1. Determine the niche you want to
pursue
You could choose from either:
Residential housecleaning
Floor cleaning
Gutter cleaning
Roof cleaning
Carpet cleaning
Pool cleaning
Window cleaning
Office cleaning
Foreclosure property cleaning
One important advice is to explore
the business opportunities from your chosen niche that you can exploit to its
fullest. This includes thorough understanding of the market trends and its
behavior, the competition, the current rates, your investment options and the
profit margins involved.
2. Conduct feasibility research
As you gather knowledge on how to
start a cleaning business, you also need to decide whether your business will
operate full-time or part-time depending on the time factor you can accommodate
for it. You may have to put in extra effort if ever you are going to make this
your primary source of income.
3. Your Qualification
The good news is you do not need a
degree or certificate to qualify as a commercial cleaner. However, you would
need some training and special skills to enable you succeed and stand out in
your business. Seek out some commercial cleaning establishment and work with
them for a little while.
After a six months or a year, you
should be able to understand all the techniques and intricacies of a commercial
cleaning business.
4. Create a Business Plan
For every business, it is
important to create a business plan. In your business plan, it is necessary you
make a list of all the services you would be offering. Some of the services
offered by commercial cleaners include sweeping offices, vacuuming carpets and
rugs, mopping, taking out trash and cleaning furniture. You may also be
required to clean the bathrooms.
Your business plan should also
contain future plans for your business, how you plan to expand your business
and other services you would like to add in the future. Do not forget to list
all the equipment and cleaning items you need to start, as well as the costs.
5. Determine your investment
capacity at the moment
Determining your start-up capital
will not be difficult if you have a sound business plan on hand. You are also
going to need this in case you will need financial help from lending
institutions. If you can convince them that you not a high risk; then you’ll
get financial help. Probably one of the good news you can expect when learning
how to start a cleaning business is that you can launch business operations
with just a minimal investment.
6. Purchase cleaning supplies
This business type does not
require heavy investments in equipment, maintenance, an extravagant
sophisticated setup and instructional courses. You can take things slowly and
start from home with just the basic supplies and equipment. In some cases, you
may need to have a vehicle with which you can transport cleaning supplies,
equipment, and personnel (if you have any).
To start your commercial cleaning
business, you would need to purchase items like dust pans, solid brooms, vacuum
cleaner, buckets, paper towels, stain removers, paper towels, cleaning rags,
aprons and coveralls, rubber gloves to protect your hands and clothe rags. Make
sure you buy quality products because the quality of products you use will
affect the outcome of your job.
7.
Register your business and obtain insurance
You also need to determine all the
legal formalities before you can operate your business legally. You need to
secure business licenses and sufficient insurance coverage to protect your
business.
To be on the safe side, it is
important to register your business and obtain a business license to enable you
operate your business legally and freely. Application requirements for each
business and ownership structure differ. Check out the local state guidelines
to make sure you are not doing anything illegal on your end.
To determine the application
requirements for a commercial cleaning business, visit a business registration
office in the state where you wish to operate your business.
Well, you may be saying “Why do I
need insurance?” Commercial Cleaning involves working in business offices and
handling company items. What if in the course of cleaning one day, you
mistakenly break something, something really expensive that you cannot afford
to pay for from your savings? That’s where liability insurance would come in
handy.
Your insurance would cover all
damages that may happen in the course of your business. Having an insurance
policy is also a huge selling point for your business because it would give
clients the confidence to hire you.
8. Set prices for your services
As a beginner, you may be a little
confused about what you should charge your clients for your services. This
shouldn’t be much of a challenge if you had undergone some training because you
would already have an idea of market prices.
If you do not have an idea of
existing market prices, you would need to conduct a personal research to
determine how much other cleaners are charging. You can look for phone numbers,
e-mail addresses or office addresses of about three cleaning companies around
you and call them up while pretending to be a prospective customer.
Find out how much they charge for
each category of cleaning service and then come up with your own prices. Make
your prices as competitive as possible to get more customers.
9. Look for clients to patronize
your business
You need to advertise your
business. Remember that no business, regardless of the nature, can ever survive
if the market does not know about its existence. Your marketing campaign may
consist of flyers and brochures you can distribute in people-frequented places
like the mall and the park.
Another way is to get the phone numbers
of business offices around you and call them up. Introduce your business and
offer them competitive prices. You may be able to get many customers this way.
Another way to get clients for
your business is to harness the power of the internet. Create a website for
your business to make it possible to reach more clients and promote your
business on social media.
As a final note, you can also
start a word-of-mouth campaign starting from your family and friends. This is a
very effective technique, and it gets customers to trust in you. Another
cheaper alternative would be to advertise online. Here, you have the
possibility of reaching new markets that traditional print marketing cannot
accomplish for you. Social networking sites are just perfect for the job.There
are many ways to source for clients to patronize your commercial cleaning
business.
10. Build a reliable team
It’s almost impossible to work
alone in your commercial cleaning business. You may need to be in different
places at the same time, so you would need to build a team of reliable
cleaners. Cleaners who have just about the same passion for the business as
you.
When recruiting people to join
your team, you must conduct interviews to learn more about them and their
ability to do the job perfectly. You should also train your employees and teach
them all the techniques to do a perfect job and keep the clients happy.
Lastly, I will advice you learn
how to start cleaning business from home now. The opportunities to earn good
money are there, you’ll just have to know how to exploit them.
