Notes for owners · Industry playbooks
How to get security contracts, and win cleaning and facility tenders
Security, cleaning, pest control, painting and water treatment contracts are won on compliance papers, site references and the renewal you keep, not on the lowest rate alone.
The GullySales team · Updated 15 Sept 2026 · 7 min read
To get security contracts, get your licence and labour compliance in order before you ask for the business, because the buyer checks them first. Collect references from sites like theirs. Then list the facility managers, purchase heads and property managers who award the work. The same holds for cleaning, pest control, painting and water treatment contracts. Buyers in these trades fear a failed site more than a high rate. The agency that proves it can run the site without trouble beats the one that only quotes low.
Who awards facility and security contracts
Private buyers include the facility manager or admin head at an office, factory, hospital or school. At an apartment complex it is the association committee, and at a commercial building the property manager. They rarely advertise. They call three agencies they have heard of, or ask the facility management company that already runs the building.
Public and institutional buyers run a tender, often on the GeM portal or a state e-procurement site. The award follows the rules in the tender document, and eligibility is decided on paper before the price is even opened.
Facility management companies are a third route. A large integrated FM company often subcontracts pest control, deep cleaning, painting or water treatment. Being on their vendor list can bring steady work without a separate tender each time.
What a buyer checks before shortlisting you
| Trade | What the buyer asks for first | What wins the second meeting |
|---|---|---|
| Security services | PSARA licence for the state, PF and ESI registration, wage compliance | Named supervisor, night-check routine, incident reporting format |
| Housekeeping and cleaning | Labour compliance, chemical safety sheets, uniform and ID | A site-specific task schedule by area and frequency |
| Commercial pest control | Licence to handle the chemicals you use, treatment records | A service report format and a response time for complaints |
| Commercial painting | Past commercial sites, safety plan for work at height | A sample area and a schedule that works around office hours |
| Water treatment | Technical team, plant types handled, testing arrangement | A monthly water quality report and spares plan |
| Integrated facility management | All of the above, plus a single manager and billing | A transition plan for the first thirty days |
Keep these documents in one folder, current and signed, so a tender or a private enquiry can be answered the same day. A purchase team that has to chase your ESI certificate twice will move on.
How to get security contracts from private sites
Security services tenders get most attention, but private sites give a new agency its references. Pick one kind of site you can serve well, say warehouses on one highway, IT offices in one business district, or apartment complexes in one part of the city. Then build a list of those sites with the name of the person who awards the contract.
Write to them with something specific: the number of guards and supervisors a site of that size typically needs, your night-check and reporting routine, and a reference from a similar site. Follow up by phone. Ask when the current contract comes up for renewal and put that date in your CRM. Most private security work changes hands at renewal, not in the middle of a contract.
A page for security services that lists licences, site types and your supervision routine gives the buyer something to check after the call.
How to get cleaning contracts and pest control contracts
How to get cleaning contracts is mostly a question of showing the work, not describing it. Offer a one-time deep clean of a lobby, a washroom block or a canteen at a fair price. The facility manager sees the standard, and the monthly contract follows if the standard holds.
Commercial pest control contracts follow a similar path. Restaurants, food factories, hospitals and warehouses need records for audits by food safety and quality inspectors, and many will pay for a contractor whose service reports make those audits easy. Lead with the report, not the chemical.
Commercial painting contracts are more project-based. Property managers and facility heads plan painting in the financial year's budget, so the enquiry often comes between January and March. Get onto their vendor list before that window.
Facility management tenders and water treatment tenders
Facility management tenders and water treatment tenders reward preparation. Register on the portals your buyers use and set alerts for your trade and region. Read the eligibility and the scope before the price, because most bids fail on missing documents or wrong experience certificates, not on rate.
Build a standard bid pack: company profile, licences, labour registrations, experience certificates, work orders from similar sites, key staff CVs and a clean cost sheet that shows wages and statutory contributions separately. Update it every quarter. A written tender and bid process with one person responsible saves more contracts than any advertisement.
For water treatment companies, operations and maintenance tenders for STPs, WTPs and RO plants often ask for plant-specific experience. Keep a record of every plant you have run, its capacity and the client's certificate.
A security agency in Pune that grew through renewals
For example, take a security agency in Pune with a few hundred guards across residential complexes. The figures are illustrative. It was bidding for every enquiry at thin margins and losing sites at renewal to agencies quoting ₹500 less per guard per month.
The owner changed two things. First, a supervisor sent each client a monthly one-page report: attendance, night checks done, incidents and actions. Second, three months before each renewal, the owner booked a review meeting with the committee and brought that record. The agency stopped losing renewals on small price gaps because the committee could now see what it was paying for. The reports became references for new complexes in the same area.
What to do next
List your current contracts with their renewal dates, and your last ten lost bids with the reason each was lost. If most losses are missing papers, fix the bid pack. If most are renewals lost on price, fix the monthly reporting. If you would like a second view of your tender process, your target list and your renewal routine, book a free audit with us.