This is a very important tip that can save you a lot of time and make you a lot of money: government and most public agencies are obligated to let the public (including contractors or bidders) know how they are spending the tax dollars they receive. This means they will give you the name of the current building cleaning contractor and the price being paid for the job you are interested in, if you request this information. Yearly or monthly bid price information, as well as current and sometimes past contract information, is all at your disposal before you place your own government bid. All you have to do is call, fax or send a short letter asking about the building, giving name, address, ask for any bid information they have on file. Sometimes you will get your answer the same day over the phone. If not, in a few days you will get a return phone call, fax, or letter in the mail with the current cleaning company’s name, address, phone number and, most importantly, the current bid price on the job you are interested in. I am telling you this to make you interested in some of the public/government work that is out there, because most construction and daily building cleaning contractors just do not know much about this source of work. This information will gain you entrance into many government doors and this will help you make some more of your dirty millions the clean way fast!
When you see what earlier contractors have bid to do a government job, do not just shave dollars off of there original bid, because the other building cleaning contractor’s bid over the years may already be as low as possible and still may or may not make a profit. Do a little research and reading to get as much information about the government job as you can. Before placing your bid, go back as many years as you can to see how much the bid was on this property five or six years ago. This way you will see just how much money, if any, has already been shaved off the bid over the years. Another factor you have to keep in mind is that what may work on a job site for one company budget may not work for you and your company because, for
example, every company has different business expenses, bonuses and hourly rates for their employees. It is nice to use the free public information to your advantage, but do not settle on a price simply because someone else’s bid worked out for them four or five years ago. Note: There is a lot of big money in government contracts, you may need to travel and do a little paper work, but it’s well worth it.
Construction contracts are a great source of one-time routine cleaning for your business. When new homes, office, malls, schools, apartments, hospitals, and all types of different buildings pop up, they need to be cleaned before potential buyers or owners make their way through. If you are able to get a lot of construction contracts, you will be on your way to making dirty millions the clean way! Here are a few tips to help you with construction contracts near you.
17
Construction Contracts
For every large city all around America, there is a Construction Data Company (CDC)
publication or newspaper full of construction building information that is updated each week.
Many cover three or more states in your area for one price. Even the suburbs are covered, with a lot of updated, all-new, construction-related information. For example, there is the CDC New York Construction News, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, the CDC Chicago Construction News, and the CDC Los Angeles Construction News and so on. These are useful resources, available for a small yearly charge, which will help you bid on all types of construction and building cleaning contracts for new construction buildings. You can go online and order six-month to one-year subscriptions to a CDC construction news publication to help you start your construction or building cleaning adventure. You might even like to use the online CDC data information system to obtain construction news at www.cdcnews.com. At this site, you can submit some of your bids online and construction information on line, after you sign up. Final construction cleaning, rough cleaning, and labor cleaning opportunities can all be found in the CDC publications. Each newspaper twice weekly, will list several hundred new building projects and will update the previous week’s issue. It will provide the square footage of the building, the general contractor or a construction company contact name to which you can send your cleaning bid or get other information. The construction company name could be listed under builder, developer, general contractor, construction manager, or owner, as we discussed this earlier. Read over all of the information in these newspapers, and then go online if you need free help from the CDC help service center or more details.
When we talk about new construction, we’re talking about brand-new buildings
constructed with all new materials—floors, windows, rest rooms, and doors, plus newly painted walls, new carpet, and new cabinets. With all-new products, your cleaning job is a little easier.
These jobs can run from 5,000 to 5,000,000 square feet in size and from $500 to $500,000 in cleaning contract size, just to do a one time construction clean up with all new, easy-to-clean material. Most of the time, there is nothing hard to clean because the building is new. You just need to remove all of the light dirt and dust created by the construction crews. You can make, on the low end, $20,000 gross (at ten cents a square foot) for the one-time final cleaning of a 200,000-square-foot new construction building.
On the high end, you could charge thirty cents per square foot and gross $60,000 for the one-time final cleaning of a similar 200,000square-foot building. With a staff of five to six cleaning people, cleaning a building this size should take you approximately twenty to twenty-five days to complete. Just add up your profit as you go to the bank. Please note that the low end construction cleaning price is based on about ten cents per square foot, again! As I said, you can go higher if you like, but this price is a good starting place to get your new company in the door and to try out your business and bidding skills.
Again, please remember to add a little extra money for a building with outside windows
that are three or more stories high. Set aside or put in an extra $2,000 to $3,000 or more to hire a window cleaning professional or to rent high lift equipment for the outside windows. Get three window cleaning contractors out of The Blue Book of Building and Construction or from your local yellow pages, and ask them for bids on the window cleaning part of the job, save this for last if possible. Here, safety is first, not money or profit, but you do want to make a little money on the window cleaning. You want to subcontract, or “sub out,” the outside window cleaning to a window-cleaning professional, if the building is three stories or higher. This is very important. Do not try to make much profit on this subcontracted outside window cleaning job because it might raise your bid price too much. Doing so may keep you from winning the total bid or contract.
After cleaning a newly constructed building, you can always go back and bid on the
daily/yearly cleaning service contract for this new building. In the same construction newspapers (CDC) you will see the name of the owner or a representative of the owner, phone, fax, address and other information. Present them with your estimate for the daily cleaning service for the property. Again, always go ahead and send your bids in quickly; don’t wait for the phone to ring when you already have all of the details at your disposal. Use the general contractor you did a great final construction cleaning job for as one of your references. If, as happens very rarely, one property manager asks you not to send in bids until he calls you for them, respect this, and make a note in your records about the one request. Then, continue sending bids to all of the other companies. If you were to charge ninety-nine cents per square foot to do daily cleaning on this new 200,000-square-foot building, you would gross about $198,000 per year, or $16,500 per month. If you win this contract, that is a wonderful gross sum in a short amount of time.
Try to remember that these bid prices are samples for your reference. Try your own
bidding with all types of square foot amounts to see how the building managers respond. Try higher, lower, or the same with each bid; it is totally up to you and your building cleaning location, specifications, and how much money you want to make. The same issues have to be considered when you are trying to obtain steady daily cleaning contracts for an older building, monthly contract bidding, or one-time cleaning contracts. List the pricing in your bid according to your set guidelines (square feet, job site visit if possible, location, staffing, supplies, and other cost details) and list any specific terms under which you would do the job.
When you are doing construction cleaning in some big cities, you may run into
construction and cleaning service contracts that require you to use union labor. When this happens, find out what the union hourly rates are for this job and replace the $10-per-hour nonunion rates with the local union rate to calculate your higher costs. To get union pay rates, call the local labors union hall for your specialty trade and ask them for the hourly pay rate for their union members. Rates are likely to range from $20 to $47 per hour. Plug that new pay rate into the same formula we used earlier for one man, eight hours a day, to figure out your costs. This will help you adjust the bid price you want to use for a union bid. The new higher pay rates will always double your non-union bid price, whenever you bid on union jobs. When you win the bid, you can use some of your staff and some union members to do the union job. The union hall will tell you to hire one of their union workers for each or your non-union worker you put on this union construction or building cleaning job. But in time your non-union employees will or should join the union. In other words, if you plan on using six people to do this union job, you can only use three of your nonunion employees; you will have to take three union men from the union hall.
After you sign the union agreement form the union gives you, you can start working on this union job site. Always try to sign your three people up in this local union as soon as you start work on any union job site. You will have to pay your guys the union rates for this union job until it is finish. Then you can go back to paying them $10 per hour on the non-union jobs. However, on the next few union jobs, you can use six of your own workers, now new union members, for as long as they have kept paying their union dues. When working on union jobs you may or may not be able to continue paying your three employees at the $10 per hour rate that they were getting before. You might want to talk to your workers to see if they will continue to work at the old, lower rate until you get your first check from the union job, then you will pay them the balance as you get paid. This will temporally take the strain off of your union cash flow adjustment.
Now that you know how to find and work with private construction contracts, let’s talk a little about government contracts, another great source of business for you to use in making dirty millions the clean way.
18
Government Contracts
Government contracts are a great avenue for a small new business to follow to become a
big business because there are billions of dollars being spent annually on government jobs all across the country. If you are interested, you can even get government contracts outside the country. Government contracts are a very good thing for a small business to work on because almost all government bid information is open to the public. It is essential to know how to get this bid information, and how to use it so it works for you and your business. Getting some of your building service contracts from the U.S. government can change your business and personal life fast. I’m going to tell you how to make contact with all the government contracting officers, get to know what they do, and what they need from you. This will provide the groundwork you need to make bids on government building service projects.
As I said earlier, you can find out what the current contractor bid price was on a job by asking or talking to the contracting officer or one of his or her staff members. All bid information is open to the public because they are using your tax dollars to pay for these building repairs, cleaning and many other service contracts. If you bid on the right government jobs whether, local or all over America and win a lot of them, you can gross from $1,000 to $1,000,000 per month and more. Whether you clean or repair a few government buildings or a full military base each day, it’s good for business. Winning these types of contracts can eventually make you a lot of money, as can cleaning for state, city and local government buildings.
There are several free information-providing government agencies, like the Small
Business Development Centers, and The Small Business Administration that are very good when it come to helping you find lots of government work. There are also private consultation companies that charge a small fee for giving you government bid leads and information, but they can not give you contracts. These agencies and companies will help you obtain government procurement and government bid information that might otherwise be a little hard to find in the beginning. Once you are on the right government bidder lists, the government agencies you contact will start sending or e-mailing you all types of information about contracts that are up for bids. Always remember, though, that you cannot pay for a contract or pay government employees for information in the process of making bids or being awarded contracts. Providing you with this information is one of the things your tax dollars provide for free.
Again, you’ll learn about products, service contacts, programs, loans, grants,
construction, and more when you ask the correct contracting officers or government staff members for the information. You want to be sure that you have the right agencies and contract bid information for the construction sites or building cleaning jobs that interest you. To register or become certified as a small government contractor, you will want to fill out applications with each of the agencies you want to do business with, such as the Department of the Navy,
Department of the Army, Department of the Air Force, General Service Administration, state governments, city governments, school districts, and so on. Getting your company name on the Small Business Administration Automatic bidders list is also very important. These are just some of the public agencies that have building cleaning and all types of other contracts you can bid on, so do your research and find all of them, believe me there’s a lot more. Most certifications (such as, a woman owned, minority owned business, or a small business is eligible for “set aside”
contract programs) will be free of charge unless you pay someone outside of the government to help you with your paperwork. Take the time to fill out all of the registration and certification forms so you will receive government bid and contract information, this way you won’t have to ask for the information over and over again it will automatically go out to you by each of the agency. Every few years you may want to check and update your government business forms for each agency; some require this with out notice. This little effort will keep you informed and up-to-date, so everything will continue to work and run smoothly for you and your company.
Note that if you would like to bid on state or local government projects, you have to
register with that particular state or local government agency to get jobs there. The state, federal, and local registrations and/or certifications are each handled by their own separate agencies and require you to fill out their own forms. Like most of the federal government agencies you will register with, each who usually operates independently, with their titles, offices, contracting officers, forms and requirements. You will need to work with each separately, if you decide to go this route.
Select all, or just choose the government agency that you would most like to work with,
and do whatever they ask you to do, so you can start receiving bids, government subsides, benefits and small business information. They want to help you, as a tax payer they must help you, because they work for you and they like to keep working with you. I suggest that you register with all of them, in and outside of your region, all over America. The feedback and information they send you for free will help you learn how the government systems work. I say again, complete the application for each and every one of them so you don’t miss any bids or contract information. Often, the agency website for government contractors will have forms ready for you to download and fill out, with instructions about how to return them (for example, by mail, fax, e-mail, or online, express, or self deliver in person for your signature recognition).
A good way to start this process is to go to the Small Business Administration (SBA),
which is one of the best government business information sources for any and all types of small business owners. They may use up some of your time as you wade though their red tape and paperwork, but they are very good at what they do. The Small Business Administration has a large clientele base that they work with each day, but relying on them for all of your government and at times non-government loans, cash-flow help, start up information, seminars, retired executives assistance programs-SCORE, certifications, business directions, bidding contracts and more is worth the time. It may take a little more effort and time working with the Small Business Administration or any government agency than you would like to put in, but you will soon see, that it’s worth it as you are just starting out on this new small business adventure.
When you finally get everything together, though, working with the government agencies and the Small Business Administration you will see it is, worth the bother when you look at you current and future personal/business profit projections. For example, if you
have the time and want to save your business dollars, the Small Business Administration can give you free help with accounting, business plans, business consultants, business projections, business marketing systems, small business contacts, business certifications, and other useful information that you definitely need starting out.
Going through government programs will help you see how they think about their own
government systems and contracts, as this will help take away some of the stress and fears from your day– to-day business with the government and its agencies. Again, you cannot ever pay a government employee to help you; they are paid to help you for free thru your tax dollars. Keep this in mind; it will keep you out of trouble. Knowing that you can get, for free, every type of small business help that is offered, that you can think of, or need, is very encouraging.
Try to dedicate a little time each day to learning about all the different types of public and government benefits, yes it is a time consuming experience that will help you make the best money for your company. You will want to contact all branches of the armed forces, General Service Administration, and the small business development centers all over America over and over until you get them to work for you. Once you learn how things work with government
agencies, you will be able to move your business from small to medium or large in as little as three years.
The National Electronic Procurement Assistance Center (NEPAC) is also a great non-
government resource which can help you find government jobs. NEPAC is a private company
with a search system that can be used to find and solicit all types of government bids that can help you win government contracts, for just a small consultant fee. They will send you a large amount of information over the internet on bids and government contracts for this small annual fee. There are lots of other companies that, like NEPAC, will help you by sending you e-mail two or three times a week with up-to-date information on government bids and contracts that relate to your type of business. When they get information you need to make a bid on a government building or building cleaning project, they’ll send it to you. These types of companies can work with you without too much red tape because they are private, and they can find bid information and contract results for you much faster than you can alone.
Before 2000 you could get some of this information straight from the Commerce
Business Daily (CBD), a government newspaper that listed a great deal of federal government contract information. Today, the CBD website only has information posted there before 2000
with some exceptions. Now the information CBD used to cover can be found online at the
Federal Business Opportunities website https://www.fbo.gov/. Combine all the information you can find at government and private sources and you will soon start to see the light.
There are also a lot of local and free government business assistance programs offered by your local colleges, universities, local politician office, and even some schools and churches, so do a little home work, it will benefit you well. If you give them a call or stop by their administrative offices, they will be able to give you more information and show you how to get on track for government marketing contacts and contracts.
The largest buyer in the country, the government, has billions of dollars to spend each
year and a lot of work for you and your staff to do as soon you are ready to start. It is up to you to get some of that work and some of those billions of dollars through your next government building cleaning service or construction contract. But you have to hang in there and work with them, no matter what. This is very, very, important; no matter what they ask of you, do not give up when it comes to government paperwork and travel. Going to government meetings and
government small business seminars will help you in ways you would not believe. Between the government, the internet, the Small Business Administration, and all of the other government agencies out there, you have a lot of ways to go in your search for potential government construction or building cleaning contracts.
Another good idea is to do a little homework on government programs “set-aside” just for small businesses. Your company can go very far if you are accepted into set-aside programs and bid on these types of contracts. These programs in the billions will set aside some government jobs and contracts that only small businesses can bid on, so that large companies don’t take all the jobs, do to there sheer size. It’s the government’s way of helping you grow. There are substantial amounts of money built into these small contracts, so you have a good chance of becoming a large successful business with time.
There are many set-aside programs, like the 8-A program, that are run by the Small
Business Administration’s 8-A Certification Program Department. If you become an 8-A certified company, you will be eligible for contracts that have been set aside just for companies with your type of work certification. They will contact you to see whether you want to bid on contracts for which you qualify. You will not have to compete with any non-8-A companies. Sometimes no other 8-A company will bid but yours, so the job will easily go to you and your company. Place a bid, and the contract will become yours. These contracts can pay from $8,000 and up to
$8,000,000 or more per year, and you can be in this 8-A program for up to eight years, until you graduate as a, strong self sustained business. There should be only a few others in your area who, like you, are 8-A certified companies, so this could have a big impact on how your business prospers. Again, once you are certified you’ll be in this program for about eight years with very little competition when you bid on these government contracts. There is good potential to earn millions of dollars just by being in the 8-A program. All it takes is filling out your 8-A certification forms and applications and returning them to the Small Business Administration.
After you apply, all you have to do is hope they will certify your company, if the program is not full. Then be ready to bid and work when they call you.
For more government work and opportunity information, you can look through The
Government Phonebook USA, which lists thousands contacts, all of the government addresses, phone numbers, fax information, web sites, and some e-mail addresses for agencies all over America, including the Small Business Administration. The Government Phonebook will also give you all of the federal, state, county, city, and local government agency information. It’s not expensive, and it’s very useful to have around. You can check your local library for all publication mentioned in this book. Use their free copy or buy your own copies for you and your staff. You can also go online to Omnigraphics.com for a lot of resources about US government and private publications that are for sale. For the very low cost of about $47.00 you can get Matthew Laski’s book, Government Giveaways for Entrepreneurs #3. It’s worth a little time to read, or listen to the tapes or CDs that go with his book to learn about his approach to getting business information and help from the government.
Over and above everything, remember that doing your homework is very important if you
want to get government contracts. As this how-to book is trying to teach you, you can combine the information you get from the government agencies with your own creative business mind, and your government contracting business will grow. There is an overwhelming amount of free
government information available to help you start running a profitable building cleaning or construction business. Looking at government contracts and programs is good because it opens a lot more doors for your small business to make money. It’s great to think about how adding several government contracts to your list of jobs will improve your business.
Everybody will not, and cannot, become a millionaire. This I do understand. However,
you who put the effort in at the beginning have a better chance than you had before you started looking into government construction or building cleaning contracts. After all the waiting and red tape, you still may not get the answer you were waiting for, or get it as quickly as you need to move your business forward at the moment you desire. At times you may have to redo your
paperwork just to update things and move things forward. Your effort will, however, pay off in time if you continue to work with the government, do your research on programs and contracts, and obtain as much knowledge as possible from the small business help programs the government offers.
In order to increase your income, you should continue to educate yourself in your field of work. If you keep yourself educated about and up to date on the happenings of your trade, you will be more successful in your business. I recommend reading as much about the cleaning and building industry as you can. Just like a stockbroker, businessman, or athlete, you need to watch your industry.
19
Watching the Industry
Stay on top of things, experiment monthly, go to seminars, and find out where new
developments are being erected, and check out the latest in supplies and equipment pricing, study and learn from the internet. Check with your competitors, ask them questions, and feel free to answer any question they may ask you. I say again, there is enough work for all of us to make plenty of money, so talk to others, get help from them, and help others each day. Remember, information is easier to obtain these days and this will help you reduce your business fears. Using twenty-four-hour business and news channels, radio talk shows, libraries, the internet, and this book, along with our business newspapers and books like the Commerce Business Daily,
Construction Blue Book, The Government Phone Book USA, CDC news, and Headquarters
USA, to name a few, you can really keep up to date fairly easily.
As soon as you can, you need to learn who your construction and cleaning competitors
are, by first name and company name, both local and distant. You need to know what they are doing in their businesses and how much business they are doing. If they are doing a lot more business than you are, then you need to ask yourself why they are doing well if you’re not. For example, you need to learn the going rates per square foot for the work you do; do not bid from ignorance, or even stick to my ideas on bidding without gathering more information. You can find out some of what you need in order to bid on and get new contracts eas