Last Updated on June 14, 2016 by Tim
As with starting any business, there are certain basic principles you should follow to improve your chances of success. As with a cleaning business, these types of basic principles still apply.
In this post I am going to go over the 7 most important tips that you need to know and remember while starting a cleaning business. Without them you may still succeed, but it will be a whole lot harder than if you had just followed along with this post.
So without further or do, here’s the first tip:
How To Start A Cleaning Business
- Find Your Niche
Don’t try to cater to everyone, all of the time. Instead, carve out a niche and become the known expert within that niche.
What do I mean by niche?
Well what I mean by niche when talking about starting a cleaning business is offering services for specific things. That could be either cleaning homes, offices, store-fronts, carpets, windows, and so on. Pick one category within the cleaning industry and go with it. Otherwise, you will spread yourself too thin trying to serve everyone and it never works in this industry.
- Don’t Take On Every Job
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 yes this in theory this is true, but 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 and be stressed about. It’s just not worth it.
- 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!
- Keep Costs Very Low
At the beginning you want to keep your costs extremely low. When starting out, you don’t need an office space, 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 #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.
- 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 LegalZoom are often all you need.
But on top of using a service like LegalZoom, you need to do your part too. Ensuring 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.
- Network With Other Business Owners
Networking with other small business owners, who are in your industry and aren’t, 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.
- Always Market and Sell
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% of your time promoting and 20% 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!
Author Bio
Dustyn is the owner of CleaningZoom.com, an authority source on starting and growing a cleaning business. CleaningZoom offers resources for all small business owners alike that are interested in the cleaning services industry.
