What kind of premium do you charge when its a job no one has been able to do or figure out before.
So I have a couple jobs im putting in bids for with no competition because of the fact no one can figure it out. Well I have a couple tools at my disposal that I believe can get the job done. One being the windows on the inside of an 11 story lobby for a major hotel in vegas. Since the tower was built no one has cleaned them. So they are bad. What can I do to make this the best payday possible. Without them saying they are not prepared for that kind of cost. But getting this done also secures me the highrise exterior contract.
I’d be careful about looking at it as “charging a premium because nobody else could figure it out.”
Most clients don’t really care that other companies failed. What they care about is:
- risk
- liability
- disruption to operations
- whether you can actually complete the work safely and professionally
Especially in your situation where the bigger opportunity sounds like the exterior contract afterward.
If it were me, I’d focus less on maximizing the first invoice and more on structuring the proposal intelligently.
A few things I’d think through first:
- How much setup and testing time is involved?
- Is this realistically a one-night job, or could it turn into multiple nights?
- What happens if your initial process doesn’t work halfway through?
- What liability are you taking on working inside a hotel lobby?
- Will you need to shut down areas or work around guests?
- Do you need additional insurance, equipment, or protection measures?
Those unknowns are usually where specialty jobs become unprofitable.
Personally, I’d probably break the proposal into phases instead of presenting one large fixed number:
- testing / proof of concept
- production cleaning
- ongoing maintenance recommendations
That gives the client smaller decision points and also protects you if the scope changes once work begins.
I also wouldn’t frame the pricing around “nobody else can do this.” I’d frame it around:
- complexity
- access challenges
- labor hours
- specialty equipment
- risk mitigation
- minimizing disruption to hotel operations
That comes across much more professionally from the client’s perspective. If the exterior contract is the real long-term opportunity, I’d keep relationship value in mind too.
A lot of companies lose recurring high-value work because they try to maximize profit on the first job instead of building trust and securing the larger relationship.
