Monday, August 10, 2009

Success Factors for Making Good Money in the Cleaning Business

By Steve Sutherland

The cleaning business provides entrepreneurs with lots of opportunities to start up their own profitable small business. But while some business owners can quickly scale up to a decent income from their business, others have trouble getting their business off the ground and end up closing within a year. Clearly there are factors that separate the successful business owners from those making very little for their efforts. In this article we look at the profit potential in the cleaning business and list some of these success factors.

While it is possible to scale up to earning hundreds of thousands of dollars after a few years if you put the required effort into the development of your cleaning business, new business owners typically start out earning anywhere between $20,000 and $25,000 during their first year in the game.

Listed below are some of the factors to consider that typically separate the successful cleaning business operators from those that struggle to make it in the business.

1) Choose a profitable market sector to target. Try to identify a good mix of considerable local demand as well as a lack of companies catering to that demand. When choosing a niche you should also consider the competitive advantages that you may have through your connections and experience.

2) Build a brand name for the business right from the start. Develop a branding strategy, grow a respectable brand name and live up to the promise of your brands reputation and you will develop a great reputation with your customers and benefit from referrals.

3) Develop systems that ensure that that the day to day operations of your business run smoothly and effortlessly. Always be on the look out for ways of improving the productivity of your employees.

4) Refine your sales skills or find suitable people to make sales for you. Enquiries cost money so you must do your best to convert each one into a new account.

5) If you have a customer on a basic cleaning package and everything is going well, try to up sell them on other cleaning related services or offer to clean more often.

6) For your business to grow at a decent rate you should be able to stand back and concentrate on growing your business instead of actually having to do cleaning yourself. Learning how to hire and lead employees effectively is one secret to success.

7) It is essential that you learn how to run successful advertising campaigns and know about modern marketing techniques like networking, cross promotions with related businesses and 'word of mouth' marketing.

8) Provide good customer service. Offer good service to clients and you will benefit from positive 'word of mouth' promotion'.

9) Develop a positive attitude. People often think that cleaning is a low class job. There is nothing wrong with cleaning homes and businesses for a living but you should view yourself as a businessman or woman .

10) Never stop researching. Look for mentors who have proven themselves to be successful in cleaning and other industries and seek inspiration from them. Stay up to date with the latest developments in the cleaning industry and in the business world in general.

Get your cleaning business started off right by first examining the factors that will lead to success and then putting together a plan to get there.

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