Thursday, November 8, 2007

Start A Cleaning Service

This a tried and true, low cost, business idea. Yes, there are tons of cleaning service companies out there. All you have to do is open your local yellow pages and I’m sure you will find at least a full page of listings. So I offer this ideas with words of caution: Although this is an easy business to start on paper, it takes a Savvy African American Entrepreneur to get this one successfully off and running. However, I believe it can be done. When you face a lot of competition it usually means the market ahs probably reached saturation. (Meaning you will have to fight for every customer you get!)

The problem as I see it is that most cleaning services try to be everything to everyone. The will clean anything that can be cleaned for any and everyone. This forces them to lower their prices just to compete with others in their line of business. For many new cleaning services this forces them to close down their business before they can make their first buck.
I challenge the Savvy African American Entrepreneur to build and grow a successful cleaning service with a little of my help. First, find a niche and stick to it. Of course I first suggest you market strictly to the African American Community. If you can identify those African Americans who like to support African American owned businesses and you can effectively cater to the needs that are particular to our community, you have a foot in the door. I am very aware that there are many African American owned cleaning services out there, but they usually don’t strictly market to our community, at least not in my town. I realize that there are cities were this does occur, but if you live in a conservative city like mine, this may be the ticket to making a livable income with this business.

Other niches would include single men, new parents and the elderly. You can dig even deeper and focus in not on the type of people who could use your service but on industries that are currently under served or not being served by cleaning services. Off hand I can’t think of one but you may be able to. If you can concentrate on just one market you can leave it to the bigger companies to fight over the rest.

Another way to go is make your cleaning services exclusive. For example, in order for you to clean someone’s home they must meet your criteria and not the other way around. Create an atmosphere of exclusivity about your service and people who like to be one of a few and most importantly have the money spend, will flock to you. This is a deep niche to crack. You client base will be small but you can charge double or even triple of what other cleaning services are charging. You can also keep you over head low because you will not need as much manpower or supplies that a larger operation would require. Most importantly if you are going to go this route, you must be able to provide superior service.

For more information check out:

Start Your Own House Cleaning Business

E-Books Galore
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