Everyone wants a clean and tidy home, but not numerous people have the time to do it themselves. That presents a lucrative opportunity for people who enjoy cleaning work. The cleaning sector employs more than 2.5 million people in America, and the industry is expected to continue growing. If you are interested or already have a cleaning business, here are the secrets to running a successful cleaning business.
Find A Niche
The cleaning industry is broad and has a variety of niches. The next thing after stepping your foot in the industry is finding an exciting niche. Finding an interesting niche will help you to be creative and stand out from your competitors.
Show your customers that you are different by building strong relationships through marketing. You can leverage social media platforms or start a blog to reach your audience.
Become a superhero with your marketing
Don’t you wish you could read the mind of a prospect? This would make the task of “selling” incredibly easy. You would know what they want, how they want it, and when they want it. This would allow us to become wealthy virtually overnight, without any guessing whatsoever.
Unfortunately, no one possesses these superpowers, so we have to make an educated guess about what a prospect wants. The good thing about this, though, is that a lot of the work has already been done for us.
There are so many different kinds of products created to focus on a particular problem that people have. So if you’re opening or operating in a business that has already been discovered, you can stand to benefit from the work that has already been done for you.
For example, one of the biggest things that prospects are plagued with is cloudiness and confusion. They are confused about a lot of things. They don’t know the products that are out there. They don’t know who they can trust. They don’t know how much a solution costs. They don’t know what is required to make a product work for them, etc. So obviously, these are things that you will want to consider before you run your next ad or mailing piece.
The best way to counteract confusion is with free information. Send each lead that you acquire from your advertising some helpful information that will help them to achieve their goals. Obviously, at the end of this free information, you want to position your product as the ideal choice that can help them with their problems.
The only way to get people to trust you and your recommendations is if you go above and beyond with your help. Your prospects are clueless in the beginning, so you have to take them by the hand and show them step-by-step what it is that they have to do next. This requires patience, but if you can remain persistent, your prospects will ultimately choose you as the obvious person to do business with.
Another hurdle that you will want to counteract is doubt. Doubt is normal, and virtually all of your prospects won’t take what you say to them truthfully. Your job is to get them to trust you and remove all doubt immediately. The best way to do that is with a free offer.
Offer your prospects free information, and make sure in each packet that you send out you include free literature that is very informative. And don’t just stop with one mailing. Instead, mail out to your prospects repeatedly with different literature but the same offer to your product.
Tell them that if they want to achieve better results with their marketing and advertising, take advantage of your product. When they’re ready to buy, they will know your name by heart and will more than likely perceive you as an expert in your niche.
Practice business card marketing
I never used to use business cards for marketing my business, but as time passed by, I realized that I was not using a key part of who I am and where I stand as a marketing consultant. Luckily, I read a lot of books on the topic and when it came time to design my business card, I knew just how to structure it.
What about you? How are you using your business cards to market your business? If your card is anything like most of the business cards in the world, you’re making a huge mistake. Instead, you should strive to utilize both the front and back of your business cards to communicate your services and what you do for a living.
For example, I list my contact info, services, and a special offer on the front of the card on my business card. And on the back of the card, I include a list of testimonials from clients I have previously serviced. There is so little space on a business card, but once you know how to utilize and design it properly – it can become a viable marketing tool for you.
Whenever you go out to parties or social gatherings amongst colleagues, you’re going to be asked the question: “So what do you do for a living?” Most people respond with a one-liner answer such as” “I’m a doctor,” “I’m a lawyer,” “I’m a business owner,” etc. But this is wrong in so many ways.
You see responses like those above simply fly over most people’s heads. But if you were to offer them a business card; they are more than likely to retain what it is that you do for a living.
Whenever someone asks you what you do for a living, pull your card and hand it to them. Then go on describing your services and how you help others. Of course, your business card should say it all, but it does help to reiterate what you do.
I’ve seen a wide variety of business cards, and the most effective ones are the ones that follow the tips in this article. No matter what you do, don’t leave the back of the card empty. When people receive your card, they look at the front, and then they look at the back. 99% of the time, the back is empty. Don’t let your card suffer like this. Include short testimonials about what your customers or clients had to say about you. This is a great way to build credibility.
Keep Learning
A cleaning business may not be that difficult to run, but there is always a new thing to learn. Technology is advancing overnight, meaning what you knew yesterday might already be outdated.
By being open-minded, you will learn new managerial and organizational skills, recent cleaning supplies, and advanced cleaning safety tips. You can learn new things by going to conventions and meetings, participating in trade organizations, and encouraging suppliers to keep you updated.
Reward Referrals
Despite the disruptive advancement in digital marketing, word of mouth marketing still has a significant impact. People refer their colleagues, friends and family to your business because they are impressed by your service.
To encourage clients to continue referring people to your business, reward them every time they refer someone. Rewards can be in the form of discounts, shopping vouchers, or an upgrade to express your gratitude.
How to get referrals?
Referrals can be a big part of your business if you know how to attract them in the right way. But, unfortunately, one area that most business owners give up on is getting more value from their existing customers.
Most business owners fail to contact them every month, and they never try to get a referral out of a customer. It’s as if these business owners think that the customer will magically appear and do all of these things for you. Nope, it doesn’t work that way.
One thing that you can do to stimulate a referral from your customer is to simply ask them. If you have a huge customer database, prepare to be bombarded by a surge of new referrals. This is especially true if you tie in a gift with the referral letter. I’ve tried this technique before, and I instantly got many responses from my customer database. You can do the same thing too if you put your mind to it.
You should strive to aim for referrals because it costs you nothing to get one. You don’t have to run any ads, you don’t have to convince anybody to do business with you, and you don’t have to be afraid of asking your customer for a referral. Instead, you can send out a simple letter requesting a referral, and your prospects will reward you with one.
If you want to get some response from your list, you have to send out a simple letter. But if you’re looking for a world-class response, incorporate a gift of some sort. This is how you will get lazy customers to respond to you. Of course, the gift that you offer should be something related to what you sold them.
You want the gift to be something that will help to improve their lives in some way. There are tons of gift ideas that you can come up with, so don’t be frustrated by thinking about whether it’s the right or wrong gift. Your customers love gifts… you just have to send them out to them.
Another thing to keep in mind when getting referrals is that you need to make it easy for your customers to send people to you. Include multiple means of contact to provide customers the way they would like to respond to you. You can tell your customers to respond by email; a web form; a 1-800 number; or even by fax. Let your customers be the ones who will make it easy for you to contact them.
The last way to get referrals is by asking fellow members of the local chamber of commerce. If you have met various business owners through this venue, you can expect your referral rate to boost almost immediately. If there’s one thing that I know, business owners tend to stick together.
And if someone is in requesting that they hand out their business card to possible prospects, it’s a good chance that your fellow partner will go out of their way to do so. Of course, there are many more ways to generate referrals, but I think you get the picture now.
Schedule Regular Training Sessions for Your Employees
As the business grows, it becomes challenging to micro-manage your employees. Additionally, many employees are demotivated by micro-management. Instead, equip your employees with skills to perfectly clean a home without supervision. They will apply the knowledge you teach them to their work.
Keep Innovating
Spend considerable time to innovate new ways of enhancing your business. You can utilize new technology to serve your clients better or come up with a new pricing method. If you don’t innovate, other house cleaning services in Sydney will innovate and steal even your most loyal customers.
Handle Everything with Care
Even if you are racing against time, don’t rush too much to the extent of being careless. Remember, you will be entrusted with the client’s valuables, which they paid for with a leg and an arm. If you keep on repairing or replacing customers’ valuables, you will run out of cashflows- a common cause of business failure. Additionally, you will have damaged your brand reputation.
Recruit Wisely
Pay keen attention when recruiting employees. Ensure you hire people who are honest and trustworthy. Perform a background check on potential employees to avoid hiring people with criminal records. Untrustworthy employees can steal your client’s belongings and damage your reputation.
Treat Your Employees Well
The most crucial asset in your organization is human resources. It is the level of professionalism and quality of services that determines customer satisfaction. Therefore, come up with ways of motivating them and avoid micromanaging them. You can offer monetary rewards such as incentives and bonuses to top performers.
