3 Ways Your Commercial Cleaning Company Can Boost Your Profitability

As you know, the past 2 years of the pandemic have not been kind to our business. Many people worked from home, and as a result, offices cut back on janitorial services that they didn't need as much as they had before. Some businesses even closed completely because they lost customers, creating a domino effect that caused you to lose clients in turn.

On the other hand, as people return to their offices in 2022 and restaurants reopen, concern about COVID-19 has created a situation where commercial cleaning services are in high demand to provide sanitizing services. These services keep people safer and also provide a necessary peace of mind, both for your clients and their customers in turn.

Increasing the bottom line is a goal we all carry as business owners

The commercial cleaning business is projected to increase at a 7% growth rate between 2018 and 2028, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. There is definitely a demand for janitorial and commercial cleaning businesses. There is no reason why you should not be able to boost your profitability. 

If you have noticed a drop in your profits, it's time to consider an action plan to boost them again. There are no secret panaceas; you can increase profitability in 3 ways:

• Raise the prices you charge your clients
• Lower your costs
• Sell extra services

You may be thinking, “That's easier said than done,” so let's look at each of these in more detail.

1.   Raise the prices you charge your clients:

This will not go over well if you abruptly make a change without any kind of explanation. At best, your clients will be annoyed, and at worst, they will give their business to a less expensive competitor.

It is important to communicate with your clients and to help them see that your janitorial services are superior to any of your competitors. Why? That's what you have to figure out. Really sell the fact that you provide quality cleaning, and that you are worth every penny.

You may consider purchasing or leasing a piece of equipment that other cleaning companies don't have. For example, an electrostatic sprayer (ESS) is a tool that applies an electrical charge to liquid disinfectants that are sprayed through the nozzle as aerosols. The charged particles are actively attracted to surfaces, and the ESS can disinfect large areas as well as areas that are difficult to properly disinfect by hand.

The CDC recommends disinfecting indoor community settings where cases (or a case) of COVID-19 have been suspected or confirmed within the past 24 hours. You can spend as little as $149 for one of these or as much as $4089.95 for a state-of-the-art model.  Perhaps you would prefer a happy medium: a cordless electrostatic backpack sprayer with a 2.25-gallon tank is available for $1,749.99. Either way, your clients may accept your higher prices with equanimity if they know that they are benefitting from an added safety measure.

2.   Lower your costs:

There may not be one huge way of lowering costs, but small savings do add up.

• For example, you may be able to reconfigure the routes that your company vehicles take to shave off some mileage. The average national price for a gallon of regular gas in mid-2018 was $2.86. In mid-March of 2022, that same gallon costs an average of $4.43, according to S. News and World Report. Clearly, finding ways to conserve gasoline is in your future.
• If you can buy cleaning supplies in bulk at a discount, do that. Also, pre-portioned packets or dilution control systems may prove more economical than manually measuring and diluting cleaning chemicals yourself.
• If you operate from an office, turn the lights off when you aren't in the room and keep the space a little warmer in the summer and a little cooler in the winter to save on air conditioning and heating costs.
• Since cleaning technicians are especially hard to come by these days, you cannot lower wages. However, you may be able to have your employees work more efficiently by honing your solid training techniques or by using labor-saving devices. The old adage, “time is money” holds true.

3.   Sell more services:

Extra services can often prove to be profitable. You will need to consider your clients' needs in order to offer tempting choices, but typical upsells are:

• Carpet shampooing
• Floor waxing
• Holiday decorating
• Party cleanup
• Window and blind cleaning
• Upholstery shampooing
• Refrigerator deep cleans in office break rooms

When you increase profits by upselling or offering additional services to existing clients, it saves you the advertising costs you may incur in attempting to attract new clients.  According to WorkWave, profits can be increased by 25%-95% by increasing customer retention by 5%. You can read a lot more about building trust and retaining clients in our article, Ways to Build Trust in Your Cleaning Company: The Key to Long-term Clients.

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