Securing cleaning business contracts can make or break your business. After you've started your company, you will need to pursue contracts with valuable clients by using a combination of online and classic marketing techniques.

Starting a Cleaning Business

If you want to start a cleaning business, you first need to decide if you would prefer to clean commercial or residential spaces. The type of buildings that you decide to clean will influence several issues, including:

  • The equipment you need to purchase.
  • How much you should charge your customers.
  • The services your business will provide.

Cleaning commercial spaces usually requires cleaning an office or commercial building every night or on the weekends when the business is closed. Commercial cleaning can be very time-consuming and difficult, but is usually much more lucrative than residential cleaning.

If you decide to offer residential cleaning services, you will be cleaning people's homes, usually on a weekly basis. To be a successful residential cleaner, you will need a wide client base. Next, you will need to decide what type of cleaning services you will offer. You can either provide general services, or you can specialize on one type of cleaning task. If you wish to specialize, you could choose to offer window or floor washing services, for example.

Starting a franchise might be a good choice if you want to get into the cleaning industry but are worried about starting your own business. A franchise will give you more security and may make it easier to find clients, but you will have less flexibility than you would if you were running your own business.

The next step to starting a cleaning business is choosing your location. Some cleaners choose to run their business out of their home, while others decide to rent a commercial space. The latter option will make your business seem more professional.

Your cleaning business needs a strong name that will attract customers. Here are a few tips to help you name your business:

  • Make sure the name you choose is available as a web domain.
  • Perform a business name search to make sure your desired name isn't already registered.
  • Create a logo that complements the name of your cleaning business. Your design should be simple and modern, and you should use it wherever you can, including on your website and on business cards.

After choosing a name, there are a few other steps you'll need to take to get your cleaning business up and running:

  • Legal Requirements. Make sure you obtain any permits or licenses you need to start your business. If you hire employees, you'll also need a tax identification number.
  • Insurance: Your cleaning business needs a basic liability insurance policy. Having insurance will protect your business if you damage a client's business or home while offering your services.
  • Startup Capital: It's likely you'll need capital to help you start your business. You could obtain a bank loan or start your business with a partner.
  • Purchasing Equipment: Cleaning businesses need a wide range of equipment. If you're not quite sure what you need, you should start out by renting your equipment to make sure you don't waste money.

Getting Cleaning Business Contracts

Once you've done the legwork to start your cleaning business, you'll need to decide how to secure cleaning business contracts with clients. In the past, you could hand out business cards and flyers, but today, you'll need a marketing strategy that includes online advertising, like social media posts. More and more customers shop online for the services they need, so if you don't have a strong web presence, you could miss out on lucrative cleaning contracts.

The most effective solution for attracting clients is using social media. You should set up accounts for your business on popular social media networks and frequently post about your services.

You also need an attractive, easy-to-navigate website. On your site, you should provide your prospective clients with answers to frequently asked questions about your business. You might also want to include a blog where you can write about your services and interesting cleaning topics.

Although your focus should be on online marketing, you may also want to use a few classic marketing techniques. For instance, you can give your customers incentives for referring your business or can ask them to provide with you feedback that you can post online.

If you need help with cleaning business contracts, you can post your legal needs on UpCounsel's marketplace. UpCounsel accepts only the top 5 percent of lawyers to its site. Lawyers on UpCounsel come from law schools such as Harvard Law and Yale Law and average 14 years of legal experience, including work with or on behalf of companies like Google, Menlo Ventures, and Airbnb.