One of the skills that you need to practice when establishing your own commercial cleaning business is presenting your services to a client and making him want to hire you. The challenge in making a sales pitch to a company that has already hired some other cleaning company maybe greater than pitching to a company that is actively seeking a cleaning service provider.

Nevertheless, the best way to create an impression is to be different in approach from other cleaning service companies. Here is a guide on getting that cleaning long term contract that you want.

1. Shop around and look for companies that hold office in and around the vicinity you would like to work at. You should be able to get hold of a name and fax number or phone number of the person in charge of outsourcing a cleaning service.

2. Prepare a smart looking company profile, proposal, bid estimate and a few business cards that you can give out before or after an appointment. You should be able to send in a copy of your company profile, proposal and your bid estimate before asking for an appointment.

3. Make sure that you catch the attention of the person in charge by incorporating a no-strings-attached clause in your proposal letter. Let them know that your intention is just to pitch your cleaning service to them and if they find it to their liking, then that is the only time that a formal business contract agreement will be made. You can send them a draft or sample of a contract with your company if you want to.

4. In the proposal, highlight your strengths and be sure to include any past cleaning jobs that you have done or any current clients that you have. If you still do not have any experiences, put all the cleaning seminars that you have attended as this will most probably catch their attention. Remember, they are looking for a professional cleaning service.

5. Give your prospective client an easy way to contact you for an appointment by adding a reply box in your proposal:

Yes, I’m interested! We can schedule a meeting on ___________ (date) at _____________ (time) in_________ (place). Contact _________ (name of contact person) at ____________ (tel.no.) for confirmation.

I might be interested but _____________ (reason for hesitance). However, I am willing to hear you out on ___________ (date) at _____________ (time) in_________ (place). Contact _________ (name of contact person) at ____________ (tel.no.) for confirmation.

I am not interested at the moment but I can refer you to _______________ (referral) which might be interested in your service.

Including these boxes will cover everything, gives the client a choice, and if they are not ready to hear you out, still gives you the possibility of getting a good referral.

6. On your appointment, make sure that you arrive on time (not too early, and never late). Keep your introduction short as you should have already covered everything in your proposal. Make sure that you get the client to talk about what they need instead.

See: How to start a cleaning service

Pricing your Cleaning services comes with practice – in your own home that is. Practicing your cleaning skills at home is advantageous in a lot of ways. For instance, you can correctly list down how much time you need to finish clean up tasks that you will be offering to your clients. Aside from that, you can also make a list of how much cleaning products you will be using up for a single cleaning. Additionally, you can create a detailed list of the chores you need to offer. And more importantly, you can estimate how many hours you can keep on cleaning in a day without overly exhausting yourself.

All of these can be used you create your own bid estimate sheet. A bid estimate is a form your client fills out for you to know exactly what cleaning services they require. Residential and commercial cleaning have a lot of similarities but you may want to create separate bid estimate sheets for the two for specialized cleaning unique to each.

Generally, you will need a letter head of your business for the bid estimate sheet. This gives it a more professional look. Put in your business name on top of the page, and then you can put your name, contact numbers, physical address, an electronic mail address, or maybe your own website address at the bottom. Have your logo printed on your bid estimate sheet also; you can place it on the upper left corner or watermark it in the middle. You can do all of these through software in your personal computer.

Have blanks or boxes for the customer to fill out their name, address, mobile, home and office phone numbers, their e-mail address and the person you will be speaking with for the cleaning service. For residences, it may be the spouse or any other person living in the home; for offices it could be the manager.

You will also need to have the cleaning schedule cleared out, whether it is a one time cleaning task or a regular one. Just put in boxes for weekly, monthly or every fortnight cleaning schedules. The day in the week should also be specified and the exact date of the start of the cleaning. You should also put in a blank for the exact time you can start and end the cleaning.

Next, you will need a detailed table of the tasks involved for each area of the house or the office.

For houses, create a section for all the rooms of the house and the cleaning chores to be performed in each area. Have a space or a blank beside each task wherein the customer can tick off the chores they want done. For the office, it is almost the same except you will need to have an area designated for cubicles and private offices.

Both of the bid estimate sheets should have the hourly rates you will charge for each section or area of the space that needs cleaning. Bid estimates should be discussed with the client before and after a job is done to ensure agreement between both parties.