After years of working for someone else, you’ve had enough—it’s time to open your own business!
A great industry to target is cleaning. You’ll thrive in a market that always has a client base; dust and dirt will never stop impacting homes and businesses!
Few people get excited about cleaning their own homes, which means you’ll have no shortage of residential customers. Businesses are often too busy to look after cleaning duties, so you’ll find clients in the commercial sector, too.
Opening a business can be intimidating. How do you get started?
Receive Training
A strong selling point for any cleaning business is a team of trained and insured cleaners. Your credentials will directly translate into higher-paying jobs. Home and business owners feel safer hiring trained cleaners, knowing that their property will be cleaned without being damaged.
Create Your Brand
What will make your cleaning business unique? Consider a few angles for branding yourself, like:
- Do you focus on green cleaning services?
- Do you offer after-hours or emergency services?
- Do you specialize in disinfecting services to protect people from viruses like COVID-19?
Find your niche and start from there. Whatever it might be, use your unique qualities to your advantage. Build your brand around what you have to offer and what makes you different from competitors.
Find Employees
You may not have the time to complete every cleaning job yourself. If that’s the case, a couple of trustworthy employees will come in handy.
Finding and hiring cleaners can be a challenge. You can hire students to save on payroll expenses, but you might need to fund training for them. If you know any former coworkers looking for work, give them a call. Alternatively, use local job boards to advertise the position.
Make a Marketing Plan
You’ve gone through all the trouble of starting your business, from honing your skills to building your brand. Now, it’s time to let people know what you offer.
You can approach marketing in a few different ways, depending on what type of media you’re most comfortable with. Here are a few examples:
- Word of mouth. Referrals are a saving grace for new businesses; by impressing one client, you could get two, three, or more contracts out of it. One study demonstrated that 92% of people trust recommendations from friends and family members.
- Traditional marketing. Write-ups in the paper, radio commercials, and mailed flyers—these ads are what most people are familiar with when it comes to marketing. These tried-and-true methods may be costly, but they allow you to target specific demographics that might be interested in your cleaning services.
- Digital marketing. The online market is always growing. You can create a presence on high-traffic social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, and/or Twitter. Use these platforms to showcase what your business can offer.
Your business won’t survive for long without a client base. Use the above marketing tactics to boost awareness about your business and increase your clientele. Identify the message you want to spread and advertise it on as many platforms as possible.
It’s liberating to start your own cleaning company and work for yourself. But running a business on your own can quickly become overwhelming. On top of cleaning, you’ll need to manage sales calls, client contracts, and paperwork.
Are you interested in office cleaning franchises? We can help. By teaming up with Anago, you’ll enjoy lower overhead costs and a time-tested system. Give us a call to learn more.