Floor Care Service Is A Highly Lucrative Service Business

If you get satisfaction out of seeing a job well done and appreciate the end result of your efforts then you will really enjoy operating your own (V.C.T) floor care service business.

With such a low investment, huge profits to be made, a rent free office in your own home and no experience needed, this is an ideal service business for any person wanting a highly lucrative service business of their own.

Keep reading and you will learn how you can get started with no investment in equipment. All that's really needed is a business license and the information contained in this report. You can start this business and begin making big profits almost immediately.

Simply referred to by some people as "stripping and waxing". It is in fact a professional floor care service performed on V.C.T. flooring. The letters "V.C.T." stand for "vinyl composition tile".

This type of floor is normally identified by 12 inch squares of vinyl, this type of commercial floor covering is commonly found in the majority of all offices and commercial establishments. This V.C.T. flooring requires regular maintenance, not only to prolong the life of the vinyl floor but also to keep up a shiny new appearance.

Many offices have at least some area of their office, (such as the kitchen or hallways) where you can find this type of flooring. Many grocery stores, drug stores and convenience stores employ a professional floor care service to work on their vinyl flooring every single night.

These types of commercial establishments have so many people walking through their store every day that the V.C.T. flooring they have, requires maintenance on a daily basis to maintain a high gloss appearance.

Commercial establishments other than grocery stores usually have their V.C.T. floors worked on either once every week, once every month or on a quarterly basis. The types of commercial accounts that typically employ a floor care service are the commercial establishments that you should contact when starting out in this service business:

This particular service is a very lucrative one! The basic equipment needed to perform this floor care service consist of the following:

You simply place the mop onto the floor and slowly pour the wax onto the mop-head, About one cup. Then you just start mopping the floor to apply the wax.

The names of the big 3 companies that manufacture floor machines are:

You should only use this machine for stripping and/or for scrubbing the floor. The other type of floor machine is called a polisher. This type of floor machine will have anywhere from 300 to1000 or more R.P.M (revolutions per minute)

and should be used for polishing only. You could use a buffing machine to polish a floor with but it would just be more time consuming.

There are large round pads are made of a polyester blend, which go onto the bottom of these machines and are held in place by the brushes on the machine. These pads are identified by color, depending on which job you are going to be doing.

A black colored pad, which is the more abrasive of all the pads, is used for stripping floors along with a commercial stripping solution.

A blue or brown colored pad, is used when you are just going to be top scrubbing a floor with a mild commercial scrubbing solution and then re-coating it with wax.

A white colored pad, which is the least abrasive pad is used for polishing floors, in which case you would simply use some floor finish in a spray bottle and spray a small amount on the area you are about to polish with the white pad.

Normally, an initial stripping, sealing and waxing is done to the floor. After that has been done, the typical job would involve a weekly, monthly or quarterly maintenance schedule.

Generally speaking, you can charge anywhere from 20 to 30 cents a square foot for doing an initial job of stripping, sealing and waxing.

What you should take into consideration when pricing the job, is if you are required to move furniture and put it back when the wax dries. This should be understood beforehand. If the customer wants their furniture moved and put back after the floor is cleaned, then they should have this done before you arrive to do the work.

If they do not already take care of this for you, then your price should reflect the additional work required on your part to be moving furniture for them. Also, become familiar with the prices per squarefoot that other people in your area are charging. You can just call and ask them this on the phone and you will have a good idea of what square foot prices are being charged for this kind of service.

This initial type of job, consisting of 3 steps, (stripping, sealing and waxing) is normally done only (once a year). Usually, it is not even done that often but when it is done, the floor would be stripped, then a wet/dry vac would be used to get up excess liquid, then the floor would be mopped with clear water.

2 coats of floor sealer would then be applied to the floor and 4 coats of floor finish (wax). Use one mop-head for sealer and a different mop-head for the floor finish. NOTE: mop-heads can be machine washed in a regular washing machine, but you do not need to put them into a dryer.

If your floor maintenance job is to be done on a once-a-week basis, then you would typically sweep or dust-mop the floor first, THEN, machine scrub it, THEN, high speed polish the floor and spray some wax on it as you go, (using a spray bottle with wax or floor finish in it).

On this type of once-a-week account, you would scrub (top scrub) the floor and put more floor finish on the floor (re-coat) with 2 to 3 coats, once every 3 months. If the customers floor does not get to much traffic and it is basically clean looking Most of the time, then you may want to just sweep, mop and spray buff the floor.

Once a week instead of scrubbing it first. This would reduce the cost to the customer and it would also reduce the time you spend at their location doing the work.

This weekly type of account could be charged anywhere from 20 to 30 cents per square foot, every week for the floor care involved.

If you are doing floor maintenance on an account that only wants service to be done, once-a-month or less often, like 4 times a year , then you would top scrub and re-coat with floor finish every month or each time you are there.

Whenever you are top scrubbing a floor, you must be sure to (use a mild neutral floor cleaner) available at your local janitorial supply store. This type of neutral floor cleaner does not affect the floor sealer and has little effect on the floor finish when you are top scrubbing the floor.

It is simply a mild detergent for use when scrubbing. Top scrubbing the floor is simply taking off a very small amount of the old floor finish (not the sealer) and then you can put down some new floor finish. (2 to 3 coats) Basically, you are so called, "dressing up the floor". Again, you can charge anywhere from 20 to 30 cents a square foot for this type of monthly account.

Getting customers for this type of service is the best part. You don't have to spend any money on advertising. The most successful operators of this type of service business, all get their customers in the same way. They simply stop by in person to the various establishments that have V.C.T.

flooring and ask to speak with the owner or the manager of the business. Simply introduce yourself and give them a business card. Tell them that you'd like to maintain their floors for them on a regular basis. Now, wait and see what their reaction is and if they are agreeable to it, then give them a price. This is the best way to pick up new accounts for this type of service.

Just make your rounds on a regular basis and get to know the managers of establishments that have V.C.T. flooring. A great strategy for getting new customers with this type of service business is to offer to give them a free (one time) demonstration. Offer to do a hallway or a small room for them for free as a demonstration of your work.

It's worth it to get your foot in the door and get the repeat business from the account. Make your "in person" visits and talk with the manager or the decision maker only.

If necessary, when your just starting out with this service, you can work out a deal with the customer on the price per square foot in order to get the job, as long as it is still profitable for you to be doing. Anywhere in the price range of 20 to 30 cents per square foot is profitable to be doing.

Remember that most every customer you work for will want you to come back on some kind of regular basis. You'll be building up a repeat customer base and it adds up fast! Understand that marketing your business is an on- going continual process. It never ends.

You can also talk with other janitorial services. Many of these companies will sub -contract out the floor work on their janitorial accounts as you could do also, or they may simply put you directly in touch with office managers that need to have this service done.

When you are just getting started in any kind of a service business, you will find that doing some sub-contract work for another company can still be a good source of income for you.

You should buy your own floor machine as soon as you can, but there is another way to get started. Visit several of the janitorial supply stores in your area. You can find them in the yellow pages of your local phone book.

The (buffing or scrubbing) machine is the most expensive piece of equipment that you will need to operate this business, but many of the larger janitorial supply stores will rent you a floor machine for a reasonable price.

In other words, line up some work first and then rent what you need and do the job. Preferably, you should line up 2 or more jobs or one big job and you will still find it to be very profitable, even though you rented what you needed to do the work.

Many operators of this service started out exactly like this and accumulated equipment and supplies with each new job. Some janitorial supply stores will lease you equipment or finance it for you with small monthly payments.

Explain to them that you are going into the floor care business and just starting out. They are an excellent source of advice and technical guidance for you and you will find them to be very knowledgeable and helpful.

After all, it is to their advantage if you are successful because you will be buying wax (floor finish) and other items from them on a regular basis. Remember, this is a very lucrative service business. Don't let the price of a floor machine stop you, when you can simply rent what you need when starting out.

Many one person floor care services, with one part-time helper are bringing in over $100,000 dollars a year! Talk to several janitorial supply stores for more details on starting this particular service business and use this report as a guide.

You will want to get some insurance to cover any on-the -job injuries or damage that may occur. You can put off getting bonded as it is really not required of you. It's more of a selling point that you can do without.

The cost for insurance and for bonding of any type of service business varies so much that you should check with several different companies and compare rates.