http://ezinearticles.com/?How-to-Start-A-House-Cleaning-Business-In-7-Simple-Steps&id=13869
One of the main reasons people start businesses is to make money. For some it’s a blessing to make money doing something they love. I’m not saying that you have to love house cleaning in order to have a successful house cleaning business; however it would be a good idea if you didn’t hate it.
How much money you make depends on how big you want your business to be. It could be a one person operation where you set up at home and service areas close to home, or you could set up a commercial office and hire people to work for you.
Here are 7 simple steps to get you started on your own house cleaning business.
1) Decide exactly what kind of house cleaning services you will offer.
Here you decided what cleaning you will do, like making beds, vacuuming, mopping and waxing floors, dusting and so on. Also note what you won’t do, e.g. laundry. You can also decide to specialize, e.g. by cleaning carpets only, or cleaning suspended ceilings only.
2) Pricing your housecleaning service.
To have an idea of how to charge for your housecleaning service, use your competition. Check your telephone directory and the classified ads section in your local newspapers for cleaning businesses, call them up (pretend to be a prospective client) and find out exactly what cleaning services they offer and how much they charge. With this information gathered decide the best price to charge for your cleaning service.
3) Workout startup costs.
For this you need to consider, tools, material, transport, advertising, insurance etc. Write down a list all the tools and material you need, like cleaners, sponges, mops, carpet cleaning equipment etc. Next find out the cost of each item on the list and write it down next to the item.
Transport: you will have to estimate your costs here. You see it depends on where your client is located and your means of transportation to get to your client. (Having your own vehicle would be to your advantage).
Advertising: You can use free advertising (word of mouth) and paid advertising (classifieds, telephone directory ads etc). Phone calls to your local newspaper and the telephone company who publish your telephone directory will tell you the cost of placing ads.
Once you’ve gathered all this information, calculate your total startup costs.
4) Name your business.
Choosing an appropriate name for your house cleaning business is important. Here are a few examples I got of the internet, ‘Maid Brigade’, ‘All Shine Cleaning’, ‘White Glove Cleaning Service’. Please avoid using ‘Your Name Cleaning Services’. Using your own name as part of your business name is over done by many house cleaning businesses. Brainstorm and come up with a name that helps you stand out of the crowd.
5) Learn the zoning regulations of your community.
Check the city clerk’s Office or your local library for a copy for a copy of the zoning laws governing your community. Your reason for doing this is that some zoning regulations prohibit home businesses in a community.
6) Do a few free cleaning jobs.
Well you’re not actually doing them for free. You’re doing them in exchange for references (these add to your credibility for future paying clients and are invaluable). You can offer these free cleaning jobs to friends, non profit organizations in your communities etc.
7) Get your first paying client then get another and another and another and so on.
Tell everyone you know that you’ve started a cleaning business and place ads in the local newspapers. In the beginning you need to spend most of your time and money getting paying clients. However, the more clients you get the less time and money you spend on marketing and more time you spend on cleaning and making your clients happy.
This is just the beginning. Once you start making money take a house cleaning business course to help you better manage your business in terms of growth, accounting, taxes, insurance better marketing strategies and more.
–by ayola Peters
About The Author
Fayola Peters is the webmaster of housecleaning-tips.com. To find more information about a house business cleaning course check out her website at http://www.housecleaning-tips.com
–
Another posting in Cleaning Tips blog are:
Learn how to start a profitable house cleaning business
Today’s workers and families are overworked and stressed. After a 12-hour workday, feeding and putting the children to bed, the last thing anyone wants to worry is cleaning the house. Weekends are spent running errands and spending quality time with friends and family members. Therefore, many families are looking for outside assistance with housekeeping. In the past, housekeepers were thought of as the “hired help” and were thus treated like 18th century scullery maids. This is no longer the case. Housekeepers have reached a well-deserved level of respectability for their much-appreciated services. Starting a house cleaning business is do-able for most people because there is very little start up cost involved. To help you get started, I’ve outlined a step-by-step set of instructions to send you on your way to engaging in this highly profitable business!
The first thing that you need to do before seeking out your clientele is to develop a business plan and policy. For starters, you need a name. Choose a name that denotes an air of sophistication. You don’t want a name like, Sally’s Cleaning Service or A-1 Cleaners. Those names are a dime a dozen and do not reflect any sort of professionalism. Try something like, Homestead Helpers. Such a name stands out from the many fly-by-night and unreliable services. Once you’ve chosen a name for your business, the next important step to take is to insure your business. As a house cleaner you are a sole-proprietor. This entitles you to the status of an independent contractor. This means that your profession is no different than that of a plumber, electrician, or a freelance writer.
Insurance is a must have. For one, it eases the minds of your future clientele. Think of yourself –would you want an uninsured person coming into your home, handling your personal articles, and perhaps doing so while unattended in your home? Probably not. Having insurance will put you on top of the list for jobs, as most house cleaners do not carry insurance. The insurance will also give you piece of mind. You will not have to worry about your personal assets being seized in a lawsuit because someone accused you of stealing a family heirloom. Unfortunately, as with many service professions, dishonest people have tarnished the respectability of independent contractors, so you’ll want to cover yourself. Liability insurance (for damage that you are accused of) is very inexpensive. Just about any insurance agency offers liability insurance to contractors. Depending on where you live, the cost is usually less than $300.00 a year.
Once you’ve got your insurance policy, the next thing to do is to get a copy of your background check and police record; and, hopefully you won’t have one. Depending on which state you live in, you can pick up the application at the State Trooper Barracks, City Hall or the Police Station. This is a simple form that takes less than 5 minutes to fill out. The fee is generally between $3 and $15.00. You mail it in, and within 2 weeks the form is mailed back to you with an official stamp which states “No record.” Make photocopies of this form, as you’ll need to give this to prospective clientele with your information packet. The information packet is the next step, and it is what makes your business professional.
The information packet should contain a professional printout or photocopy of your policy and procedures, insurance and background check, references and a sample work order. In terms of your policy, you will need to establish how you want to operate your business. Do you want to work Mondays-Fridays, no weekends? From 6 am to 5pm? Will you work in a house that has a dog? Will you be bringing your own trusted supplies or will the client supply his/her own cleaning products? Do you want to be paid by cash, check or money order? How much will you charge? Per hour? Per job? All of these issues become your policy and they need to be spelled out in black and white for the clients. Also, you should include a sample work order. For example, in cleaning a bedroom, what is to be done? You might write:
*Ceiling fan will be dusted
*Trinkets dusted
*Bedroom furniture dusted
*Sheets changed and bed made
*Carpet vacuumed.
If a client wants something done that is not on the work order, then you can custom create a work order especially for that client. Each time you clean that client’s home you can leave a copy of the work order with the items checked off, so both you and the client will have a copy of what was done. This is will alleviate any confusion over “I said” and, “She said” as well as the bad habit of having notes left for you that read, “By the way, why you are at it, could you scrub the kitty litter pan?” Do only what has formerly been agreed to, thus, what appears on the work order. Also, in your packet of information you should include at least 2 references. References can be tough to come by when you are just starting out. A good way to combat this is to volunteer to clean a friend or a neighbor’s home for free in exchange for a reference. Quite often community organizations or churches will welcome a free cleaning, and would be more than happy to provide a reference for a job well done.
The best way to advertise a cleaning service is not by posting flyers. Posting flyers may appeal to clients who are looking for high school people to help with summer yard work, but certainly not to a person wanting to hire a professional house cleaner. You can choose to have business cards professionally printed, or you can purchase a business card program at an office supply store and print your own cards from your home computer. On your business cards have the name of the business printed (be sure that the name denotes that it is a cleaning service), your name with the title of Proprietor, and your telephone number. Don’t put anything gimmicky on the cards, such as FREE ESTIMATES or CHEAP. You want to present yourself as a person offering a professional service, not someone selling a car wash. Business cards can be placed on bulletin boards in supermarkets, libraries, or community centers. Also, you can run a display ad in your local newspaper using your business card. This saves you money on graphics and design. A business card display ad catches the eye far quicker than a worded classified ad.
Given the independent contractor status, and depending on the tax laws of your state, you are eligible for various tax deductions. For example if you own your own home, you can set up a small office space and take deductions for the square footage of the space, utilities, a computer, office supplies, phone calls, and cleaning supplies that you might purchase. Also, advertising and insurance costs are tax deductible. Many of the same deductions can be used for people who rent their home or apartment. Check with your local state’s laws of taxation to see which deductions you can use. House cleaning is highly profitable, with some house cleaners making $15-17 an hour, so be sure to report all of your income to the IRS. As an independent contractor, you can open an IRA account and start saving toward your retirement!
Source: http://www.essortment.com/all/howtostartho_pub.htm
–
Another posting in Cleaning Tips blog are:
ouse cleaning is in big demand at the moment and it will continue to be in demand over the coming years. The reason being is that peoples’ lifestyles have changed and more and more people are turning to house cleaning services to help free up some of their time.
Why not get in on the act now, take advantage of this demand, and start profiting from your own home-based house cleaning business
Below are the main points you need to know to start-up as an Independent Cleaner.
Choose a Business Name
For advertising purposes you really should give your cleaning service a name. It could just be your own name, i.e. ‘Joan Walter’s House Cleaning’ or you could give it a more generic name i.e. ‘Your Sparkly House’. Well, you get the idea anyway!
Having a business name forms an identity for your business. If you are serious about making a profit and an income from this, then you need to take your little business seriously and it all starts with a name.
Choose Your Territory & Customers
You need to know who your customers are going to be and where they live. You might not have your own transport, so this will have to be taken into consideration. If you have a car then you will be able to travel further a field and be able to do more cleans per day.
It would be sensible if you targetted people near where you live if you don’t have your own transport. But you will also need to identify if the people in your area have the money to pay for a cleaner.
So finding out who can afford your cleaning service is important. You also need to know if there are enough of these premium customers within a certain proximity of each other? Ideally you would want as many customers as close to each other as possible. This way you can do more cleans per day and not lose too much time traveling from one customer to another.
Set-Up Costs
As an Independent Cleaner, there is very little you need to buy when starting a home business. Most Independent Cleaners tend to use the cleaning products and equipment of their customers. So you won’t need to buy any cleaning products. This is the main reason why you will make a healthy profit!
The following are what you will probably have to spend some money on:
o A tabard/apron
o Advertising
o Travelling costs
Pricing
You need to set yourself a price structure. The best way to do this is to ring around the local cleaners in your Yellow Pages and find out what they are charging. You can also get this information from your local job center.
You can then set your hourly rate in proportion with your competitors. Whether you choose to undercut them, charge the same, or set your prices slightly higher is totally up to you.
Advertising
If you don’t carry out advertising activities, then know one will know about your cleaning service. The best and cheapest way to do this is to create small flyers and to put them directly into your potential customers’ mailbox.
Simply type up your flyer in a word processing document, or get somebody to do this for you. Try and put at least two flyers on one page. Take these your local library or wherever has a photocopier. Get them copied as many times as you can afford.
Put your flyers out by the hundreds if you can. You will be surprised at how quickly this actually takes. You could even have your first phone call by the time you get back home.
In addition to flyers, depending on your budget, advertise your cleaning service in the Yellow Pages. If you cannot afford this from the onset, once you start making some money you can then think about placing an advert then.
Expanding
Once you are well on your way of having a full, jam-packed diary you might want to think about expanding your cleaning business. By now you will be beaming with confidence of what you have accomplished all by yourself. So thinking about hiring a cleaner to help you expand should not be too daunting.
Put an ad in your local newspaper advertising for a cleaner. Once you have chosen a satisfactory candidate take him/her with you on your cleaning rounds for him/her to get used to your cleaning methods and techniques.
Once you are happy and confident that he/she can go and clean on their own, you can then either have some free time to yourself or double your customer base.
Once you are totally confident with managing cleaning staff there is no reason why you can’t hire more cleaners.
Source: http://www.freedomrocks.us/start-your-own-home-based-house-cleaning-business/2008/
–
Another posting in Cleaning Tips blog are: