Today we’re chatting with Rachel Zwiph!

Rachel asks a very intriguing question, one revolved around what is basically an upsell you can do with your residential cleaning clients – the deep clean.

Deep cleans is where you go into the house and do a SUPER detailed job, making everything look as if it is brand new. It is something that comes our way in running a cleaning business from time to time and honestly…

Most of the time I hate them.

Often these deep cleans represent a one time only job with no recurring revenue. I harp on this all the time, but recurring revenue is the MOST important part in acuiring good clients. It takes just as much effort to acquire a one-off client as it does a client that is going have you clean for them on a weekly, biweekly or monthly basis.

Always go for the latter.

Resource Alert: How to Bid on Cleaning Jobs WITHOUT Competing on Price https://oldsite.growmycleaningcompany.combid-on-cleaning-jobs/

Now that being said, if you still want to do one-off deep cleans then you should know your numbers. For residential cleaning I always want my Cost of Goods (COGs) to be at minimum 40-50% of what I am bidding. That means if I charge $500 for a deep clean, the actual labor costs that go into that deep clean should be at maximum $250.

You’ll need to figure out what your COGs are before you can get your pricing right. You will want to look at how much hourly you’re paying your employees, but also include the hard costs too like the actual social security & other relevant taxes that are being taken out of your payroll.

Once you have that figured out, you can price your bid right.

Now, for one-off cleanings, I want my COGs to be even LOWER than my recurring clients. Usually I will want to see a maximum COGs expense of 30-40% of bid. Now, you might think that sounds super high and no one will ever buy a deep clean from you at that price… and that is totally fine.

Resource Alert: Mastering Bidding https://oldsite.growmycleaningcompany.commastering-bidding/

This price structure is put into place to actually make it worth your while to do, but to make it clear to the client that they would be better off being a recurring client.

If you are getting deep clean requests from people that later become recurring clients (at least weekly or biweekly cleaning clients, not monthly) then there is a few other options you have.

Absorb the cost of the deep clean. You can tell your clients you want to start off on the right foot and will be giving them a free cleaning since they will be a weekly/biweekly client of yours. In this scenario, still try to get something out of the deal like a glowing review or testimonial you can use for your next bids.
Charge like you normally would at the 40-50% COGs. I’m not a huge fan of this, because it doesn’t build the same goodwill as above.
Spread the deep cleaning out over a few months both in labor and price. You might instruct your cleaners to do the deep clean in one spot of the house per month until every spot of the house has had it done. This is one way to lower your COGs while holding onto the client as a long term recurrng client. This also won’t be as steep of a price for your client to pay for all upfront, since it is broken into smaller payments.
Alright, with all that being said, let’s jump into the Lightning Round!