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READER QUESTION: I’m New and Want to Start a Cleaning Business

This week’s reader question:

Hi Eddie!
How are you? It was inspiring to read your story. I moved to the States from England recently – I reside in Massachussetts and am looking to start up a cleaning company.
Although I have no professional cleaning experience, I have always been a clean freak and enjoy it! And my cleaning is impeccable and I have also been told so on many occasions.
I feel I have the drive and determination to take it up professionally, though I have never had a business.
Just wondering what advice and help you could give to a newcomer who’s just starting out and wants to start a cleaning business.
Any advice would be most greatly appreciated!
Thank you for your time.
Kind Regards.
Reader

This Week’s Answer:

The fact that you enjoy cleaning and are a cleaning freak is an important step towards becoming successful in the cleaning industry, because let’s face it – 95% of people don’t enjoy cleaning and only do it because they have to. The rest of us or the 5% enjoy cleaning because we’re passionate about it, slightly nuts and total clean freaks. That’s why there’s such a demand for cleaning businesses – residential or commercial. Now that I’ve been in the cleaning business for over three years, everything has become second nature to me. Certain tasks that were once a chore, have now become easy and straight forward.

Are You Passionate About Cleaning?

Without passion you can’t succeed, whether you’re planning to start a cleaning business or any other business for that matter. Passion is what drives you, and on those really tough days it’s what makes you understand why you’re in the business in the first place. Far too many people start businesses without being passionate about the subject they’re starting the business within. They focus way too much on the green stuff (money), without much thought on why they’re about to get into the industry. Don’t become one of those people. Be honest with yourself, and asses your reason for wanting to get into the cleaning industry.

Cleaning Industry Has An Easy Entry Barrier

Gaining entry into the cleaning industry is relatively inexpensive and pretty easy. All it takes is your dedication, some home made flyers, cleaning materials and voila – you’re a small cleaning business. That’s why I’ve recommended to many people over time, that starting a cleaning business is a no brain-er. However, at the same time, it’s more about passion than the dollars. I started my cleaning business for under $200, and haven’t looked back since.

Research Before You Commit

I really think it’s important to do you research ahead of time before you commit to anything – especially starting a business. Read as much as possible, take notes, and ask a lot of questions. I’d also highly advise you to get together with an accountant, and see what your options are for taxes within your state or province. Maybe you’d like to incorporate your cleaning business and separate the personal and business taxes at the end of the year or maybe your accountant will recommend you stay small due to projected income you foresee earning.

Here’s a list of articles I’d recommend you read, as they’ll offer you some great insight:

The main reason people fail at starting a cleaning business

Different types of cleaning businesses

6 start-up tips for new entrepreneurs

How to start a cleaning service

How to get cleaning business leads

Marketing Material

You don’t need to spend thousands of dollars on Marketing and promotional items in order to become successful. However, you will need to maintain a sense of professionalism in order for potential clients to take you more seriously. Start off with a logo and business cards. The reason why I emphasize on having a logo designed – your logo will brand your business. It automatically distinguishes you from the rest. Ask friends if they know of any graphic designers and see if you can negotiate a rate to have a custom logo designed for your new business.

The next step I recommend is to create business cards. Again, something that’s important to any business, especially when you pitch your service to potential clients, you can leave a business card with all your contact information. Two websites that create amazing business cards are MOO BUSINESS CARDS and JUKE BOX. For the slightly more budget conscious business cards, check out VISTA PRINT.

Finally, with your logo and business cards in hand, you’re ready to create flyers. For years now I’ve been creating my own flyer’s through Microsoft Word. I insert my logo on top of every flyer, and ensure that there’s a phone number where I could be easily reached.

Sales and Promotion

When I first started, I really didn’t know where to start promoting my business or my services. I think it took me almost three months to land my first client, but with a lot of dedication and perseverance I manged to land my first client. Please give yourself enough time as this is certainly not an overnight process. Be ready and open to talk to anyone and everyone about your business. Here’s what I’d recommend when you first start out:

  • Have business cards ready to hand out at all times
  • Let your friends, family members and acquaintances know that you have a business
  • Send an email out to all your contacts introducing your business
  • Develop a simple promotional flyer, and visit your local grocery stores and libraries to hang them in their FREE ad bulletin board
  • Use websites such as KIJIJI and CRAIGSLIST to advertise your cleaning services
  • Carry business cards with you at all times – in your purse, car and jackets
  • Talk openly about your business – holding back doesn’t get you anywhere and nobody will ever find out about your services
  • If you’re doing residential house cleaning, take a walk within your local neighbourhood and drop off flyer’s door-to-door
  • If you’ve decided to get into commercial office cleaning, visit small businesses with your flyer and don’t forget to drop off a business card

Final Thoughts

Any beginning is difficult. Whether you’re starting a new relationship, job or business – there are certain challenges that you’ll need to overcome. Probably the biggest challenge any new business will face is drumming up new clientele. That being said, keep in mind that it’s all a time process. Establishing your business in the market and gaining sales takes time. Gaining new clientele certainly isn’t an overnight process. It’s very easy to get discouraged and give up,  but if you give yourself enough time, stay determined and keep pushing forward, the results will be unbelievable and your income potential unlimited.

Good Luck!!

Eddie

You Should Start A Cleaning Business and Here’s Why!

I’m not sure about you, but I enjoy cleaning. I suppose you can call me a bit of a clean freak, not the crazy type, yet I enjoy keeping my home orderly and clean to say the least. Realistically though, cleaning is not in the blood for most people. In fact, majority of the people dislike cleaning as a whole, and this is why residential house cleaners exist. So, if you enjoy having a clean home, and don’t mind doing it yourself, you should think about starting a cleaning business.

I’m not going to lie, but you do need to enjoy some faucet of cleaning, and more importantly you could dedicate the necessary energy to starting a cleaning business, then you have the right mindset to start a home-based business cleaning – whether you’re looking to clean homes or offices commercially.  Starting a cleaning business focusing on residential homes gives you a larger potential customer base to deal with than trying to do commercial cleaning, and it may also allow you to do daytime hours where an office building will need to be cleaned at night. It can be inexpensive to start your home-based residential cleaning business, but it will take dedication and hard work to make it a success.

Tips on how to get started:

1. Research Stage

Anytime you’re looking to venture into unfamiliar territory, you should do as much as research ahead as possible. This way you can try to cover off as many angles as possible. If you’re uncertain with where to start, and how to operate a cleaning business, I’d strongly advise you of FREE training as I call it, by joining a local cleaning company and in turn learn the basic tricks of the trade. Next, I’d recommend you read a lot, whether it be books, blogging tips on cleaning or newspapers – gain as much info as possible.

2. Supplies

When I started my cleaning business, I purchased supplies as I needed them. Simply, I didn’t have a large spending account to begin and also I was working out of my two bedroom condo, so my space to store supplies was limited. So, I dropped by my local Home Depot, and picked up some basic cleaning supplies, scrubbers and some safety items such as gloves. Everything else I own today, I’ve pretty much purchased at the time I needed to use the item.

I’ll also include business cards and flyers in the supplies. Why? Because they’re an essential need to get your foot into the door to any local business.

3. Start Soliciting

Solicit business by going door to door and introducing people to your service using a home made informational flier. You may also want to create a small informational website, and use the free social networking sites to get information out to more people in your area. To be quite honest, I only stared out with business cards, and dropped them off to local businesses within the area. It took me nearly four weeks before any calls started coming through, but then they became a regular occurrence. Anytime you’re selling your business idea, remember that you’ll need a lot

Why should you should start a cleaning business?

If you’re looking to go into business for yourself, starting a home-based cleaning business is likely one of the easiest business to start. The overhead cost is virtually non existent, and you certainly don’t need thousands of dollars to get started. A home-bases cleaning  business offers a recurring business model with payment at the time of service.Furthermore, you have a small, yet manageable business model that has very low risk of failure, since you are building your business a few clients at a time, and more importantly you’re not fronting very many dollars upfront. This steady start allows the owner to master the moving parts of the business, one step at a time.

Today, revenues from running a cleaning service are still growing at a staggering rate. Gains will be driven by ongoing increases in the number of households and the number of business establishments, as well as the increasing availability and affordability of cleaning services. Changes in demographics will also support increasing home cleaning business revenues as the number of dual income households rise and the population ages. Dual-income families often do not have the time or inclination to perform home cleaning tasks, and the growing number of baby boomers generally have the financial wherewithal to use professional services on a routine basis.

Whether you get into residential cleaning or commercial cleaning, there will always be a market for cleaning. Household cleaning will exist simply because most people hate cleaning, and commercial office cleaning will exist simply due to timing constraints. Businesses do not have the time to clean when they’re focusing on sales, so they pay others to come in and do the cleaning for them

So, why start a home cleaning company? In short, it’s a great life style business that’s affordable to get into…with lots of potential for growth.

Readers, have you ever thought about starting a cleaning business? What’s holding you back?

Thanks for stopping by!

Eddie

Photo Credit (chrisdat)