How to Start a House Cleaning Business For Maximum Profit
One good reason to start a house cleaning business is that you have a never-ending supply of prospects. People are living longer and they are unable to do a lot of the cleaning they used to do to perfection. Not only that, but everyone is working today – who has time to clean the house?
That’s not the only reason this is always a good business to start. The best reason is, there are always too many house cleaners who start a house cleaning business, but have no idea how to clean or run the business. These cleaners come and go. A healthy byproduct of this is unhappy clients who are tired of looking, hiring and firing house cleaners.
This means there is always room for quality house cleaning businesses in every city. The first step in starting a cleaning business is to identify the need in your city. Who are the top players and how do they hire and train their workers? What kind of turnover do they have and what is the overriding reason for that?
Successful businesses are built because the owner took the time to research a winning business model. Yes – anyone can put together a few rags and cleaning products and hire themselves out as a house cleaner, but how long can you ride that business model? Certainly not to make the type of money you’ll need to stay in business. Not to mention that you will never have the lifestyle you want as an independent business owner.
The only way you can start a house cleaning business for maximum profit is to design a business plan that will correctly state how you will:
- Start the business
- Run the business
- Keep your clients happy
- Plan changes to business strategies as needed due to the economy
- Increase Revenue
- Have time off for you and your family
This is one reason a lot of new house cleaning businesses disappear – the owner is killing him/herself doing all the work alone. Not only is this hard on your body, but it’s taking up all your time that could be used to strategically grow your business.
Another reason for failure is that people start a house cleaning business and immediately hire workers to do the work for them. This is a perfect recipe for disaster!
Starting and running a house cleaning business is not easy, but it doesn’t need to be this hard, either. With proper planning, you could develop a process that allows you to start small, take the time to establish procedures that work and then expand your house cleaning business with a winning formula.
To start a house cleaning business for maximum profits, you need to plan to hire workers to do the work for you. Before you hire the workers, you have to have a plan to find the workers, train the workers, monitor the work they perform and mentor them for improvement. This must all be done within the labor laws in your city. One wrong move and you could be out of business.
How do you keep your business legal? You will need:
- A business license and DBA or
- Incorporation or LLC
- Liability Insurance
- Bond
- Workers Compensation Insurance
All of this will cost you some money. Castle Cleaners – Maid Services in Manvel TX But – the good news is you can start with a local business license and DBA, perform the cleaning yourself and work the business up from there. As you increase your profits, you can increase the insurance coverage you have on the business and your workers. Any insurance agent in your city can help you with the insurance needed for your business. Your local city hall can assist you with obtaining a business license and DBA (doing business as).
Once you are running a legal business, you are ready to start getting clients. Don’t expect to start out with the top paying clients. You will have to go through a trial and error period while you figure out how to run the business. There are a lot of situations you will run into that will surprise you. Things you never thought of that will occur while you are cleaning and after you leave the residence.
Clients will call to file a complaint about the service that was just performed; clients will call and report that something was broken or damaged; clients will call at the last minute and want to cancel the next appointment. All these are situations that need to be handled properly and in order to do that, you need to anticipate what could go wrong in your business. Once you have these documented, put them in your business agreement so the client knows the terms of doing business with you in advance.
Once you know how to handle all these special situations, you’re ready to go after the top paying clients who are ready to pay for the service you provide. That’s when the money really gets good and you are able to start doubling and tripling your income. The ability to duplicate your processes will be the key to your success.