i want to start a janitorial business, can anybody give me an estimate of the start-up cost?

Question

I prefer a franchise. Which one is best?

Answer 1

How Janitorial Services Franchises Work

In a typical janitorial cleaning franchise, you pay the franchisor a fee for a "package" of cleaning accounts. The fee is based on the dollar value of cleaning accounts that the franchisor will make available. The fee usually is about half the gross income the accounts are supposed to generate in a year. For example, for a fee of $10,000, you'll get accounts worth $20,000; for a fee of $15,000, you'll get accounts worth $30,000. You also may have to pay ongoing royalty or management fees.

The franchisor may offer you financing. This may sound especially attractive if you have trouble getting credit from traditional lenders.

The franchisor is supposed to offer you cleaning accounts that will produce the level of income represented in the package you purchased. However, several factors can affect that level of income. For example, if you don't accept an account, the franchisor may not have to offer you a substitute. Or, if you refuse an account because you feel it's located too far away, you may lose your right to that income. Also, if you lose accounts because you did a poor cleaning job, the franchisor doesn't have to replace those accounts.

Problems You May Face

The Federal Trade Commission and the Maryland Attorney General's Office advise you to use caution when thinking about buying a janitorial services franchise, which often appeal to immigrants and others who speak limited English. The franchise agreement you'll receive from the franchisor may be long and complex. It may be difficult to understand your legal rights and obligations, and the obligations of the franchisor. Consider getting professional advice. Ask a lawyer, accountant or business advisor to review the franchise agreement. The money and time you spend on professional help may save you from a bad investment.

Here are some of the problems you may face:

* Accounts offered versus accounts received. There may be a difference between the accounts the franchisor promises to offer you and the accounts you actually receive, as well as the revenue that comes with them. For example, the franchisor may promise to offer you accounts generating $1,000 in monthly billings for the first year. To meet its obligations, the franchisor may offer you more than one cleaning account. But given time conflicts, distance issues or other problems, you may not be able to accept all the accounts the franchisor offers. What's more, the franchisor may offer the same accounts to several franchisees on a first-come, first-served basis. If you can't accept an account because you can't get to the location, or if another franchisee accepts the account first, the franchisor may have satisfied its obligation to offer you accounts. Because the franchisor may not tell you about this policy before you buy the ''package" of accounts, you should not count on receiving all the revenue that the franchisor promised at first.

* Rejected accounts. The franchisor may not have to replace an account that you reject.

* Franchisor-selected accounts. The franchisor usually selects accounts for you. The size, number and location of the accounts may not be what you expect. For example, the franchisor may require you to service more than one account at the same time, or the job sites may be far apart.

* Lost accounts. Most janitorial franchise agreements specify that if a customer cancels the cleaning contract, the franchisor doesn't have to replace the account for you. In fact, you may have to pay an extra sales and marketing fee for a new account to make up for the lost income.

* Integration clauses. The franchise agreement you sign may contain a clause that limits the terms of your agreement to those specifically detailed in the written franchise agreement. This means that any oral claims or promises made by the franchisor are not part of your agreement. This is one reason why it's so important to get all promises in writing in the franchise agreement.

* First year time lag for receiving accounts. The package of accounts you buy will suggest a level of income within a year. But the franchisor may take several months to supply you with the promised accounts. That means you may not earn any income until several months after you've purchased the package, so you may not earn the estimated annual income. Therefore, it's important to have other sources of income during your first few months of operation.

* Ongoing fees. The franchisor may charge you a monthly management or service fee. You'll have to pay the fee even if you don't have any income from your cleaning business that month. If you finance the franchise fee, you must make the monthly payment on that debt whether or not you're receiving income from the cleaning business. And although you may find customers without the franchisor's help, any income from a cleaning account you solicit will be included when the franchisor calculates the royalty and management fees you owe.

* Franchisor-owned accounts. The franchisor may own all the customer accounts, including those that you get on your own. This means that if your franchise agreement ends, you will not be able to service the accounts for which you paid a fee, and you won't be able to service the accounts you got on your own, either.

* Training. Get information about the franchisor's training program before you invest. The franchisor decides the type of training you'll get. It may involve watching videos and reading books; it may not involve classroom or on-site training.

* Contract bidding procedures. The franchisor may not tell you how it bids for cleaning contracts or what specific services you must provide to the customers. The franchisor may only tell you that you should be able to earn $12 to $15 an hour doing janitorial work. However, when bidding for cleaning contracts, the franchisor may offer your services at a lower rate, and you may have no say in whether the amount charged is reasonable. So even though the account is represented as being worth a certain amount of money, it may not be worth that much to you, and you may not be able to make a profit once you pay for expenses like supplies and transportation costs.

* Short-term accounts. People who operate janitorial franchises often find that customers rarely maintain an account for more than a year. That's because customers prefer short-term contracts so they can shop for the best deal. If the franchisor offers you replacement accounts, you may have to pay a new referral or marketing fee.

* Performance obligations. You may have to meet minimum monthly performance or growth requirements. If you don't, you may lose the franchise. Worse yet, you may not have the right to a refund of your franchise fee.

* Payment for services. The franchisor collects payment from your customers. If the customer doesn't pay, you don't get paid. The franchisor may not be legally obligated to force the customer to pay, but if the franchisor sues for payment, you may have to pay the legal costs.

* Personal guarantees. Many franchisors require franchisees to personally guarantee the obligations of the franchise business. This means that if your business assets don't cover your franchise obligations, you could lose personal assets, like your home or car.

* Anti-competition rules. You and your immediate family (your spouse and children) may not be allowed to have an ownership interest or perform services in another cleaning business, even if your family members don't have an ownership interest in your janitorial franchise. This restriction may continue even after your franchise ends....

Answer 2

If you do it on your own start ups costs are less than $700. if you buy a franchise, start up costs will be at least $1,300. I STRONGLY advise you to not buy a franchise. Franchisors profit on volume and as a rule underbid every single account they get. They pay franshisees less than half the value of every account. So you as the franchisee are making less than half the income of an account that is already under bid. In many cases, even if you work very fast, you will be lucky to be making $10.00 an hour and out of that $10.00 you still have to pay for all of your overhead, including supplies, gas for your vehicle etc.

Costs involved in going it alone include liability insurance (generaly not more than $100. a month for a million dollars worth of coverage), fictional name registration (less than $100), a yellow pages listing ($100+ per name depending on if you go for a big ad), filing for an EIN number (less than $100.) and buying your equipment and supplies.

Nescessary equipment and supplies are a vacuum sweeper, a mop, a bucket, some rags, a feather duster, a toilet bowl brush, toilet bowl cleaner, window cleaner and general purpose cleaner. All of which can be bought for a total of less than $300.

To market your business simply pick up the yellow pages and start calling. Come up with a simple, short, and to-the-point script. EG: "Hello, may I speak with the person responsable for hiring your janitorial contractor?". The answer to that one question will tell you everything you need to immediately know about that potential customer.

Call at least 3 hours a day every day of the week, every number in the yellowpages. Don't be put off no matter what. You'll get alot of rude responses and people suprised your calling, "This company is located in a mall/office building/residence/etc./ we already have a cleaning service we are happy with/ and so on.

Just keep calling and remember to always be polite. I have landed accounts that were tennents of malls/office buildings/personal residences.

If they have trash to empty, carpets to be swept, windows and bathrooms to clean and furiniture to be dusted, they have use of a janitorial company.

I will not get too indepth about bidding because it can be a complicated process and there are many different ways to do it. The most simple method is to just look at how much it will cost your company to do the work and then add whatever profit you think should be made.

Costs include labor, supplies, vehicle fuel, equipment and a portion of other overhead that you might have. Labor is figured by the hour. Determine how many hours it will take 1 person working at a good pace to do a quality job cleaning the account. These are "man hours". Mutliply the number of manhours by how much per hour you want to make cleaning it yourself. The maximum is usualy $25.00 an hour and the minimum should be no less than $12.00.

Always consider labor a cost, even if you are paying yourself to do the work. Someday you will have to hire someone to do that work and then it really will be a cost. The minimum per hour charge is $12.00 because if you pay someone $8.00 an hour you will have to pay an additional $4.00 in taxes, fica etc.

This really is the easiest way to start a janitorial business, and Building Service Contracting is really the easiest kind of business to start.

You will also want to contact the SBA and SCORE and see what can be done about getting yourself some free training as regards handling your books and managing the financial/legal side of your company.

Some of the best advice that can be given is to get hired by a cleaning company as a side job until you've saved enough money and accumulated enough expertese to get a solid start.

Buying a franchise is like paying someone to work for them. Bad idea all around.


I've been doing this for 15 years now and can't put in words how rewarding it is to work for ones self.

Answer 3

I'd stay away from franchise, though that's a personal opinion. I had my own biz in College for that purpose.

Start small,,, even local, with people you know. A list of supplies is easy, and the expense can be as minimal or as high as you want depending on the needs of your clients, and the jobs you seek or accept.

Three types of cleaners, mop, bucket, cloths, vacuum, broom, etc.

Rev. Steven

Answer 4

Low or No Cost Ways to Market Your Cleaning Business
By: Steve Hanson

Answer 5

Always begin with a subject matter ou recognise the opposite individual is excited by and is aware of plenty approximately. This means you begin off and the opposite individual for your shock will take over the dialog.