Operating a small cleaning business can, in fact, be a lucrative endeavor. But, that’s not to say it’s void of its own set of challenges. In fact, it comes with a fairly long list of challenges that not all business owners are equipped with the business sense to adequately handle.
There’s way more to operating a small business than hiring a maid or two and sending them out to clean. Check out the following list. See if you have what it takes to run a cleaning business on your own.
Generating New Leads
When running a small cleaning business, it’s imperative to get—and keep—a steady list of clients. It’s also important to get new leads constantly, ensuring growth for that list and steady income in the future. Do you have the time required to draw and keep clients, while constantly seeking new leads on future clients? Can you do it all at the same time?
Budgeting a Small Cleaning Business
When budgeting for a small cleaning business, there are countless items you might not even consider. This goes way beyond purchasing cleaning products and sending maids inside of people’s homes or offices waiting to yield the net draw.
You must also budget for items like employee training, background checks, insurance, bonding, licensing with the state, and more.
Maybe you should be budgeting for someone to do your budget if you plan to run a small business. Don’t forget to subtract that cost from your bottom line!
Hiring
When running a small cleaning business, you must serve as the human resources department for that business—at the same time you’re scheduling clients and constantly checking on that bottom line.
There is a lot more to this than simply hiring some a maid or two. You must hire reputable people. After all, they’re going inside your clients’ homes. That means background checks must be run on every potential maid you consider. Can you add this time consuming job to your daily schedule?
In addition, you must train these employees to use and understand the latest in safe products, and do it all over again a few months down the road when you introduce new products and cleaning options to your clients. You must train them to effectively clean your client’s home or office, and be ready to face the music if one or more of them fail to do so.
Are You a Legal Eagle?
Sure, you know that you are responsible if a maid damages something inside a client’s home or office. Are you enough of a legal eagle to understand all of the legalities involved in owning and operating a small cleaning business? Probably not. Can you manage any and all liability cases that come your way? What if a client says you made false claims you now cannot live up to? What happens if a maid causes a mishap that results in harm to your client or someone else living in his or her home?
Online Presence
When establishing and successfully running a small cleaning business, you must also find the time to establish a vital online presence. This means setting up and maintaining a website, answering emails, and contributing regularly—sometimes a few times a week—to a company blog, Twitter, Facebook, and a few others.
Where will you find the time to become an Internet expert, website guru, and a freelance writer? There are only so many hours in a day.
Networking is Key
Let’s say you’re doing okay in running your small cleaning business. Now add in the time and personality required to constantly network with others in and out of your region. That’s imperative if you want your business to grow.
You must attend community events, become part of your local Chamber of Commerce, the Better Business Bureau, and rub elbows with other business owners, and learn to talk up your business—not to mention talk up the lucrative changes that are always on that proverbial horizon.
Where will you find this kind of time? Unfortunately, you won’t find enough of it. And missed networking opportunities mean missed income. See how that works?
A common question of those contemplating running a small cleaning business is, “When will I find time for my personal life?” What personal life? You will have little to no personal life if you run a small cleaning business on your own.
Count Your Hats
It is 100% necessary to wear many hats while running a small cleaning business. In addition to that of business owner and operator, you must wear the hats of the maids who work for you. Yes, when someone calls out sick or doesn’t show up for work, guess who must take their place? Yes, it’s you. When you’re crunching numbers late at night, you will wear an accountant’s hat. When you’re panicking because of the oversight of an employee’s bonding, you can add a lawyer’s hat to your collection.
There are ways to successfully run a small cleaning business without wearing every hat, missing networking opportunities, and service as your own human resources department all by yourself.
Consider becoming part of a franchise, and watch each and every one of these facets of running a small business become completely manageable. The weight of the world—and your small cleaning business-can magically lift from your shoulders when the word franchise becomes part of your everyday vocabulary.