cleaning business?

Question

how do i go about starting my own cleaning business? how much should i charge??

Answer 1

First you will have to get bonded and any employees or coworkers need to be bonded. This is for your own protection.

I would call some cleaning services and ask approximate rates to clean XX number of square feet and XX story house. They will want to set an appointment to come to your house, but you may be able to get around it. I think that commercial services often charge more than individuals, but individuals can request cash only.

To get started, you can print and distribute a flyer or even just a business card in nice neighborhoods. Some folks even put up small signs on street corners (depends upon laws in your city). Other good places to advertise are grocery bulletin boards, day care centers, exercise centers - anywhere there are busy mom's.

Don't overlook apartments either. These are easy to clean and singles have the $$ to spend. Leave business cards with the manager and find out where you can post your name.

Many people will ask for references even though you are bonded. You might start out by cleaning the homes of a couple of friends for free, just to get a reference going.

The best way ultimately is word of mouth, but you'll have to put forth quite a bit of effort to get that going. I pay $60 cash for my 2200 square foot, one story house. It takes 2 people about 2.5 - 3 hours to clean it. I would say on average that $10 per hour is what people will pay.

You want to try to stay in the same neighborhood to keep your costs down.

Also you might look at signing up with some of the cleaning services as a sub contractor to get started.

Answer 2

Hi! I clean small offices (see my Profile) and have friends who do residential cleaning. The term "deep cleaning" usually refers to homes and businesses that have not been professionally cleaned in months or years. It is an extremely thorough cleaning and it would be hard to do that repeatedly for the same place. Much better to do an initial deep clean with a contractual weekly/bi-weekly cleaning. $150 is a reasonable minimum price for two people doing a deep cleaning-but that depends on the size of home and exactly what you will do for a deep cleaning. Better for you and your friends to do some practice cleaning to determine how long it takes to do each chore, set up a pricing sheet and use that to do estimates for deep cleaning. More tips and resources are at my Squidoo lens-the link is in My Profile. Go For It and Good Luck!!

Answer 3

My experiences with small businesses of this type are that you really need strong word of mouth advertising. Your first steps should be to advertise in your local newspaper or weekly coupon pages (almost every town has a small weekly periodical that accepts advertising for a reasonable fee).

You need to establish yourself as trustworthy and dependable with your clients so you can use them as references. People need to know the person they have in their homes is there to clean and not clean them out. You will be amazed how fast your name will spread through town once you have a couple of well established clients. People talk, especially if they have someone that provides good, reasonably priced services.

Get some business cards, either print them yourself at home with business card stock you can buy at any office supply store, or order them online. They are cheap and as you get clients be sure to give them some to give to friends. Keep your cards simple, have a phone number where you can always be reached (I can't stress this enough) and get back to people quickly. If you're not there to answer your phone and make appointments your potential clients will move on to the next business.

You should carry your own cleaning supplies with you (Lysol, Pinesol, Windex, towels, etc.) in a bucket with gloves and other support items. A vacuum is a definite plus, but if it's not in your reach financially then it's OK to ask your clients to use theirs just be sure you stipulate that up front.

Price aggressively but don't undersell yourself. Be very clear going in what your services include. Time yourself on how long it takes to do things. For example an average sized room takes 5-10 minutes to vacuum or dry mop. Cleaning a bathroom takes 15-20. If you go in to a home and see it has 5 rooms and a bathroom you should figure a good hour to hour & 15 minutes to do just those tasks. It's not unreasonable to ask for $20-25/Hour to start (depending on your geographical location), but the key is to make a mental note of how big the house is and do the math as you walk through it. If you've got a 10 room 3 bathroom house and you only charge them $20 you are underselling yourself. Be realistic, you're not out to make a million dollars, but rather to bring in some extra cash with some schedule flexibility.

Let your clients tell you what they want and then go over it with them so you're sure you both agree. A quick recap of "I will come in weekly on Wednesday to vacuum all the floors, clean the bathroom, empty the trash, and dry mop the kitchen floor for $30.", will set expectations right off the bat and make sure you're customer is happy.

Don't be afraid to sell other services along with your weekly duties. "For an additional $xx a month I'd be happy to dust for you every other week." or "I'd be happy to wash the kitchen floors, do the windows for and additional $xx". They'll appreciate it and you'll get a little extra business.

Your reputation is critical in this type of work especially in a small town. You need to be on time, courteous, and trustworthy all the time. Nothing will destroy your business quicker than bad word of mouth. Good luck!

Answer 4

You need to send out flyers, business cards, and run ads in the local newspaper. You can also advertise online. Regarding your rates, you need to decide how much you really want and how much other cleaners are charging. It depends on where you live. Some people charge by job and some charges by hours. You have to do some research and find out how much other people are charging so you can offer competitive rates. I see 440 some cleaners' profiles on benefito.com, you might want to take a look and see how those cleaners advertise their services and how much they charge...

Answer 5

Make sure you invest in affordable marketing and management software. This will ensure you're providing the best service to your customers and that you are as efficient as possible.

You'll want something cloud-based that allows you to manage scheduling, store client info, track performance and market to new clients.

Answer 6

call around to other companies in you area and get price quotes for your home, this will give you an idea of how much to charge, also make flyers and go to local shopping areas that allow it and put flyers on the windows of cars, we did this in our area and got good results