Episode 120 – Government Cleaning Contracts
Want More Government Cleaning Contracts?
In today’s episode we have a special guest Michael Litchev from Onvia (www.onvia.com) an expert in government contracts.
Spoiler Alert: www.growmycleaningcompany.com/onvia has a sexy offer for Cleaning Nation!
When most people think about the government they think Washington DC & Congress- basically the federal level. What they often don’t know, especially when relating to cleaning contracts is that most of the opportunities come from the state and local markets. This means municipalities, counties and school districts.
FUN STAT: Schools and City Hall need to be cleaned too! In the last year alone there were 4282 Government Cleaning Contracts. Within that there were 3466 janitorial opportunities and the other 800 were window washing, power cleaning and other cleaning niches!!!
BONUS TIP: 107 MILLION dollars are spent each year for Government Cleaning Contracts!!!
It can be scary to get involved with the federal government, but there is money to be made in government cleaning contracts.
Consider starting with cities, counties and states as they can be less intimidating to begin with and the federal government will often have more hoops to jump through.
Another benefit of working with the government is there are safeguards in place to prevent favoritism. If a mayor gets elected, we don’t want him just handing out contracts to his buddies or people that donated to his campaign. The government works to create a transparent process that is fair to everyone.
That is why, if the contract exceeds $25,000 a year, it must be posted for competitive bid. Not only that, unlike most commercial contracts which are monthly, government cleaning contracts are typically for a year or two.
Another factor of government contracting is that they are extremely specific around what they want, usually with a time and date the bids will be opened and awarded- making it easier for owners new to the process to get on board quickly if they are willing to read the fine print.
The short but vital lesson in governmental contracting is to get the RFP (request for proposal) and read it page for page- word for word!
It’s crucial to read through the bid very carefully and address their needs and wants exactly. If a specific cleaning product or too is requested, make sure to mention it in your bid. Go by the letter of the contract, not by the spirit.
Understanding the bidding PROCESS is also very important, follow it EXACTLY, even if it doesn’t make sense (which happens a lot in government contracting), it may make the difference that can win you the bid.
Feeling excited about the opportunity but overwhelmed with what it might take? Fear not! There are resources out there to help business owners navigate the government cleaning contracts world. Check em out below:
PTAC – Procurement Technical Assistance Center. A taxpayer funded, governmental agency, with the mission to help local businesses, of any size, find and win government contracts. PTAC does this by offering pro bono or very low cost consulting to business owners looking for government contracts.
There are over 300 of these PTAC offices across the United States. To find the branch closest to you go to http://www.aptac-us.org
SBA- The Small Business Administration https://www.sba.gov
HUB zone program)
https://www.sba.gov/contracting/government-contracting-programs/hubzone-program
SBA and HUB zone two have resources online about the procurement process and how to get designations for your company like minority owned or woman owned etc…which can give you a competitive edge when bidding.
If this episode has you chomping on the bit to break into government contracting, but you really don’t want to spend hours searching through frustratingly inefficient government websites and databases, we saved the best for last with www.onvia.com.
In addition to offering amazing software solutions to FIND the government bids, Onvia has been in business for 15 years, has done some excellent research and they publish a ton of content on government contracting 101 for FREE at:
http://www.onvia.com/business-resources/white-papers
http://www.onvia.com/tags/onvia-state-local-procurement-snapshot
Onvia has positioned themselves to be at the core of governmental contracting. If you’re worried you’re too small or too big for their services, don’t! They work with small businesses all the way to large corporations like Ford.
Onvia’s mission is to empower local business owners to pursue government contracts and help them navigate that market as it should be done.
Currently, government contracting is very disorganized, what Onvia is trying to do is organize that information for the average user and add value to it.
Want to know what new government contracts are going to be coming up in the future and which are coming up for renewal? Onvia can give you that information. They can even help you to understand and predict, based on a specific government agency’s budget, what kind of spending opportunities will come up in the future.
Curious about what Onvia has to offer cleaning nation? So glad you asked!
For smaller local businesses Onvia has a program called The Onvia guide for small business. Custom made for the small business owner who is looking for a flexible arrangement. It’s month to month, pay as you go, cancel at any time and would get the latest RFPs from your local area emailed to you daily.
Check out a walk through of the program here or watch the video posted below the podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dh35asBXpNA
You might be thinking “Ok smart guy, if the government has to post these contracts publicly and I have all these free resources, it probably wouldn’t take me THAT long to find what I am looking for..why would I need Onvia?”
You can definitely do the research yourself but keep in mind there are over 90,000 governmental agencies. Some of them don’t even have websites and might have agency specific portals you would need to access to see all the bids.
Time required to search out, research and organize all of the RFPs for government cleaning contracts, would definitely eat into your ‘not running your business time’ or that pesky ‘spending time with your family, sleeping and eating time’.
Instead of spending your time trying to find all these contracts, tasking an employee to do it in their spare time or even hiring someone specifically to find them, Onvia sends you an email every day of all the opportunities available and coming up in your area so you can focus on bidding and servicing those government cleaning contracts.
SPECIAL DEAL ALERT – *Grow My Cleaning Company gets absolutely no compensation whatsoever for this, we just believe in what Onvia is doing and think they are a great resource for cleaning company owners to get help with government cleaning contracts*
Onvia is offering a very special deal just for members of Cleaning Nation and our Podcast Listeners. GO TO WWW.GROWMYCLEANINGCOMPANY.COM/ONVIA
*The promo code will be listed on the top of the page
Get the following special benefits for being a Cleaning Nation member:
An Onvia representative will work with you directly while you set up an account with Onvia to help you create your search and essentially do a custom on-boarding process with you to ensure you get the results you want.
Onvia is offering a discount of 25% of either your first month or first year with them.
Now if you’re thinking, “Sure this all sounds great but I bet it costs a fortune and I am not made of money good sir!” Let us assuage your fear and tell you the pricing starts at $45/month for information of the local metropolitan area!
If you are seriously looking to get into government cleaning contracts, Onvia is a no-brainer for you Cleaning Nation. If you would like to get more information and reach out to Michael directly, email him at mlitchev@onvia.com and get help today.