3 Challenges Of Starting A Office Cleaning Business And How To Overcome Them

If you are thinking of starting a office cleaning business, then uncover the top 3 business challenges one office cleaning business veteran has faced and the advice she gives on what you can do to avoid them.

Starting A Business Cleaning Offices - The Business Of Helping Other Businesses (A Story Submitted By Margaret W., Illinois)

I have started my own office cleaning business that has been in existence for 3 years.

It is a easy business that brings in a lot of profit. Most businesses, big or small don't have time to clean up their office for themselves so that's where I come in at.

Starting A Office Cleaning Business - How I Started

I started this business because I had always dreamed of being an entrepreneur in life and this is what it made me.

We clean any business, big or small.
We have done law offices, dentist offices, and even libraries.

I have about 10 employees but plan to expand one day and hire more people so that we can clean more businesses. We don't offer any specialized things that we do because, we do it all.

Starting A Office Cleaning Business - Needed Supplies

We have lots of cleaning supplies that we use on a daily basis but sometimes what we use depends on what kinds of business we clean.

We use vacuums, glass cleaner, wood cleaner, steamers, and things like that.

Starting A Office Cleaning Business Is The Top 3 Challenges That We Had Overcome

Starting a business cleaning offices is not without it challenges. Though I have enjoyed the process of starting my own cleaning business, it hasn't happened without a few bumps.

Starting Business Cleaning Offices - Challenge One - Dealing With Customers Who Don't Want To Pay

Occasionally, we run into the problem of cleaning an office building, only to find that the client does not want to pay.

I guess this is a problem that other businesses have to encounter. So, my advice is to maintain a business demeanor and demand that your customer pay-up.

And yes, it's a pain to have to call your non-paying clients and remind them that they need to pay, it is effective.

Starting Business Cleaning Offices - Challenge Two - Running Out Of Cleaning Supplies While We Are Cleaning

On a few occasions, we have ran out of a few supplies while in the middle of cleaning.

When that occurs, we have to hurry to the store quickly to get it.

Starting Business Cleaning Offices - Challenge Three - Under Charging Our Cusomters

I remember reading about this issue from other new business owners, but you will learn quickly how NOT to under-charge your customers.

The key challenge is to understand how much it costs you to run your business - make sure you charge for your time, your supplies and your overhead.

Try not to win a customer's bid based on price alone. We found that we could not set the same office cleaning prices as were found in bigger businesses.
Now, we let our customers know up front that we charge more than our bigger competitors, but we also do a few more specialty cleaning services than bigger business normally offer.
So our pricing is a win-win for us, our and our clients.
We also make sure that we truly understand how big a job really is before we take it. Early in our process, we found that when we underestimated the size of the job, we lost money.

Starting A Office Cleaning Business - The Bottom-Line

Cleaning offices as a business is good money and doesn't take a lot to start the business.

I love helping people run their business. I love seeing the joy on people's face when they see how their businesses looks afterwards.

The only regret I have is not being more organized and not researching enough before I started my own cleaning business.

Initially, I struggled to keep up with all the adminstrative tasks required to keep a cleaning business on task, scheduled and running smoothly.

Here's To Your Success With Finding Small Business Ideas That Fit Your Passion!

P.S. Here's A Few More Tips To Make Your Search For A Small Business A Success...