- It’s a simple service and not rocket science.
- You can do it yourself if you’re low on a budget initially.
- Your employees don’t need a degree or education for this.
- Offices need to get maintained and cleaned on a regular basis.
How to Start a Cleaning Business from Scratch (10 Steps)
1- Define your Cleaning Business Type
It’s very important for a new entrepreneur to know the right direction of a business before stepping into it. And there are two main types of a cleaning business. Commercial cleaning and residential cleaning. First, define your niche and start making plans and strategies accordingly. In commercial cleaning, you sign a contract with a business to clean and maintain its workspace while in residential cleaning, you clean your client’s house and often design its interior too. As compared to commercial cleaning, residential cleaning clients are more sensitive because you’re touching their personal things.
2- Write a Business Plan
Every business needs a perfect plan to start with. Even in a cleaning business, you need to write your overall business overview, objectives, strategies, budget management, salaries, expenses, and all other important things. It will help you to set your goals, and find all the ways to achieve them at a specific time.
Take a piece of paper and write your business information on it (name, location, contacts, and management). Describe your mission statement clearly and write down the everyday costs of running your business including rents, wages, supplies, and delivery costs. Also, write the expected profit for the next 2 or 3 Years (Based on the plan duration)
How to Start a Cleaning Business from scratch (Planning)
- 1- Business Overview
- 2- Managing Expenses
- 3- Objectives
- 4- Keys to Success
3- Develop your Brand
A Brand is the unique and specific identity of a business, on-base which people recognize its products and services. Having an effective and attention-grabbing brand name will give your clients a sense of trust and premium-ness. Your brand name not only helps people to distinguish you from your competitors but also builds a connection with them to let them know what should they expect from you. Approximately 59% of people always prefer buying new products from a brand they are familiar with. So you have to be very careful in choosing a perfect brand name. Make sure it’s unique and easy to pronounce.
4- Social Media Presence
Social media platforms are the best tools to promote your business if you’re just starting. Create Facebook and Instagram pages related to your cleaning business and write posts about the services you’re providing. The best strategy that most successful businesses use is information-rich content. They educate people about a specific thing and then provide service related to it. If you’re running a cleaning business, you can guide people on “how to clean your bedroom” or “how to decorate your guest room” etc. And then can give them an offer to hire you for that task. You can also use paid advertisements to reach the target customers who are looking for a cleaner.
5- Fund your Business
After refining an idea and planning to create a business model around it, the second headache for most of the new entrepreneurs is to fund their businesses. Most people just quit their aims and dreams in the beginning because they don’t have enough money in their bank accounts. And also can’t be able to find an investor to get venture capital.
So what’s the solution? and how they can get the answer to their most desired question of how to start a cleaning business from scratch without investing millions of dollars. It mainly depends on a type of business. As we’ve already described, the cleaning business doesn’t need a huge amount of investment. You can start it from your home without renting an office, vehicle, and the latest expensive tools. Get some basic cleaning equipment you mostly use in your own house and start working without any trouble.
6- Legal Considerations
Like other businesses, cleaning business also needs to get registered with your state and country laws. Initially, you will need a vendor’s license and DBA license to get started. The vendor’s license will help you to manage sales tax and the DBA license prohibits others to use your brand name and also protect your customers from unethical business practices.
7- Set your Cleaning Rates
If you’re about to start a cleaning business from scratch, you have to set your rates very precisely. Don’t overcharge at the beginning. Otherwise, you’ll run out of new customers, and your existing consumers will go to your competitors for the same services. Provide high-quality services at very affordable rates to acquire new customers and build trust with them. Once your company is well-established, you can charge them accordingly.
8- Purchase Cleaning Equipment
In this guide on “how to start a cleaning business from scratch”, another important step is to purchase cleaning equipment for your business. You can go to Alibaba and Amazon to buy all the required tools or even can visit your local market to get all things at affordable rates. Here is a list of all the basic cleaning equipment you need to start with.
- Vacuum cleaner
- Bucket
- Rubber gloves
- Microfiber cloths
- Flat mop
- Toilet brush and holder
- Squeegee
- Glass cleaner
9- Set up Book-Keeping and Accounting
Every business needs accounting and book-keeping to organize its budget, track purchases, expenses, and gross receipts. To keep a record of everything, you must have to open a business bank account. It’ll save you from getting into any transaction-related trouble. You’ll know all the transactions made through it are business-related. And can easily import all bank information into your accounting software.
10- Marketing
Conclusion: How to Start a Cleaning Business from Scratch in 10 Steps
Starting a cleaning business is not as difficult as any other business. Because it’s something that we do regularly in our daily life. And it doesn’t even require a huge amount to start with. If you’re still wondering how to start a cleaning business from scratch, here are the 10 steps.
- 1- Define your Cleaning Business Type
- 2- Write a Business Plan
- 3- Develop your Brand
- 4- Social Media Presence
- 5- Fund your Business
- 6- Legal Considerations
- 7- Set your Cleaning Rates
- 8- Purchase Cleaning Equipment
- 9- Set up Book-Keeping and Accounting
- 10- Marketing