How to Start and Grow Your Own Cleaning Business
 

DID YOU START A BUSINESS OR BUY A JOB?

By Gary Goranson

There are two basic ways that people get into the residential cleaning business.

1.  They decide to become self-employed and think that cleaning homes for a living is an easy and inexpensive way to achieve that objective (I call it "backing into the business"); or,

2.  They go into the residential cleaning industry with the intention of creating a real business right from the start.

Up until the last quarter century or so, virtually anyone cleaning homes got into the profession for the first reason. A lot of them were people who had few alternatives due to lack of education or skills in other fields. Many were foreign nationals who were not legally qualified to work in the United States and saw house cleaning as a relatively safe way to earn a modest living while remaining undetected by immigration authorities. While it was often viewed as a lowly occupation, with the changing face of the industry today that stigma is being eradicated and a broad spectrum of individuals have opted to make house cleaning their business of choice over retail and other service trades.

In the 1970s entrepreneurs began recognizing the tremendous potential of turning what had been a growing but fragmented industry into a real business opportunity. Most of the major residential cleaning franchise companies were born in the late 70s and 80s as were many of today’s large and successful independent services. Today it is not unusual to hear of companies generating well into seven figure annual revenues with 20, 30 or more teams of house cleaners. In fact, a single team of house cleaners can produce as much or more in gross income as a lot of small companies in other fields generate in a year.

THE “START WITH A MOP AND BUCKET” TRAP

The universal desire for people to “own their own business” has not gone unnoticed by folks who see an opportunity to take advantage of these aspiring entrepreneurs. Go on the Internet and you’ll find scores of sites suggesting you can get into the cleaning business for about the cost of a family’s weekly grocery bill and earn $25 to $35 per hour. You’ll find books and so-called “kits” for anywhere from $10 to $75 purporting to show you how to do it. The proliferation of these materials is, in my humble opinion, a scam and a stain on the industry.

Since you’re reading this article in ARCP News you’re obviously already in the business, so we’re not denigrating these materials to discourage you from buying them. We’re raising the issue to highlight the perceived “low entry cost” philosophy that drives many people into this business. It is true that a cleaning business is one of the least costly enterprises to start and operate, but as you well know it takes more than a few hundred dollars to do it legitimately. One decent vacuum cleaner alone can cost that much. And the biggest expense people drastically underestimate (and which the folks selling books and kits fail to address candidly) is the cost of marketing to get clients. You really can’t build a large and successful cleaning service business by handing out a few business cards and posting flyers in Laundromats.

My advice to people who lack sufficient capital to go into the business the right way is to get a job with a successful residential cleaning company instead of buying a job, which is in effect what they’re doing with the money they’re investing. Even if they’re generating $25 to $35 per hour in fees, that’s gross revenues from which they have to deduct all expenses incurred in operating their business – and there will be expenses no matter how small the business.

THE “I DON’T WANT TO DEAL WITH EMPLOYEES” TRAP

As a consultant to the industry I talk to folks every year who say, “I can’t hire employees because my customers would drop me if I didn’t personally do the cleaning.” When they tell me that, I ask them to think about what they just said. After all, if the client fires you because you’re not personally doing the cleaning, obviously they won’t have you cleaning their home …. d’uhhh. Wouldn’t they rather have people you train and supervise cleaning their homes than face the hit and miss prospect of finding someone else as capable, dependable and trustworthy as they know you are?

For one thing, if you’re really that good a house cleaner, then you should be more than capable of teaching your skills to other people to work on your behalf. You just need to learn a new set of skills in recruiting, selecting, supervising and managing people you hire. And while dealing with employees can be a major challenge, this is a skill that can be learned regardless of any lack of experience you may have had in this regard. You are only one person and there are only so many homes you can clean in a day, week, month or year doing it by yourself.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that hiring other people to work for you creates an opportunity to multiply your productivity and income exponentially. Sure it increases your cost of doing business, but any profit you earn from other people’s efforts is over and above what you’re able to earn without them. There’s no way you can earn $100,000 a year in profit cleaning homes yourself. There are people in this industry who are earning several times that figure by multiplying their earnings through the labor of other people. And they don’t put in a whole lot more time in a day than people cleaning houses by themselves.

YOU SHOULD NOT BE CLEANING HOUSES

If you’re going to build a successful residential cleaning service, you need to spend your time working ON the business rather than IN the business. True, most people start their business cleaning homes. There’s no better way to learn the ins and outs of the business. And you want to learn the skills necessary to teach others how to do the work effectively and efficiently. But this is a job you want to work yourself out of as quickly as possible. If you’re out there all day cleaning houses you’re not doing those other things needed to make your business grow – planning, marketing, hiring, training, managing.

You learned to clean houses as a professional. You can also learn the skills necessary to create a substantial, successful and profitable house cleaning business. Knowledge is power and investing in improving and expanding your skills is the best investment you can make in your business. Active participation in ARCP can certainly go a long way in helping you build a cleaning service you can be proud of. Make up your mind that what you’ve invested in is a business and not a job.

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