Opening a cleaning company is neither difficult nor expensive. Furthermore, a cleaning company can be a profitable business if you manage to organize the work well. Nowadays, there are stringent laws regarding maintaining the state of hygiene of public and private places, such as schools, hospitals, clinics, restaurants, various kinds of shops, offices, buildings, condominiums, etc.
Why open a cleaning company?
Surely, you had the right intuition: opening a cleaning company right now is a good business choice. The market is booming. The sector is of powerful relevance today, despite the invisibility that seems to afflict the category, but perhaps no longer after the COVID emergency, which will surely bring further growth.
As with any thriving sector, the cleaning business market has seen businesses birth in countries worldwide, doubling in the last 20 years. It implies that the market has begun to fragment, and a strong differentiation of the offer has arisen. The advice is to try to specialize to have a more significant number of customers, a more punctual offer, and a higher margin on the services offered.
How to open a cleaning company?
Cleaning is one of the professions with a decidedly timeless character. Work is as tiring as it is indispensable, so opening a cleaning company can be an investment with excellent potential for success. Opening a cleaning company is worthwhile and can be a fantastic business.
For this reason, “cleaning” is an increasingly important and highly requested job, especially in large cities where there are never enough cleaning companies. So why not make it a successful business by opening a cleaning business?
Besides enjoying excellent earning prospects and very little chance of bankruptcy, opening a cleaning company is also a relatively cheap investment. Suffice it to say that to start a cleaning company. The initial costs are around seven/eight thousand dollars.
To open a cleaning company, remember the goals you want to achieve. The initial investment cost varies according to the type of activity and tools to be used.
Why do you need to have a business plan?
If you have decided to open a cleaning company, you must first draw up a business plan.
The business plan intends to help the future entrepreneur
optimize his business to the maximum, optimally organize work, and understand all the bureaucratic obligations to follow.
When you have to create a business plan, you need to ask yourself some questions such as:
- What will be the focus of my cleaning company? Do I want to work in a specific sector or offer a wider range of services?
- What methods do I want to use, tools, and products to clean and sanitize the environments?
- How many employees will I need in the beginning?
- What are the prices I will apply for each proposed service?
- How many means of transport and cleaning tools do you need, and how much do they cost?
These are just some of the questions that can help you develop your business idea in the best possible way. Furthermore, you will have a clearer overview of the actions you need to take to start your business, and you can estimate the necessary costs.
The business plan is a principally important document, so if you don’t know how to make it yourself, you can always enlist the help of a financial consultant or accountant.
The location.
Unlike other businesses, a cleaning company does not need a shop in the city center, a large shop window, or to be located on a busy street.
This type of activity needs, more than anything else, a room where you can establish the company’s administrative office and keep the equipment and means of transport that employees will use for their cleaning operations.
Given the size of equipment and means of transport, surely you have to find a large venue, which can also be found in areas that are not precisely central and around a large city. Usually, cleaning companies are located in the city’s industrial area, where they set up their business.
So you must choose a building with a minimum size of 150 square meters. The building must have two areas, one dedicated to holding equipment and all products—an area for the changing rooms and staff bathrooms. Finally, a space dedicated to the administrative area where you can manage payments, invoices, orders, appointments, and all the staff.
How much does it cost to open a cleaning company?
Talking about costs is not easy because of course, it depends on many factors, such as:
- The type of company: Are you self-employed, or would you like to open a company with more staff? Are you thinking of a family dimension, or are you planning to expand more?
- The type of service: If you offer traditional cleaning services, you will have fewer machinery costs than those who instead want to specialize in cleaning healthcare environments, for example.
The expenses to open a cleaning company focus in particular on the purchase of:
- Cleaning machines and products;
- Company cars
- Warehouse rental
- Opening of an administrative office.
If the cleaning company is structured this way, costs can range from a minimum of 50,000 to over 100,000 dollars. Moreover, consider the costs of opening the warehouse for machinery and vehicles and opening administrative offices.
Also, it will be necessary to calculate the cleaning company’s management costs, which can range from the maintenance of the machinery to the payment of wages in case of hiring staff.
You can also decide to open a small cleaning company, where the owner carries out the required tasks to keep management costs as low as possible.
But if you want to aim for higher aspirations, the sum to be invested will increase with the increase in the company’s services and the instruments to be purchased.
There are, in fact, companies that offer a basic service using a few essential tools. On the other hand, others provide specific services such as rodent control, sanitation, disinfection, and pest control, more complicated operations requiring technological and specific tools, which involve greater investments.
Opening a cleaning company offering sanitation services can be a smart choice, as most companies already on the market only perform standard cleaning services. It certainly involves greater initial investments but guarantees more significant long-term gains.
Bureaucracy and requirements are necessary to open a cleaning company.
Opening a cleaning company involves a specific bureaucratic process and specific technical-professional skills. To start this type of business, it is necessary to:
- Open a VAT number.
- Enroll in the Register of Artisans or the Register of Companies of the Chamber of Commerce.
- Have no criminal or illegal convictions or ongoing unlawful proceedings.
If the company proposes to perform only basic cleaning tasks, the business’s opening will not need additional requirements.
If, in contrast, the company must also perform rodent control, disinfestation, sanitation, disinfection services, etc., a technical manager will be necessary.
The technician must have a secondary school diploma or a degree in subjects related to the activity he has to perform. In particular, he must have skills in the chemical and biological fields.
You need a lower secondary school diploma plus three years of experience in the sector to exercise the technician job. Finally, it is necessary to acquire a qualification certificate that allows him to legally perform his function as a technician.
Financing methods.
As we have seen, opening a cleaning company involves high costs, so applying for a loan is necessary to meet this investment.
The main forms of financing you can access to start your business are:
- Business financing: It is particular mortgages and loans granted by banks to those who want to open a business. It usually provides for subsidized rates, and real or personal guarantees are required to support the loan.
- Personal loan: If you already have cash aside to co-finance your business’s start, you can also apply for a personal loan. In fact, there are financial companies that also offer money to those who have personal guarantees (such as a permanent employment contract) or real estate property.
- Loan of honor: This financing method is granted by the state and the banks that adhere to it. The loan of honor is ideal for those who wish to obtain a subsidized loan and, simultaneously want to receive a part of the non-repayable loan.
These are the main ways of financing that can help you start your cleaning business. Surely, however, in addition to calculating the amount one can borrow, it is also advisable to set aside a personal sum, which can help you manage the first months of business.
How much can you earn with a cleaning company?
Now that we have seen how to open a cleaning company, you will surely be curious to find out how much earnings those who choose to start a business like this.
Of course, it is very difficult to say exactly how much a cleaning company can earn because the earnings depend on countless variables and contracts that a cleaning company manages to conclude during its activity.
However, we can say that this activity promises excellent earnings for those with a solid and continuous clientele over time.
Building a good customer base is key to keeping your business successful. The most incisive advertising, in this case, is definitely “word of mouth.” Offering a good service and leaving its customers increasingly satisfied with a competitive quality-price ratio will ensure that in a short time, the new business will acquire an ever-larger slice of the market and be able to create its own set of regular customers.
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