There’s no magic behind making a cleaning business profit. There are, however, steps you can take that work every time.
To make a cleaning business profit, or to make a profit in any business, really, there are a few very simple rules to follow. The biggest one? Don’t do anything that will cause you to lose money.
For example, in 2016, the Samsung Galaxy was recalled because it had a bad habit of spontaneously catching on fire. It was like the smartphone version of a Spinal Tap drummer. Or there was the college admissions scandal, where some wealthy parents committed fraud to get their children into particular schools. That didn’t go over so well with either their employers or the court system.
But losing money is easy enough, and it’s not the path to success in business. It’s making money, or more specifically, making a cleaning business profit, that’s the tricky part. There are plenty of get-rich-quick “strategies” out there, a million easy ways to make a million (or so we hear). But the truth is, making a profit in business means hard work, organization, and grit.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t some very valuable strategies and paths out there, though. Plenty of building services contractors have followed in the footsteps of successful business people who have gone before them. Any business mentor can attest to the fact that experience is the best teacher.
Fortunately, we can follow many of those successful business experiences. And some of them are, in fact, very simple.
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10 Easy ways to make a cleaning business profit in your building services work
Okay, so you already know that losing money isn’t the path to success. Beyond that, bringing in more than you’re spending in overhead is the next step. Easy right? How can you do that?
1. Know the value of your service
One thing that some of the most successful businesses have in common is that they do not undervalue their service, nor do they undercharge for their work. Whether you’re trying to finalize a contract with your first client or you have a full schedule, charge what you’re worth.
Incidentally, there are a few ways you can maximize that number. For instance, you can charge a premium if you have training or certification in biohazard cleanup. A strictly green cleaning company can charge more, as well, due to the desire of many clients to hire environmentally-friendly companies.
2. Watch your expenses
Obviously, you can’t eliminate expenses. You need to spend money on payroll, supplies, advertising, and so on. But you also don’t want to spend frivolously. Tracking your supply use, equipment maintenance, and other expenses will help you keep your business costs under control.
3. Make accurate bids
Accurate bidding is essential to achieving your full cleaning business profit potential. It’s also excellent customer service. Giving a low bid and then substantially raising it later looks unprofessional, and alternatively, bidding too high could put you out of the running for winning a contract.
Take your time with a bid. Make a thorough walk through and find out exactly what your potential client is expecting.
4. Work efficiently
Along with tracking your supplies, tracking your time will help you plan a more efficient route if you or your teams are in multiple locations. And it will help you improve your scheduling, so you won’t over or under commit your team.
5. Offer high-quality work
Doing high-quality work, whether you’re changing HVAC filters or cleaning a carpet, is the real secret to keeping and attracting clients. Always offer the highest possible level of work. A straightforward way to do this is to use a mobile inspections app, which lets you perform site inspections even when you can’t be on the premises.
6. Make customer service a priority
Customer service can make or break a business. Excellent customer service is easy when everything is going well. But inevitably, you will make a mistake. You’ll miss an appointment, your team will neglect a room, or there will be a billing error. These things happen; it’s how you handle them that matters. Good customer service means accepting responsibility and fixing the problem.
7. Communicate regularly
Communication is just one extension of good customer service. You want to make it as easy as possible for clients to reach you. One way to accomplish this is to use janitorial business software that allows you to connect with clients. The other benefit of excellent communication is that it will enable you and your clients to address any problems before they become major deal-breakers.
8. Use social media for marketing
The great thing about social media marketing is that it is free. It just requires a little bit of time to get your strategy up and running, and there are plenty of fun and unique ways you can use social media to connect with your audience.
9. Hire the right people
Your business probably wouldn’t exist without your employees. Make certain to hire the right people. You want a team you can trust to do good work, to be good ambassadors of your business, and who will work well together.
Don’t forget to put in the time to keep your great employees, too. It’s easy enough, for the most part, for an unhappy employee to move to a different company or lose the desire to do a good job. Good pay and benefits are certainly part of maintaining your team, but there’s more to it than that. Offer ongoing training opportunities. Share how much you appreciate all they do for clients and each other.
10. Train and onboard new employees
When you hire new people, don’t skimp on training and onboarding. A fully-trained, new employee helps with cohesion on your team, and that helps everyone do better work. It will take a little extra effort on your part, but it’s time well spent.
Reaching your cleaning business profit potential will take some time, but once you get these strategies in place, they are easy to keep up with. Before you know it, you’ll be raking in the dough.
Increase the efficiency of your team, reduce your costs, and improve results. With Janitorial Manager, all this and more isn’t just a dream, it’s your new reality. Contact us for a free demo right now and see how it works!