I have a small parttime house cleaning business. Any tips?

4 Comments

1. bailie28 says:

   September 1, 2010 at 11:12 pm

   make flyers…and word of mouth..offer discounts to your clients you have already….to drum up business
2. I Buy And Sell Houses says:

   September 1, 2010 at 11:57 pm

   Lots of ways to do it.

   First, though, advertising is important. You can’t ignore that entirely. Fliers and door hangers are particularly effective with house cleaning services.

   Second, ask for referrals. You have a current customer base. Offer a free house cleaning for any referral that turns into a customer.

   Third, expand your scope. Promote your service to Realtors. People trying to sell their homes need to keep them as neat and clean as possible. That can be a hassle. Your pitch: “I know these are difficult times to sell homes, and the homes have to look their best. I run a house cleaning service, and can provide that ‘sparkling touch’ to make your clients’ homes look great. Here’s information about me and my service. If you could recommend me and pass my information along, I’d appreciate it.” Obviously, what’s in it for the agent is the prospect of a quicker home sale and a commission.

   Fourth, partner with a home stager. Home stagers declutter and reorganize. They’ll also recommend painting, etc., when appropriate. However, home stagers aren’t house cleaners. On the other hand, a lot of homes that need staging also need cleaning. So, by partnering with one or more stagers, you’ll be able to offer a more complete package. And it’s likely that the stager already has contacts with Realtors, among others.

   Depending on where you’re located, if you can reach parents of college students living off-campus, you’ve got another market. Lots of parents will help their kids find a place to live off-campus (some even buy a property, then sell it when the kid’s graduated). College kids can be messy, as their parents know. So your pitch to the parents, basically, is: “Let me clean the house once a week. I’ll keep the place habitable affordably.”

   There are plenty of other ways, too, but that should do for starters.

   Hope that helps.
3. Maggie P says:

   September 2, 2010 at 12:32 am

   I worked for a small cleaning business for just over 2 years and i can tell you some things that they did to keep a successful business going.
   First off when they bid a house they always do the bid for free and give the customer some incentive to want us to come clean, e.g. 20 dollars off of your first time clean if your a regular customer. Sometimes they would have us hand out fliers to our customers neighbor saying “Hi my name is____ and i clean your neighbors home blah blah blah. if you would like us to clean your home call us, were offering a onetime offer of….” and then you put whatever your wiling to do for free to gain customers. You should have some kind of web site, even if its a makeshift one, you can look up how to make one online. they also did a promotional thing, every march was march madness, we would give them one hour of free cleaning for the customers. like we would clean thier fridge or oven or whatever for an hour. People like things for free and this gets them talking about you to all thier friends…..okay thats about all i got. Hope it helps a little bit. You should also offer cleanings every other week and monthly. many people that cant afford weekly can afford the other 2 options.
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   September 2, 2010 at 1:28 am

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