a dealer, you log their name and their number. And you have this big book with tons of phone numbers. So whenever you're not making sales, the manager of the dealers will tell me, okay, Chris, grab the phone book from the logs, and then you're going to call back all these people and then ask me if they are still in the market for our vehicle.

8:01And it worked. You know, when you do this over and over and you follow up with people, that's the keyword follow up. The money is on the follow up. So I understood that part. And so when I opened the business with my wife, I'm like, okay, well, I don't have reviews right now. I don't even have a website. How can I put my name out there? So while I was at the dealership, I started Googling, you know, property managers. That is a business that you can sell your services. And the good thing about this is that you don't need to land too many property managers. If you land two or three, they have multiple properties under their care.

8:32And so, you know, you're going to get a lot of notes, but it only takes a few yeses. And that will start, you know, landing your contracts right away. One of the secrets that I can share with you guys today is, you know, you have literally five seconds to convince a person to keep listening to you. And the way you do this is by calling them, you introduce yourself. And in this case, I will say, hi, my name is Chris. I'm owner from Wimby Cleaning. I find your company online and I want to see if you're interested in lowering your cleaning cost. Right. That's a benefit that you can hear right away.

9:02Lowering your cleaning cost. Who knows? I might be actually charging more than the currently cleaning company, but I just wanted to give me more time so I can continue the conversation. So all you need to say, hey, I was wondering if you're interested in lowering your cleaning cost. Nine out of 10 times, people will say, yeah, tell me how you're going to lower the cleaning cost. That will take it to the next step. That's when you meet them in person and you introduce yourself. That's how I did it. It was through cold calling. I was not really waiting for the phone to ring. I was really proactive.

9:28And I think anybody can do this. You know, you don't need fancy software. In the episode, I'll tell you guys what I currently use as far as finding property managers, realtors, and construction companies that you can pitch your services to. And this is paid software, right? But you don't have to start there. You can just be resourceful, use Google, and then start dialing and you start making money right away. Now, as somebody kind of starts making those code calls in the early days of their business, what should their goal number of contracts be in those first three months? And then what does that kind of roughly translate to in terms of revenue?

10:00Great question. I would say try to land at least one contract per week. So that was from the first month. You should be at least shooting for four contracts on the first month. Now, each contract in the commercial setting, it's worth anything between, you know, on the low end,$1 ,200 up to$3 ,000. Very hard for you to get higher contracts than that because you don't have the reputation, you don't have the reviews to back it up. But you can easily start landing contracts between$1 ,000,$1 ,200 a month up to$3 ,500 a month. So your goal should be, A, have seven days to make phone calls. And in that seven days, I need to land at least one contract, at least worth$1 ,200.

10:35of us. If you want to learn more about how Chris started Queen Bee Cleaning, make sure you listen to episode six of our podcast and find out how he built a seven-figure cleaning business from scratch. Now, Chris, once you kind of have somebody on the phone and you've gotten them to yes, what information do you need to collect from them before you sign a contract? And why is that important to know? Oh, that's a great question. So the first thing I want to collect is their contact information. Whoever is the manager, you know, the facilities manager, That's the person that you want to talk to. Facilities manager, you want to also do a little bit of research on that company, right?

11:08You don't really want to do business with companies that are starting because sometimes they're also struggling with cash flow and maybe you've been chasing your money down the road. So you don't want to do that. You really want to partner with established companies. A way to do it is by just taking a look at their reviews online. And if they have good reviews and they're being established, then that is enough for me to trust them. You know, you're going to have to put some trust in there, even though you don't know them. But one good way to avoid getting burned is just taking the time and really find out if that potential customer is a good fit for you.

11:40After that, all I need from them is their personal information, name, email, phone number. It's very likely commercial customers will give you a credit card on hand. But all you need to do is just do your research. If they seem trustworthy, go ahead and get the personal information and then get a detailed description on how you're going to get paid. What I mean by that is most commercial customers, they're not going to pay you after you clean. They have a 30-day net or a 45-day net pay period. So what that means is you're going to have to do the work for 30 days. You're going to invoice them and then you're going to wait some time to get paid.

12:12That's just the nature of the commercial business. You just need to be aware of that so you don't get surprised like, hey, I sent my invoice and you guys haven't paid me. You just need to read the stipulations on the contract. Are there any other differences between residential and commercial contracts that people should be aware of? And is there one that is better for a new cleaning business to go after? Fantastic question. Yes. I will say when you're starting, I will recommend to do residential cleaning. The cash flow is quicker. The way it works, very standard, is when you do a residential job, you clean today.

12:44After the cleaning job, you get paid. So the cash flow is very quick. Commercial setting is very rare that a commercial customer is going to pay you on the day of the They have an accounts receivable and accounts payable system that they just go back. And that usually is 30 days, 45 days. Some even do a 60 day net. So when you're starting, you might want to be careful in there because, you know, you're going to be doing the work and you're not going to get paid right away. So you have to be patient and then wait for that money to come in. Once that you start, you know, like from the second month, third month and you start getting more contracts, that kind of goes away.

13:17Right. But at the beginning is definitely the main difference. Right. You're going to have to wait to get paid versus residential. you get paid after the service. Now, can you talk us through the best places to go find those commercial cleaning contracts and how that might differ from finding residential jobs? Yeah. One easy way to learn these commercial contracts is just by going to Google. Let's say you want to do car dealerships. Let's just throw that in there. So you're going to go to car dealerships near me. You're going to throw you at this. All the car dealerships, they need cleaning, right?

13:45You can do churches. You can do daycares. You can do movie theaters or gyms, right? All All you need to do is do go to Google and take the time to some research, whatever type of customer you want to go after. You search them in your area. And once you have your spreadsheet of potential customers, then you're going to call them and then you're going to pitch the service. That's the easiest way to do it. Now, if you have a little bit of budget, then there's software out there that can help you get fresh information, updated one, real for numbers, real email addresses from the people who actually made the decision.

14:18The software I currently use, Alex, is called Seamless AI. It's$279 per month. So if you have the budget to do that, that's certainly a better way to do it than Google. Because in Google, you still have to do the search and then copy and paste those numbers into a spreadsheet. What Seamless does, actually, they scrape data from multiple channels, LinkedIn, Google, Gelp, Facebook, you name it. And then other than that, they consolidate that data. They actually verify it before you can download it. So the data that you get through Seamless AI, it's already clean. is verify that it works. So you have a better opportunity to actually tap to the right person.

14:53Now, what's the most challenging part of landing those commercial cleaning contracts? And how does a business owner overcome that challenge? That's also a good question. Well, Alex, you have great questions today. The number one challenge will be your reputation, right? These people also want to know who are doing business with. So when you're starting, most likely you're not going to have enough reviews. So that is going to stop you from getting good contracts, right? Most property managers, they really want to find someone that they know they can trust and then they know that it's going to take those jobs and then they're not going to bug it.

15:24So I will say at the beginning, getting reviews will be one of your top priorities. You can hack your way out of it a little bit, like I say, by asking your friends and family a linear good review. Getting five to 10 reviews under your belt at the beginning, you can quickly do that by asking help to your friends and family. Once that you have that, then you have a little bit of reputation and social proof, and that can help you to land those countries. If you have no reviews, that is going to be very, very hard. So I will say get creative, right? Be resourceful, ask Friends and Family to give you a review, and then that will definitely help you a lot.

15:59Are there certain types of businesses that primarily utilize third party cleaning services? And are there any that are great choices for new cleaning businesses and any that you might recommend avoiding? Yeah, so there is actually a lot of big franchise companies. Coverall is one of them. There is some other ones. And essentially what they do, they have big contracts with the big buildings and they're always looking for subcontractors. So the way they work, it's usually they have the contract, you get a hold of them. Coverall, for example, let's talk about them. You apply on their website. They're going to ask you for your business license, your liability insurance.

16:35If you have employees, they're going to ask you for the workers' compensation. If you are cleaning solo, you don't need that. And essentially the way that works is that they will contact you back and they're going to tell you, okay, we have this office, maybe a daycare, and this is what you're going to get paid. So at least they're transparent. You get to see how much they're going to pay you for each location. And then you can start there. You know, you can quickly get 10 to 20 contracts with them, and then that will help you get experience that you need. But once that you start, you know, getting experience, I would say stop getting jobs from them.

17:06and then start working on your own customers. Because usually the way it works, these big companies, they take 50 % of the contract. And so you end up with the other 50%. I think it's a great way to get experience under your belt and by contacting this big company. One big easy way, a super easy way to find this type of vendors is by going to Craigslist. Go to Craigslist, go to the job section, and then type in cleaning. Now, when you type the keyword cleaning on the job section, you're going to find a lot of job posts for people hiring you as an employee. But in between those, there's going to be a lot of people posting and selling.

17:40They call it, I'm selling a cleaning contract in Seattle. And it's a jewelry. You contact them and essentially those are the company. So they usually advertise on Craigslist. Just type in the word cleaning, take your time, filter them. And then that's a quick, easy way to find this type of contracts. Now talk to me about Airbnb and Airbnb cleaning contracts. How are they different? And what is the best strategy to land those? Multiple ways. One simple way that you can start landing Airbnb contracts is by going to this website called Turno. So T-E-U-R-N-O dot com. This company used to be called Turnover Airbnb.

18:13And now the way it works is, so they changed the name to Turno. All you need to do is go to Turno. You're going to see two options, to sign up as a host and to sign up as a cleaner. You want to sign up as a cleaner. They're going to ask you for your business license, your insurance, what services you offer and what areas you offer. And also what are the days that you can work? Then they're going to contact you back and they're going to say, OK, you're approved to be a vendor. And then the way it works is they're actually going to be sending you leads your way. And you get tons of leads per day, sometimes five to six leads.

18:46And you don't have to pay for these ones. The way they make money is they'll provide you with a lead and the lead will say, oh, there is a person looking for a cleaner. The unit is one bedroom, one bathroom in Seattle. right you can then bid for the contract without any cost you say okay i'll charge you 120 dollars whatever your rates are then the host will then choose whoever sends them a quote right they usually go for the cheaper service sometimes not all the time some customers that rather pay more and to get a good service and then the way turno makes money is the host will pay you through turno so turno takes out a small percentage for every job that you do to them so that's how they make money and it's a sure way to plan contracts right away.

19:28Then there is the competitor of Turno, which is called Turnify. So if you go to turnify.com, same deal. What I like about Turnify, they are a little more exclusive. So they really want to have a company as a vendor that already has reviews that knows what is done. It will be very hard for you to get approved if you're starting. So wait a little bit, get some reviews under your belt, and then you can apply to Turnify. Same deal. They also get the customers for you and then you get to be for these potential contracts on their platform. And same way you get paid through the platform and then certified also takes a small percentage.

20:02The third way that you can find Airbnb contacts is by just going to Facebook. Go to Facebook and then in the search bar, you're going to type in Airbnb host in your city. For example, in my case, it will be Airbnb host in Seattle, BRBO host in Seattle, different keywords, whatever city you are. Then you're going to find different groups listed on that area. You want to join these groups and then you want to also read the instructions, right? Some groups don't let you promote your services, but some do. And you want to go ahead and post and really pitch your services on those groups that allow you to pitch their services.

20:37You want to say, hey, my name is Cristobal. We are all Queen Bee Cleaning Service. We service the cities from Seattle, Everett, Bellevue, whatever cities you cover. And then you say, we are experienced in Airbnb cleaning. We understand the demands of the travel industry. So we offer a wide globe service. We check for damages. We take pictures of before and after. We send you videos. will basically be your go-to person when it comes to managing your property. A lot of people will actually contact you right away. The other way to find these type of contracts in the groups that don't allow you to pitch your services is that once that you get accepted into these services, some hosts actually post inside these groups looking for cleaning services.

21:17So what you're going to do is once that you're inside these groups, you're going to go to the search bar inside that group and you're going to type in the word cleaning. When you do that, it's going to show you all the results of the people who has posted something with the word cleaning in it. Just go through them, respond to them. Most likely it's a person looking, hey, do you have a recommendation of a cleaning service? You go ahead and contact them. Say, hey, I just saw your post. Again, my name is Chris. I own CleanBee Cleaning. We do Airbnb cleaning in the area and we would love to be your partner for cleaning.

21:45And that's how you do it. It's pretty straightforward. Now, can you talk me through the process of bidding on a cleaning job? I mean, first of all, what types of contracts are going to use a bid process? And how do you make sure that you're going to be successful in your bid. All right. So let's talk about the commercial contracts. This is a great example. So what do you want to do in order to provide a good bid for a cleaning building is you have to go in person, right? And you want to get a laser, you know, a measurement laser, you know, you buy online on Amazon and type in measurement laser.