Cleaning Service Business

If it can get dirty, chances are that someone will be willing to pay you to clean it. And that's why few industries can claim the variety and depth of opportunities that professional cleaning can. This in-depth guide shows you how to start three hot cleaning businesses: residential maid service, commercial janitorial and carpet.

Most cleaning service businesses can be operated on either a part-time or full-time basis, either from home or from a commercial location, and the best part is you can build an extremely profitable business that will generate revenue very quickly.

Our easy-to-follow guide will teach you:

Who your customers and competitors will be.
The ins and outs of finding clients.
What equipment and supplies you'll need to get started.
How to hire and train employees.
Where to find start-up funds and how to set prices.
And much more.

The cleaning industry has two primary market groups: consumer and commercial. The consumer arena consists primarily of residential maid services, along with carpet cleaners, window cleaners and a variety of other cleaning services required on a less-frequent basis. The commercial arena is dominated by janitorial services, which typically provide a wider range of services than maid services, along with other cleaning companies, such as carpet and window cleaners, that target businesses rather than individual consumers. While it’s recommended that you decide on a niche and concentrate on building a business that will serve your chosen market, it is entirely realistic to expect to be able to serve multiple markets successfully.

With all this opportunity, what does the competition look like? Glance through your telephone directory—the number of cleaning services may make you think the market is already flooded and there’s no room for you. That’s not true.

First, anyone can get a listing in the Yellow Pages just by having a business telephone line. A mere listing doesn’t mean the company is offering quality service to the market you’re targeting.

Second, the demand for cleaning services is tremendous. Plenty of maid service companies have waiting lists for clients because they simply can’t serve the entire market. Many carpet cleaners and other types of specialized cleaning services are not full-time operations and therefore don’t offer serious competition. And a significant number of janitorial services are mom-and-pop operations run by people who want just enough work to earn a living.

Third, cleaning service customers want quality, and many operators are unable to deliver that. Ask anyone who has ever hired a company to clean something in their home or office if they’ve had any bad experiences, and chances are you’ll hear some nightmarish stories of poor-quality work, damage to property and even theft. If you offer quality service, operate with integrity and charge reasonable prices, you will be a success in a cleaning service business.