A cleaning business is the classic example the many repeat customer, steady income kind of businesses. These kinds of businesses may not be glamorous but they can be good solid money makers. It is also an example of one of the many low investment kind of businesses that you can run out of your home. When starting a business in just about any industry, there are certain things you need to know and remember that will be critical to the survival of your company. In this article, I am going to cover 7 things you need to remember while starting a cleaning business to improve the likelihood of business success. 1. Don’t Spread Yourself Too Thin By trying to please everyone in every segment of the cleaning industry, you are spreading yourself too thin. Why shouldn’t you please everyone? Well, trying to offer services for every person or business’s need (e.g. offering carpet cleaning, window cleaning, home cleaning and other services) prevents you from focusing on one specific area (like home cleaning). On top of that, offering more services that try to cover everything leads to higher start-up costs because you have to buy all the needed equipment for each service. So, don’t offer too many services catering to too many different people. Pick one that seems to have potential, and specialize in it. 2. Don’t Take on Every Client Taking every available job that is thrown at you is just setting your business up for disaster. You might be asking, “But don’t I want the most business as possible?” While this in theory this is true, if the numbers don’t make sense for accepting a job and there will be no future benefit (you take a loss if you accept the job), then it really isn’t worth the effort and time. The only exception to this rule is if you plan on taking a loss for an initial servicing because the client plans to use your services frequently and you will make profits on the other jobs. Otherwise, stay away from jobs you are going to take a loss on and even jobs that you will make little profit from and be stressed about. It’s just not worth it. 3. Do Your Research Before making a decision, whether it be on your niche or where you plan to offer your services, do your research! Seriously, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen people go blindly into a new business venture without doing their due diligence. Then later on they wonder why they failed, and it was for this exact reason: they skipped the research phase. So, don’t be that person, and research before heading blindly into a new venture. 4. Keep Costs Very, VERY Low At the beginning, you want to keep your costs extremely low. When starting out, you don’t need an office space, and you don’t need the best of the best technologies; you just need what you must have to get by (while sustaining a good reputation, of course). This leads back to tip No. 3: Do your research before making any decisions that require outflow of cash from your business. Having cash on hand is crucial for businesses to grow, and if you lack cash in the beginning, it may lead to some issues down the road. 5. Stay Legal … Always Remaining legal can be scary to even think about, let alone ensure you are doing it properly. And you don’t need tons of expensive lawyers to say legal, either; easy-to-use services like free state legal advice are often all you need. Make sure you have everything you need: insurance, proper business structure, bank accounts and so on. Just don’t be afraid of it because you can never avoid the law. 6. Network with Other Business Owners Networking with other small-business owners, both in your industry and outside it, can be a great way to keep up to date with the latest techniques and technology everyone is using. On top of that, it can be a great way to even find potential clients and form new partnerships. Don’t underestimate the power of networking; it can be what grows your cleaning business quickly right away. 7. Always Be Selling If you aren’t putting tons of effort into marketing and selling your services, you won’t last very long. Think of the 80/20 rule; spend 80 percent of your time promoting and 20 percent of your time actually performing your services and business activities. Without selling and gaining clients, you will never be able to build a sustainable business that brings in revenue. So, remember this: From the moment you start offering services, start selling! #smallcleaningbusiness #governmentcleaningcontracts #howtogetstartedinacleaningbusiness #officecleaning #maidservices #housecleaning #commercialcleaning #cleaningfranchises
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