It’s almost never the cleaning that loses commercial work. It’s that nobody could check you.
You clean a building well. The staff notice, the manager stops complaining, and the contract renews quietly for years. Then a bigger contract comes up, and it goes to a company with a name the buyer already knows.
They didn’t choose them because they clean better. They chose them because they could see the paperwork, and they couldn’t see yours.
Buyers default to size because they can’t easily check a small business.
This is how commercial cleaning work actually gets won, the routes in from slowest to fastest, and what we think changes the odds for a business your size.
What buyers check before they look at your price
A lot of commercial buying is pass or fail. You’re not marked down for a weak answer. You’re simply out.
I know this one personally
This summer, Mackies stood down a council tender for declutter and deep clean services for vulnerable people, because we didn’t have the right waste carrier registration in place in time. One registration. We could do the work. We just weren’t ready for the paperwork.
The same documents come up whether the buyer is a council, a facilities company or a managing agent choosing a subcontractor. Get these current and in one place:
The pack buyers ask for
- Public liability and employers’ liability insurance. Note the level of cover, because bigger buyers often ask for more than domestic work needs.
- DBS checks for the people going into the building, and your training records.
- Your health and safety policy, risk assessments and method statements (RAMS).
- COSHH assessments for the products you use.
- Any licences and registrations the work needs, such as waste carrier registration for some types of work.
- Policies buyers commonly ask about, such as data protection, modern slavery and safeguarding.
- References from customers you have actually asked, and case studies of similar work.
Put a date next to everything that expires. This is where most small businesses fall down, and it’s rarely because they haven’t got the cover. It’s because it takes a week to pull the pack together, and by then the work’s gone to someone whose pack was ready.
The ways in, from slowest to fastest
There isn’t one door. There are four, and they ask different things of you.
| Route | What it asks of you | How quick |
|---|---|---|
| Public tenders | The full pack, often as pass or fail. Detailed written answers on quality, mobilisation and suppliers. | Slowest. Weeks of work per bid, and you can be out on one missing document. |
| Direct to buyers | Approaching managing agents, multi-site businesses and facilities companies yourself, and proving yourself by hand to each one. | Slow. Every buyer starts from scratch. |
| Partnering and specialist work | Teaming up to bid for work none of you could deliver alone, or being the best at one thing, such as exterior glass. | Depends on who you know. |
| Subcontracting part of a bigger contract | Being the business a facilities company calls when it needs cover in your area, and having your paperwork ready the day they ask. | The fastest legitimate route in. |
Public tenders: know what buyers ask before you bid
You can start learning long before you are ready to bid. Public opportunities are advertised on Find a Tender and Contracts Finder, so you can read what buyers ask for, and what they mark on, without writing a single answer. The Procurement Act 2023, which came into force in February 2025, includes measures intended to make public sector contracts more accessible to smaller businesses.
Direct to buyers: go to the people who hold the contracts
Facilities companies and managing agents hold the contracts for the buildings. They need reliable subcontractors for sites they can’t cover. Go to them, not to the buildings, and send the pack with the first message.
Subcontracting: start with a piece, not the whole thing
You don’t need to win the whole contract. A facilities company that wins work covering half a county subcontracts most of it. Delivering part of that builds your track record, your references and your experience, and each piece makes the next one easier to win. Once you’ve done it well, you can bid in your own name.
The money nobody warns you about
Commercial work often pays on 30 to 60 days, so you pay wages long before you’ve been paid. Here is an example, not a quote.
£2,500-a-month contract on 60-day terms · example
| Contract value | £2,500 a month |
| Wages, products and travel to deliver it (say) | £1,400 to £2,000 a month |
| Months of costs you carry before the first payment (invoice at the end of month one, paid 60 days later) | about 3 |
| Working capital to carry it | roughly £4,000 to £6,000 |
If you don’t have that, the contract can win and still sink you. Work it out before you say yes, and ask what the payment terms are before you bid.
What every one of those routes has in common
Look at the table again. Tender, direct approach, partnering, subcontracting. Every one of them asks you to do the same thing: prove yourself by hand, to one buyer at a time.
You build a pack. You send it. They read it, or they don’t. They still can’t check whether the insurance is current today, whether your people turned up last Tuesday, or whether the references are real. So they go with the name they know. Then the next buyer asks, and you start again.
You’re already competing with these companies. You just can’t see the competition, and they can’t see you.
The marketplace that works the other way round
This is why we’re building Cadi Connect. It’s a marketplace, but not the kind you pay to be listed in, and not a lead site that sells your details to four people at once.
Facilities companies, managing agents and multi-site businesses go to Connect to find cleaning businesses whose record can actually be checked. It works like this:
- You don’t apply. There’s no pitch, no tender document and no waiting for somebody to take a chance on you. You run your business properly on Cadi.
- Your paperwork is loaded once. Insurance, DBS, health and safety, RAMS and the rest, dated, with a warning before anything lapses. The pack is ready the day somebody asks.
- Your record builds from what actually happens. You check in on site when you arrive, and the visit records the time and the place. You send photos and notes with the visit. It gets approved, and approval releases your invoice.
- Buyers find you. When work that fits what you do comes up in your area, you’ll see it. Every job done well goes on your record, and your record is what gets you the next one.
The difference
Every other route makes you prove it again for every buyer. Connect proves it once, and every buyer sees the same record.
It can’t be gamed, and that’s the point. You can’t type your way to a good score and you can’t buy one. If you win work off the back of it and then let somebody down, that shows too. A bench like this is only worth something if being on it means something.
It’s also built so that buyers see your record, not your books. They see your business details, your compliance documents, your score and the work they’ve given you. They don’t see your other customers, your prices, your invoices, your staff or your reports.
It’s free on every plan, including the free one. Being found for commercial work shouldn’t depend on what you pay us.
Where it’s up to, honestly: Connect is live, and it’s new. Facilities companies are onboarding now, and there’ll be more work on it in three months than there is today. We’d rather you heard that from us than found it out. So the sensible move is to get set up now, get your compliance loaded and get your score moving, so when work comes up in your area you’re already on the bench instead of joining it that week.
See how Connect works for cleaning businesses →
Your first 90 days
| When | Do this |
|---|---|
| Weeks 1 to 2 | Pull every document into one place and put every renewal date in the diary. Find out what level of cover bigger buyers ask for and whether yours meets it. |
| Weeks 3 to 4 | Get your compliance loaded on Connect and start running your visits through it. Ask your best customers for references, and write one short case study. |
| Month 2 | Make a list of the facilities companies and managing agents near you. Send each the pack and one line on the area you cover. |
| Month 3 | Work out your working capital for a £2,500-a-month contract. Read two live tenders on Find a Tender or Contracts Finder, without bidding, and note what they ask. |
Nothing on that list needs a bid. It makes you ready for one, and ready for the call from a facilities company that needs cover next month.
If commercial is where you’re heading, the quiz has a result and a game plan for you. It takes a couple of minutes.
Take the quiz → or join the waitlist to be first in when Cadi opens on 1 January.
Rhianna
Sources, as at 4 November 2026
The working-capital figures are an illustration, not a quote. Payment terms and what buyers ask for vary from contract to contract, so check each one.
