To make $1000 a month from a cleaning service, you will have to create a business strategy that will ensure you get clients and retain them, ensuring you keep clients happy enough to pay you even more than $1000 a month.

Best Practice on How to Make Money Cleaning Houses

1.    Starting the Cleaning Business

You might have been employed as a cleaner. You saw the potential the business has, as a means of livelihood. However, you may be unaware as to the steps you can take for the business to be your sole source of income. Well, don’t sweat, this article will guide you on how to start cleaning houses for a living.

If you are planning to earn over $1000 per Month on a cleaning business, then you should give the business the seriousness it deserves. To start, ensure you follow the law and register your business as per it.

People trust legitimate businesses, and no one will be ready to open their homes to people they don’t know. In case of anything, people will prefer to have the means to reach you and have your address both physical and online.

You have to understand that a home is where people relax, create families and memories that will last them generations to come. For them to trust you with their home, most people will do thorough research, or if you come recommended, you will have to have at least made a great impression.

For all these reasons, it is essential first to register your business legally before embarking on the venture. It not only gives you a legitimate look and an official appeal, but it also allows people to take you with the seriously, as a business entity.

How Do You Legitimately Start Your Cleaning Services?

• You will have to first register your sole proprietorship with your local county or state agency as a DA ‘Doing Business As,’ this will cost you between $20 and $50
• Register your DBA for a Federal EIN. This is free. Some people may choose to set up their business as an S-Corp, LLC, or C-Corp for tax and liability protection. Unless you are creating a big business model from the beginning, you will not need to start here.
• Register your DBA at the sales tax office. This should be done if your state requires cleaning companies to remit. This is free.
• Purchase general liability insurance for $2m per year aggregate from a reputable broker. Your annual policy should run $400-$800 a year.
• Open a business account at your bank or credit union with your DBA.

After you’re done with the legal requirements for your cleaning business, it is time to focus on the delivery part off the cleaning business.

The question here is, how do you start in the business? How do you get your name out there?

Requirements for Starting in the Business

• Get your basic supplies together
• Think about hiring if you cannot handle the business on your own.
• Pricing

The requirements for starting your business count for a lot, as they distinguish how you operate, setting your standards in the client’s perspective.

It is your first impression.

It is what matters when you charge for your services.

The fee has to represent the level of service your business provides for the client. If there is no correlation between the two, most times, you will end up losing a client.

For every business, both extremes exist, from the cheap offers and seemingly high-end ones, yet you will find both have clients. Why is this? It all boils down to the quality of service, and for a start-up, you should be careful as to how you charge represents where your business stands.

Extremely cheap offers tend to show the bad quality of service, and people may not trust it. In contrast, a high-end price tag may show excellent quality, but limit your customer base due to unaffordability.

You might or might not have seen a celebrity car wash. Still, Arnold Schwarzenegger cars are washed with several hand towels using different detergent, and he pays an upwards of $200 for the service, while a normal carwash will charge around $15.

This shows the importance of how you set up your business based on the quality of services you offer, which will help carve out a clientele base for your business.

Let’s check out these requirements for setting up a cleaning business.

2. Setting up for The Business

a)     Tools of Trade

When choosing the equipment’s, you will use as the tools of the trade; two critical factors have to be considered:

·        Affordability

Affordability speaks to the amount of money you can invest in the cleaning business equipment. As you are starting, it is best to maintain the budge to a need basis, with quality of work in mind.

It is not easy to start a business to the point it takes off. This means that splashing money around may not be advisable, as you may not be sure of recouping your investment and still make a profit.

It may be vital to ensure you keep your spending to a minimum, while still guaranteeing quality.

Unless the client wants something specific while cleaning for them, cleaners will foot the bill for the cleaning supplies they use.

Some of the supplies you will need while starting are

• Gloves
• Goggles to protect your eyes against some of the chemicals you will use
• Scrubbers and sponges
• A mop and bucket
• A broom
• Cleaning towels
• Cleaners for all types of floors and walls
• Dusters
• Anti-bacterial wipes
• Trash bags
• Vacuum cleaners

To save on cleaning materials, you can buy them in wholesale, reducing the buying price. Also, recycling some of the materials such as dusters and cleaning towels will help reduce expenditure as these materials can be washed and re-used.

·        Quality

It will be important to never compromise on quality.

As you start, the quality of your business will be the most important factor when it comes to customer retention, and word of mouth marketing.

Nobody ever seems to keep quiet when they find great services or products at an affordable rate, and you will find most people speaking about you without any incentive, just from the quality of service you offer.

You might not have enough money when stating out to buy all the fancy and expensive materials that may be important to switch your business to that high-end category. However, it will be important to check out what you will need to ensure the quality of your service is not compromised.

If your quality is in check, then you can have the confidence to market yourself and value your business in terms of what you feel you should be paid.

       b) Hiring

To maintain the quality of service and still save on time, it may be important to hire some help to assist with the job.

You may also be too busy to work on the cleaning service personally.

When hiring, you will have to take the utmost care in the kind of employees you decide to work with, as they will represent your business, and how they present themselves will be the make or break for your new cleaning business.

Qualities to look for when hiring

• Good management skills
• Honesty
• Consistency
• Problem-solving
• Versatility
• Ability to work without supervision
• Discretion
• endurance

Ensure you provide a great working environment for your employees as it will motivate them to deliver a better result.

As you are starting, you may offer them a lower payment with the promise of increased remunerations, plus other incentives, like bonuses as the business grows.

Ensure you find ways to help your employees to self-motivate through any means you might see fit as it will increase their output, and motivate them into building the business.

      c) Pricing

Pricing your new cleaning service is quite a tricky affair, as you are a new business looking to attract customers. You also have to recoup your investments and, at the same time, make some profit.

Get Paid to Clean Houses

You will have to start by researching how other cleaning services charge their clientele to ensure you do not go way up or down the general cleaning prices charged by the more established cleaning services.

As you are starting, you may also choose to charge a bit lower compared to the general amount charged by other cleaning services to attract clients whom you can retain based on the quality of your work.

Most cleaning services charge anywhere between $50 and $100 an hour.

Setting your prices competitively against these rates will surely attract some clients your way.

You may start charging at $25 an hour if you are working by yourself, or at least $40 an hour if you are at least two people.

You may also have to consider the distance you travel and whether the client requires certain materials for the job, which are not among what you normally use.

At around $25-$40 an hour, you are sure to surpass the $1000 mark each Month dependent on the frequency of jobs you land.

      3. Branding

Branding is another important aspect when starting a cleaning service, and will also factor in the investment when starting the business.

Banding is how you speak to potential clients without using your voice.

It may count as a marketing factor; however, it goes deeper than that. Branding is how your business represents itself to the market.

You may compare branding to fashion.

We all understand that when we go out into the public, how we present ourselves counts for how our perception is to the public.

How do we tell if someone s homeless or rich? It’s not that we have their profiles or names on a list, rather it is how they present or brand themselves.

So, how you brand your business will be the reason for it to be taken as ‘rich’ or ‘homeless.’

So how do you brand your new cleaning service to reap the best out of it?

·       Brand strategy

Brand strategy speaks to how, what, where, when, and to who you plan on offering your services to. When marketing and advertising your company, the rand strategy will be a key factor in deciding the king of marketing techniques you will use.

Consistent strategic branding will create strong brand equity, which will add value to your cleaning service. The stronger the brand equity, the more autonomy you will have with regard to charges for your new cleaning service as compared to unbranded products.

A great example of this is Coca-Cola vs. a generic soda. Due to the strong brand equity enjoyed by Coca-Cola, the company can charge more for its product, and customers will still buy it.

Strong brand equity also allows the company to acquire a certain level of trust from the customer market, such that people get attached to the brand, acquiring a certain level of emotional attachment for the rand. A great example of his is Nikes Air Jordans. Due to the love and admiration the American public has for Michael Jordan, Nikes Air Jordan’s have also acquired the same or a level of love associated with Michael Jordan. Americans will purchase the shoe as they feel like they have a piece of MJ with them.

·       Defining your brand

After identifying your brand strategy, another important factor to consider is how you define your brand.

This is the more difficult phase of branding, as to how you define the brand is how the market will take it. If you define yourself as a high-end cleaning service, you may lose the less high-end customers, who will consider you out of their league.

You require proper research before defining your brand.

Be clear on a couple of factors such as:

• Who is your customer base?
• What is your mission?
• What are the benefits and features of your services?
• What do your customers think of your brand?
• What qualities do you want them to associate with your brand?

Rand strategy and defining your brand can be quite a complex undertaking, and acquiring professional advice can be advantageous.

After you figure out your brand strategy and define your brand, you can then start packaging your cleaning service to represent what you are.

Some of the tips for packaging your brand are:

• Get a name and logo to represent who you are as a cleaning service.
• Write down your brand messaging
• Integrate your brand
• Create a voice for your brand
• Develop a tagline
• Consistency to your brand strategy

       4. Marketing the brand

After you have prepared yourself for the market and are sure your services are up to par with your brand, it is time to market the cleaning service business and book as much as clients as possible.

How you market the brand will play a huge role in booking clients. You have to ensure your services are available to as many people as you can reach, whether they are individuals or companies.

While marketing the cleaning service, ensure you say true to the brand, and that the business can deliver on its marketing.

So how can you market the brand?

·       Online marketing

There are several ways you can market the cleaning service online, such as:

Website creation

A website for your cleaning service may be an important element of your marketing. It can be the home for all your online activity. All platforms you use towards marketing the website, markets the business.

Having a central pace where all online platforms point towards helps you consolidate your online presence, creating a pool for all your potential clients to land after following any of your online platforms.

Because the world is currently and consistently online, a website may prove useful.

Websites have also become easier and simpler to start, to a point you may do it yourself, so lack of money cannot be an excuse. Thanks to platforms like WordPress, creating a website is simple and fast.

SEO

Search engine optimization can come in handy in helping you market your cleaning service.

If a potential client searches for a cleaning service, and you have your SEO game on point, then your website will be the first result of the search, increasing the chance for getting potential customers.

Social media

Social media has become one of the essential marketing tools in the modern world.

Nearly everyone plugged into the internet is a part of one social media platform or the other.

Apart from sharing your thoughts, opinions, lifestyle, and other social aspects, social media can also be used to sell your products.

Apart from advertising on different social media platforms, marketplaces on sites such as Facebook have cropped up, offering direct links you potential clients.

Other sites such as LinkedIn have become an important networking avenue, where people involved in the same kind of business can link up and share.

If it is possible, ensure you link your cleaning business to all social media platforms, and reap the benefits of each platform, increasing your overall reach to potential clients. You can also link all your social media platforms to your website, ensuring more people visit your site and increase your potential customer bookings.

You can also sell your services for different social media platforms.

Overall, take full advantage of social media, as it can catapult your business to heights you thought unimaginable.

You will also need to be consistent, as social media can also bring your business down. Reviews are important in the social media world, and the better your reviews, the more the chance you have at getting another client to come knocking on your door.

This means that every job you do should be amazing to a point the previous client will recommend your services without necessarily having to be told.

Live streaming

You will have to keep your audience captivated, and there is no better way than a live stream.

It can act as real-time proof of how good you can be at your work, as people will see them before, during, and after your work is done.

It is simply a great way to turn doubters into believers.

Tel a story

You can also tell a story. This is a way to get your audience emotionally connected to your business journey.

You can do this through pictures, videos, or written.

You can tell so many stories, from how you began, to where you are, the challenges you went through, and the successes you experienced so far.

It is a great way to get some emotional connection from your audience and potential clients.

Influencer marketing

Around 80% of brands have used influencer marketers at one time or the other.

They are a crucial part of getting your rand out there.

Influencer marketing can be considered an online word of mouth.

People are no longer interested in TV ads, plus if you are marketing your product, the level of trust is reduced, as it is expected that everyone will tout their products as the best. However, when it comes to influencer marketing, it is subtler, as the person markets your product for a private point of view.

This means that people will feel like they are endorsing your product because they have used it and like it. The element of getting aid to advertise will not be as obvious, which means there will be more trust for the product.

If you can afford it, influencer marketing is sure to increase your reach and client potential.

Linked in publishing

LinkedIn is an excellent site for networking.

Here you can find useful tips from other professionals in your line of business.

Freebies

Everybody likes a freebie.

Freebies help in increasing traffic to your platform, such as websites.

Freebies come in many ways, and in the cleaning business, helpful tips can be a goldmine.

You may offer daily tips such as ways to remove stains or get that extra sparkle from the floor.

Virtually any helpful tips will see an addition of traffic to your site.

Address traffic equals a broader reach and increased bookings from potential clients.

·       Physical marketing

Word of mouth

This will be dependent on how much of a good job you can do. If you are good at what you do, you are bound to get more jobs from word of mouth.

The client will tell a friend about that cleaning service that did an excellent job at a great price.

Uniforms

You may ensure that your employees and you wear uniforms tailored to advertise the cleaning business. This is important, as people will identify the company wherever they see the uniform, and dependent on the details you add on the uniform, you can get calls or visits to your site, without necessarily talking to anyone.

Car wraps

Car wraps serve the same purpose as uniforms, only at a larger scale, as they will be even more noticeable.

Also, the fact that cars are mobile, your name and brand will travel wider, reaching more people.

Networking

You could also network through mingling with people at different places and events and providing your business cards.

You never know, someone there might need a cleaning service.

      5. Don’t be flaky

Finally, and most importantly, don’t be flaky.

Take your business with the seriousness it deserves.

Maintaining a certain level of seriousness and consistency will overtime translate into client approval, as you will have a great history with your work.

Your reviews will show how serious you take your work based on consistent results.

Conclusion

To have your cleaning service make at least $1000 a month, follow the steps as prescribed above. Ensure you are consistent in your work, as currently, customer reviews are a make or break for companies. Ensure you maintain the quality of service, and $1000 will be a walk in the park.