I believe the residential cleaning industry is low hanging fruit compared to the commercial, window and carpet cleaning industries. Why? It’s recurring business with clients that pay at the time of service. But, these facts alone do not an educated decision make. Here is why I chose residential cleaning as the industry in which to open my business:
A Healthy Business is a Happy Business In other industries, many business owners experience the busiest day of their year on opening day, and are left crossing their fingers that the revenue volume will stick. The expenses for these early days are often the highest, too…what a precarious way to start a business. In residential cleaning, a great deal of risk is hedged by building your business one client at a time. This steady start allows the owner to slowly master the moving parts of the business, one step at a time.Get a Life Whether you’re an employee or a business owner, everyone needs to take a break from work sometimes. Can you imagine owning a business that stays open nights and weekends? Or worse, holidays? The core hours of operation for a residential cleaning business are early mornings until late afternoons, five days a week. With longer commute times and more travel required for many professional positions, it’s refreshing to have a job that gets you home in time for dinner.The Future Revenues from contract commercial and residential cleaning services are forecast to grow 5.3% annually to 62.8 billion in 2011. Gains will be driven by ongoing increases in both the number of households and the number of business establishments, as well as the increasing availability and affordability of cleaning services. Changes in demographics will also support increasing cleaning service revenues as the number of dual income households rise and the US population ages. Dual-income families often do not have the time or inclination to perform cleaning tasks, and the growing number of baby boomers in the US generally have the financial wherewithal to use professional services on a routine basis.
The shift away from “do it yourself” to “do it for me” will persist, especially in the residential cleaning market. Whether they’re not good at it, they don’t have time, or they just plain don’t like it, our customers want someone else to clean their homes…and we’ll always be here to do it.
