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Tendering for commercial company's

Beer

Member
Messages
210
Location
Swansea
Can I ask some guidance how would you go about rendering for big contracts ( hospitals , hotels , franchise ) thanks 

 
It depends. Mostly they come to me, but I've done various things; sent emails to the CEO, just walked in to the lobby/shop asking for the one in charge of window cleaning, randomly met the owner on the street etc. I tend to leave a business cards when I am in a location with dirty windows, and from time to time I get asked for a quote. 

 
As nudel  sais they normally contact us through our web site once you get a reputation for doing the kind of thing they want , I had an intresting email from a large building company saying that they needed a specialist company to clean some very expensive stained glass windows in a church conversion , once they viewed me as a specialist have no idear why I was guarantee the job , just name your price was what they implied , and yes we got the job 

 
I wanted to know the same, as we have been getting our foot in the door in regards to offering a quote however, we're constantly being beat due to overpricing on our behalf. Does anyone use a system or specific guidelines when quoting?

 
I personally find tenders a waste of time. You spend ages doing PQQ's and then pricing and then have people blatantly lying about the service they're going to give at a price that is half what it should be. Haven't bothered doing one for a few years now. 

 
Proper tenders are not just awarded on price.There are a number of factors to winning a proper tender price only makes up some of that.
They're a nightmare for the small businesses, having to have a LGBT policy etc is rather ridiculous. Lost my first tender because I didn't have a specific health and safety officer when I legally didn't even need a health and safety policy. Usually the price does have the heaviest rating though.

 
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They're a nightmare for the small businesses, having to have a LGBT policy etc is rather ridiculous. Lost my first tender because I didn't have a specific health and safety officer when I legally didn't even need a health and safety policy. Usually the price does have the heaviest rating though.


Price can be around 70-80%.I fully agree they're a nightmare for small business.I have had a couple which are around 20-30 page tender documents with pages on fire safety to anti slavery policy.Spent hours doing some on jobs I was probably never going to get.

 
I hate tenders, tedious, pedantic & really and truly it is all about them getting the cheapest price. So you'll break your b*ll*x to try get a competitive price, you may even get the job & then in many cases come next year the tender process will start all over again. I know so many guys commercially that will go tooth and nail to get a tender (say block of 30 or 40 stores or one massive job for example), they will kill themselves trying to get around to do these jobs, the price is so competitive it's terrible, they often neglect their other work & then they are so stretched they aren't doing a good job, so they lose it and are in up sh*t creek. Greed sets in sometimes with tenders (done it myself) and people focus so much on the "money" that things like difficulty, logistics, time & is the job actually worth it.... often get overlooked. I had to tender for one Michael Kors store, one store! Getting accepted for their "2 step payment process" was absolutely farcical. I filled out less forms getting my mortgage. It took 7 or 8 weeks to get accepted through Level 1 and Level 2 tiers and for all the checks etc to be verified and signed. All that for 15 lousy quid a week!!! Insane stuff. The funny thing is I actually emailed them after the 7 weeks and said look don't worry about it, it's not worth the hassle & then boom you got the job. Another job i tendered for huge supermarket chain over here, I went around all the stores photographed etc, got a price & they were just looking for another price to get it cheaper off the current crowd that were doing it. Total waste of my time.

Getting a big job or tender sounds great in theory and sometimes people do get onto a winner but alot of the time they are a ball breaker imo.

 
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I agree with D Perkins, the commercial stuff is a cut throat business, prices are agreed and set by faceless back office managers etc.Good commercial work is the high street windows which you can walk in to a shop, speak direct to the owner and get a fair price for a good service.

 
Absolutely mate, you are just a figure on a piece of paper to these guys. The funny thing about a lot of commercial work is that most of the stores are more than happy with just an "ok job" being done for them. Once the price is set and they are happy, they will accept an average clean... well certainly most of the tendered work I see go on. One or two crowds will do a decent job, the rest is on a wing and a prayer. The reason for this is because as you said these guys don't have much interaction with staff, they are in and out and bill is sent to head office.

 
Retail window cleaning is totally different.Most of the high street is now cleaned by national companies it's built around cheap prices and high volume.

Shops are struggling to stay open there not fussed by how clean the windows are.

I still clean quite a few shops. Bulk them together and you earn good money but it's very hard to get a run of them.

 
Retail window cleaning is totally different.Most of the high street is now cleaned by national companies it's built around cheap prices and high volume.

Shops are struggling to stay open there not fussed by how clean the windows are.

I still clean quite a few shops. Bulk them together and you earn good money but it's very hard to get a run of them.
A few years ago over here before the recession hit, the big nationals had absolutely zero interest in retail work, they were too busy going after the big industrial contracts. Then when things went belly up they start creeping into the shoppings centres and high streets.  I accumulated a lot of work in shopping centres over those years and still have a lot of shops but the nationals are trying to swallow them up alright. It's hard to compete against them on times as they have the man power and contacts but their overheads are high and I can usually get them on price if haven't already got the contract for the whole chain.

I find over here that the big UK brands seem to like one cleaner, one bill type thing whereas the Irish companies seem to go with a local cleaner as they are more reliable. Alot of the big branded stores will get a national cleaner in to do all of the shops in the province or country, them shops will literally get a lick most of the time and from what I can gather the people in those shops hardly even see the guys. I've actually got a lot of work back because of this exact thing. The prices for retail work in UK are dreadful though, couldn't believe some of the prices when talking to guys over there. So when big UK brand comes over, they get a bit of a shock when prices come in. Cost of living is higher over here so it's all relative I tell them, sometimes it works... sometimes not but when guys put in those low ball prices it kills it for the rest of us as these stores think it's the norm.

I cleaned the Arcadia group (Topshop, Wallis etc) for years in a shopping centre over here before they finally pulled out months back, I was sub contracting for Grosvenor getting a sh*t price. So I asked the area manager to give my a breakdown of what Grosvenor were charging them... I couldn't believe it. We were charging 60 a week for the stores, they were charging 200. The girls cleaning the floors were on 9.50 an hour and Grosvenor were charging 40 quid!!! I said to her, have you guys not actually looked at this properly!? I put in my own quote for the windows which was half the price of theirs, got a phone call in an hour to say they accepted it. Crazy stuff

 
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A few years ago over here before the recession hit, the big nationals had absolutely zero interest in retail work, they were too busy going after the big industrial contracts. Then when things went belly up they start creeping into the shoppings centres and high streets.  I accumulated a lot of work in shopping centres over those years and still have a lot of shops but the nationals are trying to swallow them up alright. It's hard to compete against them on times as they have the man power and contacts but their overheads are high and I can usually get them on price if haven't already got the contract for the whole chain.

I find over here that the big UK brands seem to like one cleaner, one bill type thing whereas the Irish companies seem to go with a local cleaner as they are more reliable. Alot of the big branded stores will get a national cleaner in to do all of the shops in the province or country, them shops will literally get a lick most of the time and from what I can gather the people in those shops hardly even see the guys. I've actually got a lot of work back because of this exact thing. The prices for retail work in UK are dreadful though, couldn't believe some of the prices when talking to guys over there. So when big UK brand comes over, they get a bit of a shock when prices come in. Cost of living is higher over here so it's all relative I tell them, sometimes it works... sometimes not but when guys put in those low ball prices it kills it for the rest of us as these stores think it's the norm.

I cleaned the Arcadia group (Topshop, Wallis etc) for years in a shopping centre over here before they finally pulled out months back, I was sub contracting for Grosvenor getting a sh*t price. So I asked the area manager to give my a breakdown of what Grosvenor were charging them... I couldn't believe it. We were charging 60 a week for the stores, they were charging 200. The girls cleaning the floors were on 9.50 an hour and Grosvenor were charging 40 quid!!! I said to her, have you guys not actually looked at this properly!? I put in my own quote for the windows which was half the price of theirs, got a phone call in an hour to say they accepted it. Crazy stuff


I see your in Dublin.It's similar here national window cleaning companies have killed it.

The only thing is here they very rarely go back from being with a national to using a small local firm.Most are is contract and should they change it normally goes to another national.

I clean the Arcadia group stuff here Top shop,Dorothy perkins,miss selfridge etc but it's not for Grosvenor.

 
I see your in Dublin.It's similar here national window cleaning companies have killed it.

The only thing is here they very rarely go back from being with a national to using a small local firm.Most are is contract and should they change it normally goes to another national.

I clean the Arcadia group stuff here Top shop,Dorothy perkins,miss selfridge etc but it's not for Grosvenor.
I sub for Grosvenor for Debenhams and CCS for H & M's, subbed for several companies in the past but only the 2 now & have zero interest in working with anymore. Grovesnor are cheap skates but CCS pay me well shockingly enough, christ only knows what they are charging H & M themselves. I think for some stores it's a comfort thing about having a big firm take care of a certain aspect of business for them. I have alway said the bigger the brand, the worse the are to work for, bigger overheads looking for cheap jobs and so demanding. Much better off working for independent stores with lesser overheads that are on the ground and can see and understand the work that needs to be done & the cost involved.

The worst thing about working commercially/retail IMO is waiting for money to come through the bank. I still deal with lot of petty cash, pain the backside to collect but at least you get it there and then. The stores I have on account are usually 2 months behind, seems standard. I always get paid but alot of them have certain amounts they can pay out to suppliers or contractors and on certain dates. Mildly irritating.

 
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We do quite a lot of reasonably sized commercial work but as for tendering for jobs it’s a compleat waist of time I for one will not sit down waistng my time and energy filling out 40-60 pages of totaly inappropriate rubbish some of which doesn’t apply to a small company not to evan get a reply they almost expect you to pay them for doing work for them and want to pay when it suited them I feel we should all stick together and refuse to do this type of work then they would have to alter there ways . What’s wrong with getting three quotes and them going with the company they want that’s hkw we get all our big jobs works well for us and the client 

 
The state of retail means you could chase a lot of work but I feel stores understand the writing is on the wall. Most of retail are heading for the internet and Amazon is now heading for retail. Swings and roundabouts.

 
I agree with D Perkins, the commercial stuff is a cut throat business, prices are agreed and set by faceless back office managers etc.Good commercial work is the high street windows which you can walk in to a shop, speak direct to the owner and get a fair price for a good service.




There is a difference between commercial work and tendered work , most councils have to go down the tendering route for transparency in the public sector . 

Most commercial jobs ,nursing homes ,management companies work , only require 3 quotes and its generaly down to who they want not always price ,most of our commercial work we have we are dearer than the other firms but we still get the work due to having a good reputation for turning up when we say we will and doing all the work quoted for and working to a high standard every visit , some of our jobs we have been doing over 18 years they won’t have anyone else some have tried to under cut me by two thirds on price but the companies we deal with won’t change , Ime talking about big jobs hear to not a shop ,prices running into many hundreds of pounds per visit , I personally will not bother with tendering for any jobs as I have never got any I priced it’s a complete waist of time , but the commercial work we get 9 out of 10 jobs that we price up 

 
Personally I like tendering, it’s a lot of work to be completely setup to score maximum points and actually responding in detail to the questions but ultimately the security of gaining a decent size contract out ways the stress and time taken.  Having a large amount of private commercial work helps cover some of the potential loss on failure to retain a contract upon retendering. 

 
When we used to take on commercial work I used to get around 7 or 8 if every 10 by simply submitting a full RAMS with each quote. 

I would do a site visit, take some pics. Brief chat with the site manager about their needs and promise a written quote within 48 hours. 

Print it all off slip in a nice folder and pop in an envelope and drop it back personally with 'by hand' written on it. 

Worked a charm every time. Well 8 out of 10 times. 

Like @Pjj never bothered with 'tenders' as knew they aren't going to pay what it's worth.    

 
I did get an email telling me to do all the Vodaphone stores in Nottingham once, the whole of Nottinghamshire, stretches from Grantham to Ilkeston. Bout 9 stores if I recall. Would take a whole day to drive round and do them all in and out by hand and a cladding clean once per month.  

I was literally told to do it in an first email... never spoke to the people before. 

So thought i'd chance it for giggles and said 'no problem' £30 per store per clean. 

They got back to me saying not to bother as the budget was £8 per store per clean so I went and put the kettle on. 

 
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