Although supply and material costs are likely to be a small part of your cleaning company's expenses, these costs are continuing to spiral, and so controlling these expenses will lead to more profit for your business. These days, prices change quickly, so the total expense of your supplies may not be accurately reflected in cleaning bids. Keeping these costs down are important to remain competitive as well as staying profitable.

Following are tips to keep your costs down:

1. Always buy high quality brand name products that work well for you. If a new product comes out, ask your distributor for a sample that you can try to be sure the product will work in your situation. Low priced chemicals aren't necessarily the best choice. If you have to use more of a "cheaper" product, than you are not really saving any money.
   
   
2. Don't make a buying decision solely based on cost. If the product is being delivered to you make sure you know what the shipping charges are and include those in figuring out the total cost of the product. If you need to pick up the product at a local distributor, figure in your time (or your employee's time) and the mileage needed to pick up that product.
   
   
3. If possible, make one large order with your vendor instead of several smaller orders. This will help keep your shipping costs down and you may also be able to take advantage of volume discounting.
   
   
4. Buying larger sizes or products or chemicals that you mix yourself tends to be more economical than buying products in small sizes or ready-to-use containers.
   
   
5. If your employees are mixing chemicals, make sure that they read and follow all label directions. Adding too much water will make a chemical less effective; adding too little is a waste of product (and money) and may cause damage to the floor or fixture that is being cleaned.
   
   
6. Think before you buy. New products are coming out all the time. Do you really need to have five or six products, if one will do what these other products promise?
   
   
7. Don't be afraid to pass on price increases to your customers. For you to stay in business you need to make a profit. Your customers should understand that for your company to stay in business you can't absorb increased costs.

Steve Hanson

Steve Hanson, President of TheJanitorialStore.com, has over 20 years of experience as a building service contractor. His first company was located in Boise, Idaho. In 2002 he sold the business and relocated to Minnesota where he started a new commercial cleaning company and a janitorial supplies distributor company.

Steve always had the desire to begin an online community for building service contractors. So much of what is available in this industry is for much larger janitorial companies -- there aren't many places online for people who are just getting started, or people who already have a small, successful cleaning business, but would like to take their business to the next level. So in 2005 he started TheJanitorialStore.com.

TheJanitorialStore.com is a community for owners of small commercial cleaning companies that is designed to allow subscribers to ask questions, participate in tele-seminars, find training programs designed for the smaller company, share their knowledge in telephone and online discussion forums, read new articles every week, and much more.