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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)

First Rule of Sales: Never Knock the Competition

Never forget this: The first rule of sales is to never knock the competition. I’ve never don much sales cold calling in my career, so my experience was limited until I started my office cleaning company. And over the past three years I’ve learned a lot in terms of sales as a whole, cold calling and approaching potential clients. One of the first rules I was taught when I started making my way around and pitching my cleaning services was to never know the competition. It’s sales basic, yet many relish at the opportunity to bash the competitors.

Even though you’ll behave yourself when you do your sales pitch, one thing is certain is that you can’t control what others will say about you or your business. What if you walk into a potential client’s office and through your pitch they let you know something negative was said about you by your competition? Maybe your potential customer is making it up or maybe it’s true, but how can you tell? One thing is for certain is that you have to respond.

The question is: How do you respond professionally without sounding defensive?

Here are a few tips on how to respond to a “knock on you or your business” in a professional manner.

Accept the Reality

Being prepared is half the battle to successfully responding to criticism. You must accept the reality that others will talk about your business or at times about yourself in an unfair and untrue manner. That’s how certain sales people stoop low, without much regard for the other side. Over the course of your business life span and cold calling career, you’ll have ample opportunities to respond to some form of negativity aimed at your business. Be prepared and know what you’ll say in return, the last position you want to be is pondering your answer.

Good Response Example

“Company 123 is a tough competitor. They’ve been in the industry for many years, and we know this because we compete with them on a daily basis. Like any other business, if they weren’t good they wouldn’t be in the business or competing with us. I try and stay in tune with my competitor’s products and services as much as possible, and rest assured that when it comes to quality, top notch service and reliability, our company is second to none in this market”.

The above would be a solid response in my books. Regardless what was said about you, you’ve risen above by elevating yourself above the fray. More importantly you come across as a class act towards your customer, and all because you didn’t allow a comment to affect you. Furthermore, whether you use the above response or respond in your own manner, the key is to put together a response on the offensive and not come off defensive. This will show your confidence and in turn you’ll avoid a long unnecessary explanation.

Some Reasons Why Your Service or Product is More Superior

Here are three reasons I’d focus on in your response:

  1. Quality of your product or service
  2. Customer service
  3. Yourself and what you bring to the table through your company

Emphasize why your product or service might be superior to those of your competitors, and don’t be afraid to use numbers. For example, I generally try to give the customer a rough schedule of what I’d do during the clean if I was cleaning his facility. Next, I try to emphasize on how we can make full use of the time were there, such as possibly only dusting once a week and using the extra time to focus elsewhere. Finally, when you mention something your company offers, be sure to remind the customer what the benefit is to him or her.

Final Thoughts

From time to time you may have to deflect negative statements some of your competitors make about you or your company, but staying true to sales professionalism well never all yourself to be sucked into the competition contest of “they said”.  Being prepared with your response will keep you on the offensive and prevent you from having to back peddle.

Readers, have you ever walked into a situation where you were called out on what your competition said?

Cheers.
Eddie

Photo Credit (playpennies)

The Online Pawn Shop – Discretion Guaranteed!

The year 2008 will perhaps be remembered as the year that Lehman Brothers collapsed and nearly brought down the global economy with it.

However, 2008 was also the year that saw the rebirth of the pawn shop in London- pawn shop 2.0 if you will.

Now, in the annuls of history, this may not be up there with the Lehman Brothers fall from grace, however, in years to come we may come to look at this development as being significant in the world of personal finance at least.

At this point, you may be thinking ‘Pawn shops? Why on earth would I even consider going to one of these dirty, dingy, unpleasant places?’

However, as previously stated, 2008 was the year that pawn shop 2.0 was born.

By this we mean the new, high-end, online pawn shop. These are not places where you can raise £50 from selling a PlayStation, these are places where you can secure a £5,000 loan against your Rolex or a £15,000 loan against your classic Jaguar.

Pawn Shops for the Middle Class

There are few groups who can say they have escaped the effects of the economic downturn unscathed.

The middle and upper classes have been severely hit by the anemic global economy and many find themselves in a position where they have a Ferrari in the garage but no food in their fridge.

Such a situation will not do, but for many, the thought of going into a pawn shop with the chance of a neighbor seeing is unthinkable.

Thanks to the internet and online pawn shops, this is not an issue.

A high-end pawnbroker can provide loans against a range of assets, with everything from diamond rings to yachts taken into consideration.

The online application process is incredibly easy – you simply fill in the application form, send your valuables in to the valuation team and if you are happy with the price quoted, take out the loan.

This process ticks three important boxes – it is easy, quick and most importantly of all, it is extremely discreet.

The neighbors have no way of knowing you have applied for a short-term pawnbroker loan, so you do not need to worry about the rest of the street whispering about your personal affairs.

Some Important Points About Pawn Shop Loans

Pawnbroker loans are loans at the end of the day so you need to know about interest rates, repayment periods and the rest.

The APRs associated with pawn shop loans are higher than those attached to bank loans, however, they are designed to be short-term products, so you need to look at the APR and work out the monthly interest rate to know what you are paying.

In terms of the repayment period, such loans are typically taken out for between one and six months, although some lenders may be willing to extend the repayment period where necessary.

A Word of Caution

As the interest rates are high, the longer you take to repay the loan, the more expensive they become, so be careful.

Running into financial problems is nothing to be ashamed of, particularly if they are temporary in nature.

Many people are struggling, even those who on the surface appear to be doing well.

Online pawn shops can help ease your short-term cash flow problems, so why not explore how they can help you?

Readers, have you ever been to a pawnshop? Did business with one?