How to grow my cleaning business

[afonso]

@seanmonty Been in the cleaning business for 39 years, my company is Clean Sweep Services, located in Ocean City NJ, started cleaning myself but didn’t want to clean the rest of the life. It sure is back breaking work. Anyway, today I have 17 employees, do close to a million in sales for the last 4 years and truly run it like a professional business. Put whatever you do on a daily basis and put in systems. Make sure to train your employees properly and pay them well. There are some cheap CRMs you can use. ZenMaid and Jobber, both integrate with QBOnline. Definitely charge more, we charge $65/hour for construction cleaning, $60/hour for deep cleaning and $55/hour for weekly/biweekly cleaning . There are lots of Facebook groups you can join but it you are all in on growing your business, follow Debbie Sardone, one of the best in the house cleaning business. Best of luck to you.

 

[lordismyshepard]

@afonso @Total_landscape9833 may I dm you with some specific questions?

 

[afonso]

@lordismyshepard Sure thing, sorry I haven’t responded sooner, holidays

 

[bigb0ss]

@afonso $55/hr for bi-weekly, is your monthly a % more? For instance if it's a 3 hour job normally $165 bi weekly, do you charge say 25% more for monthly or 5% less for weekly? Or does it matter?

 

[afonso]

@bigb0ss More time is added for a monthly cleaning 4 hours = $220 and 5 hours = $275, minimum = $165

 

[bigb0ss]

@afonso That makes sense. I've seen a ton of people talk about pricing a house cleaning based off it being bi-weekly. If they want it monthly it would be 25-40% more per cleaning. Weekly maybe it is 5-10% off each clean. Guess you can kind of compare the options and see if they come out about the same...thanks for the advice

 

[angelj]

@seanmonty If you aren't already, you should break out your revenue into: pay (for doing the work), overhead (supplies, admin, transport, marketing, etc), and profit (for owning the business).

Then you'll know how much you can pay someone, and how much you'll profit as you scale. You may figure out you'll need to raise prices too, which is common, because people always neglect profit when starting out.

Logistics are tight because you need more jobs to get help, but more help to get jobs. I think you can start booking new clients into the future, e.g. "we start on February 1". That gives you a month to get someone. In a pinch, you could even ask your existing clients if they would mind skipping a week and use that time to start a new client.

As for marketing, you only need like 5 new clients, so ask existing clients for a review and referral, and post in community Facebook groups. Offer to pay a one-time referral fee even.

 

[seanmonty]

@angelj Logistics is where I get overwhelmed and just end up doing everything myself because I’m too scared to lose money so I keep things like they are and stay miserable, lol. But really you’re right - the need for help and new clients at the same time is a real kicker.

 

[angelj]

@seanmonty Yeah there's no silver bullet. That's the risk of owning a business, and where the scrappy owners come out on top.

Make it your goal to tell 10 people a day about your cleaning service and make them an offer. Have reviews from current clients handy as social proof.

 

[sherrick0915]

@seanmonty Do you have a friend in a similar financial situation who would want to partner with you?

Just being able to hand a regular customer off to a trusted cleaner when you were unavailable can be useful.

 

[seanmonty]

@sherrick0915 Yes that would be ideal! All my friends and family know what I do and everyone is either otherwise employed or not interested, which is fine. Aside from them, no one has come along that I would trust to work with.

 

[veroch]

@seanmonty I’m about to open a cleaning business and it seems like you’re seriously undercharging.

 

[logankahana]

@veroch I think you should charge $40 an hour minimum. I've had a cleaning business for 2 years now.

 

[veroch]

@logankahana Would love to pick your brain about some things if you have the time.

 

[logankahana]

@veroch Sure, feel free to send me a message!

 

[crownfair]

@seanmonty Keep in mind that doubling your prices and losing half your clients is not a bad thing.

As you begin to train and hire, start your employees on tasks that burn you out the most. That way you have the option to continue working along side them while you train/keep an eye on the quality, all the meanwhile you’re cutting job time in half.

Attracting, hiring, and retaining quality talent is it’s own battle, but don’t give up. Sounds like you’ve got a great thing going.

You’ve got this!

 

[seanmonty]

@crownfair Thank you!! I'd be happy if I could just do the bathrooms and kitchens and let someone else do the rest of the house like straightening beds, dusting, glass, vacuum, mop, change trash, etc. I am picky about bathrooms and kitchens because those are the highest used living areas and I want them spotless! Every little thing you do in a house adds up time wise. Dusting is the absolute bane of my existence! People and their knick-knacks, lol! I hope I can get somewhere with this.

 

[crownfair]

@seanmonty Sounds like you’ve got your first job posting outline! Good luck!

 

[lineman75]

@seanmonty My wife is in similar situation trying to scale up and take on 1st employee. Something that sticks out to me that you may not be accounting for is the time of doing business (not cleaning) and trying to expand your work week without doing night cleaning. It sounds like your full schedule potential is not maximized.

I think the current limiting factor for you is only being able to do daytime business (running business or cleaning) between 8-2:30. With a lunch thats only 6 hrs/day, 30 hrs/week that would include travel. If you are $30/hr thats $900/wk. If you could figure out how to extend your working day to 5pm, and go from 30hrs to 40+hrs, you could expand a lot and afford aftercare/sitter/tutor. You can easily add $300/wk revenue potential.

My wife's biggest constraint clearing move was to add after school care and an emergency contact (neighborhood teen) to be able to pickup kids and babysit in emergency. My wife was instantly able to go 40-45hrs /wk easily paying for the aftercare. Also, dont think you need to put up cash for aftercare in the beginning as you can barter cleaning for childcare.

Also similar trajectory as my wife and others have said, your solo charge rate should go up. My wife slowly upped from $30/hr to avg $49/hr for residential while still maintaining most of her original clients.

 

[yesushidao]

@seanmonty I could of wrote this myself. ALL of it. Especially with school being out for the summer.