How to Start a House Cleaning Business

Have you ever thought about how to start a housecleaning business? When you think of how to start a housecleaning business you will probably think of questions such as - How do I start a housecleaning business? - Do I have what it takes to run my own house cleaning business? - How do I find and keep clients? - How much should I charge? - What other services can I offer to my clients? - How do I hire and train staff? - How does commercial cleaning differ from home cleaning?

And most of the people who have dreamed about how to start a housecleaning business have been hesitant to put their plans into action, as they cannot find the correct answer for these questions. This comprehensive guide will help you to successfully launch and grow your business by offering expert advice on each and every aspect of setting up and running a prosperous home-based housecleaning business.

Housecleaning businesses are one of the fastest-growing service businesses in the United States. It is an ideal option for new entrepreneurs, part-time workers, and also for those people who would like to make a career switch. In today's busy world, these are highly sought commodities, and a good housecleaning service offers comfort and order. Housecleaning is a cost effective business with low operating expenses, inexpensive equipment, and a flexible work schedule. Generally speaking, the answer to how to start a housecleaning business is an understanding of basic cleaning technology. In the very beginning of housecleaning business, the home cleaning service might start out small, but it has the potential to foster into a multi-million dollar business with branch offices and franchises.

The very first thing about how to start a housecleaning business is to develop a business plan and policy. After developing a business plan you need a unique name which must stands out from the rest. The next and important step before starting the business is to insure your housecleaning business. You are starting the business, and as you are the sole-proprietor, insuring your business entitles you to the status of independent contractor. Insurance also eases the minds of your future clientele as well as it gives you peace of mind to work freely.

The next important step is to get a copy of your background check and police record. Hopefully, you won't have one; but depending on which state you are residing in, you have to pick up the application at the State Trooper Barracks, City Hall or the Police Station. This is a simple step; you just take about 5 minutes to fill out the form. The application fee will be between $3 and $15.00. After filling out the form, mail it in, and within 14 days the form will be mailed back to you with an official stamp stating "No record." You can take photocopies of this form, as you should provide this certificate to your prospective clientele with your information packet.

The information packet is the major step in the housecleaning business - it is what makes your business professional. The information packet must contain a printout or photocopy of your policy and procedures, insurance and background check, references and a sample work order. In your policy statement you should explain the details of your working policy. This will give information such as: your hours of operation; if you will work in a house that has a dog; if you bring the cleaning products or the client has to provide his/her own cleaning products; your rates (per hour or per job); and what form of payment you take. All these details have to be included in the policy statement.

Don't forget to include a sample work order in your information packet. For example, in cleaning a bedroom, what will you do? That is, you must write - ceiling fan will be dusted, trinkets dusted, bedroom furniture dusted, sheets changed and bed made, carpet vacuumed and any other service you will provide. Also, you can custom create a work order if a client wants something done which is not on the work order.

Also, it is a plus for you to include at least two references. Adding references might be a difficult task as you are just starting out so add them as you go along. You can get a references by offering a free cleaning for some community organizations or churches.

When you create your business cards, you must only include your name with the title of proprietor, and your telephone number. Don't put anything such as FREE ESTIMATES or CHEAP on the cards. You have to present yourself as a person offering a professional service.

Now you've got some idea about how to start a housecleaning business! It is a highly profitable business. So what's stopping you now?

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How to Create a Name for Your Cleaning Business

Before you open the doors of your cleaning business you not only need equipment and supplies, you need a name for your business. The name of your company will be the first thing prospective clients see - whether that is in the phone book, on your company car, in an ad, or on a website. The name symbolizes what your cleaning business represents. So it is important to spend some time on choosing a name that not only fits your cleaning business, but also presents a positive image to customers, suppliers and employees.

The easiest way to name your business it to use your own name or initials, such as Joe Smith's Cleaning. This provides a personal touch, is easy to remember, and if you have a proven track record in the business, it can attract customers. However, if your plan is to one day sell your business, you might want to consider something less personal.

Instead of using your name or initials, you may want to think of descriptive or suggestive wording for your business name. When going this route begin by brainstorming key words or phrases that have something to do with the business: clean, cleaning, squeaky clean, house cleaning, commercial cleaning, janitorial services, etc. Write down as many words as you can think of and use a thesaurus to create more wording possibilities.

You can also use words that describe the benefits your clients will get from using your service: spotless, spic-n-span, dust free, immaculate, etc. Take the words from your two lists and start combining them into various business names: Sparkling Waters Cleaning Company, A1 Janitorial Services, APlus Cleaning, Spic-n-Span Cleaning. As most businesses also use a tag line or motto, look through your list to see if any of your potential names suggest possibilities. For example, "Sparkling Waters Cleaning - Your floors will look like sparkling waters".

Try out different names and combinations and then judge the names by the following:

- Is it easy to pronounce?

- Is it concise?

- Is it easy to remember?

- Is it distinct?

- Does it convey the message you want your customers to see?

- Is it pleasant to hear and repeat over and over again? - Is it something you can stand behind?

Before you can begin using your business name, check to see if the name is already trademarked. Do an Internet search at the USPTO (U.S. Patent and Trademark Office) at http://www.uspto.gov . Then check with your local secretary of state to see if anyone else in your state has already registered that name. Once you have decided if the name is available and can represent your business, run it by family and friends to get their reaction.

The business name is the flag that can wave down potential customers. Once you have decided on a name it will most likely be with you throughout the life of the business. Putting the time into researching a suitable name for your cleaning business is one way to get your business off and running in the right direction.

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Federal Grants For Small Business

Starting your own enterprise is everyone's dream. The main restraint is, of course, the money. The Federal government provides assistance for entrepreneurs who want to excel by means of grants under different schemes. This is particularly done in the case of small businesses, as small businesses can effectively improve the status of the economy at the grassroots level. The task is only to identify the right grant. The United States is the only country that gives billions of dollars as Federal grants and low-interest loans to further strengthen its strong economic base and infrastructure.

Many state development agencies, non-profit organizations, intermediary lending institutions and local governments award the loans for small businesses. These grants can be used to start any type of business. Those who want to develop their small business enterprises can also apply for these grants. To be eligible for the grant you should be an US citizen at least 18 years old. The grants can be from the federal government, state government or from the agencies. These grants do not require collateral security, credit checks or any security deposits.

The first step to obtain the grant is to find out the sources from which you can obtain the grant. Locate them in your locality or your state. A listing of the agencies can be had from the federal and state governments. Then comes the grant scheme for which you are eligible.

Another source from which you can find information regarding the grants is the website grants.gov. This website provides a one-stop opportunity to apply for grants. According to the website there are over 1,000 grant programs offered by 26 Federal grant-making agencies. Applying grants online can reduce many tedious processes.

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Government Grants You Can Get for Your Cleaning Business

Do you want to put up your own cleaning business, but do not have enough money for it? Do not lose hope and just throw your dream away, since you can still fulfill your dream with government grants. For those entrepreneurs who do not have capital to access or have limited funds, you can apply for government grants.

The US government do provide business grants to people who would want to put up a small business, one of the businesses that are entitled for government grants is cleaning business. There are lots of entrepreneurs who are interested of applying grants since these are not loans, these can be given for you for free, and you do not have to pay it back.

It is a fact that the government has billion of dollars that are allocated for government grants. Government provides grants each year, so if you need money to start up your own cleaning business, you can apply for it.
But, in order to know more about this, you need to be aware of it, so you can apply and be given the opportunity to gain it.

So are you dreaming to put up your own business? If so, you can apply for grants. Actually, government has increased its assistance; the government now provides money for Business Start-Up, Education, Home Purchase, Home Repair, Inventions and Innovation.

You can go through the process by filling up the forms that the government provides, afterwards, drop it in mail and wait if you are qualified, if you are you will receive a check for thousands of dollars.
Take note that this is free money and you do not have to pay it back. Does it sound unbelievable? It may sound unbelievable but it's true. You can be given the chance to gain grants and receive free money to easily start up your own cleaning business.

Actually, anyone can apply for government grants, so you too can apply. Do not hesitate to try it out, you never know, you might be the one who will gain thousands of dollars for free and with that, you can make your dream come true - to put up your own cleaning business.

Since you do not have enough information about it and you do not have enough knowledge on what to do, you can use the internet and check out for guidelines and instructions that can help you out on what the right things to do to effectively apply for a government grant so you can effectively start up and run your own cleaning business.

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Meet Success: Business Profile of Sylvia Acevedo, Communicard Owner

Sylvia Acevedo needed a break from her technology job so she bought an old Victorian house to remodel into a bed and breakfast. "Being an engineer working in technology, I really felt I didn't do a lot of tangible work. But with the bed and breakfast, at the end of the day, I felt like I had actually done something."

And, of course, she had—because as she renovated the house, she transformed it into a beautiful B&B. She had no problem communicating with the construction crew, who were mostly Hispanic, because she grew up speaking both Spanish and English. "My mother was from Mexico and all of my grandparents lived there," she says.

"People would see me talking to a crew of workers and I literally would have contractors stop and hand me the phone, asking me to translate for them," she says. That's how she realized communication between Hispanic construction workers and non-Spanish-speaking supervisors was really a problem.

Being a software engineer, Sylvia's mind immediately went to solving the problem. "I think it's because I've always been an innovator and I see things maybe in a way that provides a side-door solution. I don't just look at the situation and say, 'Okay, it's a bottleneck'. I try to look at new ways to solve the problem. And in this particular situation, the problem was communication." But she didn't follow through on her ideas for a few more years.

After two years of renovating and running the B&B, Sylvia was ready to get back into the technology field, so she hired a manager for the bed and breakfast, and started a software development company with three others. A few years later, Sylvia and her partners later sold the software company.

"That was really interesting," she says, "because we sold it for stock and then the stock market crashed. But that was an important learning lesson because I learned a lot about creating a company that supported intellectual property and taking it from literally concept to actually building a company."

By this time she had also sold the B&B for a tidy little sum and was ready to solve the communication problem she saw a few years before. She realized there were a lot of non-Spanish-speaking people in the United States who were hiring people who only spoke Spanish for service jobs. "And you have a challenge because how do you direct the work that needs to be done?" she says.

The solution? The CommuniCard, easy-to-use Spanish/English communication cards. There's a deck of housekeeping cards with pictures of the tasks and English/Spanish translations, and several accordion-folded, laminated pocket cards for the construction industry showing tools, tasks and translations, and a similar pocket card for the lawncare industry. This allows the supervisor to merely show the card to the worker to communicate. For instance, one of the cards shows a person cleaning a big window with a spray bottle in one hand while using a squeegee in the other. The wording below the illustration says, "Clean the windows. Limpia las ventanas." So if the worker cannot speak English, or even read, it is clear what is being asked.

Before putting it into production she tested it extensively, first in Texas, and then across the United States. "I went to Northern California, Southern California, New Mexico, Colorado and across the South and Texas. I found the biggest needs were in construction and housekeeping," she says. She began by interviewing the people who hired these workers—everyone from Junior Leaguers, to people in office settings who hired workers, to companies and construction firms. She also began to go to day-labor sites and construction sites to interview the workers. But the supervisors weren't appreciative of her being on jobsites, even if she only spoke to workers while they were on their breaks.

"So I would approach them at bus stops, churches, and schools." And what she learned was very informative. "We began to get a lot of feedback and the product changed dramatically as a result," she says.

All in all, she spoke to over 4,000 people. After the informal research, it was time for something a little more elaborate. "We've done many focus groups, and we do them on all the products," Sylvia says. The interviews are conducted by a professional, trained moderator who's bilingual.

"And that's a very important issue," she says. "When you have a vision for a product, you really need to get customer input. But there's also a fine line between getting too much input and not enough. I didn't want to go into analysis paralysis or information overload."

One of the important outcomes of the focus groups was that one person in the first focus group had such a huge need to solve the communication problem that he approached her about investing in the company. She accepted, and for a stake in the company, he paid for the initial production of the cards.

The company is now in the middle of its second year and sales are increasing. So far, they've sold thousands of the cards, but it's slow going. Sylvia originally thought the product would be sold through retail stores, but she found that her previous distribution experience was no longer valid.

"My experience was dated. It was years before Wal-Mart had taken over and many of the people that I went to call on in the industry were no longer there. In fact, the businesses were gone."

Finding a roadblock in the path to retail distribution was a big disappointment, but the company simply adjusted its thinking and found another way. Now, instead of selling through national retail chains as she had hoped, CommuniCard products are sold through trade associations and the company's website, as well as through a few local retail stores.

To promote the innovative product, Sylvia doesn't use traditional advertising. She has found that public relations works best because it's such a new product that requires too much education and explaining.

It's a low-price-point item, with the housekeeping cards selling for $15.95 and all the others selling for less than $10, so Sylvia has found that tradeshows are not particularly effective, either. "You're competing with so many giveaways at tradeshows that I found it really diminished the value of our brand. People would say, 'Gosh, they just gave me this really cool saw that's worth 30 bucks and you're not going to give me this for $10?' So I found it to be very expensive and unproductive," she says.

Nevertheless, in its first year of business CommuniCard -- found at [http://www.communicard.com] -- sold well over 5,000 units of the housekeeping cards, and somewhat less of the others, generating just under a $100,000 in sales.

The company has branched out into consulting as well as product sales because there's a need for the expertise Sylvia has acquired through all her research. "Most marketing firms focus on selling consumer products to Hispanics," she says. Instead, she focuses on solving problems. For instance, the bus company hired her to find out why so few Hispanics ride the bus.

Sylvia was also recognized in 2004 as the National Businesswoman of the Year by the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

CommuniCard recently introduced a new set of cards for law enforcement, and police departments have had great interest in them. Sylvia offers to customize the cards with the police department's badge, and this requires an order of hundreds, which customers are readily doing.

The company has also been researching other languages to see what new products might be developed, but so far they haven't found the right match. "When we tested the (original) cards in Chicago, people wanted cleaning cards in Polish. But that's such a small market. We'd only be able to sell those in New York, Chicago and maybe Boston. Whereas the housekeeping cards in Spanish/English are selling across the country," she says.

One of the things that Sylvia made sure to do was protect her idea. She has a patent pending and, of course, everything is copyrighted and trademarked. As a result of her software engineering background, she knew how important this was. She says she often urges other women inventors to protect their assets, and she has helped several either copyright or trademark their ideas.

One of the things that has surprised her is people need these products so urgently they are willing to pay FedEx delivery charges to get them overnight. "I bet we get no less than three orders per week where people want the product so fast that they're willing to pay more in shipping than the product costs," she says, which leads her to wonder if the product is correctly priced. "We're constantly evaluating," she says.

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Does Your Cleaning Business Have a Mission Statement?

Along with a business plan, a mission statement is an important tool that will capture the spirit of your business. A mission statement helps to clarify the goals and objectives of your company. In just a sentence or two, the mission statement for your cleaning business will set your business goals, your underlying philosophy, and what special benefits you have to offer to your customers. A good mission statement will reflect that special niche that your cleaning business is catering to and provide a long-range vision for you to build on.

Following is a sample mission statement:

"ABC Cleaning Company is committed to delivering the exact services our commercial cleaning customers want, listening closely to their expectations, taking a pro-active approach in defining their needs, and building the best partnering relationship possible. We are also committed to acting with honesty and integrity at all times in all aspects of our business, to being professional in doing our job, and to delivering a consistent, high level quality of work."

A well thought out mission statement will take more than just a few minutes to develop - it takes careful thought and planning. Spending time developing those few sentences that define your business can be just as valuable as the final statement. Going through the process of evaluating your cleaning business, and then defining your customers and your services will help you to look at your cleaning business from your customers' perspective. Don't get bogged down with technical jargon. Focus on defining your company's strengths and why those strengths benefit your customers.

When you are ready to begin, sit down in an area with no distractions. To come up with the statements that will sum up what your cleaning business is all about, consider the following:

- What specific need does your business satisfy?

- What are the principles and values that guide you in the everyday operation of your business?

- Who are your customers?

- What level of service will you provide?

- What image would you like your business to portray to your customers?

To write an effective mission statement, sit down with those who are closest to your business and jot down notes to answer the above questions. Look at mission statements from other businesses and start brainstorming. Once you have a couple of key ideas draft those thoughts into complete sentences.

Once you have formalized your mission statement use it in your promotional materials. The statement will be a quick and easy way for your customers and potential customers to learn about your cleaning business. Keep your mission statement visible and live up to it everyday. This will show your employees and customers that you practice what you preach.

Copyright 2006 The Janitorial Store

Furnishings for Your Home How to Choose Your Bathroom Accessories