The US market for cleaning government buildings begins with
estimating the size of the market however no one knows exactly how many
buildings the government owns or controls.
The US Federal government has more than 500,000 buildings totaling
approximately 3.1 billion square feet of space, housing 479 separate federal
agencies.
Federal buildings are just the beginning, there are 50 state
governments who each own thousands of buildings. State and federal buildings
are supplemented with leased space so cleanable space is much more than what is
simply owned. There are 3,144 county governments and 19,429 municipalities each
with buildings that require cleaning. The total amount of property that needs
to be cleaned is truly amazing and there are many contractors who won’t
approach this sector at all
I cannot estimate how many people reading this may still
have a phone book but there are pages of government agencies in every phone
book, listed in its own separate section. A small phone book will still have 10
to 12 pages of government listings. So if you consider the sheer size of
federal, state, county and municipal buildings together, the largest buyer of
cleaning is the government at one level or another.
If you do business with government at any level, you are now
B2G, in addition to B2B or in the residential side B2C. Marketing is different
in all three sectors. Mass marketing is effective for the residential sector to
consumers (B2C), direct marketing for the commercial sector to businesses (B2B)
but the government sector (B2G) is a different animal completely.
