How To Start a Cleaning Business ...


Have you thought about starting your own cleaning business? It's not as difficult as you think.

The biggest problem that you are going to come up against is not the competition its deciding what market you are going to target. You have a good choice.

You can go into the domestic cleaning market, carpet cleaning, window cleaning, commercial cleaning, car cleaning, pressure washing etc. Its your decision.

Once you have chosen your target market you need to check out the competition. This is easy. Grab a yellow pages directory and take a note of the display ads not the small classifieds. Theres a very good reason for this but it will take to long to explain in this post.

Next do a local Google search for your target market and check out their web sites. Are they professional? - are they running a newsletter?, do they have a separate fax number? Pay close attention to their trading names too as that is a dead giveaway.

As you can see checking out your competition is a big subject - especially for those of you who are just starting out and its something Im going to cover in another article. Thats just the beginning of course.

You need to know your competition if you want to beat them especially if youre thinking of starting your own cleaning business in a competitive cleaning niche such as office or house cleaning.

Once youve decided which niche suits you and thats very important by the way, (Ill cover that another time) you need to break that niche down. Well come to that in a moment.

The thing to remember is that a lot of these small cleaning businesses are being run individually. The owner is time starved and wrapped up in the "job". Consequently they do not pay enough attention to the marketing side and have got themselves into the classic working in the business syndrome.

You dont want to make the same mistake because its easily done. You only have to look at the number of web sites that arent taking full advantage of ecommerce. Its mind boggling to think that the majority of your competitors rely on occasional fliers and a yellow pages advert to generate business.

That leaves the field wide open for you doesnt it? Providing of course youve chosen the right cleaning niche and know what youre doing

Now Ive already covered two methods of researching your competition The yellow pages and an online search. The trouble is it will only give you an idea of how many competitors are out there and the quality of their advertising. And thats not really enough is it?

What you need to do is look for a niche within the sector that youve chosen and dominate it. Dont worry about the size of the niche because opportunities will always present themselves. I guarantee it.

Lets take commercial cleaning as an example. Ive just googled commercial cleaning services and it returned 17,200,000 results. Thats what you call a huge market. Dont you think you could find a tiny niche inside there?

Lets get really basic. Start a window cleaning service I can think of three ways straight away you can go after the residential market, go for commercial, or subcontracting. Thats three. What about going one step further and concentrating just on interiors or exteriors.

Interior glass is another one but Ill save that little gem for another time. What about specializing in the construction industry? Thats where I made my money

Cleaning is a big industry. There are a lot of people doing it and reason is simple. Theres money in it if you know where to look. It doesn't have to stop at the obvious either - think facilites management contracting - plenty of money in that niche. What about civil aviation and heavy engineering? Rail and truck. And of course the clean and hire business.

The most important thing you need to do right now is look for a niche before starting your own cleaning business and decide how youre going to make money from it and not in itBy: Geoffrey QuinnArticle Directory: http://www.articledashboard.comGeoffrey Quinn has extensive business experience. He started from scratch in 1987 with $500 and owned a $7.68m group employing over 200 operatives. His Business Tips Newsletter will teach you the right way of starting your own cleaning business and how to make a substantial monthly income from a tiny investment. Download his free report and discover the secret of a tiny but hugely profitable cleaning service that you can start today. www.startingyourowncleaningbusiness.com