Starting A House Cleaning Business

Custodial and maintenance services are one of the few recession-proof industries. The maintenance staff is among the last to get laid off - even an empty building will have an owner who wants to keep the place tidy for prospective buyers or tenants, or even just to prevent weeds and vandalism from taking over. The Building Service Contractors Association International estimates that the cleaning business takes in revenue of $60 billion per year.

Janitorial companies are always hiring, and it’s a growth market. They do make some good money, particularly on industrial contracts. But private in-home and commercial store-front businesses are starting to grow as a customer base in this market. Store-front businesses would just as soon out-source their cleaning needs. For a dry-goods retail store such as the kinds you’d find in the mall, they really only need some basic cleaning twice a week.

As for private home, it isn’t just the wealthy living in Tudor mansions in Beverly Hills that hire maids these days. A plain old working-class family or even a single professional in a condo can be your customer, too. Today’s busy global market, combined with the do-it-all lifestyle, makes people too busy to want to take hours out of the week to clean.

While competition is high and the stakes are low, cleaning services are a base service industry which everybody needs. There are large-scale businesses out there, but they focus mainly on the big industrial contracts.

The cleaning industry has many benefits for an entrepreneur:

The business is man-power driven. All you need is warm bodies. But on the flip side, there’s only so much ground you can cover with so many people. A factory can boost productivity by many factors just by stream-lining their assembly line, and a software company can increase production by buying faster computers, but the only way you increase volume in the cleaning business is to hire more people. So we have a market where there’s always room for another business.

The barrier to entry is low. Nobody needs a degree or certificate. It is largely a labor service; you need some safety training to prevent workspace injury liability and a few other minor paperwork concerns, but otherwise anybody can do it. Similarly, what does it take to train a new employee? Who among us doesn’t already know how to mop?

Very little in the way of special equipment is needed. Probably the most complicated machinery you’ll need is a floor buffer and waxer. Scaffolding, ladders, and safety gear if you’re doing the outside of a building. But really, to start out: mops, mop buckets, brooms, spray bottles, wipe cloths, dust rags, sponges, scrub brushes, and a squeegee will get you very far.

You will need to be aware of one thing: in our society where we are increasingly conscious of safety and environment concerns, you may have a government body regulating things like what you can and can’t do with disposing of waste and storing chemicals. Many cleaning chemicals are hazardous in some way; they can cause skin burns and asphyxiation if inhaled for instance. And certain substances, such as used bleach or cooking grease, have to be properly disposed of. So you will want to train your employees at least to a level where they can stay in compliance with whatever local laws your area has.

Outside of that, there’s almost nothing you can do to mess up a cleaning business. Practice some basic smart business tactics. It’s a good starter business for the person who wants to try their hand at entrepreneurship without being a rocket scientist. If this kind of opportunity is what you’re looking for, there’s in-depth information here.

Copyright Small Business Answers