START YOUR OWN HOUSE AND FLAT CLEANING SERVICE
House and apartment cleaning services are gaining in popularity.
These are business services that are growing in demand as a result
of more and more women seeking jobs outside the home. Their need
to supplement the family income creates the opportunity for you to
set up a lucrative business.
Ten years ago, businesses of this kind were serving only the
affluent - homes of wealthy people where women didn't want to be
bothered with the drudgery of household cleaning, and had the
money to pay someone to do it for them. But times have changed,
and today the market includes many middle income families in every
residential area across the entire country. The potential market
among apartment dwellers is also great. All in all this is a
business that has grown fast, and has as much real wealth building
potential as any we can think of.
This is a cleaning service generally associated with women;
however, men are finding that they can organise, start, and
operate a very profitable home and apartment cleaning business
just as well as a woman. It's an ideal business for any truly
ambitious person wanting a business of his or her own, especially
for those who must begin with limited funds. Actually, you can
start this business right in your own neighbourhood, using your
own equipment, and begin making a profit from the first day.
Many enterprising homemakers are already doing this kind of work
on a small scale as an extra income producing endeavour. There's
a growing need for this service. Organising your efforts into a
business producing $100,00 to $200,000 a year is quite possible,
and you can get started for $200 or so, always using your profits
to expand and increase your business.
Absolutely no experience is required. Everyone knows how to dust
the furniture, vacuum carpets, make the bed and carry out the
trash. But you must ask yourself if making a house clean and
bright is important and uplifting work. If you look on it as
degrading or as drudgery, don't involve yourself in this business.
Starting from scratch, you'll need a telephone and an appointment
book. You also need an advertising flyer, such as the following:
HOME OR APARTMENT CLEANING
We do the work - You relax and take it easy.
You get the best job in town at rates you can afford. Your
satisfaction is always guaranteed! For more details, call Sue,
123456, ABC Cleaning Services.
You can either type this notice out of write it in longhand with a
pen. Either way, it's going to be your first advertising
endeavour, and bring in that first customer for you. It might be
worth paying $10 or $20 to have it professionally designed and set
out, look in yellow pages under typesetters and printers.
Once you have a circular designed, take it to a printers or copy
shop, and have about 200 printed. You should be able to get two
copies on a standard A4 sheet, and running 100 sheets of paper
through will cost no more than $12. For a little bit more, have
the printer cut them in half with his machine cutter, so you will
have 200 copies of the advertising flyer.
Now take these flyers, along with a box of tin tacks, and put them
up on all the free notice boards you can find - grocery stores,
launderettes, beauty salons, office building lounges, cafes, post
offices, and wherever else such posters are allowed.
When a prospective customer calls, have your appointment book and
pen handy. Be friendly and enthusiastic. Explain what you do -
everything from changing the beds to vacuuming, dusting and
polishing the furniture and cleaning the bathroom to the dishes
and the laundry. Or, everything except the dishes and laundry -
whatever you have decided on as your policy. When they ask you
how much you charge, simply tell them six to ten dollars an hour,
but for a firm quote, you'll need to see the house and make a
detailed estimate for them. Then without much of a pause ask if
4.30 this afternoon would be convenient for them, or if 5.30 would
be better. You must pointedly ask if you can come to make your
cost proposal at a certain time, or the decision may be put off,
and you may come up with a No Sale.
Just a soon as you have an agreement on the time to make your cost
proposal, and marked in your appointment book, ask for name,
address, and phone number.
Jot this information down on a 3 x 5 index card, along with the
date and the notation: Prospective Customer. Then you file this
card in a permanent card file. Save these cards, because there
are literally loads of ways to turn this prospect file into real
cash, once you've accumulated a sizeable number of names,
addresses, and phone numbers.
When you go to see your prospect in person, always be on time. A
couple of minutes early won't hurt you, but a few minutes late
will definitely be detrimental to your closing the sale. Always
be well groomed. Dress as a successful business owner. Be
confident and sure of yourself; be knowledgeable about what you
can do as well as understanding the prospect's needs and wants.
Do not smoke, even if invited by the prospect, and never accept a
drink - even coffee - until after you have a signed contract in
your briefcase.
Actually, once you've made the sale, the best thing is to shake
hands with your new customer, thank them, and leave. A little
small talk after the sale is appropriate, but becoming too
friendly isn't. You create an impression, and preserve it, by
maintaining a businesslike relationship.
When you go to make your cost estimate, take along a ruled
notepad, a calculator, and your appointment book. Some people
find it easier to work with a clipboard and ordinary blank paper
with carbon underneath.
Whatever you use, it's important to appear methodical, thorough
and professional, while leading the prospect through the specifics
he or she wants you to take care of: "Now, you want the carpet
vacuumed and all the furniture dusted and those two end tables,
the coffee table, and the piano polished as well, I assume?"
Simply identify the specific room at the top of each sheet of
paper, then lead your prospect through the cleaning steps of each
room, covering everything in it. Your implications of putting
everything in "ready for company" shape will cause the customer to
forget about the cost, and hire you to do a complete job. Always
have a carbon paper under each piece of paper you're writing on,
and always look around each room one more time before leaving it;
then ask the prospect if he or she can think of any special
instructions you should note for that room.
Finally, when you've gone through each room in the house with the
prospect, come back to the kitchen and sit down at the table.
Take out your calculator and add up the time you estimate each job
will take to complete. Total the time for each room. Be liberal,
thinking that if you can do the carpet in 15 minutes, it could
take the ordinary person 30 minutes. Convert the total minutes
for each room into hours and tenths of hours per room. Add the
totals for each room to arrive at your total hours to clean the
entire house.
Talk with your customer briefly, wondering how she can ever find
the time to get everything done at home, especially when holding
down a job. A little bit of small talk, a quick mental value of
the customer's ability to pay, plus your knowledge that you can
get everything done in four hours, instead of the six hours it
would take most people, and you summarise by saying:
"Well, Mrs. Johnson, you've certainly got enough routine cleaning
work to keep you busy all day every day of the week! I certainly
don't know how you do it, but anyway, we'll take this whole
problem off your shoulders, save you time, and actually give you
time to relax. We can do it on a regular basis, every other week,
for $240 per month, or the one single time for $150. I can well
imagine how tired you are, when you get home from work. We'll
take care of everything for you, and we guarantee that our work
will more than satisfy you. So, would you like to try our
cleaning one time for $150, or do you want to save $30 a call, and
let us take over these chores for you on a regular basis?"
Here you begin finding a place in your appointment book, and tell
them, "Actually, I have an opening at 8.30 on Tuesday morning. We
could come in every other Tuesday at 8.30, clean the whole house,
and have it done before you get home from work".
The customer agrees that 8.30 on Tuesdays will be fine. Then you
ask her if she prefers to be billed with the completion of each
house cleaning session, or on a regular monthly basis. Point out
to her than by engaging you on a monthly basis, she picks up a
free house cleaning every three months. Now that you have your
first customer, you want to fill in every day of the week, each
week of every month, with regular jobs. Once you have one week of
each month filled with regular jobs, it will be time for you to
expand.
Expansion means growth, involving people working for you, more
jobs to sell, and greater profits. Don't let it frighten you, for
you have gained experience by starting gradually. After all -
your aim in starting a business of your own was to make money,
wasn't it? And expanding means more helpers, so you don't have to
work yourself to death!
You can operate this business successfully from the comfort of
your home, permanently, if you chose to. All you'll ever need is
a telephone, a desk, and a file cabinet.
So, just as soon as you possibly can, recruit and hire other
people to do the work for you. The first people you hire should
be people to handle the cleaning work. The best plan is to hire
laundry to work in teams of two or three - two for jobs not
including dish washing and laundry - three for those that do.
You can start these people at minimum wage or a bit above, and
train them to complete every job assignment in two hours or less.
Just as soon as you've hired and trained a couple of people as a
cleaning team, you should outfit them in a kind of uniform with
your company name on the back of their blouses or shirts. A good
idea also would be to have magnetic signs made for your company
and services. Place these signs on the sides of the cars your
people use for transportation to each job, and later on, the sides
of your company van or pick up trucks.
Each team should have an appointed team leader responsible for the
quality and overall completeness of each job assigned to them.
The team might operate thus: One person cleans the bathroom, makes
the beds, and carries out the laundry, while the other person
dusts and polishes the furniture and does the vacuuming. On jobs
where you do the laundry and the dishes, the third person can pick
up the laundry and get that started, ad then do the dishes and
clean the kitchen. By operating in this manner, your work will be
more efficient and the complete job will take a lot less time.
However, it is important that each person you hire understands
that the success of the business depends on the "crew" doing as
many complete jobs as they can handle each day - not on how much
they get paid an hour working for you.
Your team leaders will check with you each afternoon for the next
day's work assignments, and gather the team together, complete
with cleaning equipment and material, on the next day. Your team
leader should be supplies with a stack of "handout" advertising
flyers to pass around the neighbourhood or within the apartment
building before leaving each job site. A good supply of business
cards wouldn't be a bad idea for them either, in order to
advertise your services to others they come in contact with. The
only other form of advertising you should go with would be a
display ad in the yellow pages of your telephone directory.
Design on paper a system of cleanup operations that can generally
be applied to any situation, then drill your teams on speeding up
their activities to make the system work even better. Just as
firemen practice and practice, you should drill your people as a
team in their cleaning activities.
Probably the biggest timewaster in this business will be in the
travel from job to job. For this reason, it's important to spread
advertising circulars to the neighbouring homes when you're doing
a job, or to the apartments on the same floor when you're in an
apartment building. As the organiser, and person assigning teams
to jobs, it will behove you to line up, and assign jobs as close
together as possible. Keep up efforts to cut the time it takes
for your crews to travel from one job to the next. Work at lining
up jobs all in one area.
Your equipment needs will really be minimal: Cleaning and
polishing rags, mops, a couple of plastic buckets, and furniture
polish. Most people will have the necessary cleaning
materials, including vacuum cleaners, soaps, and cleansers. But
it wouldn't hurt to have these items available just in case you
get a job in a home or an apartment without these tools. As your
business grows, you'll be able to purchase all your needs at huge
discounts, and these are the sources of supply to cultivate as you
grow.
One of the most important aspects of this business is asking for,
and allowing your customers to refer other prospects to you. All
of this happens, of course, as a result of your giving fast,
dependable service. You might even set up a promotional notice on
the back of your business card (to be left at each job when it is
completed), offering five dollars off their next clean when they
refer you to a new prospect.
This is definitely a high profit business, requiring only an
investment of time and organisation on your part to get started.
With a low investment, little or no overhead requirement, and no
experience needed, this is an ideal business opportunity with a
growth curve that accelerates at an unprecedented rate. Think
about it. If it appeals to you, set up your own plan of
operations and go for it! The profit potential for an owner of
this type of business is outstanding!
