CHAPTER 2 -: This is the second chapter of the Complete Guide to Starting a Cleaning Business. As a result of some of the standards that have been set by the major players in the cleaning industry, some interesting facts have emerged. Therefore, if you are a player in the purity industry, it is important that you are aware of industry facts and statistics; this will allow you to plan and forecast the growth of your business. Statistics are not just numbers; they play an important role in helping companies position themselves to achieve their goals.
If you want to start a business in any industry, you must first study the facts and statistics of the industry you intend to create. Your company. Therefore, when doing feasibility studies, part of what you need to look for is to gather all the facts and statistics available in the industry and make a plan to use them to achieve your business goal. In some cases, you may see some disheartening statistics of this that might confuse you, but that doesn’t rule out the fact that entrepreneurs make money from their own businesses.
There is one thing in the cleaning industry: the way of finding the customer as well as the mode of operation is almost the same in most countries of the world. So, in essence, the statistics and facts that will be discussed in this article will apply to the cleaning industry on all continents of the world.
Feasibility study for cleaning company
Now, the fact that the cleaning industry generates huge and ever-increasing competition can be a burden and a boon to you. It’s a burden in that it forces you to survive in this industry, compete with your entry-level competitors, and slowly climb the corporate ladder to fight the big cleaning companies. This is a godsend, because the more intense the competition, the greater your rewards will be.
It will hardly surprise you that this industry is so competitive. A lot of people are willing to pay a hefty sum to clean their homes and offices, and it all comes down to the idea that people need other people to do their jobs. This is why the service sector has grown rapidly for decades.
Cleaning services are also a cost effective solution for most businesses, who quickly realized that hiring a third party company to clean their offices and workplaces was a much cheaper alternative to using domestic staff. for the sole purpose of cleaning. At home, employees demand wages and benefits, while cleaning does all the work efficiently for relatively low maintenance costs. Hence, there is a strong market demand for cleaning services in today’s economy.
Some factors to consider before starting the cleaning work
Your job as a budding entrepreneur looking to enter the cleaning industry should have a complete and clear understanding of the cleaning market. Before starting your journey in this industry, you should spend a lot of time doing your homework in this industry. You need to know all the intricacies of the business, as well as its pros and cons. Only then will you be fully prepared to deal with the problems you are facing.
The market demand for cleaning companies is not the same in all cities in the state and can sometimes vary widely from region to region. For example, a place filled with commercial buildings will likely have more demand for cleaning services than a place that houses university dormitories and small apartment buildings, where residents may not have the financial capacity to pay for cleaning services. cleaning. Determining which areas the demand is concentrated in and which are not is only the main aspect of your market research.
The second most important factor to consider when doing market research is the specialty you are looking for. business must be based on. There are two main markets to target for cleaning services.
- Cleaning services for residential premises
- Cleaning services for commercial premises
Commercial commercial cleaning offers superior performance. Corporate offices are the primary and most important source of cleaning contracts for commercial cleaning companies. In fact, office buildings account for about 31% of all contracts available to commercial cleaning companies. The reasons why a shopping complex may require the services of a cleaning company have already been discussed.
What about an apartment building? House cleaning offers pay less House cleaning contracts pay the least compared to cleaning offers for hospitals, offices and factories. For this reason, most cleaning agencies still target corporate cleaning contracts. There are many housing estates in cities with people who are too busy to regularly look after their housing. Therefore, these people are urging the cleaning company to ensure that their home does not turn into a dungeon filled with dust, cobwebs and creepy caterpillars. If you are targeting a residential market, you can opt for the state of the art:
- maid service
- window cleaning
- carpet cleaning
- garage cleaning
- basement cleaning
- roof cleaning
- gutter cleaning
- pool cleaning
- offsetting redemption properties
- cleaning up damage and water leaks
- smoke extraction
- foreclosure compensation
And of course the last cleaning of the site, but no less important. With a commercial cleaning service, you can provide cleaning and parking lot cleaning services that are not required by private customers.
Once you’ve found your niche and defined your area of expertise, you can make a more straightforward decision. For example, if you decide to provide cleaning services to commercial units, you can collect the records of all cleaning companies that provide similar services and find out their performance over the past calendar years. If their numbers are impressive and their business style aligns with your business philosophy, you might as well complement your decision to specialize in commercial building cleaning.
Will your business be focused on the commercial sector? Customers or residential buildings are completely dependent on you. Take your time to make a decision, because one wrong choice will have serious negative consequences for your business in the future when it starts operating. Make informed choices. If you want, you can always be bold and enlist the help of clients from both industries.
If you are successful in breaking into both markets, you have a good chance of being won over along the way. more clients than there would be if you were in a specific area. That said, focusing on both markets will keep you extremely busy, so make sure you don’t bite more than you can chew.
10 difficulties to anticipate when starting a cleaning business
There is hardly any business that does not have its own share of problems; and as such, running a cleaning business does not free you from solving problems unique to the cleaning business. When it comes to business challenges and obstacles, there is one good thing: the more you overcome, the higher the chances of success of the business. …
If your image of a business is slick, then you should forget about it, because there is no business that you can start so as not to run into certain problems. Even if you have refined your business plans and strategies, once you start, the reality of the business will emerge.
Besides the fact that the cleaning industry in most countries tends to be saturated, you should always update your services regularly if you intend to keep customers for as long as you want. If the quality of service you provide as a cleaning company declines, there is a great risk that you will lose your customers as there are many options they can turn to. Now let’s take a look at 10 problems: running a cleaning business;
1. Difficult competitions
Many entrepreneurs who want to start their own business would prefer to start a less technical business. ; a company that won’t put undue pressure on them, and the cleaning industry is one of them. If you count the number of corporate cleaning companies in your city, you realize that the number has increased dramatically and therefore the competition has increased. Organizations are willing to abandon any cleaning company they hire if they are no longer happy with it, and they can get other cleaning companies to do the job without delay.
2. Continuous improvement of service delivery
One of the challenges that corporate cleaning companies face is to ensure continuous improvement in the quality of their services. If you run a corporate cleaning business and have multiple clients cleaning them, you’re always supposed to be in a tough spot or you’ll be kicked out of the organization.
3 Management of temporary or temporary staff
Another unique challenge for corporate cleaning companies around the world is managing temporary or temporary staff. The truth is that the nature of the cleaning industry requires them to hire workers for the period they are supposed to fulfill in a cleaning contract; therefore, most of the staff are temporary / special. It is undoubtedly difficult to manage temporary / special staff, as each of them can decide to retire when they want, or even to leave your organization without notice, which will create a vacuum in your organization if you have no one. to occupy their position.
4. Difficulty entering the market as a beginner
If you are new to the cleaning industry, one of the main challenges you will face is the problem of market penetration. In fact, you will have to cut your teeth in small organizations before you can win cleaning contracts for large companies. No large company would want to contract for cleaning with a corporate cleaning company that is just getting started.
5. Recruitment of competent employees
Another problem is that the cleaning business The company faces the challenge of hiring competent employees. The truth is, most people who request a cleanup are inexperienced people; those who need work to maintain their soul and body. It is difficult to hire competent cleaners; you just have to be prepared to pay more than your competition if you want to hire the best cleaners in your city.
6. Ability to properly train cleaners
The fact that cleaners are leaving cleaning companies quickly or even without notice makes it difficult to invest in their training on how they should be trained. Most corporate cleaning companies face this problem so they just have to settle for basic training / induction programs to get cleaners up and running.
7 work accidents
Since most people who choose cleaning jobs are neither skilled nor educated, they tend to overlook some of the basic health and safety tips designed to keep them safe. at work. In addition to the health and safety tips put in place to ensure the safety of cleaning agents during their cleaning jobs, consider using certain cleaning agents / machines and chemicals before prescribing a cleaning agent for cleaning. a task if you don’t want to record a preventable accident that might occur.
8. Devotion and dedication on the part of the cleaners
Another problem that corporate cleaning companies face is the problem of having dedicated and dedicated cleaners on their payroll. The fact that cleaners are not well paid makes it difficult to attract most of them to their jobs.
9. Quality control
If you are running a corporate cleaning business, one of the challenges you will face is making sure that the quality of service you provide is not compromised. If there is a dramatic drop in the quality of the services you provide to your customers, you have a chance of losing the contract, so you need to make sure your quality control officer takes action to ensure that the quality of the services you provide to your organization meet the organizations expectations. that you serve.
10. Handling of chemicals by employees – . Finally, another challenge that cleaning companies face is that of cleaning chemicals. If cleaners are not properly trained in handling chemicals, they will be at risk.
