With the sizes of today’s homes that average 4 or 5 bedrooms, a living room and a recreation room, several baths and professional style kitchens, most families with or without children and working parents need a helping hand. This is where the ideas for starting a house cleaning business may be just the answer for those who have great organizational skills and don’t mind cleaning as a business. The new business owner finds their talents become sought after. Eventually they need to hire cleaning associates to manage additional work loads. This is how house cleaning businesses grow.

The Steps To Owning A House Cleaning Business

Before attempting to start this type of business, it’s necessary to create a business plan that includes the specifics of the work to be done, the pricing and business expenses if bonding, insurance or licensing is necessary. In most cases, licensing is usually limited to businesses. So, residential cleaning services may only require bonding and liability insurance. These are basically protections requested by clients who have valuables on premises. Although, cleaning businesses for residences are less complex, there are still a few issues that should be worked out before the first job is accepted.

House Cleaning Job Proposals and Terms of Service

The business owner needs to decide whether their services will be limited to per diem work or if a contract for long-term cleaning services is necessary. In either case, it’s a good idea to protect the business with a pre-written job proposal that outlines the duties that will be covered, the time and dates of the work to be done and the terms of payment. Don’t forget to include a proposal approval, signed by business owner and client. This insures both parties understand the terms of the proposed work and the payments to be rendered.

Advertising and Promotion

One of the most effective ways to advertise is the least expensive: a business card. Next, consider posting business cards and printed flyers locally and advertise in newspapers or online. Attract customers by offering a one-time discount.

In the business plan, you should have an executive summary which briefly explains what your company is about and why you would be a successful entrepreneur.  Lay out in detail how you would pay back the loan or how you would share the profits with your investors.

You should also include a marketing plan as to how you would gain new customers for cleaning jobs; or are you depending on scheduling additional bookings from existing customers and adding other cleaning services as well?  What would your house cleaning job rates be?  In short, how would you grow the business?

By growing the business, how would that affect operational costs?  The most obvious would be hiring new staff but what about other inventory costs for materials?  A detail listing of all expenses would have to be made.

By operating backwards, how much would you need to make a profit?  What is your target monthly goal and can you achieve this realistically?  You would need to know your target residential area as well and if the cost of your services would be acceptable to your clientele.

By writing out a business plan, it is not only to convince others for more funding but it is also a truthful self-reflection of your business as well.  Too often, we are too close to our “baby” and don’t see the forest for the trees.  By going through a business plan exercise, it puts things more clear if the business is viable.

If you find a boring business to get into, chances are there is not a lot of competition.  What do I mean by boring?  How about starting a domestic cleaning service?  One of the most distasteful task that everyone faces is house cleaning.  House cleaning is also a repetitive chore and this means repeat customers.  Isn’t that the perfect business model?  If you don’t mind a bit of strenuous work, it is quite possible to make a very healthy living off of house cleaning jobs.

So how does one start a house cleaning business?  First off, like any business, you need to do your research.  You need to have a good understanding of the accounting in order to run your housekeeping business.  Have a start up budget for supplies and stick to it.  This also means having an emergency fund set aside that can sustain you for the first year in business until you start making consistent money.  Also, think about getting bonded and insured.  This will put yourself and your potential clients at ease.  Next, you should also investigate how much other cleaning companies charge for their services.  Have the companies come over to your house and give an estimated quote.  With these figures in mind, you can decide whether or not to undercut their prices.  However, do not undercut too much because even though your cleaning services might be cheaper, some clients can still be very picky no matter the amount they pay.  Finally, and this is the most important point, you have to ask yourself whether you can actually provide good cleaning services.  Cleaning your own house is quite different from cleaning professionally.  There are all types of tips and tricks for cleaning to make stubborn dirt and stains go away.  Do you know these tricks to make you clean more efficiently?  Also, be cognizant that some clients prefer natural products when you tidy their house.  Are you going to be “green” when you clean?

Providing a domestic cleaning service is a very good way to make money.  Not a lot of people do it because of the nature of the business.  It’s boring and it’s not sexy.  However, this is why it is a lucrative business.